Where does your country come in the World Happiness Report?
March 20th, 2020 by Roger Darlington
Since the first World Happiness Report in 2012, four different countries have held the top position: Denmark in 2012, 2013 and 2016, Switzerland in 2015, Norway in 2017, and now Finland in 2018, 2019 and 2020.
With its continuing upward trend in average scores, Finland consolidated its hold on first place, and is now significantly ahead of Denmark in second place. The remaining countries in the top ten are Switzerland, Iceland, Norway, the Netherlands, Sweden, New Zealand, and Austria, followed by top-10 newcomer Luxembourg.
The Top 20 happiest countries are:
- Finland
- Denmark
- Switzerland
- Iceland
- Norway
- The Netherlands
- Sweden
- New Zealand
- Luxembourg
- Austria
- Canada
- Australia
- UK
- Israel
- Costa Rica
- Ireland
- Germany
- US
- Czech Republic
- Belgium
You can access the full 2020 report here.
Posted in World current affairs | Comments (0)
If you would be interested in tracking in real time accurate data on the spread of coronavirus worldwide, there is a web site that is doing that
March 18th, 2020 by Roger Darlington
Amazingly the site has been set up by an American boy of just 17, Avi Schiffmann, a high school junior from Mercer Island outside Seattle. But the site is using reputable sources such as the Word Health Organisation.
You can access the site here. As I write this posting, the global number of confirmed cases has just reached 200,000 (but, of course, there are many, many more unrecorded cases) and the global number of deaths is almost 8,000 (but, of course, this is set to rise substantially.
For UK readers of this blog, there are three statistics which are worth remembering:
- The modelling suggested that, without severe social distancing and isolation practices, the death toll could be around 260,000.
- The modelling suggested that, with the current severe social distancing and isolation practices, the death toll could be around 20,000 or lower.
- Seasonal flu kills around 8,000 a year in this country in a ‘normal’ season.
Posted in British current affairs, Science & technology, World current affairs | Comments (0)
What was the greatest film ever made? Let me make a nomination.
March 17th, 2020 by Roger Darlington
Readers of this blog will know of my love for the cinema.
At the weekend, I ‘braved’ the coronavirus to go to the British Film Instiute and see my all-time favourite film on the big screen. Since it was first released in 1962, over a period of almost six decades, I’ve viewed “Lawrence Of Arabia” a total of 12 times and on each occasion it is simply awesome.
You can read my review of the film here.
What would be your nomination for best movie or at least favourite film?
Posted in Cultural issues | Comments (0)
“Parasite” becomes highest earning subtitled film
March 14th, 2020 by Roger Darlington
The Oscar-winning horror-thriller “Parasite” has become the highest earning foreign language film at the UK box office, overtaking the 2004 Mel Gibson-directed film “The Passion of the Christ”.
Curzon, the South Korean film’s UK distributors, has reported that “Parasite” has passed “Passion”’s cumulative total of £11,078,861 on 6 March. “Parasite” was released on 7 February in the UK, and had taken £1.4m before the Oscars. However, its Best Picture win had a dramatic effect, with takings of more than £2.5m in the post-Oscar weekend.
In the US, where the film has been on release since May 2019, it has taken $52.8m, well behind “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon”’s $128.1m, recorded in 2000.
You can read my review of “Parasite” here.
Posted in Cultural issues | Comments (0)
Coronavirus (or Covid-19): where and who was patient zero?
March 13th, 2020 by Roger Darlington
Whenever there is a global pandemic, it is natural to wonder how it all started.
We still don’t know for sure where the Black Death of the mid 14th century originated although, in October 2010, medical geneticists suggested that all three of the great waves of the plague originated in China. Similarly there are different views about the origins of the so-called Spanish Flu of 1918-1920 and, in a recent posting, I highlighted a common view that it started in the United States.
There’s so much we still have to learn about the current coronavirus (or Covid-19) global pandemic, but already there is debate about its origins. Most informed observers believe that it all started in the area of Wuhan in China – where I have stayed on two visits – but some in China are claiming (without evidence) that it originated in the USA.
According to Chinese government data seen by the “South China Morning Post“, a 55 year-old from Hubei province could have been the first person to have contracted Covid-19. Interestingly this infection is dated to 17 November 2019, a couple of months before the virus hit the headlines. The relevant individual has not yet been identified publicly.
One of the essential factors in combatting a global pandemic is transparency from the beginning. The lack of such transparency by the Chinse authorities at the start may have longer-term implications for the Chinese Communist Party.
Posted in History, Science & technology, World current affairs | Comments (0)
Coronavirus: nine reasons to be reassured
March 11th, 2020 by Roger Darlington
The “Guardian” newspapers has pulled together material to show that, while coronavirus is a serious challenge, there are reasons to be reassured:
- We know what it is.
- We can test for it.
- We know that it can be contained (albeit at considerable cost).
- Catching it is not that that easy (if we are careful) and we can kill it quite easily.
- In most cases, symptoms are mild and young people are at very low risk.
- People are recovering from it.
- Hundreds of scientific articles have already been written about it.
- Vaccine prototypes exist.
- Dozens of treatments are already been tested.
You can read the full article here.
