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Demography and Death
Tue 20 July DC at The Blue Mugge

Notes based on BBC Radio 4 Thinking Allowed Demography of Death and Social History of Dying (July 2007).

1.   ‘Stone Age people had an idea of death but not of dying’…
‘Dying became a fact of human culture when the first cities were built’.
10,000 years ago and later - the idea of a journey beyond death with burial goods to
help the journey (weapons etc).

2. Changes in life expectancy: C17 15% died in first year; 50% by 40; 15% lived to
70plus…
Urbanisation for a long time hastened early deaths - infectious diseases.
Only in C20 did infectious agents disappear
Today: Life expectancy = 79 and rising…
Implications…

3. We can now be diagnosed with a fatal illness = time awareness, concept of ‘a dying
period’ relatively new. Arrival of ‘slow deaths’ has transformed ways in which people prepare for death.
Sudden and early death where children die before parents in this time of long life-expectancy…
Implications…

4. Attitudes to death and dying
‘a shameful death’; Aids… in Africa and elsewhere. Other ‘shameful’ deaths.

5. Developments from death in communities to death delegated to others…
Community > commerce. Funeral Directors… Wills…

6. Different faiths and cross-cultural comparisons in rituals and attitudes to death
- an after-life, concepts of re-incarnation; total end and meaninglessness...

7. Contemporary issues:
‘nursing homes’ and alternatives… euthanasia… suicides increasing?

8.   ‘Remembrance’ - the importance of keeping alive with memory. Photos…
wanting loves ones to be ‘still with us…’.

9.   Consider these quotes:
“Death is a very dull, dreary affair - my advice to you is to have nothing whatever
to do with it”      Somerset Maugham

“In the last analysis, it is our conception of death which decides our answers to l
all the questions that life puts to us”    Dag Hammarskjeld.

10. Graveyard humour - from Hamlet to Akenfield.

Journalism and Power
Discussion Circle Tue 13th July 10 at The Blue Mugge

Notes by TS, with DT. Trevor will chair the session.

1. What do we understand by journalism? How is it defined? Is the news industry based upon journalism?

2. What do we read/listen to/see – newspapers, news magazines – specialist publications like New Scientist, The Economist, Time – Radio Four – BBC/ITV/Channel Four, Sky, Fox, CNN… the web…

3. Which of these outlets for journalism has the most influence?

4. Which journalists do we believe?

5. Which form of media – print/radio/TV has the most powerful influence on general opinion?

6. Who controls such opinion-making? Does it matter who owns the media?
Consider Manufacturing Consent by Chomsky and Harman (1988) –
‘The Propaganda Model’: ie Rupert Murdoch - all of his 144 papers globally
supported the Iraq war…

7. Do we have free press? Is the press now under more economic pressure than ever –
the recession, the web… consider the local press closures…

8. Does the press/media/the journalist have too much power?

9. Which journalists do you read, respect, and assume you will be given a balanced picture and a declared opinion?

10. Consider these views:

‘A good newspaper, I suppose, is a nation talking to itself’ Arthur Millar

‘Men of power have not time to read; yet men who do not read are unfit for
power’ Michael Foot.

‘Comment is free but facts are sacred’ CP Scott, 1926.

Wootton Bassett

Discussion Circle, Tue 29th June 10 at The Blue Mugge

Notes prepared by Tony Clark:

What do the group know about what happens at Wootton Bassett?

Suggest three lines to develop:

The relationship between society and the armed services - talk of a covenant between the two - what do people understand by this. David Cameron has talked about increasing appreciation of service personnel. Does Kipling’s ‘Tommy’ still ring true?

O it’s Tommy this, an’ Tommy that, an’ “Tommy go away”;
But it’s “Thank you, Mister Atkins,” when the band begins to play -

In the first half of the 20th century the whole population was closely tied into the services, war work, and general suffering - today this is not the case - will the majority of citizens ever have a good understanding of what the services go through?

How does an individual’s view of a particular conflict influence their view of the armed forces?
How should war dead be commemorated?

There is a great interest in visiting WWI and WWII cemeteries - why?

Up to and including the Falkland’s War, the war dead were buried where they fell - why has this changed? Which is the better way?

We have Remembrance Sunday and Remembrance Day - if you observe the two minute silence what do you think of? We now have Armed Forces Day - what purpose does this serve?

Those who have visited the National Memorial Arboretum might like to share their views on the site.

