Ever heard of UK Biobank?
September 11th, 2026 by Roger Darlington
UK Biobank is the world’s most detailed study for tracking the long-term health of people as they age. The combination of four aspects sets this dataset apart from other similar initiatives.
- 500,000 people agreed to make all their health-related data available for research. They were between 40 and 69 years of age when they joined the study between 2006-2010.
- The study has extensive information on the lifestyle, environmental, and biological factors that are relevant to the development of different diseases.
- It’s been many years since participants joined the study, so enough time has passed to see which people have remained healthy, and which have developed particular diseases, so that researchers can find out why.
- The data are readily available for health-related research by academic, charity and commercial researchers worldwide.
I joined Biobank in May 2010. On that occasion, I went to a testing centre in Hounslow where I had two hours of questionnaires on lifestyle, a series of memory tests, physical measurements including blood pressure, and blood, urine and saliva samples. From then onwards, my health has been tracked through contact with my GP. All the data is anonymised.
In December 2019, I went to an assessment centre in Reading for a more intensive session of data collection. As well as all the previous questionnaires, tests, measurements and samples, I had a whole series of MRI, ultrasound and X-ray scans of my brain, heart, body, neck, spine, hips and knees and an ECG of my heart. All this took about five hours.
This week, I returned to Reading for a repeat of the session of seven years ago. That was another five hours.
The aim is to scan up to 100,000 Biobank participants.
UK Biobank is in a constant process of collecting huge amounts of data and now, especially with artificial intelligence (AI), it is much easier to analyse all this data and learn what are the risk factors for a wide range of diseases including cancer, heart disease, dementia, diabetes, stroke and arthritis.
Posted in My life & thoughts, Social policy | Comments (0)
A review of the classic film”How Green Was My Valley” (1941)
September 8th, 2026 by Roger Darlington
We remember John Ford primarily as a director of westerns (think “Stagecoach” and “The Searchers”), but he had a social conscience (“The Grapes Of Wrath”) and a Celtic sensibility (“The Quiet Man”). In this work, centred on a mythical mining village in South Wales in the late Victorian era, he explores the dirt and danger of the coal mining industry, the hypocrisy of a certain brand of Christianity, and social relations within a working-class family and between classes and there are even sympathetic mentions of a union and a strike.
One can challenge this production: it was not shot on location in Wales but mainly on a set in Malibu, the actors are not Welsh but largely English and American (which explains the odd accents), and most of the characters are rather stereotypical and one-dimensional. But it has real heart and packs some powerful social messages – plus there is a great deal of singing in Welsh and the singers are credited as “themselves”.
The film was based on a best-selling novel of the same name by Richard Llewellyn who was English-born but spent many summers visiting his grandfather in the mining village of Gilfach Goch. The production was nominated for 10 Academy Awards, winning five, including Best Picture and Best Director, famously beating “Citizen Kane” and Orson Welles.
Posted in Cultural issues | Comments (0)
A review of an important new French film “De Gaulle: Résistance”
September 7th, 2026 by Roger Darlington
General Charles de Gaulle was the most famous and consequential military and political French figure of modern times and it is appropriate that a bio-pic of his activities in the Second World War should be the most expensive production in French cinematic history. The film was directed by Antonin Baudry, co-written with Bérénice Vila, and based on the 900-page, non-fiction book “A Certain Idea Of France: The Life Of Charles de Gaulle” by the distinguished British academic Julian Jackson.
In fact, “Résistance” is only the first part of a double bill and covers the period from the German invasion of France in 1940 to the acceptance of the Free French as a credible force in 1942. Almost all the speaking roles represent real-life characters, most notably French-Armenian Simon Abkarian as de Gaulle and the English Simon Russell Beale as British Prime Minister Winston Churchill.
The French have a complicated history of the war period and much of the story in this film will be unfamiliar to many in today’s France. Indeed the film was a slow-burner which only gradually won ever-larger audiences, largely through word of mouth. Most people in Britain know even less about de Gaulle’s role in the war and this film will tell them a good deal, not just about the French but also the British at this crucial time in world history. Sadly, however, the work has had a very limited release in British cinemas and you’ll have to catch it where you can. The second part of the story is called “De Gaulle: Liberté”.
Posted in Cultural issues, History | Comments (0)
A review of the book “In The Streets Of Tehran” by Nila (2023)
September 2nd, 2026 by Roger Darlington
This short book (around 100 pages) by Nila, a pseudonym of a female writer and activist based in Tehran, is a heart-breaking read – both because of the descriptions of the repression shown towards the Woman/Life/Freedom protest movement of 2022-23 and because of the knowledge now (2026) of how that female-led movement, the latest in a line of uprisings, was brutally crushed by the theocratic regime in Iran.
