Women you Tai Chi ma

LEARN TAI CHI
For those not versed in Mandarin the title of this posting simply says, 'Do we have Tai Chi ?', ma being a question word. To which the reply in a Asian language without words for Yes and No is simply 'you' or have, implying yes we do have. So the scope of group activities is now poised to go Chinese. Chairman Bob informs me that a teacher by the name of Mike Hart is prepared to run around six classes for free, except for the normal share of room hire. Since it seems likely that few will dare to ignore our Cultural Revolution I am putting my name at the head of the list, so you know whose side I am on! For the rest of you those lists will open on 21 January at the Grove when Mike Hart will explain his plans before the Wednesday Lecture on 'The Pubs of Mumbles' by Brian Davies.

LEARN ITALIAN
This course resumes tomorrow (12 January at 10am) for its second meeting at Hazel Court. Anyone even vaguely interested is welcome to come along and try, no prior knowledge is required, just interest.

CREATIVE WRITING 2
The very next day (13 January at 10.15) this group will meet at Hazel Court, co-ordinated by John Barber 774741 in the absence of Tony Crisp, who is recovering from a stroke and to whom we send our best wishes.

CARDS FOR PLEASURE
Lawmary plans to restart this group for 2009 at a meeting in the Taliesin on Wednesday 21 January at 1pm which will rearrange the days of card playing sessions. Be prompt or you will miss out on Tai Chi presentation at 2.15pm in the Grove.

JIVE
Will restart the regular weekly sessions in the Monkey Cafe at 10.30 on Wednesday 14 January. A team of eight will be performing in the Panto on Wednesday pm 14 January, with a rehearsal tomorrow 12 January at 1.30pm at the Dolphin.

PRE-CONCERT MUSIC TALKS
Cecily Hughes has booked the room in the Civic Centre for 2.30pm on the Monday before the following concerts by the BBC National Orchestra of Wales at the Brangwyn Hall. Contact Cecily Hughes 363875.

U3A TALKS,......... CONCERT
Mon 2 Feb,........... Elgar Violin Concerto, Thurs 5 Feb
Mon 2 March, ...... Dvorak 8th Symphony, Fri 6 March
Mon 27 April,....... Mahler Das Lied von der Erde, Sat 9 May
Mon 1 June, .........Beethoven Violin Concerto, Fri 5 June

She is especially pleased to have secured a well known lecturer from Cardiff, Dr Bernard Kane, for the first talk on 2 February at 2.30. Clive Jenkins will give the talk in March.

There will be a charge of £2 for the talk, but as previously you are responsible for buying tickets for the actual concert.)


DIRECTIONS including BUSES to HAZEL COURT

Information repeated now that Hazel Court is fast becoming the venue of choice for U3A groups.

I have looked on the Internet for information about First bus routes to Sketty Parklands and established that the following go past The Spinning Wheel, now under a name in Welsh 'Hen ?????' which I keep forgetting to make a note of.

A) Route 18 runs from Swansea Quadrant at 40 mins past the hour to Upper Killay

B) Routes 20, 20A, 21, and 21A between them run from the Quadrant at 5, 15, 25, 35, 45, 55 past the hour. (21 goes to Three Crosses once per hour , and the rest to Derlwyn.)

C) Route 37 to Quadrant leaves Oystermouth at 58 mins past the hour

D) Route 82A from Quadrant via University to Hendrefoilan is not listed but exists and runs frequently, though perhaps not to precise schedule.

NB The Spinning Wheel pub is mentioned because it is a key location on the bus routes. It should be possible to get off closer to Hazel Court , for instance at the junction Sketty Park Drive and Heather Crescent.

Street Map by Cecily Hughes

Please check the bus routes in detail, but this information should at least point you in the correct direction

PROMOTIONS
Vince Cable is the after dinner speaker at the Dragon Hotel on Saturday 31 January. Even Jeremy Paxton on Newsnight recognised him as the political authority on high finance and the credit crunch. He recommended nationalisation of banks long before it became Labour Policy. It is difficult to think of a topic of more immediate impact. A complete dinner is £25/head at 7 for 7.30pm, and is open to all. Tickets may be obtained from Marion Harris on 206044, who will also take menu choices.

