Archive for the ‘Cultural issues’ Category
How many films have you seen?
August 24th, 2010 by Roger Darlington
The holder of the world record has just gone to that great screen in the sky, having seen a stunning 28,000 films with each one noted.
I confess that I have a card index system recording all the films that I’ve seen and the total is now close to 2,000. Many hundreds of them are reviewed [...]
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The world of short stories
August 19th, 2010 by Roger Darlington
In the last year or so, I’ve read and written a lot of short stories – a fiction form that I think is underrated.
I’ve just finished a book of eight short stories by the Canadian author Alice Munro which I’ve reviewed here.
My own short story writing now encompasses 23 tales which you can read here. [...]
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The strange world of the Amish
August 17th, 2010 by Roger Darlington
I’ve just finished watching the last of the four fascinating television programmes in a Channel Four series called “Amish: The World’s Squarest Teenagers”. The Amish are an amazing religious community, based almost totally in the United States, who effectively live life as their predecessors did when they emigrated from Switzerland in the 1700s & 1800s.
They [...]
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Word of the day: syncope
July 24th, 2010 by Roger Darlington
The word has two meanings:
1) It is a medical term for blacking out or fainting.
2) It is a linguistic term for the shortening of a word by removing letters or syllables from the middle such as fo’c’sle instead of forecastle.
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Farewell (for now) Jonathan Ross
July 18th, 2010 by Roger Darlington
I’ve only just watched a recording of this week’s “Friday Night With Jonathan Ross” show on BBC television. As the BBC have not renewed his contract, it was his last such show. He interviewed Mickey Rourke, Jackie Chan and David Beckham and song was provided by Roxy Music.
I’m a big fan of Jonathan Ross and [...]
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It’s St Swithin’s Day
July 15th, 2010 by Roger Darlington
Here in the UK, today – 15 July – is known as St Swithin’s Day. And what is all that about, I hear my non-British readers asking.
Well, the story goes that, if we have rain or sun on this day, then we will have the same weather for the next 40 days. You can read [...]
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“To Kill A Mockingbird”
July 11th, 2010 by Roger Darlington
Fifty years ago today saw the publication of the wonderful novel “To Kill A Mockingbird” by Harper Lee.
You can read my review of the book here and another reader’s perspective here.
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What are the tallest buildings in London?
July 2nd, 2010 by Roger Darlington
Until the 1960s, London – although essentially the capital of the world – had no skyscrapers, but the skyline is now changing rapidly and, even for someone like me who lives and works in the city, it’s hard to keep up.
This was brought home to me recently when I attended a meeting on the 32nd [...]
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“The Glass Room” and the Villa Tugendhat
June 3rd, 2010 by Roger Darlington
I’ve now finished reading the novel “The Glass Room” by Simon Mawer which is largely set in Czechoslovakia before and during the Second World War. The book was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize last year and it is an excellent work which I’ve reviewed here.
The building featured in the book is real, even though [...]
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Can anyone explain “Lost”?
May 29th, 2010 by Roger Darlington
As explained in this posting, I gave up on the television series “Lost” in the middle of the fourth series when the promised answers dd not materialise.
I was so disappointed that I didn’t even watch the concluding hours of the show – broadcast recently – because I feared that any ‘answers’ would still be unsatisfactory.
But [...]
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