Warm words for “Cold Feet”
October 26th, 2016 by Roger Darlington
This evening, I watched recordings of the last two episodes (7 & 8) of the new series (7) of “Cold Feet” – a return of the series after an interval of 13 years. Creator Mike Bullen has scored again with a clever mixture of drama and humour played out through a cast of five familiar characters and one new one.
These days some of the most popular series on British television are located in history or about violent crime, but I enjoy drama that is contemporary and domestic. I’m delighted that there will be another series of “Cold Feet” in about a year’s time.
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U.S. presidential election (34): why wouldn’t you vote for Hillary Clinton?
October 26th, 2016 by Roger Darlington
The world has been following the US presidential race with exceptional interest this time round because the differences between the Republican and Democratic nominees – Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton respectively – are so profound and the implications of the American choice for the rest of the globe are massive. I venture to suggest that, if the world was voting, Clinton would win by a landslide.
Of course, if the polls are right, Clinton will win more votes than Trump and, given the peculiarities of the Electoral College system, she could win a substantial majority in the College itself which is what ultimately counts. Yet many Americans are still reluctant to vote for Clinton, even some of those who campaigned for Bernie Sanders in the Democratic primaries.
This week, I was able to attend a meeting in London of supporters of the Sanders campaign who were debating how they should now cast their vote. As a longstanding member of the British Labour Party, it was hard for me to understand the doubts and the confusion that I heard.
You’re a Democrat, you vote for the Party nominee, don’t you? You backed Bernie and he’s supporting Hillary, so why wouldn’t you do too? Clinton is running on a platform substantially influenced by Sanders. But I heard long discussions about voting for the Green Party or even not voting at all.
I heard the idea that neo liberal policies of the Democratic Party had helped to create the danger that is Donald Trump. I heard opposition to all wars (including the first Gulf War) and support for unrestricted immigration. I heard criticisms of Barack Obama; I heard references to the Wikileaks material; I heard an accusation that Clinton could start World War Three; I even heard a suggestion that the Democratic Party could split.
Get real, guys. In the end, it’s a straight choice: Clinton or Trump. Whatever the reservations some might have about Clinton, there is no responsible choice. Do yourself, your country and the world a favour. Vote for Hillary.
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Five consecutive nights, five different beds
October 24th, 2016 by Roger Darlington
It’s been a crazy few days in which I’ve taken a few moments in the morning to work out where I am, since I have spent five consecutive nights in five different locations:
- On Wednesday night, I was at a place called Sanctuary Farm at the foot of Lake Naivasha about two hours drive out of Nairobi. I took my elder granddaughter Catrin (aged almost six) and went to sleep shortly after putting her to bed in our shared room.
- On Thursday night, I slept at the home of my son, daughter-in-law and granddaughters in Nairobi.
- On Friday night, I was on an overnight flight from Nairobi to London. I managed a few hours sleep but it’s hard for someone as tall as me to stretch out in economy class.
- On Saturday night, I stayed in a Travel Lodge in Crystal Palace, south London, having attended a wedding reception for a my nephew and his bride. I went to bed at 1.30 am only to be woken about 3 am by the shouting occupants of nearby rooms.
- On Sunday night, I was back in my own bed at home in Sudbury Hill, north London.
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Visit to Nairobi (3)
October 21st, 2016 by Roger Darlington
For the first time in my three visits to Kenya to see the family, I spent sometime outside Nairobi when I took my granddaughter (soon to be six) Catrin to a place called Sanctuary Farm about two hours drive north-west of the capital (there is a wonderful view over the Rift Valley about half way there). It is the first time that Catrin and have been away together and it was a great success. She knows the place well, having visited on three previous occasions with parents and other grandparents, and she absolutely loves it.
Sanctuary Farm is located at the southern end of Lake Naivasha and covers some 400 acres. The accommodation is just 14 units which are converted stables sitting around a courtyard. Food is served in a separate building and is delicious. Also there is a small swimming pool which Catrin visited twice.
The wildlife wandering freely includes giraffes, zebras, buffaloes, waterbacks, wildebeests, impalas and monkeys. There are many varieties of birds too, including the brilliantly colourful glossy starlings and Egyptian geese. At night, hippos come up from the lake. A special feature of the place is the opportunity to go horse riding and and see the other animals close up and Catrin had two such sessions, one with me walking by her side and the other with her mummy who joined us with the rest of the family for our final afternoon of the two day visit.
