Children's Self-Control and the Health and Wealth of their Nation - Professor Terrie Moffitt

What do a series of studies of children from birth in 1972 to the present tell us about self-control. The startling results suggest that it could be central to all markers of success or failure in life, including income, longevity and happiness. Professor Moffitt presents the findings and suggests how and why governments would be wise to take note.

Parliament and the Public: Strangers or Friends? - The Rt Hon John Bercow

The Speaker of the House of Commons addresses the questions of how the House of Commons can engage more effectively with the public which it serves and how modern technology can assist in this enterprise.

The Lost World of 1962 - Dominic Sandbrook

In this lecture, Dominic Sandbrook, the acclaimed historian of Sixties Britain, marks the 50th anniversary of the City of London Festival by looking back at Britain in 1962. Fifty years on, the Britain of Harold Macmillan, Acker Bilk, Jimmy Greaves and James Hanratty feels like a vanished world. But was life back then really so different?

Arthur Conan Doyle and London: "A Stout Heart in the Great Cesspool" - Richard Burnip

From the Sherlock Holmes stories to The Lost World this lecture examines some of the locations which formed such in important backdrop to Conan Doyle's life and work. It will also touch on some of his lesser known works and include the place which perhaps meant more to him than any other in London, and to which he returned in his writing throughout his life.

Privacy and Publicity in Family Law: Their Eternal Tension - The Rt Hon Sir Nicholas Wall

There is general agreement among non-family lawyers that family procedures should be more transparent. But exactly what role should the media play in matters of family justice?

Berlioz, the Grande Messe des Morts and the Absence of God - David Cairns

Leading Berlioz scholar and biographer, David Cairns, discusses Berlioz's Grande Messe des Morts Op. 5 (Requiem)in the context of Berlioz's ambiguous relationship to religion.

Literary London Crime: The Dark Eyes of London - Cathi Unsworth

London is a city of secrets, a shifting, seething mass of intrigue, venality and violence, in constant cultural flux. The perfect setting for crime fiction - but how does the modern writer decode this centuries' old conurbation? Cathi Unsworth investigates those authors who haunt certain regions of the capital and along the way she will also explore the cult writers who helped to shape these contemporary authors' visions and the clandestine vocabulary of the City of Slang.