A review of the new movie “Kingsman: The Golden Circle”
October 3rd, 2017 by Roger Darlington
The first outing for Kingsman, “The Secret Service” in 2015, was so successful that two years later it’s back, even more star-stunned and even more outrageous but just as action-packed and entertainingly over-the-top.
Taron Egerton as Eggsy Unwin is growing into the role and Colin Firth and Mark Strong are back (even though the former’s character was apparently killed off last time) while, thanks to the involvement of Statesman (the US equivalent of Kingsman), we now have a host of American stars, most notably Julianne Moore, who clearly loved her role as Poppy Adams, head of a truly massive drug operation, but also Jeff Bridges, Channing Tatum and Halle Berry (whom we are likely to see next time round in a more active role).
Throw in Elton John playing himself and you’d think that would a rich enough cast-list. But we also have Poppy Delevingne, older sister of the model Cara Delevingne, Emily Watson (Elsa Einstein in “Genius”), and Pedro Pascal (Oberyn Martell in “Game Of Thrones”).
From the opening fight sequence in a racing London cab, the action is furious and massively enhanced by CGI so that it all looks utterly fantastical. There’s a magical lasso, following in the path of a similar device in “Wonder Woman”, and some scary mechanical apparatus such as robot killer dogs and a giant meat grinder.
Four-letter expletives are commonplace, but the most offensive element is a scene at Glastonbury music festival involving a minature tracking device which surely goes beyond the bounds of decency even for the “Kingsman” franchise. But, perhaps not, because director of both movies Matthew Vaughn and his co-writer of both scripts Jane Goldman are obviously determined to see how far they can subvert the James Bond formula for a new, usually younger, audience. And it’s working …
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Do some religions have a higher birth rate than others — and how does this affect global population growth?
October 2nd, 2017 by Roger Darlington
This TED lecture is fascinating and only 13 minutes:
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A review of the recent film “Patriots Day”
October 1st, 2017 by Roger Darlington
The day is 15 April 2013; the place is Boston; the occasion is the annual marathon. As we all know, two radicalised Chechen immigrants, Dzhokhar (Alex Wolff) and Tamerlan Tsarnaev (Themo Melikidze), set off two bombs which killed three people and injured several hundred others, including 16 who lost limbs.
This film is a very workmanlike and respectful, almost documentary-style, account of the eve of the event, the bombing itself, and tracking down of the assailants in a tense five-day manhunt. Mark Wahlberg, reuniting with the director for the third film in a row, is Boston detective Tommy Saunders, a composite of several real people, while Kevin Bacon plays FBI Special Agent Richard DesLauriers.
For writer and director Peter Berg, following “Lone Survivor” and “Deep Water Horizon”, “Patriots Day” can be seen as the third part of his unofficial Americans-in-crisis trilogy which probably play better for US audiences than overseas, but manage to combine information with entertainment.
This time round, the viewer cannot fail to be struck by the complexity and sophistication of modern-day surveillance and forensic technologies. If only these technologies could prevent terrorist incidents (without too much of a sacrifice of our privacy and freedoms) as well as find those who have just committed such an atrocity.
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How to have a six-month honeymoon and see the world
September 30th, 2017 by Roger Darlington
Earlier this year in May, I had a holiday in Sri Lanka. You can read my account of the trip here.
At one point in the holiday, we made an exciting train journey from a town called Nana-Oya to a city called Kandy. On the journey, I met briefly a good-looking young couple who were clearly very much in love. I learned that they were Australian and were on a six-month honeymoon travelling around the world. I was so impressed by their initiative and in awe at their confidence.
The couple, Damien and Britney Woods, told me about their travel blog and we exchanged Facebook details. Don’t you just love social media? Their journey is now over, they have settled in London, and I’ll be seeing them soon.
Meanwhile you can check out their blog with fabulous photos here and you might like to read Damien’s piece on “Why it was the best thing for my career” here.
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Why did the Conservatives lose the general election?
September 29th, 2017 by Roger Darlington
“The Conservatives would have won a 42-seat majority in June’s general election if they had secured the same level of support among minority ethnic Britons as they did among white voters, analysis has found.The report, by the British Future thinktank, identifies what it calls an “ethnic minority voting gap” that cost Theresa May 600,000 votes and an extra 28 seats.”
More information here.
Posted in British current affairs | Comments (0)
The one area where women always beat men
September 28th, 2017 by Roger Darlington
It’s called: living. In virtually every country in the world, women live longer than men.
Centenarians are the fastest growing age group in the UK, with the number of 100-year-olds almost doubling over a 14-year period, According to the latest data from the Office for National Statistics. Although they make up a very small proportion of the total UK population (0.02% in 2016), their numbers have grown rapidly from 7,750 in 2002 to 14,910 last year. In 1986 there were just were just 3,642 centenarians.
Female centenarians outnumber males by five to one.
More information here.