One Day in 'The Life of Brian'

5 November 2008, Barack Obama President Elect of USA
It's apt that today is named after Guy Fawkes who saw only one way to defeat the government of the day. It takes me back so vividly to early August 1957. I had just turned 22 when I set out on my first summer holiday from employment at Canadian Westinghouse. Many friends, mainly Irish from the engineering school of University College Dublin, who had emigrated en masse because there were no jobs in their own country, had chosen to spend the time in canoes and tents in Algonquin National Park. But Dave Robinson, a laid-back public school boy from Oxford who played trombone like Jimmy Edwards, had the idea that we would drive someone else's car across the USA and Joe Killian a particularly tall and dour Irishman asked to come with us. Dave had written to an organisation called the Detroit Drive Away, a body shopping organisation which supplied individuals willing to deliver cars to all parts of the USA, and volunteered our precious two weeks annual holiday for a trip to the West coast. Three days into our summer holiday we were still waiting for a car, virtually certain we had blown it. Then the offer, take a brand new Pink Cadillac to Indianapolis, like the one just delivered to Elvis Presley. We set off with only a few months driving experience between us. At the first street corner I slammed on the brakes and we all ended up on the windscreen from our front bench seat, our first experience of power brakes. (I've a difficult task for Anthony Hughes, Photoshop Guru, to unravel my only record of the event, a double exposure of me at the wheel of that Cadillac.)

Part of the saga meant we would make our own way from Indianapolis to Memphis where we would pick up a second car to drive Route 66 to Fresno, near San Fransisco.
Dave and Joe opted to travel to Memphis by train, but I, maverick already, decided to hitch hike and agreed to meet them in two days time at Memphis railway station. The first day remains etched in my mind like no other. I had a number of lifts that day, the first I remember was so normal, a farmer proud of his British stock was on his way to a day at the races and took me right to the gates of Ellis Park.

Then the real experiences began. A man with a death wish, who had just broken up with his girl friend, stopped. His penchants were for speed, overtaking, and particularly for going blind over the top of the endless undulating hills on the wrong side of the road. Thankfully he was stopped by the police before we went head first into another vehicle. We were taken to a small town, where the local judge was dragged in to sit in judgement. He let me go and I went in search of lunch. I remember being amazed by the incredibly slow slow drawl of the southerners, the ugliness of the one-hick town, and the incredible warmth of all the people I met. Probably I was the first foreigner in town that century! It always helps when travelling to be in a vulnerable minority

But the real impact was in the afternoon. I was picked up by a succession of poor white people heading south, one of whom had lost his job in Chicago and was going back to his shack in the Kentucky Hills where he intended to bed in for winter with his wife, ten kids and the chickens - this was August remember! Hard work was not his forte, contrast the 'work hard, play hard' mentality which had been drilled into me for life, during graduate training in Canada. In 1961, back to the UK, I was appalled by the lazy 'I'm all right Jack - I'm in the lifeboat ' mentality inherent in the English workforce of the day. No wonder we were then economically a failing country.

I had about three lifts that afternoon and each driver displayed the same appalling race hatred of the 'niggers'. They were supporters of the Klu Klux Klan, of lynchings, of hangings, their battle cry was 'Nigger don't let the sun come down on you in this town'. The meaning was starkly explained, if you do we will string you up on a tree on the outskirts of town. It gave a whole new depth of understanding to Billy Holiday's heart felt song 'Strange Fruits' - hanging from the trees. Beneath it all was the fear of violation of their women folk by a negro.

The last lift took me into Nashville for the night. He told me, and I still believe him, that there wasn't another coloured man in the south who would have picked me up. But he had seen the world and was on leave from his posting in Japan as an officer with the US Air Force. Brown rather than Black, intelligent, cultured, informative, liberal in his attitude to race. As he drove into Nashville he told me he didn't know the central white sector because Negroes were not welcome there (the blacks in their ghetto and the whites lived in absolute segregation). Nevertheless he went in and dropped me outside a hotel, and bid me farewell. That was the day I met my Obama, streets ahead of anyone else I met that trip.

