Catrin and I go on an adventure to Legoland

July 16th, 2014 by Roger Darlington

Regular visitors to this blog will know that I try to see my granddaughter Catrin – now three and a half – once each week. However, I was not needed in the past couple of weeks, so I went three weeks without seeing her and then this week I am childminding one evening, looking after her all day the next day, and childminding again the next evening. That’s how it goes …

Even in the three weeks since I had last seen Catrin, she seemed to have grown up and she was still more fluent.

For our whole day together (her nursery was closed), I decided to go on our biggest adventure together and took her to Legoland in Windsor. This was something of a trial run to see if I could manage the logistics and if she would like the place. The travel went fine and she enjoyed it, but I think that she’s still a bit young to get the most out of it, so we’ll leave another visit for a while.

Catrin went on all sorts of rides and loved the pirate show, but her most enjoyable encounter seemed to be with a life-sized Lego version of a cowboy. I put on an American voice and pretended that he was taking to her and she adored that.

Granddad and Catrin on a big wheel

Catrin makes a new friend
(with granddad’s voice)

Catrin with her car for Formula One

It was a really hot day and quite busy, so Catrin did very well coping with the heat and crowds.

I wear a pedometer to encourage me to to walk the recommended 10,000 steps a day. Usually I only manage around 5,000-6,000, but today I went over 20,000!

Don’t worry – Catrin didn’t do 20,000 steps. A lot of my walking was collecting her from her parents and returning her and a fair bit of my walking in Legoland was with Catrin on my shoulders. Boy, granddad needs a rest now …

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Could Kurdistan be the next new country on world maps?

July 15th, 2014 by Roger Darlington

We’ve had the break-up of the Soviet Union, the disintegration of Yugoslavia, and the bifurcation of Czechoslovakia and Sudan. The number of nation states seems to be growing fast in modern times.

It has long been the hope of the Kurds that they too will have a nation of their own. The Kurds are spread over several Middles Eastern countries, but Iraqi Kurdistan has had a measure of autonomy since 1991.

The current crisis in Iraq, provoked by the takeover of territory by ISIS, has led many to believe that the country is about to break up which would lead to Iraqi Kurdistan becoming an independent, oil-rich state.

This “Guardian” article published today is only the latest to speculate about such a development.

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Word of the day: exclave

July 15th, 2014 by Roger Darlington

Logically enough, exclave is the opposite of enclave, but one tends to see the second word much more often.

So an enclave is an area or group enclosed or isolated within an larger one and an exclave is a portion of a country geographically separated from the main part.

I came across the word exclave today while reading about plans for the next World Cup which will be in 2018 in Russia. The article referred to the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad.

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How much more should the top earner in a company be paid than the lowest earner?

July 14th, 2014 by Roger Darlington

Ten times? 50 times?? 100 times???

A new report from the High Pay Centre notes that, since the late 1990s, executive pay has grown from 60 times that of the average UK worker to nearly 180 times and that more radical action is needed if the gap between top bosses and everyone else is to return to more proportionate levels.

The Government should consider requiring companies to cap executive pay at a fixed multiple of their lowest-paid employee, according to the High Pay Centre think-tank.

Though a vote in Switzerland proposing a maximum pay ratio of 12:1 between the highest and lowest earners was defeated last year, UK companies John Lewis (for whom my brother works) and TSB have already adopted a less radical 75:1 ratio. The High Pay Centre notes that different ratios could be applied to different sectors, based on the advice of businesses, employees and academic experts.

The report also proposes:

Representation for workers on company boards and the ‘remuneration committees’ that set executive pay, as well as on city pay regulators.
A national ‘inequality target’ based on previous legally-binding commitments to reduce child poverty and carbon emissions
Compulsory profit-sharing, so that if a company does well and the CEO receives a large bonus payment, ordinary workers also receive a windfall.

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We should all vote – but you have to be registered first

July 14th, 2014 by Roger Darlington

In my essay “How To Critique A Political System”, I state:

“To assess the democratic nature of a political system, one needs a set of tests that are ‘real world’ as opposed to theoretical. Such a set of tests would revolve around the following key questions about the political system itself:

How easy is it to obtain the right to vote? In some cases, residency alone is sufficient to obtain the right to vote. In other cases, citizenship is required before one can have the right to vote. So, for instance, in the USA, illegal migrants cannot vote. In the Gulf States, no migrant worker can vote. In all countries, the right to vote is limited by age and, in many other cases, there are limitations of one kind or another.
How easy is it actually to vote? Someone with the right to vote needs to register in order to be able to exercise that right. Some countries make such registration easier than others. In the USA, registration rules are a matter for the states and some states require proof of identity at the polling station. Keeping the voting register up-to-date is often a challenge.
What proportion of the electorate does actually vote? In many democratic countries, voter turnout has been falling. In the USA, for the last 40 years typical turnouts even for Presidential elections have been little more than 50%. In 22 countries, voting is compulsory, although only 10 of this countries enforce this (Australia and Brazil are examples). Is there a major difference in which components of the electorate actualy vote? In many cases, voter participation is low among young people and ethnic minorities.”

