How can newspapers survive when advertising revenue is pouring online?
October 26th, 2017 by Roger Darlington
I am a paid subscriber to the “Guardian” newspaper which has just issued this encouraging statement:
“The Guardian is now funded by more than 800,000 supporters from more than 140 countries. Half a million readers are subscribers or members, or give to us on a monthly basis, while over the past 12 months we’ve received another 300,000 individual contributions from readers all over the world. We are also seeing strong sales of our print Guardian and Observer newspapers.
We are encouraged and cheered by the hundreds of thousands of you who are supporting our journalism. In the last year alone, the number of readers who support us regularly has more than doubled; and we now receive more income from our readers than we do from advertisers. This is a significant step.
We will continue to rely and build on this in the year ahead as we aim, with your help, to reach many thousands more committed supporters and sustain that support for the long term so that we keep investing in quality, investigative journalism. We haven’t put up a paywall. Instead, we want to remain a strong, progressive force that is open for all. So we need many more of our readers to fund the Guardian and the role it plays in the world.”
Posted in Consumer matters | Comments (0)
What’s going on in Kenya’s (second) presidential election?
October 26th, 2017 by Roger Darlington
In the last two years, I’ve been out to Kenya four times because my son has been working there. So I have more than a passing interest in the political situation in the country.
On 8 August 2017, a presidential election was held in which the incumbent was declared to have won by nine percentage points but, following protests from the leading opposition candidate, the Supreme Court ruled that the counting – if not the balloting – was procedurally unacceptable and the election must be re-run within 60 days. The second election is being held today, but the opposition is boycotting the poll because they have not achieved the changes in electoral procedures that they feel are necessary to make the poll sufficiently democratic.
Since the first presidential election, about 50 people are reported to have been killed in violent encounters. The opposition had wanted the repeat ballot to be held at a later date, but a bid to delay the election re-run fell apart after only two of seven Supreme Court judges attended a hearing this week.
In Europe and America, voting on a class basis has tended more recently to be replaced by voting on the basis of identity but, in Kenya, voting has always been on tribal lines. There are 23 tribes in Kenya with the largest being Kikuyu (22%), Luhya (14%), Luo (13%), and Kalenjin (12%).
The presidential election has been dominated by two coalitions of parties: one called Jubilee and the other titled the National Super Alliance or NASA. Jubilee is led by the current President Uhuru Kenyatta (who is Kikuyu) and the current Vice-President William Ruto (who is Kalenjin). NASA is headed by Presidential candidate Raila Odinga (who is Luo) and Vice-Presidential candidate Kalonzo Musyoka (who is Ukambani).
Both Kenyatta and Odinga – the leading candidates in the presidential election- are sons of former political leaders who dominated the early years of post-independent Kenya. Constitutionally this is the last presidential election that Kenyatta can contest while, in terms of his age, 72 year old Odinga could not really fight another presidential election. So the stakes are high.
Posted in World current affairs | Comments (0)
The Russian Revolution: the centenary
October 25th, 2017 by Roger Darlington
Today marks the 100th anniversary of the start of the second – the decisive October – Russian Revolution, a massively important event in modern history.
You can read my short review of a recent book on the revolution in the context of the period 1891-1991 here.
If you’re really interested in the subject, you can access the long Wikipedia page on the revolution here.
Happy reading, comrade!
Posted in History | Comments (0)
A review of “The Girl From Venice” by Martin Cruz Smith
October 24th, 2017 by Roger Darlington
This is the third novel that I have read by prolific American author MCS, folowing “Gorky Park” and “Havana Bay”. I guess that the title has been chosen to encourage sales because the feminine noun seems to everywhere. The trend was probably started by the spectatular success of the English-language translations of the three Millennium novels of Swedish crime writer Stieg Larsson starting with “THe Girl With The Dragon Tattoo” but, in the last few years, I’ve read “Girl With A Pearl Earring” (Tracy Chevalier), “Gone Girl” (Gillian Flynn), “The Girl On The Train” (Paula Hawkins) and “The Girl Who Fell From The Sky” (Simon Mawer).
In the case of the Smith novel, the title is a bit of a come-on because the central character is actually an uneducated fisherman called Cenzo rather than the sophisticated Jewish teenager Guila and indeed, in the middle third of this 300-page work, the girl is totally missing from the narrative. Even the use of Venice in the title is a bit of a misnomer since a good deal of the action is not in Venice and, when it is, the locale is not the parts of the city familiar to tourists but the little-known lagoon island of Pellestrina.
What makes the novel distinctive and interesting though is the setting in the last weeks of the Second World War, the location of much of the story in Salo (the rump state ostensibly led by Mussolini from late 1943 to early 1945), and the detail about fish and fishing. Although Cruz is essentially a mystery novelist, this latest work by him can be taken as a romance between an unlikely couple. Cenzo muses: ‘Yet only one woman would do. And not just any one, but the most obstinate, impossible woman he had ever met.”
Posted in Cultural issues | Comments (0)
The Toxicity Charge (T-Charge) and improving air quality in London
October 23rd, 2017 by Roger Darlington
Today Sadiq Khan, the Mayor of London, introduced the Toxicity Charge (or T-Charge) in central London to tackle emissions from the oldest polluting vehicles. Since I’ve lived in London for 46 years and visit central London several times a week, I welcome this policy.
The T-Charge is part of a package of actions intended to help clean up London’s dangerously polluted air which contributes to thousands of early deaths each year in London. It also impacts our health over the course of our lives – leading to smaller lungs in our children and greater risk of dementia and strokes as we get older.
