Where now for Ukraine? – next step: the presidential election
May 15th, 2014 by Roger Darlington
This week, I attended a meeting in the House of Commons to discuss Ukraine’s presidential election. The meeting was organised by the Henry Jackson Society and featured three expert speakers: Orysia Lutsevych from Chatham House, Andy Hunder from the Ukrainian Institute in London, and Andrew Foxall of the Henry Jackson Society itself.
The background to the meeting was of course the second revolution in Ukraine that began almost exactly six months ago and led to the fleeing of former president Viktor Yanukovych, the sudden seizure of Crimea by Russia, and last weekend’s separatist ballots in the east of the country. The next stage in the crisis is the presidential election called by the interim government in Kiev which is due to be held on 25 May with a second round on 15 June in the (likely) event that the top candidate on the first round fails to win 50% of the votes.
The billionaire Petro Proshenko – the so-called “Chocolate King” – is currently well in the lead in opinion polls and recently former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko was overtaken for second place in the polls by former vice prime minister Serhiy Tihipko.
All three speakers wanted the presidential poll to go ahead, even though polling will be difficult in some parts of the country and impossible in Crimea and the event might further antagonise Russia. It was argued that the poll would legitimise the interim government in Kiev, although the president can only formally appoint two ministers and the parliament remains the same for the time being.
It was recognised that, in the short term, the political and economic situation facing any new president and government is horrendous, but speakers suggested that – like Russia is doing – Ukraine and the West need to take a longer term view. Over time, people in the separatist areas might come to realise that their economic best interests lie with a united Ukraine and there are genuine prospects that in the future Ukraine could become energy-independent.
Two of the most memorable quotes of the meeting were: “Simply it is not as bad as it could be” and “In Russian terms – whisper it quietly – Putin is quite liberal”.
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Intergenerational tale (2): what I would like to be doing if I reach 100
May 14th, 2014 by Roger Darlington
I love life, so I’d like to think that I might one day live to be 100. I love stories and really enjoy telling them or reading them to youngsters. I love children and like the idea of different generations coming together to enthuse each other.
So I was fascinated to read of the experience of centenarian Gus Bialick who is part of the Intergen programme. This project has brought more than 100 older people into 22 primary and secondary schools in London and the North West to talk about their life experiences. You can read more here.
Now that’s something I’d love to do one day.
Posted in History, My life & thoughts | Comments (0)
Intergenerational tale (1): how my granddaughter and I fell in love with “Frozen”
May 14th, 2014 by Roger Darlington
I’ll always have a special affection for the Disney animation movie “Frozen” because it was the first film seen at the cinema by by granddaughter Catrin (then a month short of her third birthday) and I had the pleasure of taking her to see it [my review here].
Since then, she’s seen it again at the cinema, she’s got the DVD, she has various book versions of the story, and I’ve downloaded the two most popular songs to play her on my iPhone.
Now this sort of phenomenon has been taking place in millions and millions of homes with young children and today parent Dorian Lynskey describes the amazing impact of this now iconic film in this article.
Posted in Cultural issues, My life & thoughts | Comments (0)
Why big data can be helpful to health and why I’m wearing an activity monitor for seven days
May 13th, 2014 by Roger Darlington
We live in the era of big data when it is easy and cheap to record, store and analyse vast quantities of data. This has huge implications for individuals, corporations and governments because we can learn so much from such data that can help individuals to live more healthily or companies to sell us more or governments to improve services. There are, of course, risks to privacy and liberty and we need to protect against these risks.
I am very interested in how big data can improve health outcomes which is which I was pleased to contribute to a huge health monitoring exercise here in Britain called UK Biobank. Four years ago, I blogged about the battery of tests I underwent here.
Today, I started to participate in a further Biobamk trial which involves me wearing an activity monitor on my wrist continuously for seven days. The monitor records information about the duration, frequency and intensity of all kinds of activity by measuring speed of movement in three directions (up/down, forwards/backwards. and left/right). The data gathered from me and thousands of other participants will help to show the links between activity and health.
My companion for the next seven days and nights
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What does James K Galbraith think of the work of Thomas Piketty?
May 13th, 2014 by Roger Darlington
James K Galbraith is the economist son of the famous economist John Kenneth Galbraith. Thomas Piketty is the French economist who has caused a storm in the world of economics with his book “Capitalism In The Twenty-First Century” on which I have already blogged here and here and here.
In this interesting essay, Galbraith reviews Picketty’s work and I’ve pulled out a few key quotes:
“The empirical core of Piketty’s book is about the distribution of income as revealed by tax records in a handful of rich countries—mainly France and Britain but also the United States, Canada, Germany, Japan, Sweden, and some others. Its virtues lie in permitting a long view and in giving detailed attention to the income of elite groups, which other approaches to distribution often miss.