Is protest against a war acceptable at commemoration events?
What’s happened to the stiff upper lip?

Wootton Bassett is a time for expressions publicly of both private and collective grief. Brits used to pride themselves on their reserve and stiff upper lip. Following the funeral of the Princess of Wales it seems more acceptable to show your feelings in public. Is this a good or a bad thing?

The Staffordshire Hoard
Discussion Circle Tue 15th June 10 at The Blue Mugge

‘One of the greatest archaeological finds ever made’

Background and sharing of information:
The story of the find
Anglo-Saxon history and culture
Mercia,
- comment from those who have seen the Hoard.

2.   ‘The Dark Ages’ comment on how History is ‘discovered’, defined and
‘created’.    Comment on ‘evidence’.

3.    The Hoard ‘will change our view of the history of the period for ever’.
Martial objects
Why buried there?
‘…it will make historians and literary scholars review what their
sources tell us…’

4. Heritage issues: fund-raising; conservation; museum culture and education.

5. Tourism: thousands visit museums to see the Staffordshire Hoard.
The phenomenon of Art, History and Tourism: internationally, nationally,
regionally and locally…. Comments

Evolution and a History of the Human Brain
Discussion Circle Tue 8 June 10 at The Blue Mugge

Notes, information and ideas for this meeting based on the BBC In our Time series
Programmes on Human Evolution, (Feb 06), History of the Brain (May 08) and The Infant Brain (March 2010) plus earlier Mugge and Trout sessions on Consciousness - visit www.oddc.org.uk

1. What do you know about your brain? Each who wishes comments, briefly. What issue/s, not referred to below, would you want to add for comment and discussion?

2. Human evolution. How far back do we go? When did Hominids appear on the planet? What do we know about Homo erectus; ‘Lucy’ of East Africa; Neanderthals; Homo sapiens? Evidence from fossils which is all we have - strengths and weaknesses.

3. Language communication between humans - when did it start? What importance do the answers to these questions, so far, have for the wo/man on the street? Views on how ‘creationists’ cope with fossil evidence of human evolution.

4. For Plato, the soul controlled the body… for Aristotle, the heart was the central organ of the human body… in Shakespeare, the ‘heart’ is massively represented, the ‘brain’ rarely mentioned, and then rather dismissively… Religion and the importance of the soul…

5. Only from the 17th century did a scientific focus on the brain commence; C19 Phrenology… later asking whence comes ‘individuality’ from this ‘pulpy mass which is the brain…’.

6. Babies and language acquisition. “600 phonetic sounds and all can be recognised by babies …” “Chomsky’s theory of a ‘universal grammar’ challenged Piaget…” Don’t worry, these names and theories will be explained by participants who have some knowledge… “Is ‘language’ hard-wired in human brains?” (Melvyn’s question). Implications.

7.   Recent evidence…each of us has approx.   ‘10 billion neurons in our brains from
birth.. with neurons’ potential for making 1000 connections… and the brain learns by modulating the connections between neurons … and these connections link sections of the brain…’.    So, aren’t we clever?    Not really, because it seems that most of us under-use our brains. Re-visit earlier arguments on neuro-physiologist Susan Greenfield’s view:
“Use it or lose it”; dangers from new technology and contemporary culture, encouraging sound-bite communication.   Impact on the brain: negative. She stresses the importance of engaging with complexity by talking to each other.

8. Earlier Mugge/Trout sessions on ‘consciousness’: “Electrical stimulation of the brain during surgery can cause a person to have hallucinations indistinguishable from reality”.

9. Steven Rose book, The Conscious Brain: “Consciousness in my sense of the term is a continuously unrolling, continuously developing activity of the mind/brains in interaction with their environment; modified, either temporarily or permanently, by changed circumstances.”

10. Take the Wildebeest - a completely dumb individual being, but in their herds,
collectively, they are more ‘brainy’ and survive relatively well.
Do we humans have extraordinary individual brains and minds but, collectively as a species, still lack something?

Singing
Discussion Circle Tue 1 June 10 at The Blue Mugge pub

1. An early memory of singing – each who wishes gives a brief account. Significant?

2. The Singing Neanderthals: The origins of Music, Language, Mind and Body by Steven
Mithen (2005).
“A treasure trove of information and analysis relevant to understanding the evolution
of music.”
(Reviews of this book available via google.. )
Short, eloquent, exposition/s on this by circle member/s.
“The propensity to make music is the most mysterious, wonderful and neglected feature
of human-kind…” Agreed?

