A review of the new film “One Battle After Another”
September 27th, 2025 by Roger Darlington
A film by Paul Thomas Anderson is never boring and once again he has written, produced and directed a work that is fresh and original, weird but wonderful. It’s four years since we tasted his “Licorice Pizza” but the wait was worth it. None of the characters are credible, instead they are essentially caricatures, and as the narrative develops the whole thing becomes more and more surreal. I found the music too much and too loud, but otherwise the movie is a delight.
At its heart is the relationship between a one-time far-Left revolutionary and his daughter. The father is played by Leonardo DiCaprio who is simply wonderful. His would-be nemesis, a military figure with the ironic name Steven Lockjaw, is portrayed by Sean Penn who is terrific. The mother is the sassy Regina Hall and there is Benico Del Toro as a supporter of the cause. For no obvious reason, the revolutionaries are called the French 75 and then there is a secret society of white supremacists with the ridiculous name Christmas Adventurers Club. It’s that kind of film, never more absurdist than when the DiCaprio figure can’t remember a key password.
Running throughout the work is the explosive issue of immigration which has never been more central to American politics at a time of Donald Trump’s second term in the White House. There are extremists supporting Mexican migrants and a military machine opposing them that might have looked excessive at the time the film was made but not at the time of its release. There is some stunning cinematography and memorable imagery, but it’s long, it’s violent, it’s crazy.
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Which countries have more than one capital?
September 26th, 2025 by Roger Darlington
Eswatini (formally known as Swaziland) has its administrative capital in Mbabane and its legislative and royal capital in Lobamba.
Bolivia has its constitutional capital and seat of judiciary in Sucre and seat of government, executive and legislature in La Paz.
South Africa has Pretoria as its government capital, Cape Town as it legislative capital and Bloemfontein as its judicial capital.
Posted in World current affairs | Comments (0)
Which countries have no capital?
September 25th, 2025 by Roger Darlington
Switzerland has no official capital in its constitution. Instead Bern is the federal city and the site of the government.
Nauru has no official capital. The government offices are located in the district of Yaren which functions as the seat of government.
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Ever heard of Gobekli Tepe?
September 24th, 2025 by Roger Darlington
I’d always thought that Stonehenge in the United Kingdom was about the oldest surviving structure on the earth made by humankind. But, when I watched the BBC series “Human”, I learned about a site that I’d never heard of before and it is around 6,000 years older than Stonehenge. It’s located in Turkey and is still being excavated, so we still have much to learn about it. But this is an edited extract from the Wikipedia page:
Göbekli Tepe is a Neolithic archaeological site in Upper Mesopotamia in modern-day Turkey. The settlement was inhabited from around 9500 BCE to at least 8000 BCE, during the Pre-Pottery Neolithic. It is known for its large circular structures that contain large stone pillars – among the world’s oldest known megaliths. Many of these pillars are decorated with anthropomorphic details, clothing, and sculptural reliefs of wild animals, providing archaeologists insights into prehistoric religion and the iconography of the period.
The 15 m (50 ft) high, 8 ha (20-acre) tell is covered with ancient domestic structures and other small buildings, quarries, and stone-cut cisterns from the Neolithic, as well as some traces of activity from later periods.
The site was first noted in a 1963 archaeological survey. German archaeologist Klaus Schmidt recognised its significance in 1994 and began excavations there the following year. After he died in 2014, work continued as a joint project of Istanbul University, Şanlıurfa Museum, and the German Archaeological Institute, under the direction of Turkish prehistorian Necmi Karul.
Göbekli Tepe was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2018, recognising its outstanding universal value as “one of the first manifestations of human-made monumental architecture”. As of 2021, around 10% of the site has been excavated. Additional areas were examined by geophysical surveys, which showed the mound to contain at least 20 large enclosures.
Posted in History | Comments (0)
I’ve never been to Beringia – and I never will
September 23rd, 2025 by Roger Darlington
So far, I’ve visited 90 countries and I’d like to visit a few more if I can. But I’ve never been to Beringia and, to be honest, I’d never heard of it until I watched the BBC series “Human”. I won’t be visiting it because it doesn’t exist any more. This edited extract from Wikipedia explains more:
Beringia is a prehistoric geographical region, defined as the land and maritime area bounded on the west by the Lena River in Russia; on the east by the Mackenzie River in Canada; on the north by 72° north latitude in the Chukchi Sea; and on the south by the tip of the Kamchatka Peninsula.
