Memoirs of life, love, death and art

We shot into April at the speed of light with a busy week in the lectures team. First up on Monday evening we continued our education series with Edge on developing the potential of every pupil. Geoff Mulgan of the Young Foundation opened the discussion about diversity of provision in the education system, an area of special interest to the RSA as we look ahead to the opening of the RSA Tipton Academy in September. We were delighted to welcome Anders Hultin to the event to speak to us about the Kunskapsskolan in Sweden, an innovative system of preparatory schools which he co-founded.

On Tuesday evening, the novelist Julian Barnes spoke to a packed and attentive Great Room about his memoir of life, love, death and art - Nothing to be Frightened of. This was the first in a new series of collaborations with bookseller Blackwell and we are very much looking forward to welcoming poet, Simon Armitage as our next speaker.

MT has already blogged on our great event on Wednesday with Michael Landy, Neil Boorman and Daniel Miller so I won't elaborate any further than to say that the audio podcast will be available soon for any that missed out on that fascinating discussion.

And to wrap up the week, we welcomed veteran foreign correspondent Robert Fisk to our RSA Thursday stage. After shoe-horning as many people as possible into the Tavern Room, Robert shared memorable moments from his incredible reporting career and caused a great queue of people after the lecture who were eager to question the great man himself.

We slow from a fast gallop to a steady canter next week, and we kick off our week with Tim Harford revealing the hidden logic of life... prepare to be enlightened!

• RSA Events - 05 Jun 2008 1:52pm

  We are pleased that the event last Thursday with Robert Fisk was enjoyed by those in the audience and hope to see you at other events soon. RSA Lectures

• Steve Nimmons - 05 Jun 2008 1:48pm

  I attended the “Question Time on Sustainable Design and Development” on Wednesday evening and found the discussions very interesting. Griff Rhys Jones made an excellent chairman, combining effervescence, levity and intellectualism with enviable ease. There seemed to be ‘scant’ agreement about the impact of personal ‘pro-social’ activity in relation to carbon off-setting and although we might all have a little chuckle at personal wind turbines or solar panels as the latest self-righteous housing adornments, it is as little too easy to just reject social responsibility in relation to the environment as something of a fashion statement of the liberal middle class. I was subsequently very encouraged to hear that Atos Origin (my employer) has announced a project with the RSA “the first ever trial to enable real-time calculations of personal carbon emissions” and how this relates to the RSA’s CarbonDaq trading platform. I wonder if you could provide some additional insight into this and the overarching work of the RSA’s CarbonLimited project?

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