Big issues, within which we will talk about:

3. Singing and the brain…

4. .… helpful for education and learning generally;

5. …people who stutter, when talking, can sing fluently… why?

6. …singing aids 2nd and 3rd etc… language acquisition… how and why?

7. Now, consider Adrien Mitchell’s poem:

Dear Sir,
I have read your Manifesto with great interest
But
It has nothing on
Singing.

(Incidentally, why is this a poem?)

8. Sacred music and choirs. Consider the recent TV series about the social value of choirs…

9. Any national cultural, class and gender issues related to singing not already addressed?

10. Our own pub sing-song (please bring hymn-sheets/song sheets with the words…).

John Ruskin(1819-1900)

Discussion circle Blue Mugge 6 May 2010

Son of the co-founder of the company which became Allied-Domecq. Educated at home. Went to Oxford as a gentleman-commoner. Got a forth class degree.
English art critic and social thinker, also remembered as a poet and artist. This is Amalfi- a watercolour. What do we think of this?
Amalfi
His religious beliefs influenced his whole being. He had poor health so travelled widely in warm countries. Notably Italy. His essays on art and architecture were extremely influential in the Victorian and Edwardian eras.
Married Effie Gray in 1848. It was notoriously unhappy eventually being annulled. Not consummated. His ex wife then married his friend John Everett Millais. - Loads of gossip?
Had a relationship with Rose la Touche a young(10) Irish girl. Her pet name for him was "St. Crumpet” .- Even more gossip?

He was a prolific writer – 270 books. “Modern Painters” five volumes written over 13 years started as a defence of Turner. Any idea why?

His critique of art was, to me, incredibly involved, take this example from ‘Modern Painters’ written from 1843....

Describing Tintoretto'sAnnunciation in the Scuola di San Rocco, Venice, Ruskin begins with the spectator's experience of its realism. He starts therefore by pointing out that one first notices the Virgin sitting "houseless, under the shelter of a palace vestibule ruined and abandoned', surrounded by desolation. The spectator, says Ruskin, "turns away at first, revolted, from the central object of the picture forced painfully and coarsely forward, a mass of shattered brickwork, with the plaster mildewed away from it'. Such genre details, he suggests, might strike one as little more than a study of the kind of scene the artist "could but too easily obtain among the ruins of his own Venice, chosen to give a coarse explanation of the calling and the condition of the husband of Mary'. What do we think of this type of criticism?

As time moved on he wrote more and more on his thoughts on Political and Economic theory. As well as a bit of philosophy..
He believes that all truth is comprehended visually, and to this axiom he joins the corollary that to learn anything one must experience it — see it — for oneself. Visual truths arise in the exterior world and visionary ones in the interior one of the mind, both are matters of personal experience. What does he mean by this?

One of the many things that set Ruskin apart from others was his ability to take a seemingly trivial element of contemporary life and extrapolate it to show an important fault in society.
Do we know of any such trivial points in our society?

A visit to the Domecqs, his father's business associates, amid their Parisian elegance presented him with an enigma that demanded interpretation. As a young boy, he wondered why the Andalusians who grew the grapes for the Pedro Domecq sherries "should virtually get no good of their own beautiful country but the bunch of grapes or stalk of garlic they frugally dined on; that its precious wine was not for them, still less the money it was sold for. Familiar?

His essays published in 1862 as ‘Unto this last’ set out many of his thoughts on social justice which influenced the development of the Labour party and Gandhi

“Worship of the Goddess of Getting-on implies that they also condemn others to miserable lives, he presents a picture of their ideal that enforces corollaries or implicit points they would willingly leave out of their sight and consciousness” .

"Production does not consist in things laboriously made, but in things serviceably consumable; and the question for the nation is not how much labour it employs, but how much life it produces. For as consumption is the end and aim of production, so life is the end and aim of consumption"
How do these two quotes resonant with life today?

Ruskin believed that an “affectionate” relationship between master and operative would ultimately produce better quality and more volume than an antagonistic relationship.
He also believed that you should pay the rate for the job which attracts good operatives not those that will do the job for less. The bad workman should not be able to offer his work at say half price thus bringing down the rightful remuneration of the good quality workmen.
Would this work?