There is no stronger reason for hitch hiking, than the experiences that are derived from local people you would otherwise never have met, insights you would never have made.

Next day we three met up at he Memphis railway station as planned and picked up the car we were to drive to the West Coast. Not this time a new Cadillac, but a run down Plymouth which had to be taken back to its rightful owner. Non the less Dave first then Brian coaxed it above 100 mph on those straight deserted prairie roads. Just as I made the ton for the first time in my life I glanced in my mirror to realise we were being overtaken by a police car, but he sped past with more urgent matters to attend to than someone doing twice the speed limit.

Encapsulated in our tin of car, quite unlike the intimate contact of hitch-hiking, we were thus out of touch with the vivid differences of culture in the south lands. We stopped in a little town, found a hotel, a few beers, a dinner and retired to bed. A couple of weeks later Little Rock burst onto the world stage. To think we had seen it as a boring sleepy town where nothing ever happened.

On September 2nd 1957 State Governor Faubus ordered the Arkansas Guard to prevent black students from entering the high school. Eventually President Eisenhower sent 1,000 paratroopers and 10,000 National Guardsmen to enforce a ruling made some years earlier by The Supreme Court of America in 1954, the school was finally desegregated and the civil rights movement was born.

Of all the books we have read as a group over the past five years non registered as strongly with me as Harper Lee's, 1960 novel 'To Kill a Mocking Bird'. It depicted so well the south I saw that day, that improbable mixture of warmth of the whites and their racial hatred of the 'niggers'.

I was moved when, on tonight's TV Jesse Jackson, one of the few survivors of that struggle, was seen with tears streaming down his face, though I later learned it may have been in part a feeling of envy, and in part guilt at having opposed Obama for not being a true representative of the negro people. It was a very hard and very emotional struggle which cost Martin Luther King his life. So very many black people were experiencing today something they had never imagined possible - and not just in the USA but in Kenya and across the world - nor did I ever think to see it in my lifetime.

10 November 2008 GROUP COSTS
I am told that occasionally people are surprised by the need to contribute towards group expenses. The £12 annual fee for joining the Swansea U3A covers the Wednesday lectures, subscription to the national organisation, and subsidises some of the joint activities like the Quiz and the Pantomime and the start up and equipment costs of new groups. But all groups are expected to be be self financing thereafter, and in particular this means that the groups which meet in public halls have to finance the cost of hire, which is typically £10 to £15 per session. A charge of £1 per session or slightly more is therefore to be expected.

In earlier days when the U3A was much smaller it was common for groups to meet by rotation in member's homes. However, whilst this is still quite suitable at times, with a membership of 600 most groups need to be larger and thus have to be located in church halls or alternatives such as Hazel Court. Hiring Halls in the right locations also helps with bus access from any part of Swansea.

I have added Cecily's map of the streets around Hazel Court and my own research into bus access to the previous posting since its original release last week.

CHESS GROUP
The very first new group off the ground this session. Maxy Maxwell the convener, full of enthusiasm purchased eight M&S chess sets from his own pocket to get the group started. Nine people turned up and all thoroughly enjoyed the experience in the spacious well lit Craft Room at Hazel Court. We need a few more members to ensure sufficient continuity in the months ahead, but are already planning to meet on the First and Third Monday mornings of the month. The second meeting is thus booked for Monday 17 November with the session starting from 10am. Hire of rooms from Hazel Court is from 9 till 12.30, or even 13.00 (or alternatively AFTERNOON FROM from 1.30 till 5pm). Maxy's enthusiasm extends to teaching chess to beginners. Most of us were playing for the first time for decades and I must say Joan and I enjoyed it and found it very relaxing. I don't very often get emails from my wife but she was anxious for me to understand that she is going to beat me next time. To which my response is that I won't again miss the opportunity to take the queen that had put me in check, a move which would have spelt curtains for her! Cunning movers these knights!

