The beautiful Welsh town of Hay-on-Wye is in the constituency of Brecon and Radnorshire. Jane Dodds, the Welsh Lib Dem leader lives there and every year they hold a book festival.
This year the pandemic has inspired them to take the festival online and make it available to people for free. Most things are now fully booked, but I managed to register for about 9 events.
So far I’ve seen one of the pioneers of the feminist movement, Gloria Steinem discuss gender inequality with Everyday Sexism founder Laura Bates.
Yesterday evening, the BBC’s Jon Sopel described the surreality of Donald Trump’s White House. Remember when it came out that Donald Trump had had a very sweary response to the appointment fo Robert Mueller? Sopel described the tortuous discussions at the BBC about whether he could use the word. He did in the end, and his story was better for it.
He talked about how for all Trump’s shortcomings, he understands his base and what he needs to do to keep them on board. There are lessons for us all in that, as we see our government adopt the same brazen tactics.
A night out at the Trump hotel i Washington ended up with Sopel and his wife gawping at Trump and his wife Melania, after he became President, who were having dinner in the same restaurant.
This evening, I listened to author Elif Shafak talk about her vision for a new, more egalitarian world after the pandemic. As part of a series of lectures, she talked about the importance of knowledge, wisdom and empathy and the role of storytelling in bringing people together.
We can’t, she said, just go back to normal.
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