It’s World Consumer Rights Day
March 15th, 2018 by Roger Darlington
For the last 16 years, I’ve worked part-time with an portfolio of appointments to various consumer bodies operating in regulated sectors like communications, water, energy and financial services.
So I’d like to highlight that today is World Consumer Rights Day, an event promoted by Consumers International.
Each year has a theme and this year it is : “Making Digital Markets Fairer”. There is a background paper on e-commerce which you can access here.
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The death of Stephen Hawking
March 14th, 2018 by Roger Darlington
I am saddened by the news of the death of the British scientist Stephen Hawking, although pleased that he managed to live such a long and productive life in spite of the diagnosis in his early 20s of a wasting disease that was expected to kill him in years.
I once attended a lecture he gave in the Royal Albert Hall in London. The only scientist previously to fill this huge venue was Albert Einstein.
I read several of his books: “A Brief History Of Time”, “The Universe In A Nutshell” [my review here], and “A Briefer History Of Time” [my review here].
Also I read a 1992 biography and saw the film “The Theory Of Everything” [my review here].
The world has lost an exceptional scientist and a brave man. Sadly, even he could only postpone death for so long.
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What would really help consumers of essential services?
March 13th, 2018 by Roger Darlington
This week, I chaired a day-long conference at the iconic BT Tower in central London on behalf of the Essential Services Access Network (ESAN).
The theme of the event was “What would really help consumer of essential services?” and we focused particularly on the water, energy, communications and financial services sectors. We had 10 excellent speakers and over 90 attended from a wide variety of organisations.
You can check out the programme here. Shortly we will upload videos of the presentations and a short written report on the ESAN web site.
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The raid on Entebbe: a story you probably don’t know
March 12th, 2018 by Roger Darlington
I remember vividly the raid on Entebbe when Israeli special forces freed the hijacked passengers of an Air France flight in 1976. Indeed I remember subsequently seeing two films about the audacious episode.
Now a new film, entitled simply “Entebbe”, is about to hit our screens in April and this has prompted “Guardian” columnist Hadley Freeman to write about one particular hero of that event.
Michel Cojot-Goldberg was one of the oldest friends of the father of Freeman and she has written a fascinating piece on his vital role in the raid. You can read the story here.
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A review of the new super-hero movie “Black Panther”
March 11th, 2018 by Roger Darlington
A mainstream American movie with a black director, a black writer and a largely black cast is a rarity. Last year (2017), we had “Moonlight” which won the Academy Award for Best Film.
This year, we have “Black Panther” with Ryan Coogler as director and co-writer and an amazing array of black thespian talent from old hands like Angela Basset and Forest Whitaker to fresh faces like Chadwick Boseman (as T’Challa/Black Panther) and Michael B. Jordan (as the rival Erik Killmonger) with their leading roles and like Letitia Wright, Lupita Nyong’o and Danai Gurira with their strong female roles. The only white boys in the cast are Martin Freeman and Andy Serkis, both British actors but here affecting American and South African accents respectively.
“Black Panther” provides the back story to a new super-hero in the Marvel Cinematic Universe: the eponymous leader of the fictional African state of Wakanda which, counter-culturally, has more advanced technology than any country in the West though the good fortune of possesing a powerful element called vibranium.
But this does not look like a super-hero movie: there is lots colour and plenty of noise but the settings are rural rather than metropolitan (except for a foray to Busan in South Korea) and the fighting is more hand-to-hand than super weaponry. It lacks the drama and punch of some other super-hero movies, but it is satisfyingly entertaining.
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Encouraging news on North Korea – but beware of false dawns
March 9th, 2018 by Roger Darlington
The most encouraging world news in a while is the surprise revelation that North Korea is willing to negotiate giving up its nuclear weapons programme and that the presidents of North Korea and the United States will meet in the next couple of months.
There have been no significant negotiations between the US and North Korea since 2012, when the two sides agreed a short-lived moratorium on long-range missiles and nuclear weapons activity in return for food aid. The agreement fell apart after Pyongyang launched a satellite with a powerful rocket that could be used in a missile.
