A review of the new movie “Deepwater Horizon”
October 9th, 2016 by Roger Darlington
This weekend, I saw the new disaster movie “Deepwater Horizon” which tells the true story of a blow-out on an oil rig that we all know caused the biggest environmental catastrophe in US history but we forget killed and maimed so many workers.
Many films do not lose too much by being seen at home on a television set. But this is not one of them. See it on the largest screen you can find locally. You can read my review here.
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Was the pound’s flash crash caused by an algo?
October 8th, 2016 by Roger Darlington
The financial markets are a world unto themselves that ordinary people simply cannot understand – but we are all affected by movements in currencies and shares whether buying foreign currency for a holiday abroad or trying to maintain the value of our savings or pensions. So this week’s experience of the value of the pound on foreign exchanges should interest us all – even if we can’t understand it.
As explained in this “Guardian” article, in just 8 minutes, the value of the pound against the dollar plunged by more than 8% from $1.26 to $1,1491. What happened? There will be an inquiry but we may never know for sure.
The most likely explanation seems to be the operation of an algorithm or ‘algo’ which is a computer program designed to sell the pound when there is negative economic news including speculation about Brexit. The algos operate in micro-seconds with no human intervention. And they can feed off each other.
Another possible explanation is what is called a ‘fat finger’ trade where a dealer types an incorrect figure into their terminal – but this seems unlikely. Yet another possibility is some kind of technical factor such as ‘stop-loss’ arrangements where investors have pre-arranged orders to sell currencies that fall below a certain level.
In the everyday world of decision-making, the use of algorithms may seem weird or even scary, but there are many good reasons why clever algorithms are very, very useful, not least for giving you relevant feedback when you do a search on the web.
In fact, algorithms are used in all sorts of situations, as I have explained in this short article. I concluded the piece as follows:
“There are no easy answers but, for starters, citizens and consumers need the right to view and correct personal data, organisations need to be able to explain the basics of their algorithms and decision-making systems, and there should be effective appeal mechanisms involving humans against decisions based on algorithms.
We all need to have some understanding of what is going on with big data and of the power of algorithmic authority. Because, if you are not at the table, then you are on the menu.”
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A review of the Italian novel “Those Who Leave And Those Who Stay”
October 6th, 2016 by Roger Darlington
My summer reading project – which has extended into the Autumn – is to read the four works that make up the ‘Neapolitan Novels’, an acclaimed series by the Italian author Elena Ferrante.
This is a saga of the 60-year friendship between two girls from a poor neighbourhood of Naples after the Second World War: the narrator Elena Greco, known as Lenu, whose father is a porter and Raffaella Cerullo, known as Lila, whose father is a shoemaker.
The first novel in the series is called “My Brilliant Friend” and I reviewed it here. The second novel is titled “The Story Of A New Name” and you can read my review here. I’m just concluded the third novel: “Those Who Leave And Those Who Stay”. You’ll find my review here.
These are marvellous works and I’ve gone straight on to the fourth and final novel in the sage: “The Story Of The Lost Child”.
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20,000 days of the Darlington diaries
October 5th, 2016 by Roger Darlington
Like many men, I enjoy counting things. So I know that today is the 20,000th day of my diaries.
And why have I kept a diary so long and so consistently? I’ve tried to explain here.
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Cost of consumer detriment is £30 billion a year
October 3rd, 2016 by Roger Darlington
Citizens Advice has recently published a consumer report entitled ‘Consumer Detriment – counting the cost of consumer problems’.
In summary, the researchers found that consumer problems cost UK consumers £22.9 billion in 2015 – on average £446 per UK adult. Consumers experienced 123 million problems and wasted 1.2 billion hours resolving these problems.
More than half of consumers did not seek a refund or compensation for their problem, often because they felt complaining would be too difficult or time consuming.
The goods and services costing consumers the most were television, phone and internet services, followed by professional services, construction, home maintenance, property services, and pension and investment services.
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Visit to Athens (5)
October 3rd, 2016 by Roger Darlington
Our last day in Athens was a shorter one than the others because we flew back that evening.
We visited the Ancient Agora at the foot of the Acropolis which is known as the centre of Athenian democracy. The most complete and impressive structure is the doric Temple of Hephaistos which was constructed between 460-415 BC.
Our final visit was to the Ilias Lalaounis Jewelry Museum. Lalaounis (1920-2013) was a brilliant designer of a wide range of jewellery inspired by the shapes andy forms of Ancient Greece.