Who Needs Moral Philosophy?
Discussion Circle Tue 27 April 2010 at The Blue Mugge

Theme suggested by Martin Hofman, from essay by Simon Blackburn (SB), Professor of Philosophy, University of Cambridge. Notes on this by Derek Tatton as overseen by Martin. Copy of full essay also enclosed at Martin’s request!

1. Do we think moral philosophy is useful and important? Comments before we engage with SB’s paper.

2. ‘…. just as we need clear air, we need a clean moral climate - and one of the tasks of moral philosophy is to worry about whether we have it.’

3. The main thrust of SB’s argument is to assert the case for moral philosophy challenging
ideologies, ‘scientific reductionists’ and some ‘common sense’ views that stem from these.

4. ‘A current claimant to moral philosophy’s throne is biology. EO Wilson’s famous remark about Marxism, “wonderful theory; wrong species” encapsulates the idea that what is possible for human beings is written into their genes…. Similarly, Margaret Thatcher’s remark that there is no such thing as society was believable because the ideology of the self-interested agent in eternal competition with others seemed to be in line with the theory of evolution. Thatcher seems not to have … noticed that language, money and law (the last two were especially dear to her government) were socially constructed and sustained…’

5. ‘Darwin… saw perfectly clearly how groups with firm moralities are apt to do better than groups with none…. it is quite consistent with evolution by natural selection to suppose that we are endowed with plastic, responsive, empathetic and socially intelligent brains ready to be moulded by culture and society…’

6. ‘It is doubtless because of my genes that I am able to speak a language, but it is because of my culture that I speak English. Many psychological variables are changeable: for all we know a confluence of cultural, environmental and other forces could throw up a people as averse to inequality and economic injustice as American Republicans are to taxes.

7. SB also expresses caution about ‘the science of the brain’ (we’ll discuss this) and he challenges the idea that the amount people are prepared to pay in advance for something is the best measure of its value…. ‘In a modern economy…it is not desire so much as seduction – by propagandists and salesmen – that directs our wishes’. How then do we establish the ‘value’ of anything?

8. Experiments, mainly in the USA, using web questionnaires for testing ‘moral scenarios’ (an
example will be quoted) suggest there may be an innate ‘moral module’ - a world wide similarity of moral views in people. SB questions this too.

9. His summary of what C21 moral philosophers should do is ambitious: ‘We try to understand where we are and where we might get to in the light of everything we can know about human beings and their lives.’

10. He ends quoting Keynes that everybody works according to a theory – some who regard
themselves as above philosophical theorising ‘are simply the slaves of defunct theorists.’ The way forward is to continue debating the issues ‘and try to do better’.

Time and Ageing
Discussion Circle Tue 20 April 2010 at The Blue Mugge

Idea from Trevor Siggers (TS), who provided notes to which Derek Tatton also
contributed. These based on Tony Benn’s essay: “Time Waits For No Man (so what
will you do with yours?”) From the book, Letters to my Grandchildren, (Hutchinson).

1. Tony Benn (TB), born 1925 and 85 years old on 3rd April 2010, offers an interesting way of measuring change and progress by looking back to the ‘world’ of great-grand parents, grand parents etc., going back in time, using one’s age as a measure of change and progress.

2. TS has done this for his own life - going back to the 1940s, describing his parents and their background. Then back to earlier generations, commenting on changes.
Historian David Kynaston does something similar in his acclaimed book
Austerity Britain 1945-1948, beginning the second chapter:
“Britain in 1945. No supermarkets, no motorways, no teabags, no frozen food, no duvets, no Pill, no trainers…” He fills a page with these, and other changes, from that year when millions would experience: ‘mangles, water geysers, chilblains, Woodbines, Eno’s, Germolene… ‘. Each who wishes to, in our circle, will do the same… making a list. Comment on the changes.

3. Back another 60 years to 1885… same, and comment on changes.

4. TB emphasises that the pace of change has so speeded up that it is almost impossible
to imagine the world our grandchildren will be living in when they are our age.
Agreed? Suggest five features of the Global Village in 2070.

5. In his reflections on history and change, TB suggests, “If you don’t know where you
come from, you don’t know who you are and then it is almost impossible to move
forward”. (Visit: www.historymatters.org.uk )

6. Is keeping a diary a good thing? For TB: “Experience is the only real teacher and if
you keep a diary you get three bites at educating yourself: when it happens; when
you write it down; when you re-read it … and realise you were wrong.”

7. TB: ‘Time has taught me to be suspicious of people who want power’
TS: But without power, what gets done?
What has time taught us?