While Catrin was on her second horse riding trip, I took the opportunity to have a one-hour boat ride on the lake. The water was at its highest with the tops of trees sprouting up all along the shore. We saw lots of hippos and birds and our boatman brought along a fish which he used to demonstration the diving and catching skills of a fish eagle.
Catrin was great company: well-behaved, lots of fun, and chatting to everyone. She pointed out a hippo to me outside the cook house and, only when we approached it, did I find – which she knew all along – that it was a life-size model . One of her jokes was to warn me, when walking by wildebeest, “Don’t use the ‘r’ word!” When I asked what she meant, she replied “Don’t say ‘run’ or you’ll cause a stampede.” Another of her jokes was: “What do you call an alligator wearing a vest?” When I confessed that I had no idea, she responded: “An investigator”.
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Visit to Nairobi (2)
October 19th, 2016 by Roger Darlington
Since my last posting, I’ve had three more very busy, but thoroughly enjoyable, days with my family in Nairobi.
On Sunday, Richard and Emily took baby Kara for a stroll in the Karura Forest, while I took Catrin to an amusement park next to the Muthaiga shopping plaza She went on just about everything going: star jumps (trampoline in harness), inflated ball on water, quad bike ride, miniature train, horses roundabout, and bouncing castles. When Catrin and I teamed up with the others later, we all went to the Sarit Centre which has an outlet called Planet Yoghurt where you can fill a carton with your choice of flavours of frozen yoghurt.
On Monday, I took Catrin to the Westtgate shopping mall – the site of the terrorist attack in 2013 – where we saw two children’s films: “The Secret Life Of Pets” and “Storks”. Two differences from our cinema-going experience in London: the trailers come before the advertisements and there is a short animation before the main movie. In between the films, Catrin and I ate pizza. In the theatres, Catrin had ice cream.
On Tuesday, Emily drove Catrin, Kara and me to the Karen district of Nairobi to visit a place called Marula Mercantile. Here they recycle discarded flip-flops recovered from Kenyan beaches and turn them into animal features and other artefacts. Catrin helped out with the first stage, which is cleaning, but the later stages involve cutting, gluing, carving and sanding, so she just supervised these processes.
The weather has been a consistent 28C, but the high elevation of Nairobi (almost 6,000 feet) and some cloud has made for a very pleasant climate.
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Visit to Nairobi (1)
October 16th, 2016 by Roger Darlington
Almost 14 months ago, my son Richard and his family relocated
to Nairobi when he obtained a job as Head of Strategic Communications for the consultancy arm of a media company called Well Told Story. I am now on my third visit to them and, as well as my granddaughter Catrin (now aged 5 and 3/4), I have a beautiful new grandadaughter called Kara (aged just 7 and 1/2 weeks).
I timed this visit – like the others – to coincide with Catrin’s half-term, so that I can spend the maximum time doing things with her. In fact, I flew out a day before she broke up because the last morning of the first half term (Friday) was designated Grandparents’ Day – a lovely idea which the Montessori Learning Centre has been running for 10 years now.
Catrin is always excited about my visits – and the presents which I bring – so she likes to come to my bedroom as soon as she is awake. In fact, she had a bad dream and joined me in bed at 3 am. I managed to get her back to sleep but she was awake for good at 6 am.
Grandparents Day was a delight. Each class sang a special song to us highlighting love of grandpas and grandmas, a group of teachers performed a dance, and one of the grandparents – a Sikh singing in Urdu – performed a song while playing a wind instrument called the harmonium.
In the afternoon, Catrin got to open her first and most expensive present: a large Lego set of a ladies hairdressing salon. She had built it all within a couple of hours.
Saturday was a very physical day spent with Richard and Catrin.
In the morning, we visited an indoor rock climbing place at Diamond Plaza. Catrin has been there around five times before. She loves it and she is really good at it. She was keen for me to have my first experience of the sport at the advanced age of 68. I did about half a dozen climbs but it was not easy and afterwards my arms ached.
