Nigel Warburton, best-selling British populariser of philosophy, gave an unexpected answer when asked which famous philosopher he would most like to sit with on a 10- hour plane flight. “I wouldn’t mind sitting next to Diogenes; he has some great jokes. He might be a bit unpleasant to sit next to: as far as we know he was prone to defecate and masturbate in public. That aside, he was one of the funniest philosophers in history, and there aren’t that many jokes in philosophy.”

Sat in Blackwell’s, home of Nigel’s monthly Philosophy in the Bookshop interviews, Nigel goes on to reflect that this apparent humour deficiency has not hindered philosophy’s popularisation over the last few decades. “It’s actually been quite effective recently. In about 1988 I had a book commissioned called Philosophy: The Basics, and went to bookshops to find what was available as an introductory book, and basically it was just Bertrand Russell’s Problems of Philosophy, published in 1912, and a really good book called Philosophy Made Simple, but there was nothing else.”

“Now, if you go into almost any bookshop, there’ll be books on a table with introductions to philosophy generally or a wacky take on philosophy, or biographies about particular historical figures. Some are terrible, but some are really good. It hasn’t had that huge flourishing biology had in the wake of The Selfish Gene, a major achievement in popularising very difficult thinking, but I don’t think we’ve had a particularly bad time. The internet has also been fantastic for philosophy and it’s flourishing online: philosophers are communicating through Twitter, Facebook, the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy and through blogs and podcasts, including some wonderful comedians of philosophy.”

In light of this flowering, is there perhaps room for an iconic television philosopher? “In my youth there were several: first of all Brian Magee, who in my view has not been surpassed in terms of his series he made where he interviewed philosophers, now Michael Sandel. On the other hand, it’s really difficult to persuade a TV producer to go with the philosophy rather than some kind of visual accompaniment. We can’t just talk about philosophy, it has to be a quiz show or a biography, we can’t actually go with Nietzsche’s ideas, we have to go where he lived, go up a mountain, we have to get sidetracked by the visuals. I was phoned up because someone wanted me to do drunk philosophy, where everyone had to have a drink before they went on the show, which was crazy. Philosophy is a very verbal subject and television is a very visual medium, and if you start putting interesting pictures, you lose the actual content very very quickly, so it may not be a very good medium for philosophy: audio may be far better for philosophy.”

What Nigel does think is missing are opportunities to debate philosophy in the flesh, engaging in the ancient tradition of dialectics. “There are plenty of opportunities to find discussion of philosophy, plenty of books, podcasts and magazines, but there is something special about face-to-face philosophy, a situation where you can ask questions and have a dialogue. Opportunities for that are few and far between, especially for non-students. I’m really delighted I’ve been able to have a number of conversations in this Philosophy in the Bookshop series I’ve been doing in Blackwell’s, which is free and open for everyone. We have Roger Scruton and Cecile Fabre coming, all really interesting people. You get a glimpse of how they think, and then there’s the possibility of interaction with the audience. That, I think, is the missing element in the popularisation: finding ways to meet and discuss face-to-face.”

Asked whether the demographic interested in philosophy is changing with the times, Nigel pauses for thought. “I don’t know, it’s interesting. There’s certainly a lot of interest worldwide: the podcast Philosophy Bites has had over 28 million downloads, and has had episodes in the top ten of American iTunes, ahead of very famous podcasts. Whether it’s new or not I don’t know, maybe there are different ways of satisfying and measuring people’s interests. Michael Sandel fills football stadia in Korea, that’s quite remarkable. I wrote a book, A Little History of Philosophy, and the Turkish translation is in its 14th imprint. Internationally, I suppose, there are unexpected pockets of interest.”

