A salon is simply a gathering of people, talking about a specific topic. They have a long and illustrious history: salons existed to discuss philosophy in Ancient Greece, poetry in 9th-century Baghdad, literature in 16th-century France and politics in 18th-century America.

Our salons are much more informal. We hold them in quirky coffee shops or laid-back bars in central London. We discuss everything: ideas and books and technologies and culture and politics and films and philosophies.

Speakers throw out a topic for discussion - Can new media change the Middle East? When did pleasure become a dirty word? Is your personality a performance? - and then everyone discusses it. Often the speakers have real knowledge of their subjects; they've lived it, written it or travelled it.