A lovely day in London with Yasmin and Lucas
October 31st, 2012 by Roger Darlington
Here in London, it’s half term this week and Vee and I have some major childminding duties. First, for two days and two nights we are looking after Yasmin and Lucas, the daughter and son of Vee’s nephew. Then I have an evening babysitting our granddaughter Catrin at her home. Finally, at the weekend, we will be looking after Catrin here for two days and one night.
Today we took Yasmin (almost 7) and Lucas (4) into central London where we had lots of fun. We visited the London Aquarium and we went on the London Eye. At the aquarium, the kids loved the jelly fish, clown fish, sea horses, flying mantas, sea turtles, sharks, and penguins. On the Eye, they observed the River Thames, the Houses of Parliament, County Hall, Westminster Abbey, St Paul’s Cathedral, red double decker buses crossing Westminster Bridge, and people like ants on the South Bank.
We had lunch – delicious baguettes and cakes – at the lovely “BB Bakery”.
Lucas & Yasmin on Westminster Bridge
overlooking the Thames & London Eye
Vee with Yasmin & Lucas at the entrance of
the London Aquarium with its giant penguin
Inside the London Aquarium, Yasmin & Lucas
take turns at stroking a star fish
Lucas & Yasmin in a pod on the London Eye
overlooking the Thames & Parliament
Yasmin’s toy turtle from the aquarium
– immediately named Emily –
enjoys the view of Big Ben
Yasmin and Lucas were so good, but we all arrived home exhausted. We have a liitle time now to rest before they dress up for Halloween and all the kids in the neighbourhood call on us for ‘trick or treat’. Boy, we’ll sleep tonight.
Footnote (1/11/12): Yasmin and Lucas dressed up for Halloween and we took them out for a little while of ‘trick or treat’. Then we went home and waited for the visitors. Between 6-7.45 pm, the doorbell went 14 times and we had no less than 51 visitors. A good job we had lots of sweets in a big bucket for the gouls and witches and other horrors.
Lucas as a muscular Spider-Man and
Yasmin as a witch with her black cat
And, yes, we all slept solidly after such a full and fun day.
Posted in My life & thoughts | Comments (1)
My latest appointment in the comms sector – or how a damsel is coming to help those in distress
October 30th, 2012 by Roger Darlington
Today 4G mobile services arrive in the UK delivered by EE using its existing spectrum. This initiative has acted as a spur to bring about an agreement that the auctions for new spectrum for 4G will be brought forward to the New Year so that EE should have competition by the late summer of 2013.
Part of the spectrum that will be auctioned is 800 MHz which unfortunately will interfere with the reception of some DTT viewers and the Government has set out a package of measures to mitigate such problems. Originally the company that would implement these mitigation measures was dubbed MitCo but it is now called Digital Mobile Spectrum Ltd (DMSL) or ‘Damsel’.
The performance of DMSL will be monitored by an Oversight Board and, between now and April 2013, an Interim Oversight Board. Members of the Interim Oversight Board have been appointed and meet for the first time today at Ofcom Headquarters.
Membership of this Board includes “a non-executive member experienced in matters concerning consumer interests” and I have been appointed to this position, so I will be at this morning’s meeting,
My full portfolio of appointments now looks like this.
Posted in My life & thoughts, Science & technology | Comments (0)
Tom Scott’s vision of the future
October 29th, 2012 by Roger Darlington
Last week, I attended the seventh annual ‘Parliament And The Internet’ conference which was addressed by two Government ministers: Chloe Smith from the Cabinet Office talking about cyber security and Ed Vaizey of DCMS talking about communications policy.
By far the liveliest talk, however, came from a young futurist called Tom Scott who presented a fascinating – even chilling – vision of the future. Searching the web, I found that he had given the same presentation earlier and that it was on YouTube, so I can share it with you here:
Posted in Internet, Science & technology | Comments (0)
How come that voting has already started in the US presidential election?
October 28th, 2012 by Roger Darlington
In the federal system that is the United States, each individual state determines voting processes which is why so many Republican-controlled states have passed the voter suppression laws.
So each state determines whether a vote can be cast before polling day either through the post or otherwise. Votes are not actually counted though until the close of polls on polling day.
