What is it like to be in Iran?
January 1st, 2018 by Roger Darlington
At the turn of the year, the major news from the Middle East is the wave of demonstrations in Iran. We’re not sure how these have spread so rapidly and how things will develop. But I visited Iran shortly after the last major wave of protests organised by the Green Movement and indeed made contact with the Movement.
In my web site account of the trip, I wrote:
“The most striking feature of Iran is its people.
On the one hand, it is constantly apparent that one is in an Islamic republic because all the men are in long-sleeved shirts but no ties, while all the woman are completely covered in dark garb except for their face and hands. It is remarkable how striking the women’s faces appear in these circumstances. They start with the benefit of clear brown eyes, but all the young women apply mascara to their eyelashes and mould their eyebrows into impressive arches which makes their faces all the more appealling. One young woman told us that attempts to make the most of the one part of their body on show represented “a mascara revolution”.
On the buses, women have to sit at the back while the men sit at the front, an arrangement that Roger & Vee had only previously witnessed in Jerusalem. From time to time, we would see someone with a plaster on the nose. Apparently Tehran is the plastic surgery capital of the world and so many people pay a fortune for a nose job.
On the other hand, everyone was astonishingly friendly, more so that any other country that Roger & Vee had visited. We would greet passers-by with “Salam!” and they would unfailingly smile back. They would approach us constantly with combinations of the following phrases in broken English: “Hello. How are you? Where you from? How you like Iran?” They were so keen to meet us and talk with us and even to be photographed with us. They would explain that their Government told them that Westerns were enemies, but insisted that they were delighted that we were visiting Iran and always wished us a good trip.”
You can read the full account of my 2009 trip here.
Posted in World current affairs | Comments (0)
My 15 best films of 2017
December 31st, 2017 by Roger Darlington
As readers will know, I’m a massive movie fan and review all the films I see for this site. I’ve been encouraged to pick out my top ten movies of 2017. I find this so difficult, but I tried and came up with these 15 that I list simply in alphabetical order:
- “The Big Sick” – my review here
- “Blade Runner 2049”- my review here
- “Breathe”- my review here
- “Detroit”- my review here
- “Dunkirk”- my review here
- “Get Out” – my review here
- “Ghost In The Shell” – my review here
- “I, Daniel Blake”- my review here
- “La La Land” – my review here
- “Logan” – my review here
- “Maggie’s Plan” – my review here
- “Manchester By The Sea” – my review here
- “Moonlight” – my review here
- “Paddington 2” -my review here
- “Wonder Woman” – my review here
If pressed to defend this eclectic choice, I would point out that there are representatives of all the major genres – drama, sci-fi, super-hero, comedy, horror, musical – and there are films from female and black directors with some fine women and black actors. I thoroughly admired all of them and would recommend any of them.
Posted in Cultural issues | Comments (0)
Three of the most likely technological advances of 2018
December 31st, 2017 by Roger Darlington
Professor Jim Al-Khalili is one of my favourite scientists – able to explain complex ideas in simple and accessible form, especially quantum physics.
In today’s ‘Observer” colour supplement, he writes: “What about 2018? Surely the world won’t look too different? All I can say for certain is there are three technologies we’re going hear much more about next year, even more than we have done this year.”
The three technologies that he identifies in this short article are gene editing, artificial intelligence and advances in energy.
Posted in Science & technology | Comments (0)
Why sadly we’ll have to wait at least another year before President Trump can be impeached
December 30th, 2017 by Roger Darlington
“In 2017 we saw with new clarity that the strength of the US constitution depends entirely on the willingness of those charged with enforcing it to do their duty. And today’s Republicans refuse to fulfil that obligation. They, like Trump, are without shame. This was a fatal oversight by Hamilton, James Madison and their fellow framers of the constitution. They did not reckon on a partisanship so intense it would blind elected representatives to the national interest – so that they would, repeatedly, put party ahead of country. The founders did not conceive of a force like today’s Republican party, willing to indulge a president nakedly hostile to ideals Americans once held sacred.”
