Malcolm

29th August – Pixie Turner – Why Diets Don’t Work – and Other Myths About Food and Health

Our obsession with being healthy and living forever has driven us to push our bodies to the absolute limits, but still every year we’re being told how unhealthy we are as a population. Despite a wealth of information at our fingertips, there are still so many things we get wrong about food and health.

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Pixie explains the reasons why diets and over exercising don’t work; the problems with eating for aesthetic goals; the science behind orthorexia, food anxieties and emotional eating, and other unhealthy habits formed by misinformation.

This will challenge our misconceptions about what is healthy, and get to the heart of it using evidence-based science.

Bio

Pixie is a nutritionist (ANutr), food blogger, and science communicator. She graduated with a First Class degree in Biochemistry, and went on to complete a Masters in Nutrition with Distinction. She is the brains behind the ‘Pixie Nutrition‘ social media accounts, which aim to infiltrate the wellness movement and debunk nutrition misinformation online. In addition, she has been featured as a nutrition expert on BBC and Channel 5. Her first book, ‘The Wellness Rebel’ was published early 2018, with her second book released March 2019.

25th July – Paul D McGarrity – A Practical Guide to Attacking Castles

A Practical Guide to attacking castles

From the age of sieges and chivalry comes a show about medieval love, adrenaline junkies and an insane quest for glory. Join comedian and archaeologist Paul Duncan McGarrity as he explains how modern life could be so much better if we all take a moment and learn how to attack a castle.

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From the host of the Ask an Archaeologist podcast and live show comes another hour of hysterical historical fun. ‘A more pleasant way to pass an hour could scarcely be found’

Paul D McGarrity

Paul Duncan McGarrity, the UK’s foremost Stand up comedian archaeologist, as seen on BBC4’s The Big Dig, is taking his critically acclaimed sell out Edinburgh Fringe show ‘Ask an Archaeologist’ on the road as ‘Paul Duncan McGarrity vs The Minor-tour’.

The ‘Ask an Archaeologist’ show does exactly what it says in the title. An Archaeologist (Paul) sits in a room with an audience and answers their questions. Most audiences tend to ask about life in the field, but other questions have been about Brexit, time travel and knitting patterns.

Woven around these queries Paul dishes the dirt on what it’s really like down in the trenches. Topics covered include the dating techniques of Vikings, the awkward truth behind the death of Richard III and Shakespeare’s laddish side.

To complement this unique approach to both history and comedy the ‘Minor-tour’ will be stopping off in on some rather unusual venues, although this won’t be too much of a departure for Paul as he has already performed shows in the grounds of a 14th century abbey and in an inflatable tent right next door to Hadrian’s wall.

http://paulduncanmcgarrity.co.uk/press
@PaulDuncanMcG

27th June – Cerys Bradley – A Unifying Theory of Gay

For decades, science has been fascinated by the LGBTQ+ community. What makes gay people gay? How does sexuality affect one’s behaviour, appearance, or ability to raise children? These are the questions that science has asked and the answers have had an impact not only within the scientific world, but also on public policy and the rights of LGBTQ+ citizens. Given the highly politicised nature of the topic, it is perhaps not surprising to discover biases and prejudices hidden in the construction, conduction, and conclusions of these studies but are they still valuable contributions to science?

PhD student (and lesbian) Cerys Bradley will discuss the scientific research into the LGBTQ+ community as well as its societal implications, and ask “just because science can ask a question, should it?”.

11th June – Ariane Sherine – Talk yourself better

(This talk was originally scheduled for January 2019, and cancelled due to bad weather. Now recheduled for June 11th)

Comedy writer and journalist Ariane Sherine created and organised the Atheist Bus Campaign, persuading Richard Dawkins and the British Humanist Association to support her – and buses with variations on the slogan “There’s probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life” ran in 13 countries across the globe.

As a result, Ariane received an Inbox full of hate mail from Christians, which eventually led to a major nervous breakdown and suicidal ideation. She ended her journalistic career, and didn’t write again for over three years.

In this talk, she will tell the full story of how therapy and medication saved her life, prompting her to write her new book, Talk Yourself Better: A Confused Person’s Guide to Therapy, Counselling and Self-Help.

Ariane will also be signing copies of Talk Yourself Better after the talk.

