Why does Iran hate Britain?
July 23rd, 2019 by Roger Darlington
They blame us (and the Russians) for the Persian famine of 1917-1919 when some two million (out of a population of 10M) died. Britain and Russia occupied the country at the time. More information here.
They remember that we (and the Americans) emgineered a coup in 1953. This overthrew the democratically elected government of Mohammad Mosaddegh and restored the rule of the shah. More information here.
Earlier this month, British Royal Marines helped detain an Iranian tanker in waters off the British overseas territory of Gibraltar, after Gibraltar’s government said it believed the tanker was transporting oil to Syria in violation of EU sanctions. More information here.
Actually, many Iranians – especially in the cities where support for the regime is weakest – are well-disposed towards the British (and other Western nations) as I found when I visited the country in 2009. An account of my trip here.
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Here in Britain, it’s going to be quite a week …
July 22nd, 2019 by Roger Darlington
We’re going to have a new Prime Minister – almost certainly Boris Johnson. The contrast in temperament and style with Theresa May could hardly be more stark. Although it remains to be seen whether policy changes – especially on Brexit – are really that different.
We’re going to have a new Government with major changes in the Cabinet. We know that the Chancellor for the past three years, Philip Hammond, will resign if Boris Johnson wins the Conservative leadership election, so the critical role of Chancellor is going to have a new occupant as well as many more posts.
Meanwhile Britain is expected to suffer a heatwave. The forecast for London on Thursday is 37C (99F). That’s nothing compared to what many parts of the United States have been experiencing – not to mention recent heat waves in place like India and Australia. But the British are used to mild weather and 37C will have consequences.
I guess – in the words of the wartime poster – we will just have to keep calm and carry on.
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Online connectivity and confidence still a work in progress
July 19th, 2019 by Roger Darlington
This week, I attended an event at the British Library organised by the communications regulator Ofcom under the title “Making Sense Of Media”. At this occasion, Ofcom launched a Making Sense Of Media Network and a Making Sense Of Media Advisory Panel.
The proportion of non-users of the Internet in the UK is unchanged since 2014 and stands at 13%. Older people and those in socio-economic groups D & E remain less likely to be online. Some 33% of those aged 64-74 and 48% of those aged 75+ are still not on the Net. Some 23% of DE groups are off-line.
Discussion at the event highlighted that the problem of online media literacy is not simply a question of whether one is on the Net or not. A significant proportion of those who are online only have access via a smartphone so they are using a small screen which makes many interactions more difficult.
Also there are issues of skills and confidence. Many of those who use the Net access a limited number of web sites and struggle with the use of online services whether it is completing application forms or purchasing goods. Furthermore there is quite widespread lack of understanding of which Google search results are sponsored and how trustworthy are different sources of news.
So we still have a way to go with digital literacy.
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A review of the new documentary film “Apollo 11”
July 16th, 2019 by Roger Darlington
I was 21 and a student union leader when Neil Armstrong became the first man to walk on the moon and I kept the student union building open all night so that we could witness this historic occasion live – even though they were hazy pictures on a small screen.
So I thoroughly enjoyed the big screen experience of the movie “First Man”, which was an impressive recreation of the mission, and – to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the historic event – I was delighted to see (again on a cinema screen) this thrilling one and a half hour documentary crafted by director Todd Douglas Miller from freshly-discovered 65 mm footage and more than 11,000 hours of audio.
There is no narrative, only voices from the time, and of course we know the outcome, but it is still a wonderfully moving experience and some of the imagery – especially long shots of the banks of men and computers involved in the launch and mission control and footage shot by Michael Collins and Buzz Aldrin – was new to me.
Looking back, the whole entourage looks so white and it’s good that we have recently had the film “Hidden Figures”. Was it worth the stupendous cost? I don’t know, but it was a scientific achievement of magnificent proportions and it is right that we should celebrate it.
Posted in Cultural issues, History | Comments (0)
A review of the new movie “Spider-Man: Far From Home”
July 14th, 2019 by Roger Darlington
This is the second film dedicated to the third representation of Spider-Man in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) and we have the same director (Jon Watts) and the same leading actor (Tom Holland) as well as a host of other returning stars including Spidey’s Aunt May (Marisa Tomei) and teenage love interest MJ (Zendaya). It is actually the 23rd movie in the MCU and plot-wise comes hard on the heels of “Avengers: Endgame”, so you should see “Endgame” first and, if (like me), you’ve been at all the other works in the blockbusting franchise, you’ll enjoy some allusions to earlier films.
Whereas “Endgame” was big and bombastic, “Far From Home” is in many respects a gentler work with Peter Parker very reluctant to assume his super-hero persona, wishing only for a change of scene and a chance to romance MJ on a school trip embracing some of my favourite European cities in each of which a bridge has a role: Venice (Rialto Bridge), Prague (Charles Bridge), and London (Tower Bridge).
