On this page you can see details of previous monthly meetings. Recent reports about the main speakers are on the next section. For previous years please scroll to the lower part of the page. This also shows how to find out details about past second subjects presented at the monthly meetings.

Recently
122: January 2023: Rosemary Brown: Following Nellie Bly, her record breaking race around the world. Our January speaker didn’t just do theoretical research when writing her book but retraced Bly’s footsteps herself. In 1890, Bly circumnavigated the world faster than anyone ever had — alone and carrying only a Gladstone bag. Having been given only two days to get ready for the trip, she covered 21,740 miles by ocean liner and train in 72 days — beating the fictional record of Phileas Fogg in Around the World in 80 Days. 125 years later, Rosemary set off to retrace Bly’s footsteps on an expedition registered with the Royal Geographical Society.

This talk brought the book and Bly’s remarkable achievements alive. Her undercover reporting, advocacy for women’s rights, and crusades for vulnerable children undoubtedly helped make the Victorian world a better place.

121: November 2022: Professor Lloyd Peck: How have animals survived in
Antarctica for 20 million years? We were delighted to welcome Professor Peck and a few of his animal friends on a second visit to Islington U3A after eight years. He is a polar marine biologist known principally for his research into the biological adaptation of animals in extreme cold. He told us about his 20 visits to Antarctica over the last 30 years and his many underwater dives. He identified oxygen as a factor in polar gigantism, and problems with protein synthesis as the cause of slow development and growth in polar marine species. The presentation included some salutary statistics about global warming and the effects of sea level rises but the audience enjoyed his engaging presentation enhanced by some wonderful slides. You can view the PowerPoint material here.

120: October 2022: Dame Frances Cairncross: The trouble with News. Dame Frances started her presentation by reminding us about the unprecedented changes which have taken place in the way news has been distributed since the invention of the internet. Smartphones have only been around for 14 years and they have changed everything. Young people receive most of their news by social media and do not regularly watch the news on the BBC or other platforms. Frances made a case for the importance of the "red tops" who present nuggets of important news in bite-size accessible bits. The tabloids and local papers are struggling with falling readerships and we need to find innovative ways of supporting them by inventive selective subscriptions. The British press has the advantage of using the medium of English, the most widely spoken language in the world, and some invaluable brands such as the Royal Family. Some news includes a "public good" such as promoting clean air, and there is therefore a case to be made for government subsidies and for us to pay something too.

119. October 2022: Elizabeth Crawford, OBE, gave us a fascinating presentation about the Suffragettes with special reference to local Islington women who were involved. It was salutary to hear that the campaign took 62 years to achieve its goal. In the 19th century it was taken for granted that voters were male and it took the combined efforts of several women's rights groups over many years to bring about change. With a combination of writing pamphlets, lobbying, travelling widely for public meetings and later resorting to direct action, public opinion was slowly and painfully changed. Many women were imprisoned and subjected to violent force feeding which left some with permanent injuries. We owe them so much. Over 50 members joined the zoom presentation and it will be available on our website after today. For further information see Elizabeth's website: womanandhersphere.com.

118. September 2022: Anne Karpf: The Challenges of living in the third age. Professor Karpf's presentation on the subject of ageing triggered a lively discussion among members. Our Ageing in the 21st Century Group was well represented and helped to lead the conversation which ensued. The speaker highlighted examples of ageism in society and said that we should age zestfully while resisting outdated attitudes and beliefs. There was an enthusiastic exchange of views among the members and this was facilitated by the circular layout of the chairs; please let us know whether you liked it!

117. September 2022: Ursula Arens — Environmentally sustainable diets: what does this mean? A dietitian embraces the two worlds of food and science and our speaker heartily recommended such a career for young people today. As the population of the world rises inexorably to 10 billion it is imperative for us to review what we eat. The pressing issues are use of fertilisers, fresh water use, land system use and biodiversity. Since the early seventies scientists and campaigners have been writing about the importance of moving towards a more plant-based diet. The UK government recommends less protein and dairy food and more fruit, vegetables, pulses, seeds and nuts. 85% of our fishing grounds are overfished or critical so cod should be avoided in favour of haddock and mackerel. This situation can only be resolved politically and to date countries have failed to agree. 0.8% of people in the UK are vegans so it is more important to tweak everyone's diet in the right direction, for example, eating less meat and other proteins, and more plant-based food. Buying food which is in season helps reduce transport costs and pollution, and shopping locally but this can be difficult in a city. A word of advice to vegans who don't have any Vitamin D in their diets was that all adults should take a Vitamin D supplement in the winter. Ursula gave us a full overview of the present situation but left room for us to feel that we can all do something to help. You can view the recording of the meeting here.

