And the winner is .. the 2017 BAFTA AWards

February 13th, 2017 by Roger Darlington

This evening, I spent a very enjoyable two hours watching the BBC1 coverage of this year’s British Academy Film Awards. In Stephen Fry’s hosting and in the acceptance speeches, there were lots of allusions – some direct, others indirect – to the arrival of Trump in the White House and the role of cinema in fostering understanding and inclusion in these troubled times.

I haven’t seen all the films which were nominated for awards but, even from those wonderful movies that I have seen, I don’t know how one chooses which to honour. But you can see who won what here.

I was pleased – but not surprised – to see La La Land” do so well. It garnered a total of five awards: Best Film, with Damien Chazelle winning Best Director, Emma Stone taking Best Leading Actress, Linus Sandgren winning Best Cinematography, and inevitably Justin Hurwitz taking Best Original Music.

I loved the film and have reviewed it here. I especially adored the music and have played the CD soundtrack several times since seeing the movie – it always brings a smile to my face.

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A review of the film of “Me Before You”

February 12th, 2017 by Roger Darlington

I haven’t read the book, but I have now seen the film and you can read my review here.

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Is Donald Trump starting to learn the limits of presidential power?

February 11th, 2017 by Roger Darlington

They say that politicians campaign in poetry but govern in prose. But, as in so many other things, Donald Trump is trying to defy the normal rules of politics, both in the way that he governs (such as his inveterate tweeting) and in the policies that he is pursuing (such as the Muslim ban).

Yet, even Trump is finding that there are constitutional, legal and ultimately political constraints on the exercise of power in the real world. Obviously the most high profile challenge to his policies has been the court stays on implementation of his Executive Order restricting immigration to the US from seven mainly-Muslim states.

But already on a whole range of important foreign policy positions – the role of the UN, the importance of NATO, the One China policy, defence of Japan and South Korea, Israeli settlements and Jerusalem, the immigration deal with Australia – Trump has had to reverse attitudes which he declared on the campaign trail and even in his first days in the White House.

As Simon Tisdall of the “Guardian” newspaper wonders in this short article:

“Is Trump learning on the job? Or is he just a bully who backs off when he encounters resistance? Given his volatility and unpredictability, it is possible he could reverse himself again on key policies, reverting to his more radical and destabilising ideas. So far, the responsibilities of office, and the complexities of the issues, do seem to be weighing more heavily on Trump’s outlook. Other national leaders and more experienced advisers like Mattis are exerting influence. And Trump, in office, is coming up against a sobering reality that faces all American leaders sooner or later: the limits of presidential power.”

Posted in American current affairs | Comments (4)

How important is the birth order of children?

February 10th, 2017 by Roger Darlington

It is widely believed and indeed evidenced that first-born children are generally more successful educationally and professionally. I am a first-born of three and have a younger sister and a younger brother. Of course, this is anecdote and not evidence, but, while I was the first person in my family to go to university, in the end both my sister and my brother went on to exceed my academic achievements. On the other hand, we were not a typical family unit: we were brought up by a single parent, a foreign-born mother with little education and poor health.

A new study suggests that PFBs (precious first-borns) really do have advantages. As “Guardian” journalist Alexandra Topping put it:

“Research by the University of Edinburgh has found that first-born children have superior thinking skills to their younger siblings because they get more mental stimulation from their parents. While the study found that parents give all their children the same levels of emotional support, the first-born generally received more help with tasks that develop thinking skills.”

You can read a little more here.

What has your experience been as a child and/or parent?

Posted in Miscellaneous, My life & thoughts | Comments (0)

“The Cost of Doing Nothing: The Price of Inaction in the Face of Mass Atrocities”

February 6th, 2017 by Roger Darlington

This is the title of a new report published by the Policy Exchange.

The report examines the history of British intervention – militarily and from a humanitarian perspective – arguing that it has been an irreducible part of British foreign and national security policy for over 200 years. It says that while the recent lessons of Iraq and Afghanistan must be learned, a retreat from playing a proactive role in world affairs heightens the risk of further global instability.

The paper points to recent examples of where intervention has been successful:

The establishment of a no-fly zone in northern Iraq in 1991 successfully protected the Kurds from Saddam Hussein’s genocidal air attacks.
The 1999 NATO intervention in Kosovo protected tens of thousands of civilians threatened by Slobodan Milosevic’s campaign of ethnic cleansing.
The British intervention in Sierra Leone in 2000 helped repel the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) advance, paving a path to peace

The paper also highlights examples of where failure to intervene has had devastating consequences:

In 1994, the international community’s slow response to the breakdown of peace in Rwanda was unable to prevent the genocide of up to 1 million Tutsis.
The inadequacy of UN missions in the former Yugoslavia meant they did not have a mandate to prevent ethnic cleansing in Croatia and Bosnia including the massacre of 8,000 Bosnian men and boys at Srebrenica in 1995.
Most recently, the British government’s defeat in a House of Commons vote in 2013 meant that Western governments did not intervene in the earlier stages of the Syrian Civil War; it is estimated that half a million people have now died and two million been displaced in the ongoing conflict.

You can access the report here.

Posted in World current affairs | Comments (0)

Three very different films on my three-day weekend

February 5th, 2017 by Roger Darlington

As those who know me will attest, I’m a massive movie fan and rare is the week when I don’t see a film either at the cinema or on television. This weekend, I managed to view a film each day and they were very different.

On Friday, it was “Chappie” – my review here.

On Saturday, it was “Lion” – my review here.

On Sunday, it was “Loving” – my review here.

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How the Internet is changing lives, one person at a time – now a total of 2 million and counting …

February 4th, 2017 by Roger Darlington

Although I am (somehow) 68, I continue to work part-time through a portfolio of appointments. One of the most satisfying is my my position as a Non-Executive Director on the Board of the Good Things Foundation (formerly the Tinder Foundation).

This great organisation supports a network of some 5,000 centres UK-wide which supports digital inclusion and participation by providing digital skills to those with no or little knowledge of or confidence in using the Net.

Since the Foundation was spun off from government as a mutual five years ago, it has been involved in the training of some 2 million learners. To mark this milestone, this week an event was held at the iconic BT Tower in central London and I was proud to be in attendance. Following a process of nominations, judges elected 14 people to receive a 2 Millionth Learner Award.

The stories of these 14 amazing women and men are truly inspirational and everyone at the ceremony was genuinely moved to hear how they had changed their own lives and those of others through the use of digital technology.

You can access these short stories here. If you only have time to read one of these stories, check out that of Margaret McDonald whom I sat next to at the ceremony – you’ll find it here.

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A review of the novella “Of Mice And Men”

February 3rd, 2017 by Roger Darlington

It’s taken me 68 years but I’ve finally got round to reading Steinbeck famous classic and you can read my short review here.

Posted in Cultural issues | Comments (2)

Ever heard of the Shapley attractor?

February 1st, 2017 by Roger Darlington

No? You surprise me! It just happens to be the most massive structure in the observable universe. It is a dense “super-cluster” of galaxies some 750 million light years away.

So what, I hear you cry. Well, the Shapley attractor is pulling the Milky Way through space at a speed of 1.25 million miles per hour, And you and I and everyone we know happen to live on a planet circling a star which is located in the Milky Way.

Now scientists believe that they have found an object – a cosmic dead zone half a billion light years from Earth – that is pushing the Milky Way in the same direction that the Shapley attractor is pulling it. The news is some kind of contrast to all the Trump nonsense we are suffering – although he probably thinks the Shapley attractor is either a hoax or jihadist-inspired.

You can learn a little more here.

Posted in Science & technology | Comments (2)