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A review of the new film “Victoria & Abdul”
September 27th, 2017 by Roger Darlington
Queen Victoria has now replaced Sherlock Holmes as the most featured character on British screens. According to a study by the British Film Institute, the monarch is now jointly tied with James Bond on 25 films. This is thanks to “Victoria & Abdul” (2017) which is a kind of companion piece to the earlier “Mrs Brown” (1997): both works star the inestimable Judi Dench as the British Queen in a relationship with a court outsider in an attempt to assuage her loneliness (indeed the new film mentions the friendship of the earlier film).
Like all good football matches, “Victoria & Abdul” is a game of two halves. The first half is played for laughs with Abdul (Bollywood rising star Ali Fazal) and his Indian companion Mohammed (Adeel Akhtar) acting like Laurel & Hardy or R2D2 & C3PO and the various British establishment characters presented in rather sterotypical or satirical manner.
But then the second half is much more serious with Victoria making very plain the sorrow of widowhood and the isolation of court life and struggling to make her “Munshi” (Indian Secretary) an intimate part of her life even when all around her – especially son ‘Bertie’ (Eddie Izzard) – are utterly opposed to the friendship and Abdul himself proves to be something of a charlatan.
It seems that this remarkable true story only became known in any detail through the relatively recent discovery of Abdul’s diaries and, at a time of significant Islamophobia in the Western world, the idea that a British monarch and a Muslim clerk could have such a meaningful friendship resonates powerfully. Director Stephen Frears and writer Lee Hall have crafted a work that manages to be both entertaining and topical in a very British movie that will have international appeal.
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Have you ever heard of the name Chimene?
September 26th, 2017 by Roger Darlington
I know that I should be blogging about the nuclear threat from North Korea or the rise of the far Right in Germany – but these subjects are just too depressing. Instead I thought I’d mention a conversation I had on a recent visit to the cinema.
I was served by a young, black woman and noticed that her name was Chimene. The name sounded vaguely familiar and so I asked her about it. She explained that it was chosen by her mother who loved the character of this name played by Sophia Loren in the film “El Cid”.
I knew exactly what she was talking about because this 1961 movie is a favourite of mine and I’ve reviewed it here.
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The result of the German federal elections
September 25th, 2017 by Roger Darlington
Angela Merkel has won a fourth term as Chancellor of Germany but the far Right has representation in the Bundestag for the first time in the post-war period. How many seats has each party won, who do the parties represent, and which ones are likely to come together to form a government coalition?
All is revealed in the up-date to my short guide to the German political system here.
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The most popular first names in Britain today
September 24th, 2017 by Roger Darlington
The Office for National Statistics (ONS) has just issued its annual data for the names chosen last year for boys and girls born in England and Wales. I always use this material to update my comprehensive essay on naming practices all around the world. You can check out the section on British first names here.
I have noted:
“First of all, astonishingly the most popular boys’ name and the most popular girls’ name are essentially the same (Oliver and Olivia) – what is technically known as cognates – and these names have been in the top two for their gender for the last eight years. Is this the case in any other nation? Second, it is striking how traditional most of the names are for both boys and girls, although for the boys it is interesting that the familiar form of names rather than the original version is often preferred – Harry instead of Harold, Jack instead of John, Charlie instead of Charles, Alfie instead of Alfred, Freddie instead of Frederick, Archie instead of Archibold. Third, in the case of boys, four of the top 20 names begin with the letter ‘J’ while, in the case of girls, 10 of the top 20 names end with the letter ‘a’, five of the top 20 names end with the sound ‘ee’, and 11 of the top 20 names contain the letter ‘l’ (in four cases, twice).
On the other hand, the name John (my father’s name), which is the most common male name in Britain, is nowhere in the top 100 names in the 2016 listings, while David – which is the second most common name in Britain – slipped out of the top 50 of names chosen for baby boys born in 2004 and has only just come back (it is currently 43rd). Similarly Margaret – the most common female name in the population as a whole – does not even appear in the top 100 names chosen for girls these days, while Susan – the second most common name in Britain – is not even in the top 100 either.
These observations underline how much fashion shapes the popularity of different names. Fashion is a stronger influence with girls’ names than those of boys. So, for example, in the last decade or so Elsie has soared to 31, Ivy has jumped to number 54, Violet has risen to 65, Bella to 66, Lexi to 85.
It should be noted that the Office of National Statistics (ONS) produces its ranking of the popularity of names using the exact spelling of the name given at birth registration. If one combines the numbers for names with very similar spellings, a very different picture is revealed. For boys, combining the occurrence of Mohammed, Muhammad, Mohammad & Muhammed plus eight other spellings of the names would put it in first place – a reflection of the changing ethnicity of the British population and the powerful trend for Muslim families to name their son after the Prophet. Similarly, if one combines the occurrence of Isabella, Isabelle, Isabel and Isobel, one would find the name top of the girls’ list and, if one took Lily and Lilly together, the name would come third, while Darcie, Darcey and Darcy would boost that name’s ranking.”
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