Topics for 2024
This is what we intend to talk about in2024. The dates might change a bit, so please look at the events page for the latest information
Genius and Inspiration (19 January)
Gershwin says the whole of his “Rhapsody in Blue” came to him during one short rail journey. Mozart’s manuscripts seem to have been written straight on to the page with no corrections needed. What kind of abilities are needed to achieve these kind of feats? Or was Edison correct when he said that genius was 10% inspiration and 90% perspiration?
Words and phrases (26 January)
We all use words without much thought as to their origins, and the same goes for phrases. Why should we “go to the foot of our stairs” or be “a monkey’s uncle”? No doubt we will find out.
County Boundaries (2 February)
Do we care whether we live in the East Riding or Humberside? Who benefits when boundaries or names are changed?
Has education destroyed our common sense? (9 February)
We have probably all heard of academic geniuses who are not safe to cross the road. Does education sometimes replace our innate common sense with something less useful for our day to day lives?
Do public enquiries serve a purpose? (16 February)
We currently have a public enquiry into the handling of the Covid outbreak. Do such enquiries achieve anything, or do they just cost a lot of money without achieving much at all?
Should we mend things? (23 February)
When things break, it’s often cheaper and more convenient to just buy a new one. Is this wasteful? Or would repairs take more time and trouble than they are worth? DO we need a “repair shop” in every town?
Challenging authority (1 March)
In the UK we can, to some extent, challenge authority. Does our right to do this go far enough, or would this be a road to anarchy? Are “Extinction Rebellion” and “Just Stop Oil” our benefactors or just a nuisance?
Childhood (8 March)
Older people remember a time when children had much more freedom to roam and play unsupervised. Was this freedom or neglect? Would we regard what we used to do as children as trespassing?
New Age jobs (15 March)
People these days can make a living doing things we had never heard of until the last few years, for example “influencers” and “personal trainers”. Do these jobs benefit society? Are they an inevitable result of the decline in more traditional jobs?
Were things better in “the old days”? (22 March)
90 years ago, Cole Porter wrote: “The world has gone mad today, and good’s bad today and black’s white today and day’s night today…” It’s easy to look back with fondness to a time when things were simpler. There is evidence that older generations have always criticised the young people of their day. Are we still doing it?
What should we spend our money on? (5 April)
Our government spends our money, hopefully for our benefit. There isn’t an infinite amount of the stuff. What should our priorities be? Education? Defence? Health? Research? Social care? Foreign aid? Law and order? Transport? Energy? Should we keep more of our own money or do governments know what’s best?
Do we need a monarchy? (12 April)
Is our system of a constitutional monarchy the reason for our relative stability as a nation, with no violent revolution? Or is it just a system that keeps a privileged few in unmerited luxury?
Are charities now having to do things that the state should be doing? (19th April)
We have food banks and charities that try to care for the homeless, the terminally ill, the lonely etc.? Should such charities be needed in a properly run society, or is their existence evidence that our society does actually care?
Our scariest or most embarrassing experiences (26 April)
Unfortunate experiences can be educational. They can be funny when they happen to somebody else. Will any of our members have the courage to tell us about events that filled them with horror or embarrassment?
Do we need to reclaim the streets? (3 May)
Are our towns and cities so choked with traffic that we can’t enjoy them? Or do we need to control these pesky pedestrians and cyclists who impede our motorised progress?