


PAST MONTHLY MEETINGS
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 C
airncross: 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, g
ave 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 — Envi
ronmentally
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: — W
agner’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 S
enior 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 Bress
ey: 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.
Archive
Recently

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

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 C

119. October 2022: Elizabeth Crawford, OBE, g

118. September 2022: Anne Karpf: The

117. September 2022: Ursula Arens — Envi

116. August 2022 — Barry Mellor: — W

115. August 2022 — Vicky Pryce: Women vs

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 S

113. July 2022 — Caroline Bress

Archive
For summary notes of previous speakers see the records as below —
For 2021-22, click here
For 2020-21, click here
For 2019-20, click here.
For 2018-19, click here.
For 2017-18, click here.
For 2016-17, click here.
For 2015-16, click here.
For 2014-15, click here.
For 2013-14, click here.
For 2016-17, click here.
For 2015-16, click here.
For 2014-15, click here.
For 2013-14, click here.
To view some of the older presentations
(2013-2020) determine the presentation number from the
register above, then click on the relevant link number
below (the figures in brackets mean there is no recording
for that meeting):
16 18 19 26 30 31 35 37 38 42 44 46 47 48 49 50 51 53 54 55 56 (57) 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 (70) 71 72 (73) 74.1 74.2 75.1 75.2 76 (77) 78
Regarding No. 65: Copyright acknowledgement to Pathe News.
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