Ofcom reports on a decade of digital dependency
August 2nd, 2018 by Roger Darlington
- Ofcom study shows how a decade of technological revolution has transformed our behaviour
- One in five people spend more than 40 hours a week online
- Brits now need constant connection to internet, and are checking their smartphone every 12 minutes
Most people in the UK are dependent on their digital devices, and need a constant connection to the internet, following a decade of digital transformation revealed by Ofcom today.
The findings are from Ofcom’s “Communications Market Report“, published today – the most comprehensive study of how communications services in the UK are changing. This year it focuses on how technology has revolutionised our lives within ten years.
You can find a headline summary of the report here.
Posted in Science & technology | Comments (0)
Does anyone else remember the “I’m Backing Britain” campaign of 1968?
August 1st, 2018 by Roger Darlington
I’ve recently attended two lectures at the City Literary Institute in central London which took a 50th anniversary look at some of the events worldwide in 1968 when I was a 20 year old university student.
Those events included the Vietnam War (especially the Tet Offensive), the assassination of Martin Luther King & Robert F Kennedy, the near-fall of the French government following massive student demonstration, the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia, and much more.
I was reminded that, here in Britain, there was a remarkable and short-lived campaign called “I’m Backing Britain” which called on people to work half an hour longer for no extra pay and to buy British rather than foreign goods. It inspired this crass song by Bruce Forsyth.
Those were the days, my friend …
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A review of “Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again”
July 31st, 2018 by Roger Darlington
I was pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed the original “Mamma Mia!” movie, so I was delighted at the notion of another outing for Abba’s wonderful music.
Like “The Godfather 2”, this is both a prequel (back to Donna’s graduation) and a sequel (forward to a grand re-opening of Donna’s island hotel) and director and co-writer Ol Parker has some smart juxtaposing of certain prequel and sequel scenes and picks up so many bits of the original storyline, deepening our appreciation and love of the characters.
One way or another all the stars from the first movie are back but, since we now have all those prequel scenes, there is a raft of new young stars portraying Donna and her two best friends and Donna’s three lovers as they were in 1979. All of the six young actors very cleverly anticipate the style and mannerisms of the older characters and Lily James is absolutely charming with splendid vocals as the young Donna.
Indeed the ensemble cast list is fabulous: as well as the 12 roles already alluded to (Julie Walters is so funny again), Amanda Seyfried is delightful as Donna’a daughter Sophie and there are some fun cameo appearances from Cher, Andy Garcia and Omid Djalili (stay till the very end of the credits to access every opportunity to laugh).
For all the familiarity of this second film, there are some significant differences that make this more than just an opportunist retread of an enormously commercial success.
Tonally, “Here we Go Again” is less the unremitting joy of the first outing and more poignant, with some heartbreak and a few very moving scenes, most notably when we hear “My Love, My Life”. The other main difference is in the music: in the main, we are treated to somewhat less familiar Abba songs, although we have new versions of old favoutites like the eponymous “Mamma Mia!” and (my favourite) “Dancing Queen”.
In short, a triumph and a delight that deservedly will be a massive hit.
Posted in Cultural issues | Comments (0)
A review of the novel “Exit West” by Mohsin Hamid
July 29th, 2018 by Roger Darlington
I was impressed by “The Reluctant Fundamentalist”, Hamid’s early novel which was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize for Fiction 2007, and so I was attracted to “Exit West”, another of his novels which was shortlisted for the Man Booker in 2017. It tells the story of two refugees, the Islamic adherent Saeed and the covered but non-practising Nadia, who flee the militant takeover of their unnamed country which could be Syria or Afghanistan or part of Hamid’s Pakistan.
It is an odd work with minimal dialogue and a deceptively plain style and some really long sentences (one covers a page and a half). The use of magical realism enables instant travel through a black door to an unknown destination somewhere else in the world. The couple move from their homeland to the Greek island of Mykonos to the capital city of London to the Marin county of California, while the narrative offers the reader glimpses of half-a-dozen or so different locations around the globe.
