Helen Sharman CMG, OBE, the first British person in space, will land at Lincoln Cathedral in the New Year to give a talk about her career – beneath an incredible Moon sculpture.

At the event, on Friday, February 18, 2022, Helen will take her audience on a journey through her experiences – from recruitment and training to the time she spend in space and her return to earth.

The pioneer and inspirational speaker will host the evening underneath Luke Jerram’s Museum of the Moon.

Artist Luke Jerram applying the finishing touches to his Museum of the Moon piece at 20-21 Visual Arts Centre in Scunthorpe. | Photo: Mark Bickerdike

Helen enthuses her audience about Space, STEM and the wonders of science. She describes the meticulous training and preparation, learning Russian, the launch and landing, how weightlessness feels, her science experiments, the team spirit, and adjusting to life back on Earth.

‘An Evening with Helen Sharman’ will take place on Friday, February 18 at 7.30pm in Lincoln Cathedral.

Tickets to the event cost £35 and are now on sale via the Lincoln Cathedral website.

The event is one of a series to coincide with the Museum of the Moon, which will be on display in the nave of the Cathedral from February 7 to 27, 2022.

Luke Jerram’s stunning installation measures seven metres in diameter and features 120dpi detailed NASA imagery of the lunar surface.

Other events in the series will be announced shortly.

A historical Lincolnshire fact shocked panelists on popular BBC TV show QI last night, exposing a tradition more outrageous than Karl McCartney’s shirt choice in the House of Commons this month.

Sandi Toksvig hosted this year’s QI Christmas special with the help of Alan Davies, Bonnie Langford, Joe Lycett and Sally Phillips on December 20.

The sordid Lincolnshire tradition was revealed in a lesson on the English Medieval Lord of Misrule, an officer appointed to direct Christmas revelries and the Feast of Fools.

“In 1637,” Toksvig explained, “the Lord of Misrule was taken through a mock ceremony in which he married a fellow citizen.

“After the sham marriage, in the words of one Victorian historian who documented it, the affair was carried to its utmost extent in front of the crowds.

The panellists were dumbstruck. | Photo: BBC

“They publicly consummated marriage with someone they didn’t know.

“There was numerous complaints at the time about the amount of ‘chambering’ that went on at Christmas. – A very old word for ‘doing the deed’.

You learn something new every day in Lincolnshire!

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