ben_haines_london

Today the London newspaper the Independent has a report at http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/ headed Can you hear me at the back. This reports the growth of lecture-going in Britain now, and quotes me and my web site as sources. My US colleague and I shall have a new version posted in a week, so if you are to come over this spring or summer that will be a time to look up your London dates. Since the lectures are free the rate of exchange will not bother you. I shall tell forum readers when my new list is posted.

This is a welcome gift for my new year.

[email protected]

oldie

Well, as our Welsh friends say, "There's posh, isn't it?"

elaine

Mr Haines, what is the url for your website?

ben_haines_london

victorianresearch.org/lectures.html, with no www. It is in the newspaper report.

[email protected]

elaine

If you don't mind I will add your website to the London Superthread

JudyC

"Can you hear me at the back?" - this phrase has been the beginning of my many enjoyment in London since Autumn 2001, when I started to access the site of Mr Haines lecture list.

The joy is still vivid: the first lecture in LSE "Open Source Communication" and the discussion with an Indian visiting programmer afterwards; RSA "The flying start on a learning life: Education of the age of Uncertainty"; "If we do not survive death, is it irrational to feel dismal?", "Maps, Maidens and Molecules", "The Particle Odyssey" in Gresham, to last November: RIBA "From concept to construction", RSAquot;How to value and accept oneself", King's "War on Terror", UCL "Critical Architecture".

London's countless public lectures on any imaginable subject is the best any modern city could offer. I have learned to look for it everywhere I visit, when my lamentable language ability allows.

Somehow, it is bittersweet to go through Mr Haines's list every season, as there are so many interesting topics. However, by stopping over London(sometimes only one day)whenever I travel to Europe and attending webcasts or read archives online, I haven't been deprived the pleasure too unbearably.

From Beijing, Kyoto, Gubbio to Berlin, I have passed the Victorian site to dozens people, some thought it ws their best traveling find. With the evidence of the packed-house (with attendends from many ages and races,sometime only standing room available)of lectures I have attended, I do trully believe so.

Again, my heart-felt thanks.

Judy

p.s. 79???

rj007

One of my favorite things to do in London - go to a free lecture. In Nov '02 I went to a lecture by Claire Tomalin on Samuel Pepys. I sat next to a woman who is now one of my dearest friends.

Yet another thank you for Mr. Haines. We are fortunate to have such a wealth of information. Thank you, Sir.

ben_haines_london

Oldie: Since my note was unsuited to you as reader I think you could simply not have read it. You see that there are fodors forum readers who like the note, and do not find it posh: I posted for them, and especially for those who had not thought of lectures as a pleasure of London, but are ready to try, perhaps unlike you.

Would you like to tell readers what you do enjoy in London ? Clearly, not pompous old bores.

Everybody else: Thank you. I hope others will catch the habit.

Ben Haines

flanneruk

Ben:

I really think you've misunderstood oldie.

In the capital of North Wales where I grew up, the phrase "there's posh" is mildly complimentary. It's what your Auntie Betty says when you achieve something - like getting your name on the honours board at school - that normally only posh people do, and that traditionally oiks like us haven't been able to manage. Getting praised in the Indie, for example.

No doubt other Auntie Betties use the term in a more deflating way, and oldie might have thought you were showing off a bit by mentioning your journalistic fame.

Either way, it was clearly your mentioning your fame in the papers oldie was talking about, and not the lecture site itself.

For crying out loud, there are enough prickly people on this board already (indeed, modesty prevents me from naming one of the prickliest). You're the glorious exception. Please don't join the rest of us hypersensitives.

mclaurie

I too took the comment as a mild compliment. I for one had no idea you had a website. You've certainly been modest about it to never mention it. I've often wondered what your profesion was/is.

caroline_edinburgh

flanneruk is right, "there's posh" is an expression of admiration.

What I'm wondering is why your very useful list is on a website devoted to Victorian studies ? I've never looked at it before as I'd assumed from the site name that these are just lectures on Victorian topics, which I personally have little interest in; but having had a look now this is obvously not the case.

oldie

Eek! I meant it very much in the Welsh auntie sense. In Wales it is used to praise anything from a new set of crockery to winning the Nobel Prize. There was I thinking that it was only the US and UK who were separated by a common language.

oldie

BTW, one of my websites was praised in the Daily Mail. To be honest, I wasn't too thrilled because the Mail is not my favourite paper. To be mentioned in the Indy is infinitely posher.

billy_goat

I too would consider "there's posh" to be a playful compliment.

Talking of websites, what happened to A week of walks in London?

Cuttle

To answer Caroline's question: Ben's lecture list is on my Victorian Studies website because as a fan I wanted to make it available online, and that's the space I had to work with. When I started the website some years ago, I included a page of advice about planning research trips to London on a tight budget. Since then that page (at http://victorianresearch.org/trip.html) has grown to the point that it's really a standalone guide to budget travel in Britain. Lots of tips there have come from this forum. Anyhow, it seemed like a good place to host Ben's list, so many more people could enjoy it than just the ones he was able to email it to.

Also on the site: Ben's set of history walks around London (http://victorianresearch.org/haineswalks.html) and his collection of pub advice from this forum (http://victorianresearch.org/hainesonpubs.html)

This weekend I'll be getting his latest lecture list up and running, so watch for it.

Patrick (aka Cuttle)

ben_haines_london

I apologise to Oldie without reserve. Our family used the phrase differently. Thanks, too, to all other contributors. I am glad not to join the ranks of the prickly. Thanks to Caroline: when I publicise the lecture list in future I shall make it clear that the list is not Victorian. I can illustrate now with a day from a new version of the list, due to go online within a week.

The site victorianresearch.org/ takes you to the walks, which, again, are not by origin Victorian but are a reply I made four tears ago to a FAQ on this forum, a reply during which I took my mind for walks and had a lot of fun. I, and we, owe Patrick or Cuttle a good deal.

Thanks to all for the mildness of these replies.

Ben Haines

Wednesday 12 January.

1pm. New developments in Muslim law in the UK. Room G52, School of Oriental and African Studies. Russell Square tube

3.30. Tradition and innovation: the scripts in the Old Palatial period in ancient Crete. Institute of Classical Studies, Senate House. Russell Square tube

5pm. Language and ethnicity in Matabeleland, Zimbabwe: a case of Ndebele Kalanga relations 1930-1960. Room B111 , Brunei Gallery, School of Oriental and African Studies. Russell Square tube

5.30. For the house her self and one servant: households and houses in late seventeenth-century London. Pollard Room, Institute of Historical Research, Senate House. Russell Square tube

6pm. The Carbon Trust and the Marine Energy Challenge. Institution of Civil Engineers. Westminster tube

6pm. In the beginning: the Roman, the Viking and the Norman Conquests. Gresham College, Barnards Inn Hall, 24 Holborn. Chancery Lane tube

6pm. The Great Irresponsibles? the United States, the United Kingdom and the future of international society. Old Theatre, Old Building, London School of Economics. Holborn tube

Wednesday 12 January. 7pm. The illustrations of The Three Poems of Khwaju Kermani, twelft centrury Persian poet, (B L Add, 18113). Khalili Lecture Theatre, School of Oriental and African Studies. Russell Square tube

Cuttle

Ben Haines's latest update to his popular Free Lectures in London list has now been posted, and can be found at http://victorianresearch.org/lectures.html

gailscout

Glad you all got this settled! I was spellbound.

caroline_edinburgh

Thanks, Ben & Patrick, & keep up the good work. Hope you don't think I was critcising - just confused ! All the best.

JudyC

Many thanks for the new list, what a treat!