READING GROUP 4
The last new group on the stocks got off to a flying start yesterday with 13 enthusiastic members, all of whom took to Hazel Court as a venue and stayed for coffee, after a two hour planning session, and some liked it so much they already have plans to stay for lunch next time. Cecily was full of enthusiasm, provided everyone with name stickers and got plenty of suggestions for this months books. Like her earlier group they decided to choose by vote two books per month, with the understanding that some will read both, others just one, with no penalty for reading neither.

That group will meet the Second Monday morning of each month at 10.30, thus the next two dates will be 8 December 2008 and 12 January 2009, which incidentally dovetails well with the plans for the Chess Group. It seems certain to be successful and thus bookings have been made for the whole session including July but with a break for April. The books for discussion on 8 December 2008 are 'A Fine Balance' by Rohinton Mistry, and 'The Clothes They Wore on their Backs, by Linda Grant, a Booker prize winner.

MODERN JIVE
This looks like being the surprise new group of the year, the one I thought might be too young in outlook for the U3A. It helps that Gerwyn Thomas is a very enthusiastic leader, as well as a good teacher of dance. We met for the first time last Wednesday morning around 10.30 in the Monkey Cafe, Castle Street, in the centre of Swansea at the back of what was David Evans. They have a proper dance floor upstairs, though I'm told the whole place throbs, upstairs and down, to Salsa on Tuesdays nights.

With the help of a couple of experienced jivers from a previous class, Gerwyn soon had us moving. A few of the taller women volunteered as surrogate men and took the lead, but this group has far greater proportion of men than most U3A groups. I am continually finding more members who want to join and so this too already looks a success from the start. Gerwyn was getting the partners to rotate every few minutes, an excellent idea both to get people to mix but also because it is essential to learn the basics, of this often free form dance, in a universal style. Joan and I learned to jive together way back in university days but I have always found it difficult to find the same rapport with other partners.

All you have to do is turn up and try.

MOTO, Members On Their Own
After a slow start the numbers signing are starting to accelerate. There are significant numbers who are facing life on their own after partners have died or left. Help with building a new life with new companions is what drives Gerwyn and this group. In fact this rather than jive was the group he really wanted to run. I feed him the names as people sign on and he makes email or telephone contact as appropriate. Their first get together was at lunch time last Wednesday after the jive group had finished in the same Monkey Cafe location.

FRENCH CONVERSATION
Fifteen were present at the first meeting of a new group last Thursday at 10am in Hazel Court. It explored the aims of the members for the sessions ahead, in English to ensure clarity of discussion, and in the second half people introduced themselves in French. It seemed to me that there was a good similarity in the standards of spoken French across the group. Thanks are due to Steve Johnson for leading the group but also to ex French Teacher Beryl Edney who by questioning and prompting was able to draw out conversations. There are several people known to be interested who could not make that first meeting so it seems the group will have sufficient support. On this basis I have reserved the room for every Thursday morning until Easter with a break over Christmas/New Year.

ARMCHAIR TRAVEL
Almost thirty people attended the first meeting of this established group in the Sketty Parklands Evangelical Church (very close to Hazel Court) to hear Brian Davies, the group's convener, describe a cruise right around the smaller islands of the Caribbean to celebrate his seventieth birthday. He had prepared a DVD of the trip with musical backing, though in many ways the thought provoking spoken introduction was the best part of the presentation. Not only were the gorgeous Caribbean beaches on display but a fantastic range of flowers. He and his wife enjoyed the experience so much that they have already booked to repeat the trip next spring.

POLITICS and CITIZENSHIP
Apologies to the group of around fifteen for dashing in late this afternoon, as always, and taking the convener Margaret Hammond unawares. Gabrielle Suff was about to start introducing the chosen topic "Assisted Suicide?". I decided to visit this group on this occasion because the subject presented so many tricky dilemmas that had a special interest for me.

Gabrielle introduced the subject particularly in relation to the two recent cases, one in which a wife with Multiple Sclerosis wanted a court ruling that her husband would not be prosecuted if he took her to a 'suicide' clinic in Switzerland, after she had lost the ability to travel alone, and another in which the parents of a 23 year old professional Rugby player who had broken his neck had done just that at his request. There were over 100 cases where assisted suicide had been procured outside the UK without legal intervention when such a course would have been clearly illegal within the UK and even considered as murder.

