Category: First Thursday Archive

November 12th summary of the discussion. Covid was still top of the news “agenda” with the promise of vaccines soon to be available.  The costs of some (eg Pfizer) are likely to be high (Astra Zeneca is likely to be cheaper and does not need minus 80 degrees Celsius for storage).  Drug companies may reap…

Summary of our discussion: We noted that the “R” (reproduction) rate for Covid had recently fallen from 1.7 down to 1.1 [how long ago does that month seem now!!] The UK Agriculture Bill is going through Parliament at the moment (with a debate today).  This has resulted from the UK leaving the EU, and therefore…

Summary of the discussion: The election campaigning of US President Donald Trump appears to promote division, rather than healing. Law and Order is his message, rather than any attempt to deal with the issues that have caused anger and the protests. In some ways, this is similar to Richard Nixon’s campaign in 1968, which stressed…

The Beirut explosion happened two days before- a shipload of ammonium nitrate en route in 2013 from Georgia for fertilizer in Mozambique, and abandoned after the Russian cargo ship developed mechanical problems near Cyprus, appears to have been triggered by a nearby fire. If stored for long periods ammonium nitrate solidifies and becomes dangerous. Poor…

Two matters in the news occupied most of our discussion: The impact of the Beijing Government’s actions on Hong Kong. Is it that Beijing is determined to subvert the 1997 One Country, Two Systems agreement with Britain and control Hong Kong- or is it a difference of interpretation of what that agreement meant? Since Deng…

Summary of First Thursday discussions Nov. 7th 2019 and Jan. 2nd 2020 The story of a 10-yr old boy who claimed that his ambition was to become a drug lord https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leeds-50317250 https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7656687/Boy-aged-TEN-dreams-County-Lines-drug-dealer.html provoked a discussion about the ideals offered to young people and the pressures put on them in society today. In the not too…

Summary of the discussion October 3rd 2019: Zechariah talks about false prophets (13:4 to 6), people who wear hair shirts and beat themselves up to pretend they have a message from God. Our media and politics today are flooded with accusations of “Fake News”. In 1920s and 1930s Germany Joseph Goebbels knew the power of…

Micah chapter 4 (one of the readings for the morning prayers on September 5th) speaks of a time when nations “beat their swords into ploughshares, their spears into pruning-hooks” and do not “learn war and more”. In his book “Beyond Brexit” Vernon Bogdanor points out that the wars of the first half of the twentieth…

Summary of the discussion, 4th July 2019 In the news was the growing conflict between the people of Hong Kong (or, at least, many of them) and the Beijing government, in its early stages at the beginning of July. Beijing, led by its President Xi Jinping, appears to be attempting to undermine what many in…

We met on the 75th anniversary of the D-Day landings in Normandy, which perhaps began the final phase of the Second World War- though it must always be remembered that the main burden of the struggle against Hitler’s Fascism was borne by the Soviet Union, which lost some thirteen million of their armed forces killed…