How fast is your broadband?
March 29th, 2019 by Roger Darlington
This week, I chaired a meeting of the Consumer forum for Communications at the headquarters of the communications regulator Ofcom. One of the presentations was from Ofcom staff on the subject of superfast broadband (SFBB).
Superfast broadband is defined as a service offering a download speed of at least 30 megabits per second (Mbit/s). We were advised that such a service is now available to 94% of UK premises, but only 47% of premises with access to SFBB have actually signed up to the service.
If you look more closely at that 94% coverage figure, we see that (astonishly) 19% have no broadband connection at all, 16% have a connection up to 10 Mbits/s, 20% have a connection between 10 and 30 Mbit/s, and 45% have a connection above 30 Mbit/s.
So, where are you in this picture? Up until last weekend, my broadband connection was around 24 Mbit/s but, since Tuesday, it has been 100 Mbit/s. I moved home and switched from TalkTalk to Virgin Media. So, now I really am in the fast lane of the infornation superhighway (as it used to be called).
Ofcom is keen to encourage broadband users to consider increasing the speed that they have and has been running a Boost Your Broadband campaign which provides a lot of useful information.
Posted in Internet | Comments (0)
I’m on the move …
March 24th, 2019 by Roger Darlington
Tomorrow I shall be moving home. This will be my first move in 35 years and will involve massive downsizing, so I have been decluttering substantially over many weeks. Currently I am surrounded by dozens of boxes trying to work out what will go where in the new place.
The move will involve a change in the supplier of my electricity, fixed line, broadband, and television. Oh, and my e-mail address will change as well. What could possibly go wrong?
Well, it might create some (hopefully brief) difficulties with my communications – in which case, you will know why and please bear with me.
Posted in My life & thoughts | Comments (2)
86 year old Michael Heseltine’s speech at the People’s Rally against Brexit and for a second referendum
March 24th, 2019 by Roger Darlington
Posted in British current affairs | Comments (0)
A review of the new film “Everybody Knows”
March 22nd, 2019 by Roger Darlington
This Spanish-language film is a French-Spanish-Italian co-production written and directed by the Iranian Asghar Farhadi (who has twice won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Film). It has a wondeful cast, headed by Penelope Cruz and Javier Bardem, a couple in real life who here play former lovers.
Although the setting and casting are new for Farhadi, in this suspense drama involving the kidnapping of a young girl, he deploys his trademark style and uses this incident as a device to expose all sorts of tensions in the family and the community. As the narrative twists keep coming, some of the plotting may be contrived, but the film is never less than compelling watching.
Posted in Cultural issues | Comments (0)
The challenge of combatting child abuse images online
March 21st, 2019 by Roger Darlington
For six years [see my reported here], I was the first independent Chair of the Internet Watch Foundation which acts to remove child abuse images which appear on the Internet. So I was more than usually interested to hear a short presentation by the current IWF Chair Andrew Puddephatt at this week’s Westminster eForum on online regulation.
In spite of two decades of excellent work by the IWF, there is no reduction in the volume of child abuse images available on the Net. In its last report, IWF actually recorded an increase. In 2017, it processed 132,636 reports (a 26% increase on 2016).
Puddephatt estimated that in the UK around 100,000 men regularly access such abhorrent images. He emphasised that we were talking about men: very few woman view such material and most of the problems of harmful and offensive content and behaviour online originate with men.
He posed the question: what is causing such human bad behaviour? He insisted that, so long as there is demand for such images, there will be supply and argued that we have to talk about disbanding demand as well as supply,
Posted in Internet | Comments (0)
How to be happy – today and always
March 20th, 2019 by Roger Darlington
Today it is the the annual celebration of International Happiness Day. So, how can we be happy (or at least happier). I offer two resources: one professional, the other personal.
On my web site, I’ve reviewed several excellent books on happiness. One is “The How Of Happiness” by Sonja Lyubomirsky and at the core of this book are 12 specific happiness-enhancing activities. You can check out her advice in my review of the book here.
Some time ago, I attempted myself to pull together a set of suggestions – some more light-hearted than others – on “How To Be Happy” and this is a popular page on my web site. You can read my ideas here.
Have a happy day and a happy life.
Posted in Miscellaneous | Comments (0)
Where now for the Palestine-Israeli problem?
March 19th, 2019 by Roger Darlington
The conflict between Palestinians and Israel seems to have fallen out of consideration by much of the world’s media. Perhaps the problem is just too intractable. But the violence in Gaza continues and there is an election coming up in Israel.
