5x15 - 5 speakers, 15 minutes each - October 2021

Lara Maiklem is the founder of The London Mudlark.

The mudlark was born amongst the filth and chaos of Victorian London. These poor degraded creatures were scavengers, wading through the foul-smelling mud to collect anything they could sell, such as rags, coal and rope. Most mudlarks were children and old people - society's most vulnerable - these days, however, mudlarking is a term used by a band of amateur archeologists that scour the foreshore of the River Thames for signs of history. All of her finds are made by eye only, and without disturbing the foreshore in any way, she believes there is no need to dig or to use a metal detector, a keen eye and some patience will usually throw up some fascinating finds.

The London Mudlark is the largest and friendliest online community of people who enjoy spending their time in the mud by the river or are just interested in what’s being found, with over 100k followers across social media platforms. Lara regularly posts her finds - the good, the bad and the ugly.

Safraz Manzoor is a British journalist, documentary maker, broadcaster, and screenwriter of Pakistani origin. Growing up in a working-class Muslim family in Luton, he was raised to believe that ‘they’ – white people – would never accept him. In today’s Britain, we are often told that ‘they’ – Muslims – will never accept this country. In his new book, They, Manzoor tells the story of modern Muslim Britain, and searches for a more positive future that bridges the chasm of mutual mistrust.

Oliver Burkeman is the author of the international breakout bestseller Four Thousand Weeks, a book that touched the lives of hundreds of thousands of readers, and The Antidote. For many years he wrote a popular weekly column on psychology for the Guardian, 'This Column Will Change Your Life'. His work has also appeared in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Psychologies and New Philosopher. In his new book, Meditations for Mortals, he takes us on a liberating journey towards a more meaningful life. Addressing the fundamental questions about how to live, it offers a powerful new way to take action on what counts: a guiding philosophy of life that he calls ‘imperfectionism’.

John Lanchester was born in Hamburg in 1962. He has worked as a football reporter, obituary writer, book editor, restaurant critic, and deputy editor of the London Review of Books, where he is a contributing editor. He is a regular contributor to the New Yorker. He has written four novels, The Debt to Pleasure, Mr Phillips and Fragrant Harbour, and Capital, and three works of non-fiction: Family Romance, a memoir; Whoops!: Why everyone owes everyone and no one can pay, about the global financial crisis and How to Speak Money which lays out the case for financial literacy. His books have won the Hawthornden Prize, the Whitbread First Novel Prize, E.M Forster Award, and the Premi Llibreter, been longlisted for the Booker Prize, and been translated into twenty-five languages. He is married, has two children and lives in London.

Justine Picardie is the author of six books, including her bestselling memoir If the Spirit Moves You; Miss Dior: A Story of Courage and Couture; and the international bestseller, Coco Chanel: The Legend and the Life, which will be reissued in a new, revised edition in August 2023 to coincide with the forthcoming Chanel exhibition at the V&A. She has also contributed essays to several anthologies and museum exhibitions on art, fashion and photography. She is a contributing editor to Harper’s Bazaar, having previously been its editor-in-chief. She was formerly an investigative journalist for the Sunday Times, a columnist for the Telegraph, editor of the Observer Magazine, editor of Town & Country and features director of Vogue.