In the afternoon, we went to the Jacaranda Hotel where, after some lunch, we made use of their swimming pool. For Nairobi, it was not too hot: 27C with some cloud. Catrin adores swimming which she has done since she was a few months old and Richard is a proficient swimmer. My main role was to throw Catrin in the air and catch her plus other inventive games.
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So how is Jeremy Corbyn really doing?
October 11th, 2016 by Roger Darlington
Clearly the guy is very popular with party members: he has just been re-elected leader by an increased margin, record numbers of new members are flocking to join the Labour Party, his meetings are packed out, and they are even organising a series of concerts in his support. What do members see in Corbyn? Somebody who is authentic and says what they want to hear about our unjust society.
And yet the majority of the Parliamentary Labour Party think that he is not up to the job. He suffered a massive vote of no confidence by Labour MPs, most of his front bench spokespersons resigned their posts, and the recent reshuffle of the Shadow Cabinet has only stirred up further worries. What do MPs see in Corbyn? Someone who does not listen to the PLP, who cannot chair his Shadow Cabinet, is weak in his Parliamentary performances, and has failed to bring forward new policies that are detailed and convincing.
So who is right: the members or the Members of Parliament?
Ultimately politics is about changing society; to do that requires being in government; to achieve that means winning an election. So what do voters think of the Labour Party under Jeremy Corbyn? The latest Guardian/ICM opinion poll gives the Conservatives a 17-point lead at the end of the party conference season. The survey places Theresa May’s party on 43% while Labour slips to 26%, with UKIP on 11% and the Lib Dems on 8%.
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U.S. presidential election (33): the second debate
October 11th, 2016 by Roger Darlington
I spent this evening watching a recording of every minute of the one and half hour second presidential debate between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. It was an ugly business which probably had minimal impact on voting intentions because both candidates will have been seen to have done well by their supporters.
For me, Clinton kept her cool. She was assured, fluent and statesman-like. Trump was sickening in his charges against Bill Clinton and his wish to see Hillary Clinton in jail. He was glowering and strutting like a modern-day Mussolini.
It looks as if Clinton is pulling ahead again in the polls as more and more Republican politicians withdraw support from Trump but, around the world, people are holding their breath in case the polls are wrong as they have been on some big political votes recently in a variety of countries.
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A review of the new movie “Deepwater Horizon”
October 9th, 2016 by Roger Darlington
This weekend, I saw the new disaster movie “Deepwater Horizon” which tells the true story of a blow-out on an oil rig that we all know caused the biggest environmental catastrophe in US history but we forget killed and maimed so many workers.
Many films do not lose too much by being seen at home on a television set. But this is not one of them. See it on the largest screen you can find locally. You can read my review here.
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Was the pound’s flash crash caused by an algo?
October 8th, 2016 by Roger Darlington
The financial markets are a world unto themselves that ordinary people simply cannot understand – but we are all affected by movements in currencies and shares whether buying foreign currency for a holiday abroad or trying to maintain the value of our savings or pensions. So this week’s experience of the value of the pound on foreign exchanges should interest us all – even if we can’t understand it.
As explained in this “Guardian” article, in just 8 minutes, the value of the pound against the dollar plunged by more than 8% from $1.26 to $1,1491. What happened? There will be an inquiry but we may never know for sure.
The most likely explanation seems to be the operation of an algorithm or ‘algo’ which is a computer program designed to sell the pound when there is negative economic news including speculation about Brexit. The algos operate in micro-seconds with no human intervention. And they can feed off each other.
Another possible explanation is what is called a ‘fat finger’ trade where a dealer types an incorrect figure into their terminal – but this seems unlikely. Yet another possibility is some kind of technical factor such as ‘stop-loss’ arrangements where investors have pre-arranged orders to sell currencies that fall below a certain level.
In the everyday world of decision-making, the use of algorithms may seem weird or even scary, but there are many good reasons why clever algorithms are very, very useful, not least for giving you relevant feedback when you do a search on the web.
In fact, algorithms are used in all sorts of situations, as I have explained in this short article. I concluded the piece as follows:
“There are no easy answers but, for starters, citizens and consumers need the right to view and correct personal data, organisations need to be able to explain the basics of their algorithms and decision-making systems, and there should be effective appeal mechanisms involving humans against decisions based on algorithms.
We all need to have some understanding of what is going on with big data and of the power of algorithmic authority. Because, if you are not at the table, then you are on the menu.”
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