Piketty shows that in the mid-twentieth century the income share accruing to the top-most groups in his countries fell, thanks mainly to the effects and after-effects of the Second World War. These included unionization and rising wages, progressive income tax rates, and postwar nationalizations and expropriations in Britain and France. The top shares remained low for three decades. They then rose from the 1980s onward, sharply in the United States and Britain and less so in Europe and Japan.
Wealth concentrations seem to have peaked around 1910, fallen until 1970, and then increased once again. If Piketty’s estimates are correct, top wealth shares in France and the United States remain today below their Belle Époque values, while U.S. top income shares have returned to their values in the Gilded Age. Piketty also believes the United States is an extreme case—that income inequality here today exceeds that in some major developing countries, including India, China, and Indonesia.”
“Thomas Piketty’s book about capital is neither about capital in the sense used by Marx nor about the physical capital that serves as a factor of production in the neoclassical model of economic growth. It is a book mainly about the valuation placed on tangible and financial assets, the distribution of those assets through time, and the inheritance of wealth from one generation to the next.”
“In sum, Capital in the Twenty-First Century is a weighty book, replete with good information on the flows of income, transfers of wealth, and the distribution of financial resources in some of the world’s wealthiest countries. Piketty rightly argues, from the beginning, that good economics must begin—or at least include—a meticulous examination of the facts. Yet he does not provide a very sound guide to policy. And despite its great ambitions, his book is not the accomplished work of high theory that its title, length, and reception (so far) suggest.”
Posted in World current affairs | Comments (1)
Word of the day: zephyr
May 12th, 2014 by Roger Darlington
It means a gentle, mild breeze.
Why do I mention it? I just like the notion – and the look of the word.
Posted in Cultural issues | Comments (0)
Remembering those who fought for freedom in World War Two
May 11th, 2014 by Roger Darlington
This afternoon, my wife Vee and I were at Brookwood Military Cemetery, south west of London, for a ceremony to mark the 69th anniversary of the end of the Second World War in Europe. It was my first visit, but Vee has been once before.
Brookwood is the largest military cemetery in the UK with 5,000 graves of Commonwealth dead and 800 graves of other nationalities. We were there to attend a ceremony hosted by the Czech and Slovak Embassies, in conjunction with the Free Czechoslovak Air Force Association.
We had been invited because Vee’s father, Karel Kuttelwascher, was a Czech pilot who flew with the Royal Air Force in WWII including the Battle of Britain. You can find information on his exploits here and information on other Czech and Slovak RAF pilots here.
Past and present military personnel, together with relatives and friends, gathered at the imposing memorial to all the (then) Czechoslovaks who served with British forces during World War Two. There were several short speeches and the playing of the Czech, Slovak and British national anthems.
Czechoslovakia memorial at Brookwood
Vee and I found it a moving occasion. We always welcome an opportunity to acknowledge the wartime contribution of her father and all of us in Europe need to remember that the freedoms we enjoy today were won by the courage of so many men and women – many of whom paid with their lives – in the long and bloody fight against Nazi Germany.
Posted in History, My life & thoughts | Comments (0)
The power of the story – four versions of different lengths for you to consider and savour
May 10th, 2014 by Roger Darlington
“Stories are memory aids, instruction manuals and moral compasses.”
Aleks Krotoski, “Observer”, 7 August 2011“Stories are compensatory. The world is unfair, unjust, unknowable, out of control.”
“Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?” by Jeannette Winterson (2011)“Telling stories is our way of coping, a way of creating shape out of a mess. It binds everyone together.”
Canadian film director Sarah Polley, “Observer”, 23 June 2013
There are so many different ways to tell stories:
- One version is the novel which can take days or weeks to read. I have reviewed many of the novels that I have read here.
- Another version is the movie which typically takes just a couple of hours to view. I have reviewed many oif the films that I have seen here.
- Yet another version is the short story which one can usually read in a single sitting. I have published 31 short stories which I have myself written here.
- One more version is the story with a moral which can usually be read in minutes. I have collected 60 motivational tales here.
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A review of “The Amazing Spider-Man 2”
May 9th, 2014 by Roger Darlington
This is the fifth time in 12 years that we’ve had a Spider-Man movie but it works and you can read my review here.
Posted in Cultural issues | Comments (0)
Growing number of water customers find bills unfair or even unaffordable
May 8th, 2014 by Roger Darlington
The statuary consumer body for water and sewage services is CCWater and it commissions each year a survey of how customers feel about their services and their bills.
The latest annual tracking research report from CCWater is published today and the key findings include:
• One in five water customers say their water bill is not affordable (up from 1 in 8 in 2012);
• Few than six out of ten water customers consider their water and sewerage charges to be fair;
• 93 per cent of customers are satisfied with their water supply, and 87 per cent with sewerage services; however,
• Only 70 per cent of customers are satisfied with the value for money of those services.
The press release which provides more highlights is here and the actual report can be found here.
I am particular interested in the CCWater findings because I am the independent Chair of the Customer Challenge Group at South East Water which supplies drinking water to 2.1 million customers in Kent, Sussex, Surrey, Hampshire and Berkshire.
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