What people have said about Talk Yourself Better

“Brilliant – makes the baffling comprehensible.” JEREMY VINE

“What an excellent, long-overdue idea! A super-accessible guide, through the bewildering marketplace of modern therapy, to ease our noble search for help.” DERREN BROWN

“How do we cope with this brutal world? In this witty, revealing book Ariane Sherine runs through the ways. An excellent, funny and thought-provoking read for all who seek answers.” ARTHUR SMITH

“What makes Ariane Sherine’s Talk Yourself Better stand out from the crowd is its accessibility and humour; to be able to discuss difficult things with a lightness of touch and a comedy that does not trivialise is a rare skill indeed. This, combined with the honest – and often deeply moving – stories of clients and practitioners alike, makes this the ideal introduction to for anyone considering therapy for the first time.” BRIAN BILSTON

About Ariane

Ariane Sherine is the comedy writer and journalist who created the Atheist Bus Campaign, as well as the best-selling celebrity book The Atheist’s Guide to Christmas. She has written for BBC1’s My Family, Channel 4’s Countdown and BBC2’s Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps, as well as for The Guardian, The Sunday Times, The Independent, The Observer, New Statesman and The Spectator.

She lives in London with her seven-year-old daughter, Lily.

30th May – Dr Christopher Fuller – See It, Shoot it: The Secret History of the CIA’s Lethal Drone Program

This eye-opening talk will uncover the formally classified history of the most important instrument of U.S. counterterrorism today: the armed drone.

Drawing upon research conducted for the completion of his recent book, See It/Shoot It, published by Yale University Press, Dr Christopher Fuller will reveal that, contrary to popular belief, the CIA’s covert drone program is not a product of 9/11. Rather, it is the result of U.S. counterterrorism practices extending back to an influential group of policy makers within the Reagan administration.

Dr Christopher J. Fuller is a lecturer in modern U.S. history at the University of Southampton. His research and teaching focuses upon American foreign policy, in particular the origins and conduct of the War on Terror; an exploration of the United States as a post-territorial empire; and the role played by the Internet in both enhancing and undermining American national security. He is a joint U.S./UK citizen, and for the first time in a long time, feels stuck between a rock and a hard place.

He tweets as @DrChrisFuller

April 25th – Prof Danny Dorling – Time for the truth: We ‘left’ the EU because of Hampshire.

We ask for a £5 donation (at the door) that doubles as a raffle ticket to win a book prize to cover speaker expenses and the cost of the venue.

In Hampshire 546,267 people voted to leave the EU in June 2016, some 54.0% of all those who voted in the county. Hampshire was never singled out as a hotbed of leave voters and yet the people of this county, along with just a few of the other English Home Counties, were crucial to securing the referendum result. So why was this not commented upon at the time, or later – and what might it mean for how little we understand ourselves?

We can define an ‘Anti-Hampshire’ which has almost exactly the same electorate as Hampshire but is made of five northern and one Welsh district often labelled as hot-beds of leavers. In Anti-Hampshire only 494,816 voted to leave, 53.7% of all those who voted. Anti-Hampshire consists of Blackpool, Derby, Great Yarmouth, Leeds, Merthyr Tydfil and Sheffield (the fifth largest city in Britain).

Its time for a few home truths about the geography of who we are, how we got here, and where we are most probably going.

The table below is numbers voting leave and the % of all who voted in “Anti-Hampshire”

Blackpool	45,146	67%
Derby	69,043	57%
Great Yarmouth	35,844	72%
Leeds	192,474	50%
Merthyr Tydfil	16,291	56%
Sheffield	136,018	51%

Don’t worry – the talk still works even if Theresa May cancels article 50 (she can do it without anyone’s permission) – or even if we get a peoples’ vote and that is for Remain.

Personally I think her plan is to cancel it at the point that we begin to get a great deal of panic. Panic is rising.

I have a book coming out in January with my friend Sally where we claim that the effect of Brexit will still be enormous even if we don’t leave:

I ought to admit to a vested interest of a new book! But I don’t need to try and sell any copies on the night!

Brief Bio

Danny Dorling is the Halford Mackinder Professor in Geography at the University of Oxford. He was previously a professor of Geography at the University of Sheffield, and before then a professor at the University of Leeds. He earlier worked at academic posts in Newcastle, Bristol, and New Zealand. He went to university in Newcastle upon Tyne, and to school in Oxford. He was born in 1968.

Much of Danny’s work is available open access (see www.dannydorling.org). With a group of colleagues he helped create the website www.worldmapper.org which shows who has most and least in the world. His work concerns issues of housing, health, employment, education, wealth and poverty. His most recent book, with Sally Tomlinson, was published on January 15th 2019: ‘Rule Britannia: Brexit and the end of Empire’ concerning what the 2016 EU referendum and 2019 ‘exit’ told us about the British.