Through the prism of migration, Hamid examines the divided world in which we live: “The news in those days was full of war and migrants and nativists, and it was full of fracturing too, of regions pulling away from nations, and cities pulling away from hinterlands, and it seemed that as everyone was coming together everyone was also moving apart”. As he states: “We are all migrants through time”.
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A review of the new animated movie “Incredibles 2”
July 29th, 2018 by Roger Darlington
I didn’t see “The Incredibles” in 2004 (I had no grandchildren then) but, 14 years later, I was delighted to have the opportunity to take along granddaughter no 1 (seven year old Catrin) for what proved to be a most entertaining two hours.
Writer and director of the original Brad Bird reprises these roles for the return of the Parr family of unappreciated superheroes: Bob/Mr Incredible (Craig T Nelson), Helen/Elastigirl (Holly Hunter) and their three children, teenage daughter Violet, pre-teen son Dash, and little baby Jack-Jack.
We’ve recently witnessed the commercial cinematic success of a female superhero in “Wonder Woman” and a black superhero in “Black Panther” and part of the fun of “Incredibles 2” is seeing more challenging of stereotypes with mom heading the mission to combat the evil Screensaver while dad stays at home with the truculent kids. More inversion of roles comes with the discovery that the baby has more super powers than the lot of them.
Pixar has another hit on its hands. If you don’t have a child or grandchild, borrow one to see this movie – or go along anyway.
Posted in Cultural issues | Comments (0)
1976 and 2018: two exceptionally hot summers – but a lot of differences
July 28th, 2018 by Roger Darlington
I remember the long hot summer of 1976. It was the summer I became a father and my life had never been sunnier.
But, as explained in this article in the “Mirror” newspaper, there were lots of other things that made that year a better one than this year for so many people in Britain.
Posted in Environment, History, My life & thoughts | Comments (0)
How high can inflation go? Pity the people of Venezuela.
July 28th, 2018 by Roger Darlington
Currently I’m doing a short course at the City Literary Institute on the Weimar Republic of Germany from 1919-1933. A defining feature of that country at that time was the hyper inflation experienced in 1923.
At the start of the crisis in July 1922, one American dollar could be bought for 493 German marks. By the height of the crisis on 20 November 1923, one dollar required 4,200,000,000,000 marks. More information here.
I live in Britain where generally inflation is around 2%, but I was working for the Labour Government of the time when in 1975 inflation hit an historic peak of 25%. More information here.
These days, the country with the worst inflation problem in the world is Venezuela. The International Monetary Fund has just issued a warning that inflation in that country could top 1,000,000% by the end of the year. In 2018, Venezuela’s economy is likely to contract by 18% which would be the third consecutive year of double-digit decline. More information here.
Posted in History, World current affairs | Comments (0)
How many story types are there in the movies and which make the most money?
July 26th, 2018 by Roger Darlington
Researchers at the University of Birmingham have categorised the movies according to six emotional profiles or clusters, which were previously applied to novels.
These are: rags to riches – an ongoing emotional rise as seen in films such as “The Shawshank Redemption”; riches to rags – an ongoing emotional fall (“Psycho”); man in a hole – a fall followed by a rise (“The Godfather”); Icarus – a rise followed by a fall (“On the Waterfront“); Cinderella – a rise followed by a fall followed by a rise (“Babe”); and Oedipus, a fall followed by a rise followed by a fall (“All About My Mother”).
Apparently, the analysis showed that man in a hole movies with their happy-sad-happy trajectory were the most financially successful movies across all genres, costing an average of $40.5m to produce and earning an average of $54.9m.
You can learn more about this research here and, if you’re interested in seeing good movies, check out my film reviews here.
Posted in Cultural issues | Comments (0)
Have you had a lot of really hot weather recently? You’re not alone.