Posted in Science & technology, World current affairs | Comments (0)
Coronavirus is not the first global pandemic and, by some accounts, today is the anniversary of the start of one of the very worst
March 11th, 2020 by Roger Darlington
It was called Spanish flu, but it did not start in Spain and we are still not sure where it originated. So-called Spanish flu was an influenza pandemic which ran from around January 1918 – December 1920. It was an unusually deadly influenza pandemic which was the first of the two involving the H1N1 virus, with the second being swine flu in 2009.
Why was it called Spanish flu?
To maintain morale, censors of the First World War minimised early reports of illness and mortality in Germany, the United Kingdom, France, and the United States. Papers were free to report the epidemic’s effects in neutral Spain (such as the grave illness of King Alfonso XIII) and these stories created a false impression of Spain as especially hard hit, giving rise to the pandemic’s nickname, “Spanish flu”.
So where did it start?
We’re not sure. There are many hypotheses about the source. One recent suggestion is that it originated in January 1918 in the military facility of Fort Riley, Kansas, USA. By 11 March 1918, exactly 102 years ago today – the virus had reached New York and the epidemic was on the run.
How many died in this pandemic?
We don’t know. It infected 500 million people around the world, or about 27% of the then world population of between 1.8 and 1.9 billion,. The death toll is estimated to have been anywhere from 17 million to 50 million, and possibly as high as 100 million, making it one of the deadliest epidemics in human history.
You can learn more here.
Posted in History | Comments (0)
A review of the new French arthouse film “Portrait Of A Lady On Fire”
March 6th, 2020 by Roger Darlington
This wonderful French-language arthouse film is a rarity in the world of cinema: a work written and directed by a woman (Céline Sciamma) with cinematography by a woman (Claire Mathon) and a cast list – headed by Noémie Merlant and Adèle Haenel – in which men barely feature.
Set around 1770, it is located on a wind-swept island in Brittany where a young, dark-haired painter Marianne (Merlant) is commissioned to create a wedding portrait of similarly-aged, blonde-haired Héloïse (Haenel) under unusual circumstances. Headstrong Héloïse will not sit for the painting because she does not want to be married, so Marianne must pretend to be her walking companion and observe her subject in this surreptitious manner.
The film is cleverly titled because it is about the creation of a painting while simultaneously a picture of three women – the painter, her subject, and her subject’s maid – and because it literally has a woman in flames while at the same time showing women inflammed with lesbian love.
No doubt it helped that Mathon is an out lesbian and that, for a time before the shooting of this particular film, she was in a relationship with Haenel. In an interview, Mathon has said of cinema: “Ninety per cent of what we look at is the male gaze.” But all her work champions the female gaze and never more so than in this gem of a movie.
“Portrait Of A Lady On Fire” is a haunting work with sparse narrative, dialogue and cast-list that takes its time to build up the sexual tension. It evoked memories for me of a variety of other films.
In its slow depiction of the process of creating a female portrait, I was reminded of another French arthouse work “La Belle Noiseuse” (1991); in its dramatic use of part of Vivaldi’s “Four Seasons”, I recalled the Swedish film “Elvira Madigan” (1967); and, in the final extended shot of a woman’s face, I found an allusion to Greta Garbo at the very end of “Queen Christina” (1933).
Posted in Cultural issues | Comments (0)
Today in the United States it’s Super Tuesday as Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden square up to one another big time
March 3rd, 2020 by Roger Darlington
I’m fascinated by American politics, so I’ve been following the contest to select a Democratic Party candidate to run against the Republican Donald Trump in the US presidential election in November. A massive field of candidates has been running but the number has recently fallen very quickly and very substantially with Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar pulling out in the last couple of days.
So far we’ve only had four states voting to determine how they will allocate their delegates at the Democratic National Convention. So, up to now, only 155 delegates have been awarded. Today – known as Super Tuesday – no less than 14 states are voting and a massive 1,357 delegates (a third of the total) will be distributed. The two most populous, California and Texas, will take part – the former for the first time on Super Tuesday.
Essentially it is now a contest between Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, the self-proclaimed democratic socialist, and former Vice-President Joe Biden, the moderate and establishment choice, although mega-spending billionaire Mike Bloomberg will have his name on the ballot papers for the first time and Elizabeth Warren is still running.
I expect Bernie Sanders to confirm his standing as the front runner, but it will be interesting to see if he can secure a commanding lead or if this is going to be as brutal a battle as Sanders versus Hillary Clinton four years ago.
You can find out what’s at stake in each state that will be voting – the smallest to the largest – with some bonus nuggets of trivia thrown in here.
Posted in American current affairs | Comments (4)
What do you know about Paraguay and why is today a special one for that country?
March 1st, 2020 by Roger Darlington
One of the many reasons that I love foreign travel is that, having visited a country, I am more likely to pay attention to any news coming out of that nation. I only spent a short time in Paraguay but it was sufficient for me to pick up that today is a special one for its citizens.
The six-year War of the Triple Alliance (1864-1870), in which Paraguay confronted the combined forces of Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay, had a huge impact on this landlocked nation. As many as two-thirds of the entire population of Paraguay are reckoned to have perished during the conflict, including around 90% of its men. Brazil and Argentina would go on to annex enormous swaths of Paraguayan territory.
Paraguay is now marking the 150th anniversary of the end of the conflict with book launches, conferences and concerts and official commemoration ceremonies today in Asunción, Paraguay’s capital.
You can read more about the war here and more about the anniversary commemorations here.
Posted in History | Comments (0)