My friend Eric Lee has given his sobering thoughts in this piece for “The Times of Israel” where he comments on the longstanding idea of two states:
” .. the two-state solution seems further away than ever, with both sides, Israelis and Palestinians, claiming that there is no partner on the other side. And both sides may well be right. Abbas seems to be concerned only with retaining power, which he clings to for dear life, and shows no interest in resuming any kind of negotiations. And this seems to work well for his Israeli partner Netanyahu, who also is laser-focused on remaining prime minister, and is delighted not to have to ever sit across a bargaining table with Palestinians again.”
If you want some brief historic background to the Arab/Israeli conflict, you might like to read my book review.
Posted in World current affairs | Comments (0)
So, have you been watching the MP Nick Boles?
March 17th, 2019 by Roger Darlington
Nine months ago, I did a blog posting about the Member of Parliament Nick Boles and concluded “He is a man to watch”.
This weekend, we had the news of his resignation as the Conservative MP for Grantham & Stamford, although he is likely to continue taking the Conservative whip.
We haven’t heard the last of Boles. He is a leading advocate of a possible solution to the Brexit crisis called Norway Plus.
I must say that, in half a century of following British politics, I have never known party affiliations and voting discipline to be more fluid.
Posted in British current affairs | Comments (1)
The making of American power (4): military dictatorships in Latin America
March 16th, 2019 by Roger Darlington
This week, I attended week 4 of an eight-week evening class at London”s City Literary Institute. The title is “The making of American power: US foreign policy from the Cold War to Trump” and our lecturer is Jack Gain.
Week 4 of the course was about the many interventions that the US has made in Central and South America to undermine governments that it did not like and support dictatorships that were more acceptable to the White House.
The course began with a video clip of a Congessional hearing with Elliott Abrams, the newly-appointed US Special Envoy to Venezuela who has a terrible record of support for fascist regimes in Latin America.
One of the countries we discussed was El Salvador and one of the incidents we recalled was the massacre at El Mozote. I have been there and this is a relevant extract from an account of my trip to Central America:
“Outside Perquin, we took an unmade road to a village called El Mozote which became infamous on 11 December 1981. On that day, in an operation called “Anvil And Hammer” [for more details click here], army troops persuaded people from the surrounding communities to come to the centre of this village where the men, woman and children were separated before around 800 of them were massacred. One of the few survivors, a woman called Rufina Amaya Marquez, was determined that everyone should learn about the atrocity and campaigned for it to be known nationally and internationally.
Today the village has constructed a memorial with silhouetted metal figures of a man, a woman, a boy and a girl holding hands. Behind these figures is a wall with plaques commemorating the names of many of the victims. We were told the story by a young woman called Estrella who was six at the time of the massacre. The pain was still evident in her voice and eyes and our guide Sandra chose not to translate the full descriptions of some of the macabre horrors that unfolded. It was a very moving account, but one of our group – a particularly pompous and portly man who will remain nameless – was chatting as Estrella spoke and Vee publicly and loudly rebuked him.”
Posted in History, Uncategorized | Comments (0)
A review of the new film “The Aftermath”
March 15th, 2019 by Roger Darlington
The cinema is replete with stories of wartime romances – including the sub-theme of fraternisation with the enemy – but this film is different with a setting just after the Second World War in a Hamburg devastated by British bombing.
Rachael Morgan (Keira Knightley) is a young woman joining her husband Lewis (Jason Clarke), an officer in the British zone of occupation, who finds unexpectedly that they are sharing their requisitioned stately home with the original German occupant Stefan Lubert (Alexander Skargård). Each of these three has suffered the death of a dear one and, in very different ways, is struggling to come to terms with it in a manner which will have fateful consequences for the other two.
Based on a novel by Rhidian Brook, this is a truly moving tale of love and loss, beautifully shot in the Czech Republic. At first, it might seem that the treatment of the German population is overly understanding and compassionate but soon we find Nazi sympathies run deep with serious consequences for the main character.
The film is all the more compelling for having a largely unknown cast. Knightley, in the central role, is the exception in being familar and possible just now over-familiar and it may be that one’s reaction her will colour your judgement of the work either way. For my part, I rate Knightley who I think is growing as an actress as evidenced in such recent work as “Colette”.
Posted in Cultural issues | Comments (0)