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12:45 - CROSSWORD #1

1:00 - MUSIC Iain Robertson

1:30 - UK POLITICS Nick Bano

1:55 - CULTURE Liam O'Dowd

2:30 - UK NEWS Peter Geoghegan in conversation with Mary Fitzgerald

3:10 - WALK Mark Vernon

3:15 - BUSINESS David Taylor in conversation with Xavier Greenwood

3:55 - CROSSWORD #2

4:05 - POLITICS Sian Norris

4:40 - WORLD NEWS Claudia Williams in conversation with Chloe Hadjimatheou

5:15 - MONEY Nels Abbey

5:40 - CROSSWORD #3

 

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Hosted by Robin Clyfan​

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MUSIC

Iain Robertson: What's the Story: The ascendance of Oasis. 

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Coinciding with Liam Gallagher's new tour, former tour manager of Oasis Iain Robertson joins us on the eve of the 30th anniversary of the iconic band's first album, to take us behind the scenes offering a front-row seat to the story of real rockstar superstardom.
 

Oasis was a band like no other. If they liked you, they loved you. If they didn’t, be prepared for confrontation. They were the most viscerally exciting rock band to emerge from Britain in years. Iain Robertson, who had retired from the Parachute Regiment and guarded legends like George Harrison, Gary Moore, and Johnny Rotten, took on the toughest job of all: keeping Oasis on track after their debut album, Definitely Maybe, ignited their meteoric rise to global fame.
 

Iain was with Oasis 24/7 as their road manager and minder, witnessing their journey from obscurity to megastardom. His story is the defining chronicle of life on tour with Oasis, offering an access-all-areas insight into the dream come true and the sharp double-edged swords of fame and fortune.
 

Join us as Iain invites you behind the velvet rope to share his experiences of life on the road with the last great analogue rock & roll band. Don’t miss this unique opportunity to hear firsthand what it means when the dream comes true.

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UK POLITICS

 Nick Bano - Against Landlords 

 

Due to the election announcement, the Renters Reform Bill has been delayed, breaking the government’s promise to end Section 21 no-fault evictions by the end of this parliament. 
 

Why can’t we live in a world without landlords? The private rented sector nearly collapsed in the mid-1970s and was on the brink of being replaced with a system of secure, affordable housing for all. That should have been the legacy of the 20th century. However, The Conservatives and New Labour revived landlordism. Now, house prices are out of control as landlords outcompete owner-occupiers and make outrageous profits. The housing crisis is rooted in runaway rents and squalid conditions. 
 

How has this happened, and how can we reverse it? Nick joins us on stage to tell us all about it.

Nick Bano is a barrister, author, and housing campaigner. In his day-to-day work, he represents renters and homeless people in legal aid cases, while also providing legal and strategic advice to national organisations. As a writer, he challenges the conventional wisdom of a housing supply shortage and questions why the UK’s housing crisis is so severe despite having ordinary levels of housing stock.

 

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CULTURE

Liam O'Dowd: Humanity's relationship with drugs is changing

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Join Liam O'Dowd, Editor of Leafie, for an exploration of humanity's complex and changing relationship with drugs. Liam will talk through the evocative nature and stigma of the word "drugs," followed by a dive into the ancient history of human drug use, highlighting fascinating connections such as Bronze Age rituals and religious practices.
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He will also delve into modern history, focusing on the era of prohibition and its lasting impacts, and a look at our current landscape. Our relationship with drugs has always been dynamic and ever-evolving. Liam will discuss practices throughout history such as drug-use during the bronze age and the rise of LSD during the Vietnam war, and compare it with our modern-day relationship and where we might be heading in the near future. 

 

Exploring humanity’s ever-changing relationship with drugs and asking: Has our innate desire to alter consciousness formed society today? Is prohibition more harmful than helpful? Will psychedelics be the next revolution in healthcare?

 

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BRITISH POLITICS

Peter Geoghegan in conversation with Mary Fitzgerald - How an Election Campaign is really funded. 

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Peter knows a thing or two about democracy and how the current election campaigns are really being funded.

 

He has written extensively on how money, vested interests and digital skulduggery are eroding trust in democracy. Peter had literally followed the money that its donors would much prefer to remain in the shadows. 

 

His interviews and research regularly highlights the fabulously well-funded partisan think tanks, propagandists who know how to game a rigged system, and the campaigners and regulators valiantly trying to stop them.

 

Whilst in his previous role as editor-in-chief and CEO at openDemocracy, Peter and his team won Campaign of the Year at the British Journalism Awards for its ground-breaking work on transparency in British public life.

 

Peter joins us to discuss what is really going on in this current election campaign and for the sake of democracy highlights what must be done about it.

 

Mary Fitzgerald is director of expression at the Open Society Foundations, and former editor-in-chief of openDemocracy.