Once thrown out to the floor the discussion broadened to thoughts not just of suicide but of adherence to a person's wish not to be resuscitated from a critical illness. But as I pointed out increasingly peoples last years would be spent with dementia, given continual advances in medicine for other easier conditions, without memory without thought. To me as an atheist such a life is worthless and I would not wish my life to be preserved in such a condition. In direct contrast my mother because of her strong religious belief that 'Life was God's to give and Take Away' would have wanted to continue to the very end. Surely the wishes of the person, which everyone accepted were different, are paramount, and surely few of us would follow suicide or wish to pre-empt death without consideration of others.

For me the real dilemma for lawmakers is to guard against death imposed or withheld by others against our clearly expressed wishes, whether their motives are selfish or evil.

The importance of discussing such matters in advance with close family and friends is clearly a lesson to those, like me, who have so far baulked at the need to broach such subjects.

Next month Larry Owen will lead the discussion on 'Accountability'.

Hazel Court and Climate Change

INAUGURAL MEETING OF CLIMATE CHANGE GROUP
After last Wednesday's lecture Mike Wiseman convened the first meeting of one of the first groups of its kind in the UK. In future the group will meet on the Third Wednesday of the month in the Grove Theatre. In an introductory presentation he outlined the issues of Climate Change and particularly the need for our way of living to become sustainable. He expected future sessions to be discussion based and hoped that we would prepare ourselves for the next session.
There was nevertheless a spirited discussion with few of us having prepared. Some of the problems were highlighted including the need to curb the growth of population which Mike said on current trajectories would rise from over 6 billion to 9 billion by 2050. A frightening prospect in itself, especially when considering that 85% of the world are very poor (income of 1$ a day in many cases) and yet as their people become educated they will inevitably seek our standards of living, with all that implies in meat and dairy production, heating ever more living space per person, cars and air travel.

Nor in my opinion, that of an atheist, does it help that society is pushing sick people to a life beyond dignity or meaning. My mother celebrated her 90th birthday by playing her weekly game of badminton at the Leisure Centre with the 'Over 50 Club'. She still had the hand control and timing of the pianist and made winner after winner with her wicked drop shots. But within a couple of years dementia was striking harder and she spent her last four years without memory, short or long term. Joan was first alerted when mum asked 'Tell me, did ... I ... have a husband?' A fond childhood memory from the war years is of her saying, time after time, aloud to herself, 'I love dearly'.

If the developed world does not cut back drastically on its carbon footprint there will be disaster arising from the struggle for resources, not least water. Strange to think that excess water causing sea levels to rise and flood low lying land is another side to the story. It worries me that the worst my kids have seen is the recession of the early 80's, which made it so difficult for school leavers to find jobs. I often think my life has been spent at the high point in terms of prosperity on this island.

We are often inclined to think of China as the problem, but they have achieved far more than any other country by their strict, some in the group would say brutal, enforcement of a one child policy. The implications hit us hard on our visit when we realised that two sets of grandparents share a single grandchild. A four to one population rate reduction in two generations.

It was nice to hear Mike admit that the planet maybe entering an orbit which would result in global warming anyway. After all in geological timescales there have been far bigger changes in say sea level than is being predicted for 2050, and they didn't have a human cause.

I probably gave the group the opinion that I was less than sympathetic to the cause, but I was only trying to emphasise the need to be honest (scientific/numerate) in evaluating the solutions. It's nice to think I can help by not digging my garden and releasing CO2, but I don't think that would make a lot of difference. In fact we in the UK represent only 1% of the earth's population, doing only a little each is necessary - small changes do accumulate - but it's just a drop in the ocean. It's a far larger problem than that. I personally go along with the Stern Report which said, as I recall, that the world temperature rise in 200 years since the beginning of the industrial revolution was only a small fraction of one degree, but there were reasons for expecting it to accelerate and increase several degrees in the next fifty years. How is this temperature measured? That being so, the report concluded we need to address the problem because the cost of acting now is cheaper and infinitely preferable to facing disaster in a few decades.

