The Intelligence Squared & Vanity Fair Digital Summit, London
Put down your smartphone, because this is a rare chance to hear – and question – some of the world’s leading digital innovators in person (although, yes, the event will be posted online later). Taking place in Shoreditch, east London, talks range from YouTube conqueror Jamal Edwards and coding whizz Kathryn Parsons discussing whether London startups have enough edge to survive the global tech market, to social-media investigator Jamie Bartlett and film-maker Beeban Kidron exploring how our identities change online. Elsewhere, neuroscientist Dan Glaser and AI aficionado Nick Bostrum will ask whether machines will soon render humans redundant. If your brain has any remaining disk space, join the end-of-day debate, titled The Internet Is A Failed Utopia.
Shoreditch Town Hall, EC1, Thu
CB
An Evening With Huey Morgan, On tour
Only a few Americans successfully tapped into the laddish but essentially harmless Britpop vibe, and one of those was Huey Morgan. Leader in the 1990s of a notionally hip-hop group called Fun Lovin’ Criminals, Morgan’s man-of-the-world charisma and pantomime gangster shtick were endearing to UK audiences in a post- Pulp Fiction world. A man with a wide-ranging CV (in his time he’s been a minor drug dealer, US marine and, since 2008, a BBC 6 Music DJ), it’s no surprise that he’s now extended his brand into authorship. Here, he delivers readings from his first book, Huey Morgan’s Rebel Heroes. It begins by asserting that staple of the grumpy old man – that musicians aren’t of the heroic calibre they once were – but becomes a celebration of trailblazing artists from Robert Johnson to Janis Joplin and Joe Strummer. And also, one imagines, of Morgan himself.
Waterstones, Glasgow, Wed; Waterstones, Sheffield, Thu; Leaf, Liverpool, Fri
JR
Jonathan Sacks, London
Jonathan Sacks can’t be accused of shirking the big issues. In his latest book, Not In God’s Name, the former chief rabbi considers a subject that believers of all faiths have huge difficulty explaining: why do so many insist on advancing their belief in God as a justification for violence? It is, as the briefest survey of the headlines will confirm, a timely inquiry. Sacks, unsurprisingly, rejects the suggestion that religion itself is what causes the problem (though he does believe that if it is to be solved, theology must play a part). Whether one agrees with this analysis or not, Sacks will have given it more learned thought than most, and his host this evening, Andrew Neil, should be up to the task of subjecting whatever answers Sacks has come up with to appropriately searching questions.
Milton Court, EC2, Thu
AM