 

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WALK

Mark Vernon

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Ask not who you are, but where you are - A Philosophy Walk. 
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Join us for a Sunday Saunter led by Mark Vernon, a psychotherapist with a keen interest in ancient philosophy. Mark’s writings span topics from friendships and beliefs to wellbeing and modern living. This walk and talk is designed to ground and uplift in equal measure, providing a guided spiritual amble to help us understand how to survive and thrive in our modern times.
 

On Mark's walk, he will lead you to a quiet place within Regent's Park to explore the outside world while identifying spiritual intelligence within. Asking: not who you are, but where you are? What is it to arrive in a fresh location? How can movement aid thought? What is the spirit of a place?

 

In this short walk into Regent’s Park, followed by a talk, Mark Vernon will take a step back in time to reconnect philosophy with being outdoors and walking. From the ancient Greek peripatetics to William Blake’s “learning’s bower”. 

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Mark has contributed to and presented numerous radio programs and written for various publications, including the BBC, Aeon, Church Times, and The Idler, where he writes a regular column. He also leads workshops, gives talks, and hosts podcasts, including a longstanding series of conversations with Rupert Sheldrake.
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Gain valuable insights and reconnect with nature.

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NEWS

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David Taylor in conversation with Xavier Greenwood - The Sacklers: Getting Away with It

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The Sacklers made billions from the opioid painkiller OxyContin, which significantly contributed to the opioid crisis still wreaking havoc in the US and around the world. Despite being blamed for fueling the epidemic, the question remains: have they truly been held accountable, or are they getting away with it?

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Join David Taylor, former US deputy editor for the Guardian and US editor for The Times, and Xavier Greenwood, producer, reporter and investigative journalist at Tortoise, for a compelling delve into the story of the Sackler family and their controversial role in America's opioid epidemic.

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POLITICS

Sian Norris - Bodies Under Siege

 

Sian joins us to discuss how global anti-abortion forces are attacking gender rights in the UK, with the aim to fuel the culture wars that have so far characterised the 2024 election. She'll share how US "religious freedom" giants are helping to fund anti-abortion activity in the UK, and show how, far from being a settled issue, abortion is at risk of being the next front in the hard right culture war. Sian will show how mainstream Conservative MPs are increasingly allying with hard right, anti-abortion individuals and forces from around the world, and how the messages they are repeating have their origins in far-right conspiracist movements. 
 

Sian Norris is a senior investigative reporter at openDemocracy. She has written for a range of national and international publications, including the Times, the Observer, the Guardian, i news, New Statesman, the Ferret, the Dial and many more, reporting from the UK, Ukraine, Bangladesh, Poland, Romania and Kenya. Sian is the author of Bodies Under Siege: how the far right attack on reproductive rights went global, which built on her investigative reporting into far-right and anti-abortion movements.  

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WORLD NEWS

Claudia Williams in conversation with Chloe Hadjimatheou

 

The Gasman: a catch-me-if-you-can hunt for a fugitive involved in a poison gas conspiracy. 
 

In the 1980s, Special Agent Dennis Bass received a tip-off that changed his career. Thirty years later, reporter Chloe Hadjimatheou sets out to solve the mystery of how an international fugitive escaped justice – and why he's still on the run.
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Claudia Williams is a reporter and producer at Tortoise Media, hosting the weekly investigative podcast The Slow Newscast and the daily news podcast The Sensemaker. She has previously worked at The New York Times and The Week.
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Chloe Hadjimatheou is an award-winning investigative journalist known for the BBC podcast series *Mayday*, which uncovered disinformation around the life and death of James Le Mesurier. She has reported from Greece, the Middle East, and the USA, spending time in BBC’s overseas bureaux in Washington DC, Jerusalem, and Cairo. In 2021, Chloe was shortlisted for the prestigious Orwell Prize.

 

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MONEY

Nels Abbey: The Hip-Hop MBA: What We Can Learn from Jay-Z

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Nels joins us to dive into how hip-hop moguls like Jay-Z, Suge Knight, Puff Daddy and 50 Cent turned economic hardship into a multi-billion-dollar industry with street-smart business acumen, creating epic tales of success, failure, betrayal, and revenge.

Using the term dubbed: The Hip-Hop MBA, Nels will show why the business world should take hip-hop moguls and their methods seriously, offering invaluable lessons from the champions of the rap industry. 

Nels Abbey is a British-Nigerian (Itsekiri) writer, broadcaster, media executive and satirist based in London.  Prior to moving into media, he worked in financial services principally for the US investment mammoth BlackRock. He knows a thing or two about money and joins us to give us the lowdown on an alternative rise to great wealth.

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CROSSWORDS

Sons & Sons

Barely more coherent than toddlers themselves, our crossword gurus have been running the sillier side of Sunday for 5 years. Brush up on your charade skills for the live crossword challenges, but also pop down to their pub quiz and crafternoon crafts table full of crafty crafts. Weather permitting this will all take place in the venue's hidden garden.

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