An Update/Status Report concerning our Weekly Film Presentations


First of all, a sincere apology to everyone. 

As you have probably deduced by now, there will be no presentation on the 28th of May and I'm afraid I will need to cancel next week as well. I am so sorry about all the continuing uncertainty; it's incredibly unfair (and unprofessional) but most of you will be aware by now that I am dealing with some very difficult and painful family health matters.

The irony is that A.I. (the subject of our current "film" series) is more relevant than ever before. As I write this, the new Pope has just issued his first papal "Encyclical", describing A.I. as a "modern Tower of Babel" (an interesting metaphor to choose, considering Large Language Models are literally made of language). Pope Leo apparently considers AI to be the defining threat of the modern age; more pressing than terrorism, famine; disease, religious fundamentalism, gender inequality, or even those old Catholic stand-bys: birth control and gay marriage.


At the other end of the spectrum, Richard Dawkins (that paragon of secular rationalism) has published a series of articles celebrating the new technology and asking serious questions about its possible sentience.



(I know... shock headline: Richard Dawkins disagrees with Pope)


In the middle of all of this is little old me and the series we have been running at the Victoria Park Baptist Church over the last few months. (I don't even know what to call it any more. "Film Club" hardly describes it, and I beg you not to call it "Vicky Park Flicks"...)


I sincerely hope that you, my loyal attendees, have been enjoying these evenings as much as I enjoy presenting them. As I hope is clear by now, our Thursday evenings go far beyond merely sticking a disc in the DVD player and pressing "play". A great deal of research and preparation goes into these presentations, but personal issues are pulling me away from London ever more frequently.

All of this is to say that while I absolutely do not want to call a permanent halt to the proceedings, I'm not sure I can reasonably expect everyone to put up with the continual uncertainty of cancelling at the last minute if personal matters should interfere again and again.

I beg your understanding and patience if I leave it at that for the time being. I will stop short of making a formal announcement either way, but rest assured I will keep everyone informed if we are able to resume the presentations in the coming weeks.

Thank you so much for your support and enthusiasm, and please know that if I am able to resume our Thursdays with any reliability, I will absolutely do so.

Until then.

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