[It was ‘completely spot on’ / ‘shown to be rubbish given subsequent events (delete as appropriate J )]

He is a patron of the charity Roadpeace, an Honorary Patron of Heeley City Farm, Sheffield, and a Senior Associate member of the Royal Society of Medicine. He is now working on ‘Slowdown’ during 2019. His next book, about slowing down…

March 28th – Gareth Williams – Unravelling the Double Helix

DNA. The double helix – the blueprint of life, and during the early 1950s, a baffling enigma that could win a Nobel Prize.

Everyone knows that James Watson and Francis Crick discovered the double helix.

In fact, they clicked into place the last piece of a huge jigsaw puzzle that other researchers had assembled over decades. Researchers like Maurice Wilkins (the ‘Third Man of DNA’) and Rosalind Franklin, famously demonised by Watson. Not forgetting the ‘lost heroes’ who fought to prove that DNA is the stuff of genes, only to be airbrushed out of history.

In his book, and in this talk, Unravelling the Double Helix, Professor Gareth Williams sets the record straight. He tells the story of DNA in the round, from its discovery in pus-soaked bandages in 1868 to the aftermath of Watson’s best-seller The Double Helix a century later. You don’t need to be a scientist to enjoy this book. It’s a page-turner that unfolds like a detective story, with suspense, false leads and treachery, and a fabulous cast of noble heroes and back-stabbing villains. But beware: some of the science is dreadful, and the heroes and villains may not be the ones you expect.

Gareth Williams is Emeritus Professor and former Dean of Medicine at The University of Bristol. His previous books for general readers are Angel of Death: The Story of Smallpox (shortlisted for the Wellcome Book Prize of 2010), Paralysed with Fear: The Story of Polio and A Monstrous Commotion: The Mysteries of Loch Ness. He is a past president of the Anglo-French Medical Society and has an honorary doctorate from the University of Angers. He is often to be found playing the flute or saxophone in and around Bristol.

For this talk we ask for a £3 donation (at the door) that doubles as a raffle ticket to win a book prize to cover speaker expenses and the cost of the venue.

February 28th – Dr Surja Dutta – Nāstika: Atheism in Indian Philosophy

Indian philosophy is full of interesting ideas on materialism and atheism. This might come as a surprise to many in the West, where, in the popular imagination, India is a land full of mystical gurus and religious fervour; a spiritual hotbed- a place where you ‘find yourself’, whatever that may mean. So, the news that the idea of ‘falsificationism’ was anticipated by Indian materialists (known as Charvakas) 1700 years before Karl Popper may be surprising.

In fact, Indian materialists denounced the authority of the Vedas, ridiculed the idea of reincarnation, and rejected mind-body dualism; there is very little in Indian materialism that is not backed up by modern science.

The talk will focus on the main tenets of Indian materialism originating from the atheist branch of Indian philosophy, alternately called Charvaka, Lokāyata, and Bṛhaspatya. It will also suggest reasons for their obscurity in India and elsewhere.

Dr Surja Datta is a senior lecturer at Oxford Brookes University. His latest book “A History of the Indian University System: Emerging from the Shadows of the Past” is published by Palgrave Macmillan. His current book project is provisionally titled “The Creative Society: Calcutta 1815- 1955”. Surja became interested in Indian materialism while researching for his current book.

We ask for a £3 donation (at the door) that doubles as a raffle ticket to win a book prize to cover speaker expenses and the cost of the venue.

Wednesday Feb 20th – Dr Dean Burnett – How does happiness work in the brain?

You barely go a week without some puff piece article offering the ‘secret’ of happiness, or 5 easy steps to make yourself happy. They usually mention dopamine or oxytocin, in vague, context-free ways. But how valid are these claims? Not very, if you ask neuroscientist Dean Burnett, who looked into all this for his book The Happy Brain. In it, Dean delves deep into the inner workings of our minds to explore some fundamental questions about happiness. For starters: what does it actually mean to be happy? Where does it come from? Is lasting happiness possible? Should it be?

In his research into these questions – and many more besides – Burnett unravels our complex internal lives to reveal the often surprising truth behind what makes us tick. From whether happiness really begins at home to what love, sex, friendship, wealth, laughter and success actually do to our brains.

Dr Dean Burnett is a neuroscientist, pundit, author, blogger and sometimes comedian. In his second book The Happy Brain, he looks at all the claims and theories around what makes us happy, and investigates whether they hold up to scientific scrutiny.

We ask for a £3 donation (at the door) that doubles as a raffle ticket to win a book prize to cover speaker expenses and the cost of the venue. So please turn up!