Berwins Salon North | 6 July 2023

  • Thursday 6 July 2023 | 7.30pm
  • The Crown Hotel | Harrogate
  • Tickets: £17

    Please note that a £1.75 booking fee applies at time of booking

BOOK NOW

Sponsored by:

In a world dominated by other people’s opinions, Salon gives you the knowledge to form your own.

Three expert speakers deliver TED-style talks designed to change your life for the better. Presenting big ideas, and answering key questions in life, Salon was voted as number six in the ‘Top 100 Things to do in the World’ by GQ magazine.

In a time of polarised debate and online shouting it is Berwins Salon North that gives you the time and space to learn from the experts and make up your own mind. This cabaret style evening is designed to change your life for the better and excite your curiosity.

We present the most stimulating ideas in arts, science and psychology. Each expert speaker has the challenge of engaging their audience within a 25-minute set, interspersed with intervals and time for a well-crafted G&T. Our Salon evenings are Harrogate’s own style of live TED talks, where you’re guaranteed to learn something new about yourself and the world around you.

RETHINKING MODERN BRITAIN

In July, we are questioning what we think we know about modern Britain, from going behind the scenes in Westminster and finding out exactly how our government works (or doesn’t), to questioning the structure of our education system, to exploring the lived experience of being torn between two cultures. Join us as we hear about what it means to live in Britain today from three unique perspectives.

Jeffrey Boakye is an author, broadcaster, educator and journalist with a particular interest in issues surrounding race, masculinity, education and popular culture. In the groundbreaking I Heard What You Said, he recounts how it feels to be on the margins of the British education system as a black male teacher, and asks how we can dismantle racism in the classroom and do better by all our students.

Journalist Ian Dunt lifts the lid on British politics, exposing every aspect of the system in a way that can be understood and challenged, from the heights of Downing Street to the depths of the nation’s newsrooms, from the hallways of the civil service to the green benches of the Commons. He provides exactly what people in power have always tried to avoid: a full description of the mechanisms of British government. And a vision of how we can fix it.

Born in Britain to Indian parents, Gurdeep Loyal felt constantly pulled by the clashing expectations of both cultures. But through his passion for food and cooking he was able to embrace the delicious contradictions of his plural British Indian identity. He explores his culinary upbringing that combined ‘authentic’ home-cooked Punjabi food, with ‘inauthentic’ curry-house Tikka Masalas, the Western foodie cannon, and a wanderlust for travel in pursuit of flavour.

Our trio of speakers is expertly bound together by our guest host, the fabulous Gaynor Barnes.

*Line-up subject to change.

BOOK NOW

Jeffrey Boakye is an author, broadcaster, educator and journalist with a particular interest in issues surrounding race, masculinity, education and popular culture. Originally from Brixton in London, Jeffrey has taught secondary English for fifteen years. He is a senior teaching fellow at the University of Manchester and has been awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Leicester. Jeffrey’s books include Hold Tight: Black Masculinity, Millennials and the Meaning of GrimeBlack, Listed: Black British Culture ExploredWhat is Masculinity? Why Does it Matter? And Other Big QuestionsMusical Truth: A Musical Journey Through Modern Black Britain and Kofi and the Rap Battle Summer. He is also the co-presenter of BBC Radio 4’s double award-winning Add to Playlist. He now lives in Yorkshire with his wife and two sons.

I Heard What You Said: A Black Teacher, A White System, A Revolution In Education

Before Jeffrey Boakye was a black teacher, he was a black student. Which means he has spent a lifetime navigating places of learning that are white by default. Since training to teach, he has often been the only black teacher at school. At times seen as a role model, at others a source of curiosity, Boakye’s is a journey of exploration – from the outside looking in.

In the groundbreaking I Heard What You Said, he recounts how it feels to be on the margins of the British education system. As a black, male teacher – an English teacher who has had to teach problematic texts – his very existence is a provocation to the status quo, giving him a unique perspective on the UK’s classrooms.