Extract from a column in today’s “Guardian” newspaper
Posted in American current affairs | Comments (0)
Why sadly we’ll have to wait at least another year for a Labour Government
December 29th, 2017 by Roger Darlington
“The problem is that there is an obstacle: the Fixed-term Parliaments Act. This 2011 law says that, in order for there to be an election, the government has to lose a confidence vote or the prime minister has to persuade two-thirds of MPs to vote for one. Both are possible in theory in 2018, but not likely. Not even Heseltine has advocated bringing the government down, while few Tory MPs would vote for an early poll after 2017’s election disaster. A third option, the formation of a Labour minority government without an election, is a fascinating possibility but still improbable.”
Extract from a column in today’s “Guardian” newspaper
Posted in British current affairs | Comments (0)
A review of the novel “The Rising Tide” by Prashant Vaze
December 28th, 2017 by Roger Darlington
These days, some young adult fiction is so good it should be read by adults themselves and I’ve thoroughly enjoyed the the “His Dark Materials” trilogy by Philip Pullman and “The Hunger Games” trilogy by Suzanne Collins. “The Rising Tide” too will appeal to adults as well as youngsters.
Like the previously mentioned trilogies, this novel has as its protagonist a young girl with some special skills and indeed the point of view is that of 15 year old Aria Lovelace, a schoolgirl in a Britain of some half a century hence when global warming is wreaking worldwide devastation as mammoth chunks of Greenland ice break off to cause tsunamis and rising sea levels.
Although the themes of the novel are huge – an environmental catastrophe, a growing refugee crisis and the interface between humans and technology – the focus of the narrative is very tight in terms of time (just a few weeks), place (a village in Norfolk), and characters (essentially Aria’s family). As the story unfolds, it is increasingly clear that Aria is special but, when it comes, the great reveal is a genuine surprise.
Vaze – a Londoner currently based in Hong Kong – is a self-confessed policy wonk with a passion for the environment and he has written an impressive first work of fiction with intriguing thoughts on the future of education and energy supply and the roles of connected devices and artificial intelligence.
Posted in Cultural issues | Comments (0)
A review of the 1946 film “A Matter Of Life And Death”
December 27th, 2017 by Roger Darlington
At the end of the Second World War, relations between the Americans and the British were a little strained as, in the run-up to D-Day, the yanks won local hearts while they were “overpaid, oversexed and over here” and a British Government department suggested the idea of a locally-made film to improve perceptions.
Written, produced and directed by the quintessentially British Michael Powell and the Hungarian-born Emeric Pressburger, the work may not have fully met its contemporary brief: British critics of the time thought the film was too pro-American and the Americans renamed the work “Stairway To Heaven” because they thought the word ‘death’ would kill its prospects. But the movie played well with audiences on both sides of the Atlantic and it was so visually inventive and verbally clever that it has become a classic.
At the heart of the story is an inversion of the usual ‘yank gets the girl’ narrative, as RAF bomber pilot Squadron Leader Peter Carter (David Niven) wins the affection of American radio operator June (Kim Hunter) in record time and audacious circumstances as he is about to bale out without a parachute. That should be the end of the ‘matter’ but Conductor 71 (Marius Goring) of “the other world” (the word ‘heaven’is never used) fails to find his man in the Channel fog.
So this is a romance – and a comedy – but it is also very political with some satirical analysis of contemporary Britain and America. The tribunal in the other world, pitting American prosecuter (Raymond Massey) against the British defender (Roger Livesey), features critiques and characteriisations of both nations, not least in the choice of the members of the two juries.
The set designs – by German-born Alfred Junge – are simple but striking, especially the staircase to the other world and the scenes of that world, while there are a whole range of clever visual techniques, starting with the representation of earth in colour and the heavenly world in black & white and including the ‘freezing’ of ‘real life’ when Conductor 71 makes his earthly appearances and an amzing shot from an eyeball point of view.
Even the statutes on the stairway are carefully chosen (all of the 17 famous personages named in Pressburger’s copy of the script were believed to be sufferers of epilepsy). Indeed the whole film is constructed so that the viewer can interpret the story either as a real life medical phenomenon or as an obviously spiritual experience.