Nila knows the history of her country and, as well as mentioning various poets and writers who have influenced the country’s culture, she recalls the grandeur of the Persian Empire, the imposition of Islam 1400 years ago (but the survival of the Persian language), the inspiration of the female scholar Tahereh (1817-52), the British/American coup that overthrew a democratic government in 1953, the relative freedoms of women under the Shah’s rule, the Islamic Revolution of 1979, the Iran/Iraq War of 1980-88, the failed Green Revolution of 2009 (the year that I visited the country), and then the murder of the 22 year old Kurdish Mahsa Amini in September 2022 which ignited the latest mass demonstrations.
Nila thought the Woman/Life/Freedom protest would be different: “We are constantly receiving signs that reassure us this movement is different from all the previous ones.” That uprising, like all the others, failed because of the ferocity and cruelty of regime. When, in February 2026, the United States and Israel assassinated Iran’s leaders and bombed the country’s strategic assets, Donald Trump thought that the people would rise up against the mullahs. It never happened. Now, as well as the authoritarianism of the regime, Iranians have to suffer the ever greater economic sanctions of the West. Heart-breaking indeed.
Posted in World current affairs | Comments (0)
A review of the new book “Israel: What Went Wrong?” by Omer Bartov (2026)
August 30th, 2026 by Roger Darlington
Bartov is a Jew who was born and raised in Israel in a resolutely left-wing kibbutz and served in the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) for four years which included the 1973 Yom Kippur War. He took his first degree at Tel Aviv University and his doctorate at Oxford University. Since 1987, he has been teaching in the United States and is currently the Dean’s Professor of Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Brown University. All this is to make clear that there is no way that Bartov can be accused of being ant-semitic or uninformed.
Following the Hamas massacre of 7 October 2023, which he condemns as a war crime and a crime against humanity, he has become an increasingly strident critic of the massively disproportionate response and forever war waged in Gaza by the IDF. In this book, he carefully examines the legal definitions of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide and he is compelled to conclude that “at least since the attack by the IDF on the city of Rafah [in May 2024] it was no longer possible to deny that Israel was engaged in systematic war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocial actions.”He is particularly saddened by the death of so many children and the response of Israel society: “The growing number of civilians killed in Gaza habituated the Israel public to callous disregard for and indifference to the lives of Palestinians and the crimes repeatedly committed in Israel’s name in an alleged effort to protect its security.”
Bartov highlights how this is so much at variance with the terms of the Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel made by the Jewish People’s Council in Palestine on 14 May 1948. The Declaration promised “complete equality of social and political rights to all its citizens irrespective of religion, race or sex”. Yet, the reality today is that: ‘seven million Jewish Israeli citizens in effect now rule over seven million Palestinians, of whom two million are Israeli citizens whose rights are restricted in myriad ways by the state, while three million Palestinians in the West Bank and two million in the Gaza Strip have practically no rights at all.”
So, what went wrong? Bartov critiques the Declaration because it did not resolve the question of whether Israel should be a Jewish state or a democratic one and did not proclaim Israel a democracy or define its borders; he criticises the Knesset for not turning the Declaration into a constitution and bill of rights; he challenges the Netanyahu governments which have promoted “the dark forces that are taking over and spreading day by day, transforming [Israel] into an authoritarian, messianic, irrational and repressive society”; and he criticises the Supreme Court for “becoming increasingly conservative and religious”.
So, what now for the Arab/Israeli conflict? Bartov sees two outcomes: one very likely but profoundly undesirable and the other unlikely but much to be desired.
The first is that “Israel will persist in its attempt to empty Gaza of its Palestinian population” and it will increasingly become “an authoritarian apartheid state” which will eventually “lead to the state’s implosion as transpired in South Africa”. The second would be a political solution which would only come about if there was sustained pressure from the United states and possibly some help from Germany. This solution would probably be a development of Donald Trump’s 20-point plan of September 2025 and establish some kind of confederation of two sovereign nations as elaborated and espoused by the scholar Dahlia Scheidlin.
Posted in World current affairs | Comments (1)
A review of the classic 1980 film “The Shining”
August 28th, 2026 by Roger Darlington
Confession time: it took me 46 years to see this movie. I’m a massive fan of Stanley Kubrick, who produced, directed and co-wrote it, but I don’t like horror and I’m adverse to the supernatural. Although it initially had mixed reviews, The Shining has come to be regarded as one of the greatest horror movies ever made and there have been endless interpretations of the characters and action, so I felt that I had to see it for inclusion in my next book. I viewed it on the big screen and saw the extended version of 144 minutes.
The film is an adaptation of a Stephen King novel, but King was very unhappy with Kubrick’s version. Set at the Overlook Hotel in Colorado’s Rocky Mountains (but shot largely on studios in England), it concerns the experience of the Torrance family who spend the winter looking after the deserted and snow-bound venue: Jack, former alcoholic, child abuser and aspirant writer (brilliantly played by Jack Nicholson), his son Danny, who has an imaginary friend and psychic abilities referred to as ‘the shining’ (eerie Danny Loyd), and Wendy, a simple-minded woman caught between her husband’s descent into madness and her son’s increasing weirdness (odd-looking Shelly Duvall).