Through a series of eye-opening encounters based on the often challenging and sometimes outrageous things people have said to him or about him, Boakye reflects on what he has found out about the habits, presumptions, silences and distortions that black students and teachers experience, and which underpin British education.

Thought-provoking, witty and completely unafraid, I Heard What You Said is a timely exploration of how we can dismantle racism in the classroom and do better by all our students.

Ian Dunt spent several years working in the heart of Westminster as editor of Politics.co.uk. He is podcast host of Oh God What Now and Origin Story, regularly appears as a political pundit on TV and radio and is the author of two previous books – Brexit: What the Hell Happens Now and How to be a Liberal

How Westminster Works… and Why It Doesn’t

British politics is broken.

Anyone sitting down to watch the news will get the sense that something has gone terribly wrong. We have prime ministers who detonate the economy, secretaries of state who are intellectually incapable of doing the job and MPs who seem temperamentally unsuited to the role. Expertise is denigrated. Lies are rewarded. And deep-seated, long-lasting national problems go permanently unresolved. Most of us have a sense that the system doesn’t work, but we struggle to articulate exactly why. Our political and financial system is cloaked in secrecy, archaic terminology, ancient custom and impenetrable technical jargon.

Lifting the lid on British politics, How Westminster Works . . . and Why It Doesn’t exposes every aspect of the system in a way that can be understood and challenged, from the heights of Downing Street to the depths of the nation’s newsrooms, from the hallways of the civil service to the green benches of the Commons.

Based on interviews with some of the leading voices in politics, from former occupants of No.10 to key figures in Whitehall, Westminster and Fleet Street, Ian Dunt provides exactly what people in power have always tried to avoid: a full description of the mechanisms of British government. And a vision of how we can fix it.

Gurdeep Loyal is an award winning British Indian food writer, columnist, and trend consultant, born and raised in Leicester, England. He was winner of the Jane Grigson Trust Award for new food and drink writers in 2021.

His monthly column in Olive Magazine explores culinary ingredients from around the world through recipes, along with the stories of diasporic home-cooks and chefs that preserve them. He also curates the online platform MotherTongueTV.com which celebrates food histories of migration, race and identity.

Gurdeep has written about food and culture for Courier Magazine, The Food Almanac and Suitcase Magazine; and been a host speaker at the British Library Food Season, Charleston Small Wonder Literary Festival and Food People Trends Summit.

He lives in Hackney, East London, where his best-loved pastimes are eating out, posting over-filtered selfies, and yelling “play Beyoncé” at DJs in clubs.

Mother Tongue: Flavours of a Second Generation

Born in Britain to Indian parents, Gurd felt constantly pulled by the clashing expectations of both cultures. But through his passion for food and cooking he was able to embrace the delicious contradictions of his plural British Indian identity.

In Mother Tongue he explores his culinary upbringing that combined ‘authentic’ home-cooked Punjabi food, with ‘inauthentic’ curry-house Tikka Masalas, the Western foodie cannon, and a wanderlust for travel in pursuit of flavour. What results is a flavour amplified intercultural cuisine, that is a delicious culinary self-expression of his second-generation experience of the world today.

Gurdeep serves up over 100 knock-out recipes, including a mouth-watering Miso-Masala Fried Chicken Sando, Sweet Chilli-Gunpowder Roasted Cauliflower, Desi Kofta Meatballs with Sticky Mango-Lime Tomatoes and Chocolate-Orange Jalebis, all combined with expert know-how on building, blending, and remixing global flavour combinations. Mother Tongue is bursting with vibrantly spiced, colourfully flavour-forward recipes for home-cooks to explore and be inspired by every day.

Dates for your diary for the next Berwins Salon North events:

Thursday 7 September (Book now)

Thursday 16 November (Booking opening soon)

‘After every Salon I leave the venue thinking and knowing the answer to everything – 5 mins later I’m back to normal!’

‘This talk was truly thought provoking, intriguing, scary and exciting all in a 30 min package!’

‘Geek chic’