Most people will only have seen this film on television which is where I first encountered it. But, in December 2017, a digitally restored version was shown in British cinemas and I was fortunate enough to see it on the big screen as a Boxing Day treat.
Seven decades on, the film still has resonance as a British Prince Harry wins the heart of the American actress Meghan Markle and the second jury – made up entirely of self-declared immigrants to the USA – reminds us that current US President Donald Trump does not represent the real America.
You can read my reviews of 57 classic films here.
Posted in Cultural issues | Comments (2)
Would a universal basic income really work?
December 26th, 2017 by Roger Darlington
We need some new, big and bold, ideas to tackle poverty and inequality. I have done an earlier posting about the intriguing idea of a universal basic income. I don’t know if this approach would work but I think we should try it.
There is a trial in Canada; there is a trial in Finland; and today’s “Guardian” newspaper reports on forthcoming trials in four local authority areas in Scotland.
Let’s see if it works and let’s be guided by the evidence – as we should with all social policy.
Posted in Social policy | Comments (0)
So who exactly was Alexander Hamilton?
December 23rd, 2017 by Roger Darlington
This week, the multi-award-winning American musical “Hamilton” finally opened in London. But, until the success of the show on Broadway, most non-Americans knew nothing about Hamilton and I suspect that many Americans were not as familiar with his achievements as they should have been.
I’ve just watched a recording of a two-hour American-made documentary on the life of Alexander Hamilton that was shown in the UK on the History channel.
Hamilton was born on 11 January 1755 on the small West Indies island of Nevis; his father soon left home; and his mother died when he was young. So, when he arrived in New York, he was illegitimate, an orphan, and an immigrant – not the most promising of starts for a political career.
But, in the American War of Independence, he came to the attention of General George Washington and became his chief aide. Indeed Washington was a benefactor to Hamilton as long as the General lived.
Hamilton played a key role in the decisive Battle of Yorktown and later married into an elite family, both events advancing his public standing. He became a qualified lawyer and prolific political writer.
Ever since the War of Independence when he was critical of the weakness of the Continental Congress, Hamilton had favoured a strong and effective central government for the new United States. So he was a strong supporter in public of the new Constitution and wrote no less than 51 of the 85 Federalist Papers which explained and advocated the new system of government.
When Washington became the first President, Hamilton was made Secretary of the Treasury where he instituted a whole series of measures designed to strengthen the new national state, including consolidation of the debts of the states into a national debt, the creation of a federal bank, and the establishment of a national currency.
It was at this stage that American politics became party-based with the formation of the Federalists, supported by Hamilton, and the Republicans, backed by Thomas Jefferson. The former favoured a strong central government, while the latter supported states’ rights – a cleavage which ultimately led to the American Civil War and still exists today.
Hamilton – married with five children – might have risen further in public life, but he was the subject of the first major sex scandal of American politics when he had an affair with the wife of James Reynolds who successfully blackmailed him before the matter became public.
In those days, conflicts between gentlemen could become “affairs of honour” ultimately risking settlement through a duel. Hamilton managed to experience 10 such matters without needing to duel but, on the eleventh occasion, a duel was held with his long-time opponent Aaron Burr and he was mortally wounded. He died on 12 July 1804.
So Hamilton – am immensely talented but very difficult man – was certainly a colourful character with lots of material for various biographies and a musical (can the film be far off?). What the television programme underlined for me was that the personal animosity and bitter conflicts of today’s American political life go right back to the Founding Fathers. The likes of Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and John Adams really despised others with a vengeance.
If you want to know more about the life of Alexander Hamilton, check out this short account or this longer account.
Posted in History | Comments (1)
Nine questions raised by “Star Wars: The Last Jedi”
December 22nd, 2017 by Roger Darlington
If you haven’t yet seen the eighth movie in the “Star Wars” saga, you might want to skip this posting because it involves spoilers.
But, if you’ve seen the film and came away with lots of questions, you’ll want to check out the IMDb list of nine questions arising from the plot.
And, if you’re a “Star Wars” fan, you can check out my reviews of all the movies in the franchise.
Posted in Cultural issues | Comments (0)