Category Archives: Events

21 Hour Week Discussion

Date:  29/02/12 (TODAY)
Time: 7:30pm

“Why a shorter working week can help us all to flourish in the 21st century”

Ever questioned how many hours you work? What would do if you had more free time?

This is an open discussion about how we use and value time and work. We will explore the potential for sharing work and income and the effects this could have on the environment, the structure of the economy, our well-being and relationships.

Come with an open mind and any thoughts or questions.

If you want a bit of food for thought you might be interested in the NEF 21hours report http://www.neweconomics.org/publications/21-hours (but absolutely not necessary to read anything to join discussion)

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Events – Tues 21st to Sun 26th February


“The Little Book of Prison, A Beginners Guide” –  Frankie Owens

 Tuesday 21 February 2012 –  Book signing from 4pm. Talk from 7:00 pm

A Beginners Guide is the award winning book by ex prisoner Frankie Owens. Written during his time behind bars, the book aims to be the little helping hand that first time offenders might need as they enter the system.

Frankie Owens wrote The Little Book of Prison, A Beginners Guide to help future inmates, their families and loved ones to help make sense of what they would all go through when someone goes to prison. He writes from his own experience as a prisoner living at Her Majesties Pleasure.

The book won the 2011 Koestler Platinum award for non-fiction http://koestlertrust.org.uk/ judged by Will Self. “Our awards judges don’t give a Platinum Award lightly, and this book is a winner on more than one level. It is a practical and totally frank introduction to real life in the British prison system – probably the best introduction there is. But it is also a wonderfully human narrative and a sharply argued critique – the wit and wisdom of one inmate who turns out to be a born writer. I was gripped from start to finish – roared with laughter one minute, winced with pain the next, and was left wondering why we have prisons at all.

Accoustic Evening

Friday 24 February 2012 – 6:00 pm – 8:00 pm

An evening of acoustic music from the talented songwriters at Bristol Institute of modern music. Please come along and show your support for some local unsigned musicians and support a great local business at the same time.

Old Market March & Riot – 80th Anniversary – History Talk

Saturday 25 February 2012  – 4:00 pm

Historians Roger Ball and Dave Backwith will consider the impact of the events of that day and the wider context of the struggles of the unemployed during the great depression.

Dave Backwith is a researcher of Bristol’s working class history in the inter war years particularly 1919 and the unemployed workers movement in the 1930s. He is a family and community studies lecturer at the Anglia Ruskin University. Roger Ball is a doctorate researcher in the history of riots from the University of the West of England.

Old Market March & Riot – 80th AnniversaryHistory Walk

Sunday 26 February 2012 – 2:00 pm – 4:00 pm

Meet at 2pm at Hydra Books for a History Walk through the streets of Old Market and Central Bristol, where Roger Ball and other Bristol Radical History Group members will recount the stories associated with the various scenes on route.

Exhibition – Lesbian and Gay Switchboard

Sunday 26 February – 4:00 pm

Bristol’s Lesbian and Gay Switchboard has been running for 37 years. Come and see an exhibition to celebrate its history at the bookshop. This will be followed by a party at 7pm at the Old Market Tavern for volunteers, friends and supporters of the Bristol Lesbian and Gay Switchboard.

 

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Next Week’s Events

Class Action in America – Bristol Communists

Monday 13 February 2012 – 7:00 pm

Bristol Communists discussion group. Monday’s meeting is on Class Action in America.

The War That Never Stops – A talk by Joanne Baker

Friday 17 February 2012 – 7:30 pm

The War That Never Stops – From Depleted to Enriched Uranium Weapons: Ecocide in Iraq? A talk by Joanne Baker MSc co-author of “Uranium in Iraq: The Poisonous Legacy of the Iraq Wars”.

“Countless parents will watch their children with horror and pity as several generations children will continue to be born with congenital anomalies as result of the genetic heritable effects induced by this exposure to uranium dust” – Dr Malak Hamdan

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Old Market March and Riot – 80th Anniversary

February 23rd 1932 was the scene of a confrontation between the National Unemployed Workers’ Movement and the police. It had begun as a march of 3,000 demonstrators, largely of unemployed workers, who had intended to send a deputation to the City Council. They were stopped by a double line of police as they attempted to march down Old Market. The Evening Post reported that police baton charged the unemployed Bristolians and a riot ensued.

History Talk

Date: Saturday 25 February 2012

Time: 4:00 pm

Place: Hydra Books

Historians Roger Ball and Dave Backwith will consider the impact of the events of that day and the wider context of the struggles of the unemployed during the great depression.

Dave Backwith is a researcher of Bristol’s working class history in the inter war years particularly 1919 and the unemployed workers movement in the 1930s. He is a family and community studies lecturer at the Anglia Ruskin University.

Roger Ball is a doctorate researcher in the history of riots from the University of the West of England.

History Walk

Date: Sunday 26 February 2012

Time: 2:00 pm – 4:00 pm

Place:  Meet at Hydra Books

Meet at 2pm at Hydra Books for a History Walk through the streets of Old Market and Central Bristol, where Roger Ball and other Bristol Radical History Group members will recount the stories associated with the various scenes on route.

 

These events are both organised by the Bristol Radical History Group. Entry is free.

 

Further history and links to direct evidence of events is contained in our earlier post last November a few days before we opened.

 

 

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Next week’s events

Tuesday 7 February 2012 – 7:00 pm

A Celebration of Lesbian and Gay Literature – Out Stories Bristol

From love poems to sci-fi and satire – come and join us in an evening of readings from literature with LGBT themes. Bring your favourite poem or excerpt and share it with the audience. Tell us what it means to you and where we can find more like it. Help us raise the profile of this new bookshop in the heart of Bristol’s Gay Village.OutStories Bristol, a community group collecting and documenting the stories of LGBT people in Bristol.

Thursday 9 February 2012 – 7:00 pm 

Cross-dressers and the establishment in Victorian England – Juliet Jacques

The emergence of public cross-dressing in the 19th century industrial city caused great anxiety to the Victorian legal establishment and England’s new police forces alike. In this talk, Guardian and New Statesman writer Juliet Jacques (longlisted for the Orwell Prize in 2011) explores how those who cross-dressed were criminalised, most famously in the scandalous trial of Ernest “Stella” Boulton and Frederick “Fanny” Park in 1871, and how contemporary transgender identities began to evolve in response.

Juliet Jacques is a journalist and author, best known for writing A Transgender Journey for The Guardian – the first time that the gender reassignment process has been serialised for a mainstream British publication. She has also written for the New Statesman and TimeOut, and was longlisted for the Orwell Prize in 2011.

Saturday 11 February 2012 – 3:00 pm
From the Great Plague to the Plague of Women: Purity, Misogyny and Female Enclosure – Steve Higginson
Steve Higginson will interpret the re-birth of misogyny by looking at the period of the Great Plague, 1345 onwards, and the great moralising discourse that swept across Europe post plaque. Located within this discourse of purity, women were viewed as both cause and effect of the plague, and were to be “enclosed” accordingly within the domestic sphere. The purity campaign against women was attributable to a re-reading of the Old Testament plus a resurgance of interest in Aristotlian ethics.
Steve hails from Liverpool and was a Union organiser in the Communication Workers Union. Now a post-graduate, Steve lectures at John Moores University. His recent projects include an examination of time, memory and movement in port cities (principally Liverpool) as co-author of Edgy Cities (2006). He has been a regular contributor of Bristol Radical History Group events.

 

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