The T-Charge is said to be the toughest vehicle emission standard of any world city and is a step to implementing an Ultra Low Emission Zone with even tighter standards from April 2019 (subject to consultation). The Mayor has more than doubled funding to improve London’s air quality to £875 million, and is cleaning up London’s bus and taxi fleets.
The powerful response to the smogs of the 1950s and 1960s shows that it is possible to improve air quality in London if we are bold enough. But to do this the leadership shown by the Mayor needs to be matched by equally ambitious action by Government, including a national diesel scrappage fund, a new Clean Air Act and stronger powers for regional and local authorities to tackle non-transport sources of pollution.
Posted in Environment | Comments (0)
Does truth really matter? Or should we just accept that people have different views?
October 23rd, 2017 by Roger Darlington
I recently had dinner with some friends and we got to discussing truth – as you do. This is a subject I’ve thought about a lot, most recently in the so-called era of post-truth manifested by the utterances of President Trump.
Why does truth matter? What techniques do people use to deny truth? What techniques should we use for determining truth? And what techniques should we use for identifying non-truth?
I have addressed these questions in my short essay here.
What do you think?
Posted in Miscellaneous | Comments (0)
What do you know about the Republic of Salo?
October 19th, 2017 by Roger Darlington
I’m currently reading a novel by Martin Cruz Smith titled “The Girl From Venice”. It is set in northern Italian at the end of the Second World War and some of the action takes place in Salo.
The relevant Wikipedia page opens as follows:
“The Italian Social Republic, informally known as the Republic of Salò, was a state with limited recognition that was created during the later part of World War II, existing from the beginning of German occupation of Italy in September 1943 until surrender of German troops in Italy in April 1945. The Italian Social Republic was the second and last incarnation of the Italian Fascist state and was led by Duce Benito Mussolini and his reformed anti-monarchist Republican Fascist Party which tried to modernise and revise fascist doctrine into a more moderate and sophisticated direction.
The state declared Rome its capital, but was de facto centered on Salò (hence its colloquial name), a small town on Lake Garda, near Brescia, where Mussolini and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs were headquartered. The Italian Social Republic exercised nominal sovereignty in Northern and Central Italy, but was largely dependent on German troops to maintain control.”
If you’re interested in knowing more about the Republic of Salo, you can access the Wikipedia page here.
Posted in Cultural issues, History | Comments (0)
Albert Einstein vs Philipp Lenard: a clash of intellectual titans
October 18th, 2017 by Roger Darlington
I’ve been watching recordings of the 10-part National Geographic television series called “Genius” which is a fascinating presentation of the life of the brilliant scientist Albert Einstein. A theme of the series is just how human Einstein was in his problems with family, friends and colleagues.
Scientists may be incredibly intelligent but they can be subject to some very basic emotions. In the series, I’ve been particularly struck by the ferocious conflict between the two German Nobel Prize winners Philipp Lenard and Einstein. You can read a short piece on this controversy here.
Posted in Science & technology | Comments (0)
The great storm in south-east England in 1987
October 16th, 2017 by Roger Darlington
Thirty years ago today, a great storm unexpectedly hit the south-east of England (coincidentally a similar storm is hitting Ireland today and Scotland tomorrow). I’ve kept a daily diary since I was 13 (I’m now 69) and I’ve looked up what I wrote for Friday, 16 October 1987:
“I was awakened about 4.30 am by the telephone ringing but, since I could not see without lenses and could not get any light to work, it stopped before I could reach my study wall. I could hear wind but the new double glazing cut out most of the noise and nothing special had been forecast by the weathermen.
However, when we woke up, we found that there was still a power failure – electricity was restored about 8 am – and the garden was littered with branches snapped off the trees in the spinney, one of them so large it had smashed a gap in the Harringtons’ new fence.
Two more pieces of felt from the dorma roof and all the guttering over the upper landing window had been pulled off. It turned out the the telephone call had been from Mari, frightened at being without Derek and losing some ridge tiles and a lot of fencing in the wind.
During the day, we learned the full measure of the freak storm. The London Weather Centre recorded a wind of 94 mph at 4 am and the storm was classed as the worst since 1703. At least 17 people have been killed and a third of the trees in Kew Gardens have been destroyed or damaged.”
Posted in History, My life & thoughts | Comments (0)
A review of the new film “The Party”
October 15th, 2017 by Roger Darlington
This black comedy is a British oddity of a film in so many respects: written by a woman (Sally Potter), directed by a woman (the same Potter), as many female roles as male (actually one more out of seven), shot in black and white, located wholly on the ground floor of a London house, told in real time, and running for only 71 minutes.
Newly appointed (shadow) health minister Janet (Kristin Scott Thomas) and her husband Bill (Timothy Spall) are hosting a small celebration of her success with an odd American/German couple April and Gottfried (Patricia Clarkson & Bruno Ganz), a mixed-age lesbian couple Martha and Jinny (Cherry Jones & Emily Mortimer), and a hyped-up husband Tom (Cillan Murphy) waiting for his wife to arrive.
All the performances by this starry cast are a delight, enhanced by a witty and twisting script, while the opening and closing scenes, so intertwined, are simply wonderful.
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If you fancy the idea of a story about a London dinner party but can’t get to see “The Party”, you might like to read my short story on this theme here.
Posted in Cultural issues | Comments (0)