Saturday 20 September 2014

To EU or not to EU - that is not the question.

This has been an interesting week. A good walk, a couple of interesting films and a couple of turkeys, an interesting result from the Scottish Referendum and I'm not sure I like Peter Capaldi as the new Dr Who.

The new academic year is starting so I have been  reviewing the York U3A prospectus as I would like to attend more courses. For those who are unfamiliar with U3A, this is the University of the Third Age. Aimed at retired people and with local centres, groups are formed for talks and meetings, for example this is my third year with the Military History group. Most groups do their own talks but some also have outside speaker, our next talk is on the Falklands War of 1982 by  a veteran of the campaign, I am giving a talk on the Franco-Prussian War at our November meeting.

York U3A prospectus for 2014 - 15 has walking groups, language lessons and usage, philosophy, history, knitting, theatre going and more. I tried to join the Architecture appreciation group but that is full. Turning to Contemporary Studies I found "Europe : In or Out?" That could be interesting, this is a question upon which I have mixed views, or it could be a crashing bore attended by lots of UKIP followers and Daily Mail readers, but I would give it a try, nothing to lose but a bus fare and a couple of hours.

I emailed the group leader to see if there was a place, he replied that the group was on hold as only three people had expressed an interest and that would be insufficient for a good discussion dynamic. I was surprised by this; this is a very current topic with much play in the news media and there is a UK General Election next year. I did a bit of research - pollsters are reporting that EU membership excites a small minority of people but most people are putting issues such as their continued employment and the economy, house prices and possible mortgage rate hikes, the NHS, foreign terrorism spreading to the UK and other issues ahead of the EU.

Now that was an interesting find.

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