A review of “Another Earth”
December 29th, 2011 by Roger Darlington
I doubt very much that you will see this film at the cinema. As a small independent movie, it will have a very limited release. But buy or rent the DVD or watch out for it on television, because it is a wonderfully original work that will really make you think. You can read my review here.
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Did I ever tell you about my strange but wonderful family?
December 29th, 2011 by Roger Darlington
I have a step-mother who is only five years older than my wife and a half-brother who is only two years older than my son. And I have a niece who is just seven years older than my granddaughter. Plus I have a sister-in-law who is a mere 10 minutes younger than my wife. It’s complicated …
Yesterday, I spent a day in London with my niece and her parents (my brother and his partner). We were at the Science Museum where she had great fun in the Launchpad children’s section and we viewed a special exhibition called “Electroboutique”. We particularly enjoyed the IMAX 3D film “Deep Sea”.
Today, I spent a day in London with my step-mother. We visited the new Charles Dickens exhibition at the Museum of London and saw a brilliant independent film called “Another Earth”. We also took in some odd sites of London: the memorial plaques of Postmans’ Park near the Museum of London, the roof terrace of One New Change opposite St Paul’s Cathedral, and the protestors and tents of the Occupy London site at the Cathedral.
I just love living in London.
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Why celebrities need a better understanding of science
December 28th, 2011 by Roger Darlington
Because otherwise they are tempted to support products or processes that have no scientific merit or validity.
For instance, I’m a real fan of Gwyneth Paltrow as an actress but she is wasting her time and ours promoting the notion of detox which is simply unnecessary if one has a balanced diet.
Each year, the organisation Sense About Science publishes a review of the year’s nonsense. You can read a summary of the 2011 review here and you can read the full analysis here.
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How was your Christmas?
December 26th, 2011 by Roger Darlington
Vee and I spent Christmas with her twin sister Mari and brother-in-law Derek at their home in the village of Felpham on the coast in West Sussex, just outside Bognor Regis. Now Felpham may only have a population of around 10,000, but it is well-endowed, having a community hall, two post offices, and no less than five pubs.
As soon as we arrived on Christmas Eve, it was obvious that Mari was not well. She had real pain in her right shoulder and had to take pain killers. Nevertheless Derek took me to one of the local pubs – “The Old Barn” – to meet his drinking mates. It was a rough and noisy place that was not my idea of fun, but it did give me an inspiration for a short story provisionally entitled “Dying For A Pint”. Afterwards Mari felt able to join the rest of us in visiting some of their friends for drinks and nimbles. But she had a terrible night, suffering a lot more pain.
Consequently Christmas Day morning involved an early call to NHS Direct who recommended a hospital visit for Mari. Vee drove her over to Chichester – where we were married 30 years ago – and, after some waiting at St Richard’s Hospital, Mari was diagnosed with some sort of infection, given antibiotics, and sent home,
As a result of this drama, Christmas lunch – cooked by Derek – was turkey and all the trimmings (delicious) around 3 pm and a special Heston Blumenthal pudding (yummy) about 5.30 pm with Mari retiring to bed again in between. In mid afternoon, we had a call from our son Richard in Montreal where he is staying with his wife’s relatives (it is -17C there) and we finally opened our Christmas presents (mine were books).
On Boxing Day morning, I took Derek to the sea front for a ‘big breakfast’ at “The Lobster Pot” by the sea front. But Mari had had a terrible night involving repeated nausea, so we had to make another call to NHS Direct who recommended another visit to the hospital which resulted in a different course of antibiotics.
We had all been due to travel up to Egham to see Mari & Derek’s two sons and their families but, following all this trauma, Vee stayed with Mari and I went off with Derek. So now I’m back home and Vee is still at the coast.
Not the Christmas we had expected and an utterly miserable one for poor Mari.
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The best Christmas cracker jokes
December 26th, 2011 by Roger Darlington
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A review of “Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol”
December 23rd, 2011 by Roger Darlington
It was 1996 when Tom Cruise first took Ethan Hunt and the Impossible Mission Force from the small screen to the big screen and 15 years later this is his fourth outing, but he still looks good at 49. For this operation, he is accompanied by Jeremy Renner (“The Hurt Locker”) as Brandt, Paula Patton as (a fair from plain) Jane, and British actor Simon Pegg as IT specialist Benji. Locations jump from Budapest to Moscow (although the Kremlin scenes were actually shot in Prague Castle) to Dubai and finally Mumbai, so neatly maximising the global appeal of the movie.