116. August 2022 — Barry Mellor: — Wagner’s Life. More than 50 people came along to the Resource for London Centre to hear Barry’s presentation about composer Richard Wagner — his life, philosophy and the creation of the Ring Cycle. It was an intriguing story of a musical genius whose many flaws hindered him throughout his life of 70 years. We heard about his two marriages, his revolutionary beliefs, his egotism and his debts. He completed a comparatively small number of operas (or music-dramas as he named them) but they are all still performed today and remain popular with audiences. The Ring uses stories and characters from ancient German and Scandinavian sagas and features a host of human and non-human characters. The libretto was written by Wagner but it is the music which draws us in. The recurring themes are the idea of redemption through love and the danger to all of us of seeking power and abusing it.

115. August 2022 — Vicky Pryce: Women vs Capitalism: why we can't have it all in a free market economy. Professor Pryce told us about her new book Women and Capitalism and shared some of the research she has done on this subject. Her case is that the system alone will not achieve equality for women in business and commerce but that intervention is essential. The free market economy does not promote women, yet it has been proved that the economy improves if women do well. It makes economic sense to promote equality as men benefit too.  Although in this country the pay gap is reducing, the reduction is slowed down by the many women working part-time who never catch up when they return to full-time work. The covid pandemic has slowed down the closure of the gap between men and women and there has since been regression in all areas of society, such as more domestic violence. At the current rate of change it will take 135 years to close the gender gap worldwide! You can view the recording of the meeting here.

Over 100 members joined this event on zoom including our friends from other London u3as and surely everyone there found this presentation interesting and revelatory. We are grateful to Professor Pryce as she was off to the airport that morning to visit her family in Greece.

114. July 2022 — Susan Friesner, former Senior Lecturer in Drama: Interpreting Shakespeare. Hamlet's advice to the players was to hold a mirror up to nature. Is this what theatre should do and what does it mean? Susan's fascinating talk showed us that over the centuries, different cultures have had very different approaches to what theatrical conventions should be. Shakespeare's time still had a partly medieval world view: drama was not a form of documentary realism, instead it displayed the structured hierarchical universe of God's world, mirrored by the temporal world of kings ruling over their nobles and common people. Killing a king brought cosmic consequences of anarchy and chaos. Shakespeare portrayed how people ought to look and behave, often exploring extreme circumstances in his plays, and showing different models of how to behave. Villains were extreme, and characterised so as to be fascinating to the audience; eg Richard III. But in the neoclassical culture of the 18th century theatre became expected to demonstrate new universal rules of language that were being codified rather than Shakespeare's play on words and ambiguous meanings, and to show moral behaviour appropriate to the context. In the romantic movement of the early 19th century dramatic conventions shifted again to exploring the primacy of individual feelings not universal moral rules of conduct: Hamlet was played as a tortured individual soul not as a revenge play as Shakespeare had intended. The later 19th century theatrical convention was naturalism, objective and neutral without moral judgements. So every age has its own 'tradition' of different ways of understanding and presenting Shakespeare's plays.

113. July 2022 — Caroline Bressey: Living together in Victorian London. Caroline gave us an interesting and detailed presentation about the history of multi-cultural communities in London especially during Victorian times. She showed how people of various ethnic backgrounds have always lived and worked together and forged friendships and business and personal relationships. A close look at one particular street in Highbury showed many trans-race friendships, marriages and much mutual support. Professor Bressey's research and her current book project focus on the multi-ethnic communities at that time; she uses material from the National Census and, among other sources, asylum patient records. The presentation was fascinating and triggered several questions from the audience.


 
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