I understand that nation-wide more than 5 million votes have already been cast including a third of the eligible votes in the all-important state of Ohio. Obama himself has already voted in Chicago.
Just to complicate things still further, the presidential election is not determined by the number of voters who support each candidate but by the votes in the Electoral College which technically does not meet until December and technically does not have its votes validated by Congress until early January.
As you know, this is the greatest democracy on earth …
Posted in American current affairs | Comments (5)
The arrival of Big History
October 28th, 2012 by Roger Darlington
One of my many interests is history which is why this blog has a history section and why my book reviews have three sections on history.
Some of the problems with history, however, are that it tends to start with Ancient Egypt or at least the arrival of humankind, that too much of it is presented through national eyes rather than in world terms, and that so much is offered as the actions of great men with too little emphasis on underlying forces.
Many of those hugely influential forces are to do with the life sciences – cosmology, geology, biology, climatology, and geography – and the availability of natural resources such as water, arable land, seeds, spices, metals and fuels.
This is why I was pleased to see the news that that there is a new television series coming along which takes a Big History approach to the story of humankind.
For instance, did you know that:
■ The human body has changed more in the past 100 years than in the previous 50,000. Adults are 50% heavier and four inches taller.
■ 100,000 years ago, there were barely enough people on Earth to fill a football stadium.
■ Ancient Rome was eight times more densely populated than New York today.
■ When Columbus “discovered” the New World, there were already 90 million people in the Americas, a third of the world’s population.
Posted in History | Comments (0)
Two review of “Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close”
October 27th, 2012 by Roger Darlington
First I saw the film which I have reviewed here.
Now I have read the novel and reviewed it here.
Posted in Cultural issues | Comments (0)
Taking bite after bite out of the Apple
October 27th, 2012 by Roger Darlington
First, I bought an iPod. Then I went for the first iPhone as soon as it was launched. Next I obtained the first iPad as soon as it was out. Then I bought the Mac Mini to replace my PC. Finally and quite recently, I upgraded to the New iPad aka the iPad 3.
I originally bought an iPad for professional purposes and use it constantly to take notes at meetings and conferences and keep track of e-mails during the more boring parts of those events.
But my wife Vee quickly learned to love it so much that she would be disappointed each time I took it out of the house. So I’ve just ordered the new iPad mini for her coming birthday. Happy wife, happy life – that’s what I say.
Now all I’ve got to do is find myself an iPhone 5.
Posted in My life & thoughts, Science & technology | Comments (0)
The life and language of baby Catrin
October 26th, 2012 by Roger Darlington
My wonderful granddaughter Catrin is now 21 months. As regular readers will know, I try to see her each week and this week I babysat one evening. She went from a morning at nursery to an afternoon with her Canadian grandpa visiting from Montreal to an evening with me without any problem at all. She is such a good girl.
Now that it’s Autumn, the leaves are falling and she loved kicking her way through the brown leaves.
“Are all these leaves for me?”
As well as getting taller and more assertive, her language is developing by leaps and bounds. She can repeat almost any word put to her. I dont hear all her language but the words I have caught include: “Mummy. Daddy. Granddad. Me. Eat. More. Noodles. Apple. ‘nana. Yes. No. Up. Down. Nursery. Buggy. Walk. Key. Bubbles. ‘paste. Elmo. Bye. Night – night” plus animal and colour names and the low numbers. And she understands everything.
Footnote: her Canadian grandpa is very proud of all the great things that have come out of Canada – including my daughter-in-law – and insisted that I should mention on my blog that one Canadian invention is the IMAX film format [more information here].
Posted in My life & thoughts | Comments (2)
A review of the new James Bond film “Skyfall”
October 26th, 2012 by Roger Darlington
Now, a week after I saw it, I can publish my review of “Skyfall” here.
Posted in Cultural issues | Comments (0)
The women of the James Bond films
October 24th, 2012 by Roger Darlington
“Skyfall”, which is released this week, is the 23rd James Bond film but one 007 fan has compiled a list of 74 women who have had significant roles in the Bond movies.
Although “Skyfall” has not been released yet, in fact i saw it on Sunday morning at a special cast and crew viewing at the “Empire’ cinema in London’s Leicester Square.
But I can’t review it until it is available to the general public. Well, I suppose I could, but then MI6 would have to kill me.
Posted in Cultural issues | Comments (2)