His plans are thwarted by the appearance of huge and destructure creatures called the Elementals and their seeming nemesis, the enigmatic Quentin Beck/Mysterio (the fine Jake Gyllenhaal who gets the opportunity to express a range of emotions).
It’s all immense fun with some new language, including the blip (explanation of how we cope with the five year disappearance of half the world’s population in “Endgame”), a set of glasses called E.D.I.T.H. (a special kind of weapon), and Illusion Tech (a very special kind of weapon). Be sure to stay for the two clips near the beginning and at the very end of the credits.
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Did you know about these air crashes?
July 13th, 2019 by Roger Darlington
This week, I saw a really good play titled “Napoli, Brooklyn” which featured an air crash. Only when I went on the Net did I find that the crash really happened. If you’re an American reader of this blog, did you know about the incident?
On Friday, 16 December 1960, a United AirlinesDouglas DC-8, bound for Idlewild Airport (later renamed John F. Kennedy International Airport) in New York City, collided with a TWALockheed L-1049 Super Constellation descending into the city’s LaGuardia Airport. One plane crashed on Staten Island, the other into Park Slope, Brooklyn, killing all 128 people on both aircraft and six people on the ground.
This theatrical experience made me think about a time when there was a similar air crash close to my home city of Manchester. If you’re a British reader of my blog, did you know about this incident?
The Stockport air disaster occurred on 4 June 1967, when a Canadair C-4 Argonaut passenger aircraft owned by British Midland Airways crashed near the centre of Stockport, Cheshire, England. Of the 84 people on board, 72 were killed. It was the fourth-worst accident in British aviation history.[
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How far are the eight planets from the Sun?
July 12th, 2019 by Roger Darlington
I’ve been watching the BBC series “The Planets” presented by Professor Brian Cox. It’s a fascinating series and seems to underline that everything is more complicated that you thought with tremendous changes over time.
For instance, the orbits of the planets round the Sun have changed dramatically over billions of years, especially that of Jupiter. But, if we look at the spread of the planets now, too often books represent pictorially the distances between the planets as similar.
That is more or less the case for the four inner-most planets with mean distances from the Sun in million of kilometres being: Mercury 58, Venus 108, Earth 150, and Mars 228.
However, when you look at the four outer-most planets, the distances are so much greater: Jupiter 778, Saturn 1,427, Uranus, 2,870, and Neptune 4,497.
That means that the furthest planet from the Sun is not seven times father away than the nearest, but 78 times .
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The world population of 7.7 billion forecast to reach 10.9 billion
July 11th, 2019 by Roger Darlington
Today we mark World Population Day. As a recent article in the “Guardian newspaper put it:
“This will be the 30th anniversary of the annual event set up by the United Nations in 1989 – when there were a mere 5 billion people on Earth – to focus attention on the urgency of our impending population crisis. Today there are about 7.7 billion men, women on children on Earth, a staggering figure given that a century ago, there were only 1.9 billion.
And although populations have stabilised in many regions, in particular Europe and North America, figures released by the UN this month show global numbers are now growing at the alarming rate of about 100 million every 14 months. By 2050, the Earth’s population will have hit 9.7 billion and it will continue to rise, reaching a figure of about 10.9 billion by 2100.”
Posted in Environment, World current affairs | Comments (0)
How big (or small) are the eight planets?
July 10th, 2019 by Roger Darlington
I’ve been watching the BBC series “The Planets” presented by Professor Brian Cox. It’s a fascinating series and seems to underline that everything is more complicated that you thought with tremendous changes over time.
Start with size. I think we grow up thinking that the planets are of roughly similar size with some a bit smaller and others rather bigger than Earth. But this is only true of Venus.
Mars is only about a tenth of the size of Earth and Mercury a mere 0.055. As for the giants, Uranus is 15 times the size of Earth, Neptune 17, Saturn a staggering 95, and Jupiter a mind-blowing 318.
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What’s in a name? Depends whether you’re called Craig and Gemma or Jaxon and Aria.
July 9th, 2019 by Roger Darlington
“It could be curtains for Craig. One of the most popular boys’ names of the postwar era is facing oblivion if current trends continue, as the speed with which parents tire of old names and rally around new ones appears to be accelerating.
Lee, Ross and Shaun are on their way out too, according to analysis of changes in baby names between 1996 and 2017, the latest year for which official data is available for England and Wales. The writing is also on the wall for Jodie and Gemma, with only 20 of each named in 2017 compared with well over 1,000 each in 1996.”
These are the opening paragraphs of an interesting article which appeared this week in the “Guardian” newspaper. If you’re interested in the choices of names in Britain and around the world, you’ll find a comprehensive analysis on my web site.
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