A deal struck in 1994 fell apart as a result of mutual distrust. It is far from clear that a new deal would be any more enduring. The challengse to both sides are enormous as explained in this “Guardian” piece which states:
“It is a prize on an epic scale, but so are the risks. Both leaders view the provisional agreement to meet as a personal triumph born of resolve. … Having invested so much personal capital in the meetings, there is a significant danger of a backlash from either or both men if they do not get their way under the glare of international attention.
I have read one book on the recent history of North Korea and you can check out my review here.
Posted in World current affairs | Comments (0)
Stumbling Block and Last Address – remembering the past and its victims
March 8th, 2018 by Roger Darlington
In the 1990s, an initiative started in Germany called the Stolpersteine project. Stolpersteine (stumbling blocks) are brass plaques the size of a cobblestone laid into the pavements of German towns and cities, outside the houses where the victims of Nazi atrocities had lived. Each plaque bears the name of the victim as well as the place of their birth and death, where known. Since then, more than 50,000 Stolpersteine have been laid in about 700 towns and cities, across 22 European countries.
I have seen such plaques on visits to Prague and Rome.
This initiative inspired an idea to remember the Stalin era in a similar way. The project is named Last Address. Activists attach small metal plaques to the front of houses or buildings where victims of Stalinist persecutions once lived. The plaques include details about the person who was executed or died in detention: his or her profession, the dates of birth, arrest and death, and in many cases the date of posthumous rehabilitation.
You can learn more about the motivation for such initiatives in this article.
Posted in History, World current affairs | Comments (0)
All the president’s men and women who have resigned or been fired
March 7th, 2018 by Roger Darlington
Gary Cohn, Donald Trump’s Chief Economic Adviser, has quit, the latest in a series of high-profile departures from the Trump administration
His decision to go comes after Trump’s decision to impose tariffs on steel and aluminum imports, a move he and the Treasury Secretary, Steven Mnuchin, have reportedly vehemently opposed.
Cohn was a registered Democrat in a Republican administration, a top professional in a crowd of family members and first-timers, and a globalist who resisted the president’s strong protectionist urges.
Over the last year or so, there have been so many departures from Trump’s team that it’s been hard to remember them all. The BBC has helpfully provided a list of departing officials and the reason for them leaving.
Posted in American current affairs | Comments (0)
A review of the new action thriller “Red Sparrow”
March 6th, 2018 by Roger Darlington
A beautiful and talented actress decides to branch out into an action thriller in which she plays a tough secret agent, but this is not Charlize Theron in “Atomic Blonde”, rather it is Jennifer Lawrence who has been making some bold choices since completing the “Hunger Games” franchise: “Joy”, “Passengers”, “Mother!” and now “Red Sparrow” – the last reuniting her with Francis Lawrence, the director of the last three “Hunger Games” films.
While her Russian accent is faltering, Lawrence is never less than compelling to watch as Dominika Egorova, a ballet dancer who suffers a career-crushing accident which compels her to become a ‘sparrow’, an espionage asset who uses seduction as a secret weapon.
From the beginning – intercutting between her final dance sequence and a nighttime park scene involving an American agent played by Joel Egerton – the movie is always gripping, densely plotted and endlessly dark, both visually and metaphorically, and it contains some genuinely disturbing sex and torture scenes, so this is not Katniss Everdeen we are viewing and Lawrence has exposed herself here both physically and psychologically.
It is hard to know, however, what makes her character so able both to take and inflict violence and to make the transition from ballerina to brutalist. So, in short, an unusual work of some ambition but limited appeal.
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The 90th annual Academy Awards – and me
March 5th, 2018 by Roger Darlington
For a couple of months now, I’ve been attending a Monday evening class at the City Literary Institute in London where we have been discussing some recent successful films and comparing them to earlier movies. This evening, we’re scheduled to discuss last night’s Academy Awards.
But, the film of the night is one of the few award winners that I’ve not actually seen. I refer, of course, to “The Shape Of Water”, which received 13 nominations and won four awards, including Best Picture and Best Director. I will have to see it this week.
However, I have seen “Darkest Hour” [my review here] which attracted the Best Actor award for Gary Oldman and “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri” [my review here] which took Best Actress for Frances McDormand.
Other award winners which I have seen and admired are “Dunkirk” [my review here] and “Blade Runner Runner 2049” [my review here] which swept the board with the technical awards and “Get Out” [my review here] which won Best Original Screenplay.
You can check out the full list of nominations and awards here.
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