Exactly what will drive that dramatic acceleration I do not understand. But part of it is undoubtedly due the potential loss of the polar icecaps. To melt ice requires enormous heat inputs to provide the latent heat needed for the state change to water, but once ice melts its reflective effect (which transmits the heat back to space) will be lost as well, and that much more heat will be available to increase the temperature of the earth. But in industry I have seen too many mathematical models of complex systems fail to predict what was about to happen. But in a worst case scenario the big ocean currents, which are driven by the heat of the tropics and the cold sink of the polar regions, could fail. If we lost the Gulf Stream then we would revert to the normal temperature for our latitude,so the UK would have winters like the frozen north of Canada.

The view was correctly stated that the argument as to what extent global warming was natural or a consequence of human activity was clouding the picture, and too often being used as an excuse for inaction.

For my part I definitely don't buy into the consumer society. I have never forgotten 'waste not want not', which was ingrained into our generation. I hate shopping, so does Joan. We have a well insulated house and low gas/electricity costs for its size As an electrical engineer I reluctantly believe the only realistic solution to a producing bulk electricity with a lowering of carbon emissions is nuclear power (don't forget that's how the sun does it!!). As a world travellers we move around using scheduled local buses (plus a couple of long haul flight per year!!!), and even went vegetarian in India.

All that makes me feel good for I can argue that I'm doing my part. But come off it Brian, You have a very comfortable style of living. Yes, I am still part of the problem, I'm not even going to convert to vegetarianism, I love beef (even raw beef) and cheese. It adds up to nothing if 9 billion people live like me. But I'm not going to give up my comforts until forced to, nor is realistic to think the other 99% of the world won't want to live like us in the UK. But that is not an argument for doing nothing. Let's not be dinosaurs. We in the developed world must show the way and going nuclear would make a big impact, and big problems need big solutions. Let us also hope that the models are exaggerating the rate of deterioration, and we have a little more time to go till doomsday.

Just Musing

I'm in a good mood because I watch BBC 4 like some friends listen to Radio Four. Did you see that wonderful series on Wild China? It registers so vividly with us because of our travels there. Tonight I watched a program on Les Paul. Very special to me because the very first record I ever bought (age 12?) was Whispering, a demonstration of his melodic jazzy guitar playing. When I look back many things in my past make me shudder, but I'm delighted to recall my early taste in music.

Les Paul like pianist Nat (King) Cole started off in the pre-war jazz scene in Chicago and then moved to New York alongside greats such as the jazz pianist Art Tatum. Nat Cole could sing as well as play, but Les Paul squared the circle by marrying vocalist Mary Ford, and all three became hugely successful popular artists. Rock and Roll signalled the end of them as a popular artists and Les returned to his early roots of Country and Jazz, playing in small clubs. He was still playing well for his 90th birthday celebration.

Do those of you who prefer a different genre remember Segovia the Spaniard who, with the help of composers like Villa Lobos, demonstrated to the world that the acoustic guitar could produce beautiful classical music. Florrie Toft claims the same is true of humble recorders, but they have not yet gained similar international recognition. Anyone who heard the 90 year old Segovia play one of his very last concerts, in the Brangwyn Hall, will not have forgotten the experience. Clearly by then physically an old man, and a little down on technique, his unique guitar voice shone out and left an enraptured audience in tears of wonder.

Perhaps even more astounding is Les Paul's reach, because not only was he a brilliant musician, comparable with say Django Reinhardt, but a brilliant electronic engineer. He designed the first solid wood electric guitar after demonstrating the potential by fixing a finger board to a heavy block of hardwood just wide enough to anchor the strings and mount his own design of electric pick ups. (In early soundings he had favoured the notes made by steel railway lines rather than wood, but his mother convinced him that this was not a practical proposition). The guitar firm Gibson commercialised the ideas in their most famous, widely revered model. Thereafter almost everyone rich and famous, like Jimmy Hendrix and the Beatles, played Les Paul Guitars.