Nigel also points out that the content of popular philosophy is diversifying at pace, but philosophy departments are often struggling to keep up. “What we’ve been talking about the last few months is a lot of interest in Chinese philosophy, and why it is not taught very much in American Universities; there have been a lot of articles online about Chinese philosophers, arguing that they merit inclusion in a Western syllabus. Philosophy is also starting to address its sexist past, and there is also more women’s philosophy coming through, as well as interest in finding lost female philosophers of the past. What I don’t see is philosophy departments seriously addressing diversity and the lack of representation, and many people would say that be shouldn’t, we should just employ the best philosopher, it’s just that the best philosopher always seems to look and sound a bit like the person who’s already in the job.”

Each month, Nigel Warburton interviews a fellow philosopher at Blackwell’s in a series of events entitled ‘Philosophy in the Bookshop’

Saints dominated early medieval Europe. They had the power to heal the sick and punish the sinful. They were judge, doctor and patron all in one. However, our knowledge of this phenomenon is woefully incomplete, something which Oxford professor Bryan Ward-Perkins is trying to change, in collaboration with colleagues from as far away as Warsaw and as a close to home as Reading. Ultimately, he aspires to create an online searchable database of all the obscure European saints that existed before 700 AD, accessible to any member of the public.

Yet, none of this would have been possible without funding to the tune of €2.5 million over five years from the European Research Council. Indeed, this project is just one of the more than 5,000 projects funded by the ERC since 2007. In amongst the grandstanding about sovereignty and the free trade debates, it is easy to forget the impact Brexit would have on academia.

Suffice to say, the EU currently plays a fundamental role in supporting UK universities, providing 16 per cent of its total research funding. Furthermore, the UK gets considerable bang for its buck: whilst it contributes just over 11 per cent to the EU budget, its academics were awarded 15.5 per cent (£5 billion) of the available money from the FP7, the EU’s last seven year research spending programme.

The key question is how to secure funding for future academic research, especially if Britain leaves the EU. Organisations supporting Brexit like UKIP Students are optimistic, arguing that leaving the EU would allow the UK to increase university funding using the money saved from stopping contributions to Brussels. In addition, Brexit campaigners suggest that it would be relatively easy to buy back into EU research programmes through bilateral deals, such as those enjoyed by Switzerland and Norway.

These suggestions have been ridiculed by ‘Scientists for EU’, a group set up to make the scientific case for remaining and supported by notable figures like Martin Rees, the Astronomer Royal. The group’s Programme Director Dr Mike Galsworthy points out that Britain would not have an automatic entitlement to buy back into the EU Science programme, and suggests that there could potentially be substantial difficulties in doing so. He cites the example of Switzerland, which was prevented from competing for 70 per cent of the nearly €80 billion on off er in the EU’s current research programme, Horizon 2020, after it voted to restrict migration from the EU and thus violated the EU principle of free movement.

Moreover, the UK government’s record on science funding is mixed. The Chancellor’s commitment to real terms protection of the Science budget in the 2015 Spending Review was met with comparative sighs of relief from the academic community. They had feared a repeat of 2010, when funding was frozen in cash terms, or worse. In such a context, the idea that a government committed to considerable further public spending cuts would prove the panacea to the academic community’s funding woes is far-fetched.

Of course, the success of academic research depends not only on funding, but also on being stimulated by the right intellectual culture. The UK’s research success suggests that such a culture currently exists in the UK, enabling the country to produce 15.9 per cent of the world’s most highly cited scientific research articles whilst only accounting for 3.2 per cent of its research expenditure.

Many academics see this culture as under threat from Brexit, arguing that it would stop intellectual cross-fertilisation with the rest of Europe. They point out that it would threaten UK participation in programmes like Erasmus, which has enabled more than 200,000 UK students and 20,000 university academics to study at European universities. UK scientists would no longer be able to influence European science policy on the same scale, whilst non-UK students and researchers would be discouraged from working in a UK weakened by funding and cut off from Europe.

It is no wonder, then, that the academic community are anti-Brexit. It could only lead to their intellectual impoverishment.