The villainy is on an epic scale. I thought that “Sherlock Holmes 2” – which I saw shortly before – posed a big enough danger: a first world war. But “Ghost Protocol” tops that by threatening the last world war. The evil Hendricks – played by Michael Nyqvist (the three Swedish Millennium films) – wants to provoke a nuclear conflagration that will wipe out all of humankind and give evolution a chance to start all over again which would indeed be homicide of a special order and render the inevitable “M:I 5” literally impossible.
The pacing of “Ghost Protocol” is furious and the whole thing is a real adrenalin rush. The scaling of the Burj Klaifa skyscraper is the highlight (sorry for the pun) and I saw the movie – before its general release – in IMAX on the biggest screen in Britain (London.s BFI) which made this scene truly awesome. More than the previous three episodes, there is some humour, but the best lines go not to Cruise but to Pegg who delivers them in characteristically wry fashion. As with all the other films in the franchise, what is missing is an intelligible plot and an intelligent script and, as with the last one, the ending is weak. But, heh, Cruise is back in control.
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Waiting for the arrival of The Spaniard
December 23rd, 2011 by Roger Darlington
In the course of 2011, my most joyful times have been seeing our first grandchild – the beautiful baby Catrin. If you’re a regular reader of NightHawk, you’ll know about Catrin. If not, try putting her name into the search box on the right.
Meanwhile my most anxious moments have been reading the blog postings of a new, but now dear, friend who is expecting her first child. The problem is that Ellie is 47 and the pregnancy has proved immensely challenging.
When I first met Ellie in late July, she was only 14 weeks pregnant and very worried about whether things would work out. The conception was the result of IVF treatment in Spain, so she calls the baby The Spaniard. As a professional in the IT field, she has created a private blog in which she writes eloquently about the development of the pregnancy, so that she can share her experiences with her friends.
Just reading the regular blog postings has been an emotional experience with highs and lows and much in between. In the weeks since our meeting, there has been a massive amount of medical support and intervention and lots of worries and scares. I have been in awe of Ellie’s bravery and fortitude.
The last couple of weeks have been especially traumatic as The Spaniard stopping moving even though other vital signs were normal. In the last couple of days, some movement has returned and we are all breathing a sigh of relief.
Ellie is now 35 weeks pregnant and, if all goes according to plan, she will have a caesarian in mid January.
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Discovery of a new sub-atomic particle
December 22nd, 2011 by Roger Darlington
Physics used to be much simpler.
When my parents were at school in the 1930s, they were taught that there is nothing smaller than an atom. When I was at school in the 1960s and studying Physics ‘A’ Level, we were taught that there were three sub-atomic particles: the neutron, the proton and the electron. In fact, scientists already knew that there were more than three but our teacher clearly did not want to confuse us.
Now the Standard Model of particle physics – sometimes known as the theory of almost everything – involves many dozens of sub-atomic particles and today we have the news of the discovery of yet another: the chi_b(3P). How exciting is that?
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Word of the day: ratiocination
December 22nd, 2011 by Roger Darlington
As explained here, this is the process of thinking rationally and deductively – like Sherlock Holmes in fact.
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A review of “Sherlock Holmes: A Game Of Shadows”
December 22nd, 2011 by Roger Darlington
The cinematic reinvention of the English sleuth in 2009 was such a success that it was clear we had a new franchise in the making and so two years later the old team are back for a second outing with the same leading actors – the brilliant Robert Downey Jr as the eponymous detective and engaging Jude Law as his long-suffering companion in a duo with evident chemistry – plus the same director (Guy Ritchie) and the same musician (Hans Zimmer).
Sequels so often disappoint compared to the orginal, but “A Game Of Shadows” is even more confident and fun. This may not be high art but, in terms of sheer entertainment, this is almost as good as it gets. The threat could hardly be larger – the instigation of a first world war – and, as Professor Moriaty, Jared Harris supplies a splendid villain, while Stephen Fry is a delight as Holmes’ older brother. The first movie was weak on women and here Rachel McAdams and Kelly Reilly have little to do, but at least Noomi Rapace (“The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo”) looks the part as an exotic if sullen gypsy.
In truth, except for all the deduction from detail, period settings in 1891, and wry humour, this adventure is so frenetic, with one action sequence after another and Ritchie’s trademark rapid cutting alternating with slow-motion shots, that this could almost be a Jason Bourne or Mission Impossible movie. But, heh, who\s complaining? Certainly not me.
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