Having cracked the production of an electric guitar he started to use his early training in electrics to cut his own records, moving to a newfangled tape recorder he learnt to superimpose tracks one at a time, painstakingly building up a complete modern style hit recording.A technique which heralded the much logistically simpler parallel multi-track recording of today. Many of the massive hits of Les and Mary Ford were recorded by themselves in their own home.

HAZEL COURT
Chairman Bob, Cecily, Pat Herbert, Jan Phillips, Brian Davies and myself paid a them a much postponed visit. It is a well designed complex of 120 flats for over 55's in the location of the previous Sketty flats. It is jointly owned by the housing charity Family Housing Association and the Welsh Assembly. The attraction for us is the availability of a range of a pleasant modern rooms for hire, for half days and at attractive prices. It is an obvious venue for the activities of our Groups. The attraction is mutual because they want organisations like us to help develop a rich environmentThey will begin with by concentrating on their 200 residents, but once established they intend to open up to the Parklands/Sketty community.

Two rooms stood out. A pleasant quiet room for groups of about 20 which seems likely to be taken up by the revived French Conversation Group and Reading Group 4. Plus the large Craft Room with power sockets all around the walls plus wireless and probably ethernet broadband, It is thus ideal for computer based classes as well as the craft based activities like painting for which it was intended. In addition on the ground floor there is the Main Hall, with a large adjacent patio, which would seat 100 or more in a lecture or would be an ideal location for large social events or dancing. There is also a Hairdressers, a DIY laundry with large machines, a Restaurant with reasonable prices both for snacks and meals, and a Bar - though we did not see one, honest!

The minor drawback is the need to pay 13 weeks rental in advance which means it is only suitable for established groups or those fairly certain of continuity. We were the first organisation to be shown around, although others like Life Long Learning are following, and need to consolidate what we all believed would be a fruitful partnership.

WEDNESDAY LECTURE

Hidden Meanings in Holbein’s ‘The Ambassadors’, reviewed by Virginia Jones

The first lecture in Swansea U3A's 2008/9 season was delivered by Dr. Louise Govier, the daughter of Jill and Roly. Dr. Govier has spoken to the group before and her talk was eagerly anticipated. Her subject was The Ambassadors which was painted in 1533 in oil on wood. It has ben the subject of much scrutiny and discussion over the years, and gave rise to many theories about the occult measages which were hidden within it.

Dr Govier pointed out that this painting was done at a time of great religious and political tension. King Henry V111th’s court was waiting for the annulment of his marriage to Catherine of Aragon and the subsequent break from Rome. Anne Boleyn was already pregnant at this time and astronomers had announced that the child would be a boy. The French King was more than interested in the outcome of the situation and had sent an Ambassador, Jean de Dineville to the English court. He is the gentleman on the left of the painting. The other person in the painting is Georges de Selve, Bishop of Lavour, a close friend of de Dineville.

So, does the painting refer to the troubled times, both religious and political? It certainly shows two men of status and power, illustrating their wealth and confidence. The room itself also shows great richness and expense.

The many objects in the painting are laid out in two layers – the top layer depicts the tudy of the heavens with the celestial globe, whilst the bottom layer depicts more earthly pursuits as shown by the terrestrial globe, book of arithmetic and so on. – saying also that the men are learned and educated.

However, the painting is also famous as an example of anamorphosis – showing things in a distorted way that can only be seen from a certain angle. The strange shape at the very front of the painting is in fact a skull, if viewed from the side at the correct angle – symbolising perhaps that, despite wealth and status, death is always in front of us. If this is also seen in conjunction with the crucifix at the top left hand corner, then one is also being reminded that the after-life is the REAL focus here.

Dr Govier went on to show us many other symbolic references in the painting – too many to mention here - but suffice to say that the conspiracy theorists have been kept busy over the years with ideas about cabalistic numbers and occult devices.

It is impossible to know if the artist meant all this to be read into the painting but it has generated a great deal of interest over the years.

This talk was a truly memorable one – the speaker was not only very knowledgeable but also erudite and amusing in her delivery. This was an exciting start to the 2008-09 academic year for Swansea U3A and we look forward to a year of equally memorable lectures and events.