Shall I compare thee to a steak slice? The pastry is an orange the shade of Donald Trump’s wigless, racist scalp while the filling on its own wouldn’t look out of place in an abattoir, but there is nothing more perfect in this life. So why, in this centuries-old city where perfection is the minimum requirement, are we denied such joy?

The smell of freshly-microwaved pastry, the queue of tired workers fumbling for their loose change, the rows and rows of identical little parcels of fat and grease and unidentifiable meat – these are alien sights to Oxford. I miss the aggressively blue signs and the worryingly high concentration of pigeons loitering outside. Even for a soft Londoner there are few more comforting sights than a Greggs.

A beacon of hope in the night, a warm orange glow of happiness. The vacancies on our streets are being filled by more and more Taylors or sushi bars, but the people do not want more sushi! What is rice and seaweed to a foot’s worth of sausage and pastry, toasted and bagged in seconds? We want meat and bread and gravy and we want it now.

Without a Greggs in Oxford soon I’m going to start to lose hope. There are only so many trips to Hassan’s in my pyjamas I can handle. And what about when Hassan isn’t there? What do I do between 4am and 7pm? Nowhere in this city is there a substitute for it. Wherefore art thou, Greggs?

Disclaimer: this article has not been sponsored by Greggs in any way, I’m just desperate.

“There is a real storm, a real tempest. The European Union is in an existential crisis.” Georgi Pirinski, former Bulgarian Deputy Prime Minister and current MEP, as we spoke over coffee in London after he gave a speech in Parliament which strongly made the case for Britain to remain, a case which he wasted little time in explaining to me.

This began with the reflection that “maternity leave and many of the other labour and social rights which are currently regulated at EU level, if left to the tender care of personalities like the former Mayor of London, would not be so well defended. Plus, the European Investment Bank, which spends over €80 Billion, gives over 60 per cent of that sum to the five largest economies, which includes Britain. I do believe that the European Union, even with all of its shortcomings and deficiencies, still represents a community of nations with a very strong commitment to social equality and solidarity.”

I then ask Georgi why, given all of these positives, there is such pervasive anti-EU sentiment in Britain and throughout the continent? “It has to do with the idea Boris Johnson is expressing that the EU is a place where money is not spent for any good reason and that it is hamstringing local governments. However, sitting on the budgetary control committee as I do, whose principal exercise is to regulate how the European Commission is actually spending the EU budget, I know there is a scrupulous review of all spending. I don’t think the British public is aware of the degree to which EU institutions justify every euro of money they spend. I also think the pressures of everyday life, of economic insecurity, of anti-establishment sentiment, provide a base for Brexit to build on without any rational underpinning. I am not though willing to be critical of British people – I don’t blame them. I understand why they are in this mood given the widening economic and social disparities.”

This mood has helped populists such as Nigel Farage, whose conduct in the European Parliament has left Georgi less than impressed. “He basically enjoys himself. He likes to debate informally with Juncker. He is there to make an impression back home, he is not there to contribute. I think it is a question of proportion and he and his colleagues go way beyond proportion. The fact is though that they were elected – the genuine voice of a part of society. Certainly, being in the European Parliament is a way of finding expression for their concerns. But the questions start appearing when you ask why they are actually there? Are they there to do away with the EU? Once you enter an institution there are basic principles and norms and you can’t just say they’re rubbish.”

I ask what the general sentiment is in Brussels towards the possibility of a Brexit. Georgi explains that of the majority who want Britain to stay, many “are just keeping quiet, waiting to see what’s going to happen. They don’t want to do anything that would raise tensions. After all, Britain is an important member of the European Union and there is a very real risk of a domino effect if it leaves.”

Yet, at the end of our discussion, Georgi concedes that “the rational arguments so far are not working.” They are failing to set out the benefits of the EU or how it is not solely to blame for the current economic and social climate. Instead he insists there must be an appeal “to the emotional side of the argument” to prevent Britain from leaving and the existential threat this poses to the EU.