We ate very well in Athens and, unlike many foreign destinations, I was able to indulge in my love of desserts. At the Acropolis Museum cafe, I discovered the best baklava I’ve ever know: the largest and sweetest piece topped by cinnamon ice cream. At lunchtime on our last day, we revisited the cafe and I was able to repeat the supreme baklava experience.
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Visit to Athens (4)
October 1st, 2016 by Roger Darlington
On our third full day in Athens, my sister Silvia and I visited our third archaeological museum. This was the National Archaeological Museum where we spent a total of five hours. Our guide book calls the place “one of the world’s most important museums” and “Greece’s pre-eminent museum” and explains that it houses “the world’s largest and finest collection of Greek antiquities”. Two of the most outstanding exhibits are the 460 BC bronze statue of Zeus or Poseidon and the 2nd century BC statue of a horse and young rider.
We took a taxi from the hotel to the museum but walked back on a route which took us down Stadious Street which is like a version of London’s Oxford Street except that clearly austerity has hit it hard. So many department stores are closed and boarded up with the hoardings covered in political graffiti. Like so many streets in central Athens, there are beggars and homeless. We called into a cafe and spoke to a Britain and an Australian with Greek parents who made it clear that they envisaged the readjustment of the Greek economy as likely to take a generation.
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Visit to Athens (3)
September 30th, 2016 by Roger Darlington
This morning, we visited Lykavittos Hill for the finest panoramic views of the city and an especially impressive view of the Acropolis through the urban haze created by the heat and the traffic. The name ‘lykavittos’ means ‘Hill of Wolves’ and in ancient times the location was covered in pines and inhabited by wolves.
Silvia is a great walker so we walked all the way there from our hotel and all the way up which involved countless stone steps and then endless winding paths. However, she does not like precipitous slopes and the journey up the paths was somewhat vertiginous, so I had to walk on the outside and hold her hand all the way to the top.
Back at at street level, we spent the afternoon at the Benaki Museum where we had a delicious salad lunch and viewed some of the 20,000 pieces displayed over four floors. The building is named after Antonio Bernakis who accumulated the contents of the museum during 35 years of avid collecting before donating it to the Greek nation. The historical range of artefacts goes all the way from the Bronze Age to the era of independence and the objects include everything from two entire rooms to Greek regional costumes.
On our way to the hill and from the museum, we passed through Syntagma Square which houses the Greek Parliament and the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. This is where there have been countless demonstrations – some quite violent – against the austerity forced upon the Greek Government and people by the troika of international lenders. Finally we strolled through a district called Plaka which is full of souvenir and clothes shops plus restaurants.
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Visit to Athens (2)
September 29th, 2016 by Roger Darlington
It’s been 40 years since I visited Athens and much has stayed the same – after all, this is a city with 2,500 years of history. So it is still somewhat rough and raw with uneven pavements and crazy traffic – not a city that everyone would love.
But a lot has changed: the city now has a metro, the Acropolis has been in a permanent state of renovation and repair, and there is a now a terrific Acropolis Museum. Tourists – including us – are different too: we have smartphones with cameras, Google maps and access to Facebook and a lot of people (not us) have selfie sticks.
For Silvia and me, today has been Acropolis day: the morning at the site itself and the afternoon at the Acropolis Museum.
Our hotel is near the site and we set out quite early so that we avoided the crowds but this spectacular location – our guide book calls it “the most important ancient site in the Western world” – is always busy. A major programme of renovation started in 1983 and is still in progress, so that the west end of the Parthenon is covered in scaffolding and the caryatids on the Erechtheum have been moved to the new museum and replaced by copies.
The new Acroplis Museum was opened shortly after the city hosted the Olympic Games and is truly impressive, both in design – wonderfully light and airy galleries with a view through the windows of the Acropolis itself – and content – almost 4,000 original pieces from all parts of the site. A short film is shown in alternating Greek and English with respectively English and Greek subtitles and this explains that the Parthenon was constructed from some 16,500 pieces of marble that fit perfectly together. The film finishes with a reference to the Elgin Marbles in the British Museum and characterises their acquisition as an act of looting.
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Visit to Athens (1)
September 28th, 2016 by Roger Darlington
Since my mother died in 1999, my sister Silvia and I have created a tradition of going abroad for a short trip without our spouses. We’re just about to set off for our 10th such venture and this time our destination is Athens.
Silvia has never been there and my only previous visit was 40 years ago. Last time I was there, the country had only recently come out of a military discatorship; now it is a member of the European Union and struggling profoundly with the consequences of being a member of the Eurozone.
But, of course, we’ll be concentrating on visits to the remains of Ancient Greece and learning more about the time when this part of the world was the cradle of democracy.
The weather forecast is good …
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