A record time with my wonderful granddaughter Catrin
June 3rd, 2014 by Roger Darlington
Regular readers of this blog will know of my affection for my granddaughter Catrin who is now three and third years old. I’ve been so fortunate that, since the day of her birth, I’ve been able to see her approximately once a week and regularly babysit for her parents.
On several occasions, I’ve looked after Catrin overnight for one or two nights. Last week, however, was something special: I looked after her for four nights and five days as her parents were away.
It was tiring (I slept ten and half hours afterwards) and sometimes exasperating (she can be somewhat obstinate as can all kids of her age), but immensely joyful because she is so chatty and cheerful. A tickle with her or a hug from her is worth everything.
The first two days, I moved into her parents’ place, so that Catrin could continue to attend her nursery. It was strange to be woken, not by an an alarm but by a smiling face by the bedside.
Granddad makes porridge for breakfast
and Goldilocks insists on having it in three bowls
James & Catrin find a platform in the park
The first morning, we went to our local shopping centre where Catrin enjoyed a children’s ride and an ice cream before we bought her a “Frozen” balloon, a “Rapunzel” novel, and a set of four jigsaws. That afternoon, we drove over to a family gathering to celebrate the sixth birthday of little Lucas. His eight year old sister Yasmin was wonderful with Catrin – they played on the trampoline in the garden and did roleplaying in the house. That evening, Catrin had a couple of readings of “Rapunzel” – another girl with long, golden hair.
Bath time – with millions of bubbles
Catrin admires her 24-piece jigsaw
Catrin on her police motor bike
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The tale of an unsung hero
June 2nd, 2014 by Roger Darlington
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Why racism is on the rise in so many democratic states
June 2nd, 2014 by Roger Darlington
“The limited ability of national governments to pursue any agenda that has not first been endorsed by international capital and its proxies is no longer simply the cross they have to bear; it is the cross to which we have all been nailed. The nation state is the primary democratic entity that remains. But given the scale of neoliberal globalisation it is clearly no longer up to that task.”
So writes Gary Younge in a piece in today’s “Guardian” which asks who’s in control – nation states or global corporations? As citizens feel increasingly out of control, they are persuaded to blame various minorities.
“The targets of this intolerance shift according to the context: Roma in Hungary, Romanians in Britain, Latinos in the US and Muslims almost everywhere in the west. But the rhetoric and the true nature of the crisis remain constant. Parochial identities describe the protagonists, but it is global economics that shapes the narrative.”
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A review of the new movie “Blended”
May 31st, 2014 by Roger Darlington
Adam Sandler and Drew Barrymore have made their third rom-com together and you can read my review here.
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The 301 greatest movies of all time – as voted by readers of “Empire” magazine
May 28th, 2014 by Roger Darlington
As an avid film fan, I’ve been a subscriber to “Empire” magazine for many years. The current issue provides the result of a readers’ poll of the greatest movies of all time.
This is the first such poll in six years and some 250,000 voted. A total of 301 films are listed in order of popularity.
You can check out all 301 movies here. I reckon that I have seen about 220 of them – almost three quarters – including every one of the top 20. How about you?
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Out of a plethora of options, here are just a few of my most memorable movie moments
May 28th, 2014 by Roger Darlington
An American friend of mine is composing a book capturing memorable scenes from movies and has asked me to contribute a few. I could have given him hundreds, but these were my initial offerings:
- Gone With The Wind” – the scene at the railway depot where Scarlett O’Hara (Vivien Leigh) walks between the bodies of wounded soldiers and the camera pulls back and back and back revealing the true scale of the casualties of the American Civil War
- “The Untouchables” – the scene where the Chicago cop played by Sean Connery drags his bloodied body along the floor while Al Capone (played by Robert de Niro) sheds tears as he watches the opera “Pagliacci”
- “El Cid” – the final scene where the dead Rodrigo de Bivar (Charleston Heston) is strapped to a white horse and unleashed on the waiting Muslim forces, so turning the tide of battle
- “Spartacus” – the scene towards the end where Spartacus is hanging crucified on a cross and his wife holds up his baby to him, nobody knowing that, along this endless line of crucified men, this is the leader of the slave revolt
- “Star Wars” – the opening scene where a racing spaceship is seen as being pushed by an Empire battleship which is slowly revealed to be larger and larger and larger
- “Lawrence Of Arabia” – master director David Lean has Lawrence (newcomer Peter O’Toole) doing his ‘trick’ of putting out a lit match by slowly closing fingers around the flame and then the scene dramatically switches to the desert as the sun starts to rise over the sand
- “Ryan’s Daughter” – David Lean reverses the technique he used in “Lawrence Of Arabia” by showing the ‘broken’ soldier (Christopher Jones) watching the sun descend into the sea and then suddenly switches to a scene of a match being loudly lit
- “2001: A Space Odyssey” – the brilliant device used by director Stanley Kubrick to switch from the time of the ape men to the time of the space men is to transform a bone thrown twisting into the air into a rotating space station
- “The Matrix” – in the opening fight sequence, Trinity (Carrie-Anne Moss) – clad in tight black leather – suddenly starts to perform unexpected and amazing acrobatic feats involving running up walls and along the ceiling while disposing of her enemies: wow!