July 23rd, 2018 by Roger Darlington
“Across much of the northern hemisphere, intense and prolonged heatwaves have triggered disruption and devastation as North America, the Arctic, northern Europe and Africa have sweltered in record-breaking temperatures. In Africa, a weather station at Ouargla, Algeria, in the Sahara desert, recorded a temperature of 51.3C, the highest reliable temperature ever recorded in Africa.
In Japan, where temperatures have reached more than 40C, people were last week urged to take precautions after the death toll reached 30 with thousands more having sought hospital treatment for heat-related conditions. And in California increased use of air conditioning units, switched on to counter the scorching conditions there, has led to power shortages.”
This is an extract from an article on the website of the “Guardian” which discusses the likely causes – that include not just global warming.
Posted in World current affairs | Comments (0)
The life and legacy of President Ronald Reagan
July 19th, 2018 by Roger Darlington
This summer, as usual, I’m attending some short courses at the City Literary Institute in central London. The first one was a two and a hall hour session on US President Ronald Reagan delivered by college principal Mark Malcolmson who is incredibly knowledgeable and very fluent. These are some of my notes:
Presidents tend to come from poor or rich backgrounds. Reagan was from a poor family in Illinois. Known as Dutch because of Dutch boy haircut as youth. At college, very clubbable. Became sports commentator on radio in Iowa. Signed up for seven years to Warner Brothers as a B movie actor (“Bedtime For Bonzo”)
Following scandal involving other officers, President of the Screen Actors Guild for five years. Until then, a New Deal Democrat – he claimed Dems went Left but actually he went Right. Then became face of General Electric Theatre on television and spoke at company’s factories -> became a very effective public speaker.
By 1964, Republican Party in disarray (Barry Goldwater presidential candidate). “The Speech” – Reagan came out as Republican and declared for Goldwater. In 1966 and again in 1970, elected as governor of California. Tough on law & order but he raised taxes in order to balance the budget. Signed abortion and no-fault divorce laws and opposed bill to ban gays as teachers.
Reagan ran against Gerald Ford for the presidential candidacy but narrowly lost. This weakened Ford who then lost to Jimmy Carter. For next four years, Reagan was the leader in waiting. Then in 1980 he won the Republican primary against George Bush and the following presidential election in a rout against Carter.
He became the oldest president in history at that time (almost 70). Put together a strong cabinet and left detail to his team. Three months into his presidency, he was the subject of an assassination attempt which gave him a fillip in the polls and a huge amount of poltical capital during a shaky first two years in office.
He supported small government and low taxes, but he massively increased spending on the military and ran a huge deficit. Unemployment rose to over 10%. Republicans hammered in the mid terms. But then economy improved.
He made three nominations to the Supreme Court, including the first woman member of the Court (Sandra Day O’Connor), and tilted Court to the Right.
In 1984, Reagan re-elected president against Walter Mondale in a massive landslide – biggest Electoral College vote in history.
Foreign policy:
Sent troops into Lebanon with no clear objective and went catastrophically wrong. Then he ordered invasion of Grenada which went down well with US electorate. He was a staunch supporter of apartheid South Africa. He thought that detente had failed and Soviet Union should be opposed everywhere and American allies – however unpleasant (Chile and Nicaragua) – were supported.
He launched the Strategic Defense Initiative (Star Wars) to counter “the evil empire” of the Soviet Union which would have ended the notion of “mutually assured destruction”. New Soviet leader Gorbachev responded with series of summits. Many historians claim that Reagan broke the Soviet Union and won the Cold War. Others argue it would have happened anyway because the USSR was economically unsustainable.
Major scandal was his support of the Contras in Nicaragua by selling arms to Iran to raise the funds. It should have brought Reagan down. Was he already senile? Most doctors think not. Democrats were reluctant to impeach because it would look like a second removal of a landslide president (after Nixon).
Two blind spots:
He was opposed to civil rights with no understanding of race relations.
He refused to have any concern about AIDS for a long time.
Two major pluses:
Response to the “Challenger” disaster.
Managed to have election of his Vice-President (Bush snr).
Posted in History | Comments (2)