8. TB: ‘I have thought for some time that progress is made because there are two
flames burning in the human heart: the flame of anger against injustice, and the
flame of hope that you can build a better world.’

9. TB: ‘The younger generation of Twitterers and bloggers is the most spied-on,
recorded and monitored ever. In Britain, personal data and DNA can be included on
a wide range of databases, regardless of guilt or innocence… the younger generation
will need to stand firm and not be frightened into giving up freedoms that have been
secured by years of struggle.’
TS: Is this warning to the young about the degree of monitoring and surveillance and
recording of our ordinary lives justified? Are hard won freedoms really being lost or is
this monitoring etc. all done to protect us?

10. What advice do we offer the next generation on other big issues?

Theology/Philosophy – St. Thomas Aquinas
ODDc Tue 23 March 2010 at The Blue Mugge

Notes based on Radio 4 In our Time, 2009, and Wikipedia

1. One of the most important thinkers in the history of theology and philosophy. What did we learn about Aquinas at School? Re-visiting an earlier theme, we can begin by asking
‘What have theologians done for us?’

2. Aquinas, born 1225… died 1274. An outline of his biography- what he did and what he
wrote of special importance. Members of the circle (who have heard the broadcast or have something to say) will offer brief facts and commentary on this.

3. Further comment, if necessary, on the cities, culture and intellectual environment in his time: universities being created; trading across wide territories; the sense of a bigger world;
Plato, Aristotle and Augustine taught and challenged; rise of radical Christianity; the impact of Islam and Arabic scholarship…

4. ‘A radical thinker/theologian for his time… a conservative theologian now?’

5. ‘Five proofs of the existence of God’
Summarised, explained, then debated.

6. His synthesis of Faith and Reason.

7. Morality: take the Ten Commandments - ‘they are good because God commands …’
Aquinas, ‘No, God commands because they are good… ‘

8. Aquinas’ contribution to the concept of The Just War. For the Feudal Church compliance
was important. Aquinas asked ‘What if it is not a just war?’ An enduring argument for
Christians, for everybody…

9. Aquinas on Desire and Love: a commentator writes; for Aquinas ‘is is desire which
makes us what we are… - which is the organising principle of all our actions - is the
yearning for happiness. But it is natural not to attain it.’

From The Perennial Philosophy by Aldous Huxley: ‘Here on earth the love of God is
better than the knowledge of God, while it is better to know inferior things than to love
them. By knowing them we raise them, in a way, to our intelligence, whereas by loving
them we stoop towards them and may become subservient to them, as the miser to his
gold.’ Aquinas, paraphrased.

10. Aquinas had an experience at Mass in 1273 - A revelation, maybe. He stopped writing,
‘No more words’ he said, ‘words are straw’.

Gender Voting and The Rational Voter

ODDc Tue 16 March 2010 at The Blue Mugge
Notes based on BBC Radio 4 Thinking Allowed (TA) programmes.

Gender Voting, (TA October 2007. Rosie Campbell, Lecturer in Research Methods, Birkbeck College …)

1. on different ways men and women evaluate political policies. Evidence of gender differences in voting generally - yes, USA since 1980 more women voted Democrat…
Not so straight forward here in Britain: more younger women voted Labour in recent elections, more older women, Conservative….

2. Focus group evidence: men talk more in abstract terms (socialism, capitalism); women more concerned about family and children… Eg. Focus groups, 75% women reference to family; 11% men…

3. RS conducted bigger, more thorough, survey… differences less dramatic, but still certainly there. ‘When you think about policy, what carries most weight?’ Women more concerned about family and children issues. Nature/nurture issues again…. ?

4. Impact on politicians and political parties? Yes, eg. Recently Tory Party expression of concern for work/life balance (this more important for women…).

5. The Rational Voter (TA, May 2007) based on book by Prof. Bryan Caplan (American)
Why Democracies Chose Bad Policies in which he develops the idea that voters are worse than ignorant… they are irrational. Argues it would be better to allow a Council of Economists to take decisions on economics… The ‘ordinary voter’ does not understand markets.

6. Challenged by Laurie Taylor and guest, Prof. Paul Whiteley: Churchill quoted,
‘Democracy is worst kind of Government until you look at alternatives’…

7. Paradox of rationality… difference between what may be ‘rational’ for individual and for the collective, for the community, for the nation, internationally…

8. ‘Voters may not be well informed but they can get things right’ > the concept of
‘Low-information rationality’. Voters aware of certain economic truths… can get things right with little information?