Here, in the UK, six million people, who are eligible to cast their ballot in the General Election, are not signed up to vote. So I’m pleased to see that the “Mirror” newspaper – in conjunction with a number of citizen organisations – is running a campaign to encourage a million more people to register to vote.

As the Institute for Public Policy Research – for which my son works – states:“This matters because governments are more likely to frame policies that appeal to groups who vote and neglect the interests of those who don’t, leading to greater political inequality.”

Voters are becoming older and wealthier (like me), according to figures published by the Institute for Public Policy Research. The young and the poor tend not to vote which means that political policies neglect their interests which in turn creates a growing disconnect between citizens and politicians.

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‘Hard Choices” (2): the key elements in international relations

July 13th, 2014 by Roger Darlington

I’m started reading “Hard Choices”, the memoir of Hillary Clinton’s four years as US Secretary of State.

Early on in the book, she outlines the key elements in international relations:

Architecture: this is the system of institutions (such as the United Nations and the World Bank), alliances (such as NATO and the European Union), and norms (such as international law and treaties).

Hard power: this is the military assets of the army, navy and air force, including special operations and espionage, and the threat or use of such forces.

Soft power: this is trade and aid plus diplomatic, economic, financial, humanitarian and cultural influences.

Smart power: Clinton coins this term to mean the right combination of different elements of hard and/or soft power for each particular situation.

Posted in World current affairs | Comments (0)

What will the world look like in 2045?

July 12th, 2014 by Roger Darlington

The world population could reach 10.4 billion, compared with about 7.2 billion at present.
More than 70% of the population is likely to live in urban areas.
3.9 billion people are likely to suffer water shortages.
Driverless transport is likely to be widespread.
Unmanned systems are increasingly likely to replace people in the workplace, leading to mass unemployment and social unrest.
Robots are likely to change the face of warfare, but “military decision-making is likely to remain the remit of humans for ethical reasons, at least in western countries”.
Individuals may define themselves less by their nationality, with growing migration and stronger links to virtual communities.
Chinese defence expenditure it likely to rival that of the US, but Russia’s will not match that of China, the US or India.

These are some of the conclusions of the Concepts and Doctrine Centre, a think tank which is part of the UK’s Ministry of Defence.

More information here.

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Word of the day: moxie

July 11th, 2014 by Roger Darlington

This American slang word means ‘vigour, verve, courage, nerve, skill, know-how’.

It originated in the late 1920s with its reference to an American soft drink.

I confess I had never heard of the word until I came across it in the Hillary Clinton memoir “Hard Choices” where she uses it to describe distinguished diplomat Richard Holbrooke.

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“Hard Choices” (1): Hillary goes to State

July 11th, 2014 by Roger Darlington

I’ve just started to read “Hard Choices”, the 600-page memoir of Hillary Rodham Clinton’s four years (2009-2013) as United States Secretary of State.

When she failed to win the Democratic primary race against Barack Obama, she famously declared: “Although we weren’t able to shatter that highest, hardest glass ceiling this time, thanks to you, it’s got about 18 million cracks in it” (a phrase ascribed to speechwriter Jim Kennedy),

When Obama won the presidential contest, she had no interest in becoming Vice-President and every intention of returning to the Senate. Then, when Obama invited her to become Secretary of State, she was “floored”, turned it down, and took two weeks to be persuaded.

She mentions two precedents, one historic, the other fictional: in 1860, Abraham Lincoln’s choice as Secretary of State of the man he beat for the Republican nomination and, in the final season of “The West Wing”, the Democratic President’s selection as Secretary of State of his defeated Republican opponent.

Obama kept his promise of access and she reckons she was at the White House more than 700 times during the four years in office. She ended up visiting 112 countries and travelling nearly one million miles with more than 2,000 hours (equivalent to 87 full days) in the air. She claims that, over the years, she had developed the ability to sleep almost anywhere at any time (me too).

She describes Secretary of State as being three roles – the country’s chief diplomat, the president’s principal adviser on foreign policy, and chief executive of a department of 70,000 personnel – and she characterises the nation’s foreign policy are comprised of the 3 Ds – defence, diplomacy and development.

After a couple of introductory chapters, “Hard Choices” does not follow a chronology but instead comprises a series of chapters on different countries and regions around the globe. Interestingly the world map at the front of the book is not centred on 0 degrees longitude or the USA but on the International Date Line in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

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How I met Shrek and obtained green ears

July 10th, 2014 by Roger Darlington

I’ve just returned from a visit to my home town of Manchester where I stayed with my younger brother Ralph and his family. The reason for the trip was to see my niece’s end of year school performance of “Shrek – The Musical”. Saskia (almost 11) had the role of Shrek and was a real star. All the children showed great confidence and enthusiasm in a fun night.