Parkinsons UK is now a regular gig. It had a farcical element last year. The (Jewish) Secretary, Rene, asked for the talk on Chopin. To pull her leg, Ken pointed out (correctly) that Chopin was so anti-semitic, he would not play if there was a Jew in the room. This year, Rene took the Chopin.

Ken also had a gig at a Rich Bitch (mostly) Old Peoples' Home, the “Life & Works of Franz Schubert”, a guaranteed weepy. Someone was following it with Deutsch, as I did not use obvious examples. Ken also gave “Elgar's Life & Works” to Barnet U3A.

At London (Hampstead) U3A Ken finally closed the “Topical Topics” group after getting through the Summer Term. He had padded Topical Topics with some of his talks & Avis had repeated some of her popular favorites. Jim Eardley has taken the old Topical Topics slot for his “Examining Ideas” group but this coincides with Ken's History series, so we cannot attend it, alas. The “European History” series class has settled down to rather fewer members than Ralph had but they have had 35 talks, up to “Greeks and Arabs from 888 to 1072”. In the Summer Programme, Avis gave talks on Gauguin & Van Gogh. Ken gave the next 4 talks History Talks after last year's Roman set. All Ken & Avis' talks are available to any club in London that wants them.

Operas:- “The Mask of Orpheus” by Harrison Birtwistle, definitely not the same old, same old!

Ken's reading list of books for the year Essential reading marked in red:-

“Madame Solario” by Gladys Huntington. A Henry James written by Daphne du Maurier.
“The Silence of the Rain” by Luiz Alfredo Garcia Roza. Unusual cop story set in Rio de Janeiro.
“WTF” by Robert Peston. Succinct economics polemic about the state of the nation, pre brexit.
“A legacy of Spies” by John leCarré. Excellent.
“Kudos” by Rachel Cusk. More deep conversations with relative strangers. Brilliant.
“Praise of Folly” by Desiderius Erasmus. Great satire with a biting attack on bad theologians as well
“A Letter to Martin Dorp” by Desiderius Erasmus. Reply to a humourless critic of “Folly”.
“Milkman” by Anna Burns. Amazing prose-poem about an unmentioned Northern Ireland during the Troubles
& gave a lot in information I did not known e.g. about not going to hospital. Takes a long time to read.
“Middle England” by Jonathan Coe. The Rotters Club just pre-brexit. For people like me, a weepie.
“Why we get the wrong Politicians” by Isabel Hardman. Exposes their awful life. Maybe I had a lucky escape.
“Normal People” by Sally Rooney. More amazing than Conversations with Friends. Such insight.
“Posh Boys” by Robert Verkaik. Attack on the Public Schools but advocates a gradualist approach to getting
rid of them. No good. Has to be abrupt.
“Autumn” by Ali Smith. A bit weird.
“Lucky to be Here” by Geof Baldry. Ken's brother. Autobiography & anthropology on Skiathos Island.
“The Only Story” by Julian Barnes. Sad story of a love affaire. As good as usual.
“Into Full Sunlight” by Tom Rubens. Rite of passage novel by a friend. Sounds autobiographical.

Even less read but much re-reading in our History library & on Wikipaedia for the U3A talks