9. LT and PW stated that economists and experts can be irrational and get things badly wrong too (Caplan argued his case before the 2008 Economic Crisis…)

The Internet: social, educational and political impact.
ODDcircle Tue 9 Mar 2010 at The Blue Mugge

1. The pace of technological development and change in communications stemming from
e-mail and the internet is probably unparalleled in human history. Do you agree?

2. The Virtual Revolution (these notes based on BBC 2 Programme of that title,
30th January 2010, onwards, (linked to the OU, which itself represents a remarkable C20 educational revolution using media technology…)

3. The Internet and the Web: information and distinctions… Origins of the idea: 1960s libertarianism and counter-culture. The dream of levelling, using an empowering tool.

4. Tim Berners-Lee working in Geneva, created the first web-site on 6th August 1991. (Yes, less than 20 years ago…)
He believed in sharing information, resisting authority, enabling all users to have equal access, free to all. He was the web’s inventor, ‘and he gave it away’.

5. 1995, Bill Gates and Microsoft. Internet Explorer, with more than 90% of the market.
Two views of ‘sharing’ -
i) libertarian, free-access
ii) the corporate, involving big money. The dot.com boom - and bust. Now 95% of music exchanged on line and not paid for…

6. The Wikipedia phenomenon. ‘Edited from below’ Discussion on this.
“If you don’t believe in progress think of dentistry”…. Consider a similar argument regarding this aspect of the internet revolution?

7. The down-side, maybe: large % of web sites = pornography; masses of trivia.

Consider, afresh, Frank Furedi’s thesis (Where Have All The Intellectuals Gone? Published 2004).

“The intellectual is an endangered species. In place of (C20) people such as Bertrand Russell,
Raymond Williams or Hannah Arendt – people with genuine learning, breadth of vision and a concern for public issues – we now have only facile pundits, think tank apologists and spin doctors. In the age of the knowledge economy, we have somehow managed to combine the widest ever participation in higher education with the most dumbed-down of cultures.”

8. Very recently from the mid-noughties – the rapidly growing impact of the internet on
politics. Consider:

the Obama campaign and election.
www.38degrees.org.uk based on the ‘tipping point’ concept…

       iii)        Avaaz     a 3.8 million ‘member’ global campaign network to ‘inform
global decision-making (Avaaz = ‘voice’ or ‘song’ in many languages).
iv)        www.change.orgActionAlert    campaign network directed primarily at US policy
makers but:   ‘Dear Derek (in Leek) ‘Obama’s new climate policy…’”.
v)         our own, and everybody’s, remarkable www.opendemocracy.net

9. The forth-coming election here: political party and other web-sites. What impact?

10. Likely internet impact and influence on future political processes?

Shops and Shopping
ODDc Tue 2 Mar 2010 at The Blue Mugge

Last week’s session on Leek History and Heritage only, as ever, scratched the surface on several key issues. This week we will take further some themes raised, but not engaged with, in more detail, beginning with ‘shopping’:

1. Our memories of childhood shops and shopping… No more than 2 minutes each on this.

2. What has changed?
Prioritise, and add to, these thoughts: shopping by car; supermarkets; hypermarkets; out-of-town shopping; internet shopping; smaller trader-independent shops and town centre issues; the Co-op; Charity shops; City Shopping Malls;
multi-national/trans-national conglomerates; consumer capitalism > M&S ‘Simply Food’ developments… Only a few minutes each on these and other added thoughts.

3. Social and psychological impact of the above: ‘retail therapy’; shopping is, apparently, the favourite pass-time/hobby/free-time activity for most citizens… implications?

4. Impact of 2, on city and town centres, villages: advantages and disadvantages.

5. The future - to plan or not to plan…

6. Moving discussion back to Leek; prioritise issues from the above related to
Leek, its Heritage and Future.

7. How many supermarkets? Where, ideally? ‘People-power and the Mighty Tesco’!

8. Leek Market/s and the Roger Warrilow concept: ‘The world’s first open-air supermarket’ launched in Leek…

9. Tourism and shopping. Tourists visit, say, a museum and then buy things there and
locally… Heritage, tourism and the local economy…

10. So, the final big issue for this week: A Leek Arts and Heritage Centre. Where?
The Foxlowe re-visited, maybe…

………………………………………………………………………………..

If we don’t get to 10: to be continued… after Easter.