- “Gladiator” – Russell Crowe, as the Roman general Maximus, reviews his troops and announces: “On my command, unleash hell”, fireballs are launched, the music of Hans Zimmer blasts out, and at that moment we know that we are witnessing a classic movie
- “Queen Christina” – one of Greta Garbo’s greatest films which includes the scene where, as Queen Christina of Sweden, she moves slowly around feeling every corner of the inn room so that she can remember where she fell in love with the Spanish Ambassador (John Gilbert, her former lover in real life)
- “Midnight Express” – the scene where, in this terrible Turkish prison, the brutalised young American Billy Hayes (Brad Davis) shares a shower with a fellow male prisoner and they gently indulge in an act of lovemaking, a tender interlude in a cruel and violent world
What are some of your most memorable movie moments?
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The assassination of American presidents
May 27th, 2014 by Roger Darlington
This Bank Holiday weekend, as well as viewing the movie “X-Men: The Days Of Future Past” [my review here] – which suggested that President Kennedy was shot because he was a mutant (!) – I attended a one-day course at London’s City Lit on the assassination of American presidents. It was led by Dr Dale Mineshima-Lowe, a clear speaker who made good use of video clips and gave us excellent handout material.
Four US presidents have been assassinated:
- Abraham Lincoln – On 14 April 1865, he was shot by the actor John Wilkes Booth and died the next day. More information here.
- James Garfield – On 2 July 1881, he was shot by Charles Guiteau and lingered until his death two and half months later. More information here.
- William McKinley – On 6 September 1901, he was shot by Leon Czolgosz and died eight days later. More information here.
- John F Kennedy – On 22 November 1963, he was shot by Lee Harvey Oswald and died immediately. More information here.
We discussed the conspiracy theories around each of these assassinations, but especially that of Kennedy. Apparently the latest theory around JFK’s death is that the fatal bullet was fired accidentally by a member of the secret service.
We were told about Tecumseh’s Curse – otherwise known as the ‘Zero Year’ Curse. Tucumseh was the Native American chief of the Shawnee tribe at the time of the Battle of Tippecanoe on 7 November 1811. The curse stated that the incumbent president William Harrison would die and after him, every great chief chosen every 20 years would also die. More information here.
We also discussed eight near misses of attempts to kill a president:
- Andrew Jackson on 30 January 1835
- Theodore Roosevelt on 14 October 1912
- Franklin D Roosevelt on 15 February 1933
- Harry S Truman on 1 November 1950
- Gerald Ford on both 5 & 22 September 1975
- Ronald Reagan on 30 March 1981
- Bill Clinton on 25 November 1996
- George W Bush on 10 May 2005
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A review of the latest “X-Men” movie
May 26th, 2014 by Roger Darlington
On a Bank Holiday weekend (at least in the UK), what better fun than to see the latest film in a blockbuster super-hero franchise? See my review of “X-Men: Days Of Future Past” here.
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How to be risk savvy and therefore make good decisions
May 25th, 2014 by Roger Darlington
This week, I attended a public lecture at the London School of Economics given by Professor Gerd Gigerenzer. He is managing director of the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin, former professor of psychology at the University of Chicago, and author of “Risk Savvy: How to Make Good Decisions”.
Remember the volcanic ash cloud over Iceland? The subprime disaster? What about mad cow disease? Each new crisis makes us worry until we start worrying about the next one. When something goes wrong, we are told that the way to prevent further crises is through better technology, more laws, and bigger bureaucracy.
How to protect ourselves from the threat of terrorism? Homeland security, full body scanners, further sacrifice of individual freedom. How to counteract exploding costs in health care? Tax rises, rationalisation, better genetic markers.
According to Gigerenzer, one idea is absent from these lists: risk-savvy citizens. And apparently there is a reason for that. Many experts have concluded that people are basically hopeless when it comes to risk and, like a child who needs a parent, require continuous “nudging.”
Against this pessimistic view, Gigerenzer argued that, instead of being the solution, experts are often part of the problem and that everyone can learn to deal with risk and uncertainty on their own. He insisted that a democracy needs risk-savvy citizens who cannot be easily frightened into surrendering their money, their welfare, and their liberty.
This is a big subject, but briefly the professor distinguishes between decisions in areas where there are good assessments of risk and decisions in areas where there is so much uncertainty that meaningful risk data is not possible.
In the first case (such as approaches to cancer), he wants people to be risk savvy and he promotes techniques for assessing risk in a way that will enable decisions to be soundly based on data.
In the second case (such as many investment situations), he argues against attempts to create meaningless algorithms and instead he argues in favour of basing decisions on intuition.
I have written my own short essay on how consumers and citizens make choices and you can read this here.
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What’s it like to split up with Gwyneth Paltrow?
May 24th, 2014 by Roger Darlington
This weekend, I’ve been playing the latest CD by Coldplay called “Ghost Stories”. It’s the fourth Coldplay CD that I’ve bought and very different from the last three – hauntingly moving.
The reason is obvious: as Chris Martin was writing the material, his marriage to Gwyneth Paltrow was moving towards its “conscious uncoupling”.
So how much are the words of the songs about Gwyneth? – see an analysis here.
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