Happy Special Birthday, Naomi! Our love and best wishes from your U3A family
The Monday Morning Talk
This Monday morning Talk at 10.30; In ‘Fallen Idols and Statue Wars’ Linda Hampson recommends we get historical, not hysterical about statues that glorify a past that clashes with contemporary attitudes and will explore the arguments around leaving or removing them. Linda taught history in London schools for over 40 years, and since retirement has continued to pursue the subject.
Next week: Do you remember Joe Lyons’ Corner Houses? In his talk, Dr David Barnett discusses the man and his tea shops. David had a career in coal mining and road transport before retiring. He subsequently achieved a PhD in business history and has taken a close interest in 18th to 20th Century London, some of its major personalities and their businesses.
You can see the list of our Monday Morning talks this term on our website.
Problems with Logging on?
Many of you experienced problems with logging on during last week – there were two main reasons. One was an issue with the updating of the links and hopefully should not happen again. The other may be that someone had blocked the system for others. For example, it has happened that a member blocked a class for 1.5 hours by logging into a class that had already finished a quarter of an hour previously. Often there are multiple attempts to attend a lecture on the wrong day at the wrong time. SO DO TAKE CARE!
Maureen Guirdham (Travellers’Tales)
A reminder and apology for those who tried to tune in to her Wednesday talk last week. We forgot to say that it wasn’t starting until 13 January. It starts this week and was erroneously advertised in last week’s timetable. Ooops.
Lucia Bird (Advanced Spanish)
There has been some confusion about the timing of this class. It is now at 11.00 fortnightly, starting on Wednesday 13 January and the link is in the timetable.
For the Fans of Wally Howard
I have pleasure in attaching links to Wally’s talks for next week: Part Two of The Martinsville Seven in the miscarriages of justice series, Part 23 of Reflections at 95 and a Digression – Memories at 95 – A digression about India.
Watch “The Martinsville Seven – Part 2” on Vimeo: https://vimeo.com/497578812?ref=em-share
Watch “Reflections at 95 – Part 23” on Vimeo: https://vimeo.com/497931791?ref=em-share
Watch “Memories at 95 – A digression about India” on Vimeo: https://vimeo.com/497571687?ref=em-share
Best wishes, Lyana
For the Fans of Michael Baum
Not only his fans, but all of us are delighted to hear that he has recovered. We are so very pleased that he will be resuming his talks on 26 January.
From Pieta Ruck Keene
This week the Tuesday 11-12 class is called The Neurophysiology of Pain.
Over 6 weeks we’ll be exploring pain science and doing exercises that are designed to reduce chronic pain. We will still be doing our chair based exercise circuit in the second half of class.
From your guides at U3A London history walks
Happy New Year although…we’re sorry 2021 is starting with another lockdown which means another delay before we can get together again and walk the walk. In the meantime we are still talking the talk and we have two new virtual tours on Zoom for you this term.
Dates for your diary – the first U3A History Walk ‘A River of Palaces’ will take place next Tuesday 2pm.
The first “walk” is about royal residences on the banks of the Thames. The second is Cities of the Dead on 23rd February which explores the great Victorian cemeteries of London. They start as usual at 2.00p.m – why not put them in the diary now? We may be able to follow up with a third tour in March but nothing has yet been arranged.
To come on these tours you need do nothing except log in on the day. We will send you the login details in good time – expect the notice for the first one in the next Update.
Thanks to all of you who sent in suggestions for these tours – hopefully some of you will recognize the topics we have chosen.
Chris , Richard & Charlie.
Don’t fall for the latest scam:
Never share your details with anyone – even if it looks authentic, like this one:
This week the pictures are from Maureen Betts’ Thursday Art Class
From Avril 
From Manny 
From Wendy
From Shirley 
From Jelena
To Make You Smile
I’m showing off – this poem was written by my grandson Noah, aged 8. When he wrote it, he thought he’d be back at school on 4 January 2021.
POEM FOR 2020
In January, things were going well,
By March things were a living hell.
Covid brought us all online.
And then we thought it might be fine.
We learned some stuff,
Some things easy, some things tough.
Our teacher set homework every week
And put videos on Google Classroom, where he would speak.
The story book of KrindleKrax was really good.
Almost like something from Hollywood.
It was good to go back to school,
But we had to follow the social distancing rule.
So have a great Christmas everyone,
And hope we have fun in 2021.
From Steve Stephens
SERIOUS LOCK DOWN ADVICE
Everyone PLEASE be careful because people are going mad from being locked down at home!
I was just talking about this to the microwave and the toaster while drinking my tea, and we all agreed that things are getting bad.
I didn’t mention any of this to the washing machine, because she puts a different spin on EVERYTHING!! Certainly, couldn’t share with the fridge, cause he’s been acting cold and distant!
In the end, the iron straightened me out! She said the situation isn’t all that pressing and all the wrinkles will soon get ironed out!
The vacuum cleaner, however, was very unsympathetic…told me to just suck it up! But the fan was VERY optimistic and gave me hope that it will all blow over soon!
The toilet looked a bit flushed but didn’t say anything when I asked its opinion, but the front door said I was becoming unhinged and the doorknob told me to get a grip!! You can just about guess what the curtains told me: they told me to “pull myself together!”
We will survive!!