This is not my kind of movie, but I have to admire it on a technical level: atmospheric use of sound from the off, striking imagery with much use of blood and bodies, and innovative use of the newly-available Steadicam. Even if you’ve never seen the movie, you’ll probably be aware of some of its many iconic moments, such as two blue-skirted girls in the hallway, the word ‘Redrum’ scrawled in lipstick, blood pouring out of the elevator doors, and Jack sticking his head through the smashed hole in the bathroom door, shrieking, “Here’s Johnny”.
Posted in Cultural issues | Comments (1)
How was the state of Israel created?
August 28th, 2026 by Roger Darlington
Many people seem not to know or to have forgotten.
Israel was not created by the British (in spite of the Balfour Declaration of 1917 or the British Mandate of 1920-1948) and it was not created simply through a takeover by Jewish settlers (although the Nakba was an expulsion of some 750,000 Palestinians). It was a deliberate decision of the newly-created United Nations, the most representative global body of the time.
The UN General Assembly adopted Resolution 181 on 29 November 1947 which endorsed a partition plan drafted by the UN Special Commission on Palestine. This proposed independent Jewish and Arab states as well as a special regime for Jerusalem.
Voting in favour was by 33 states, including the United States, the Soviet Union, and most Western European and South American states. Voting against was by 13 states, including India, Greece and the Arab states. There were 10 abstentions, including Britain and China.
The decision was clearly influenced substantially by the Holocaust of the Second World War and it is utterly appalling that Israel itself should now be credibly accused of genocide in Gaza. The UN resolution proposed the creation of two states and it is an absolute tragedy that neither the Oslo Accords of 1993 & 1995 nor the Camp David Summit of 2000 resulted in the establishment of a Palestinian state.
Some kind of two-state solution, perhaps a form of confederation, remains the only realistic and pragmatic solution to the Arab/Israeli conflict.
Posted in World current affairs | Comments (0)
A review of the classic Italian movie “L’Avventura” (1960)
August 20th, 2026 by Roger Darlington
How would you characterise an art house film? Probably foreign, likely black and white, little action, people behaving oddly, striking visuals, opaque messaging, and s-l-o-w. The Italian “L’Avventura” is then the archetypical art house film.
The story was composed by the director Michaelangelo Antonioni. At first, it looks as if the main character is the wilful Anna (Lea Massari) but she soon goes missing on a remote, rocky island. It is hardly a spoiler to warn that one shouldn’t expect to see any more of Anna, because the remainder of the narrative is about the search for Anna by her lover, Sandro (good-looking Gabriele Ferzette), and her best friend, Claudia (beautiful Monica Vitti in her first starring role).
The picture did win the Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival and it is loved by most film scholars, so it is an important piece of cinematic history. But I like my movies to have more action and clarity and I find it difficult to care about existential angst among such privileged characters.
Posted in Cultural issues | Comments (0)
A review of the classic movie”Bonnie And Clyde” (1967)
August 19th, 2026 by Roger Darlington
Loosely based on the exploits of bank robbers Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker in Depression era America of 1932-1934, this is very much Warren Beatty’s film: be bought the rights to an early script, he made uncredited contributions to the screenplay, he was producer and he took the role of Clyde. Equally look-looking Faye Dunaway was Bonnie and the sensitive relationship between the two – he insists “I’m no lover boy” – is the emotional heart of the movie. Another member of the gang is Clyde’s brother Buck, portrayed by Gene Hackman, and there was a small role for Gene Wilder.
When the film was first released, it shocked audiences, primarily because of the violence, especially in the final sequence. Remember: this was before “The Wild Bunch” (1969) and “The Godfather” (1972). The work was different in being anti-establishment, almost siding with the criminals, presenting them as supporters of the dispossessed and offering car chases to banjo music in the manner of the Keystone Cops.
The movie was nominated for 10 Academy Awards, including five acting roles and director (Arthur Penn), but only won two. It was a sleeper hit at the box office which showed the popularity of cinema that ignored the Production Code and it initiated a period in the 1970s known as the ‘Hollywood Renaissance’.
Posted in Cultural issues | Comments (1)
Obama’s missing memoir
August 18th, 2026 by Roger Darlington
Long before Barack Obama became President of the United States, I read his two books: “Dreams From My Father” [my review click here] and “The Audacity Of Hope” [my review click here]. Then, more recently, I read Michelle Obama’s work “Becoming” [my review click here]. I’m a huge fan of the Obamas and looked forward immensely to Barack Obama’s memoirs of his time in the White House. “A Promised Land” made ideal reading for the third UK lockdown of the coronavirus pandemic.
Obama was US president for the eight years January 2009 – January 2017. It was September 2020 when he published the first volume of his memoirs “A Promised Land”. It ran to 700 pages but only covered the first half of his first term. Six years later, there is still no sign of the second volume. I’m waiting …
Meanwhile you can read my review of “A Promised Land” here.
Posted in American current affairs | Comments (1)