The area includes land lying on the North American Plate and Siberian land east of the Chersky Range. At various times, it formed a land bridge referred to as the Bering land bridge or the Bering Strait land bridge that was up to 1,000 km (620 mi) wide at its greatest extent and which covered an area as large as British Columbia and Alberta together, totaling about 1.6 million km2 (620,000 sq mi), allowing biological dispersal to occur between Asia and North America.
It is believed that a small human population of at most a few thousand arrived in Beringia from eastern Siberia during the Last Glacial Maximum before expanding into the settlement of the Americas sometime after 16,500 years before present (YBP). This would have occurred as the American glaciers blocking the way southward melted but before the bridge was covered by the sea about 11,000 YBP.
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How millions will be able to live longer
September 22nd, 2025 by Roger Darlington
In a world awash with depressing news, it is wonderful to learn that we have an AI tool that can predict the chances of any particular individual developing a whole range of diseases which will enable lifestyle changes and medical interventions to extend the lives of millions.
One of the two health databases on which this AI tool has been trained is the British Biobank survey of which I have been a participant for 15 years.
Further information here.
Posted in Science & technology | Comments (0)
A review of the new film “A Big Bold Beautiful Journey”
September 21st, 2025 by Roger Darlington
This romantic fantasy is worth seeing for the cast. Good-looking, talented and eminently watchable Colin Farrell and Margot Robbie play David and Sarah, strangers who meet at a mutual friend’s wedding and there are cameos from Kevin Kline and Phoebe Waller-Bridge.
Unfortunately, aside from the cast, there is too little to commend this work from Korean-American director Kogonada (real name Park Joong Eun). The fault is the script by someone called Seth Reiss. The idea is that the GPS from a rented car takes the protagonists to a series of doorways that enables then to revisit and revise earlier memories. Sadly the notion comes over as too slow and too fragmented to work effectively.
Posted in Cultural issues | Comments (0)
A review of the novel “You Are Here” by David Nicholls
September 18th, 2025 by Roger Darlington
The author of the outstandingly successful “One Day” has done it again, crafting an immensely readable and thoroughly enjoyable romantic novel. In the case of “One Day”, the stylistic device was a series of chapters set exactly one year after another. This time, the device is alternating chapters – each very short – from the respective viewpoints of the female and male characters as day by day they traverse the Northern England coast to coast walk popularised by Alfred Wainwright.
Marnie is 38, a copy editor living in London, divorced for many years. Michael is 42 a geography teacher in York, separated for a couple of years. Both have been damaged by their earlier relationships, are alone and lonely, and have not had sex for years. But they are very different: she the more free-spirited and funny, he the more introverted and obsessive. And trudging up hills and down dales in all weathers, all the while staying in indifferent accommodation, presents its own challenges.
Our intrepid middle-aged walkers have long ago left behind “the golden age of friendship, when having a supportive, loving community around you was a far greater priority than the vexed business of family, the strained performance of romance or the sulky obligations of work”. Now they fear that “The risks involved in romantic love, the potential for hurt and betrayal and indignity, far outweighed the consolations”. And yet …
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Populism is gaining traction even in Japan
September 12th, 2025 by Roger Darlington
A disturbing new phenomenon in Japan is the rising popularity of a populist party called Sanseito which loosely translates as “Do It Yourself Party”. In the 2025 upper house election, Sanseito made a significant breakthrough, winning 14 new seats to bring their total in that chamber to 15. They also hold a few seats in the lower chamber.
The party holds many policy positions similar to other populist parties in the democratic world: anti-immigrant, vaccine-sceptic, , nationalistic ideology, anti same sex marriage and LGBT.
You can read my guide to the Japanese political system here.
Posted in World current affairs | Comments (0)
A narrative account of a fascinating trip to Japan
September 4th, 2025 by Roger Darlington
It was April when I went to Japan for a two-week trip, but only now have I pulled together and edited all my blog postings of that time into a continuous narrative.
Reading over my account now, I’m reminded of how much we visited, how much we saw, and how much we learned about this extraordinary country.
You can read my account here.
Posted in My life & thoughts | Comments (0)