MailOnline gives publicity to my book “Night Hawk”
June 12th, 2017 by Roger Darlington
I recently did a blog posting about the reprint of my book “Night Hawk” – a biography of Karel Kuttelwascher, the RAF’s greatest night intruder pilot of the Second World War.
The book is now starting to receive reviews and the MailOnline web site -the most visited English-language newspaper website in the world – has given it excellent coverage. You can read the MailOnline review of the book – which includes a selection of photographs – here.
Posted in History | Comments (0)
How old is humankind and where did it start?
June 10th, 2017 by Roger Darlington
Until recently, the answers to these questions were that humans evolved around 200,000 years ago and originated in East Africa. As this article explains:
“Scientists have long looked to East Africa as the birthplace of modern humans. Until the latest findings from Jebel Irhoud, the oldest known remnants of our species were found at Omo Kibish in Ethiopia and dated to 195,000 years old. Other fossils and genetic evidence all point to an African origin for modern humans.”
But now we have to rethink things following an astonishing discovery:
“Fossils recovered from an old mine on a desolate mountain in Morocco have rocked one of the most enduring foundations of the human story: that Homo sapiens arose in a cradle of humankind in East Africa 200,000 years ago.
Archaeologists unearthed the bones of at least five people at Jebel Irhoud, a former barite mine 100km west of Marrakesh, in excavations that lasted years. They knew the remains were old, but were stunned when dating tests revealed that a tooth and stone tools found with the bones were about 300,000 years old.”
So humankind might be a lot older than we thought and may have originated in multiple locations rather than in one specific place.
Jean-Jacques Hublin is a senior scientist on the investigating team at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig:
“Hublin concedes that scientists have too few fossils to know whether modern humans had spread to the four corners of Africa 300,000 years ago. The speculation is based on what the scientists see as similar features in a 260,000-year-old skull found in Florisbad in South Africa.
But he finds the theory compelling. “The idea is that early Homo sapiens dispersed around the continent and elements of human modernity appeared in different places, and so different parts of Africa contributed to the emergence of what we call modern humans today,” he said.”
Posted in History | Comments (0)
The British General Election – some personal reflections
June 9th, 2017 by Roger Darlington
Posted in British current affairs | Comments (13)
A review of the new super-hero movie “Wonder Woman”
June 7th, 2017 by Roger Darlington
This is a refreshingly different super-hero movie: one with a female central character (Diana Prince – the name Wonder Woman is never used in the film – played by the tall and beautiful Israeli martial artist, model and actress Gal Gadot) and a female director (Patty Jenkins who previously gave us “Monster”, another work with a central female personage) with a significant number of female support roles (Amazonian heroines, a chemist villainess, and a comedic aide).
Of course, we’ve seen WW before in “Batman vs Superman: Dawn Of Justice” and we’ll see her again soon in the forthcoming “Justice League”. What works so well with this movie is that it is an origin story that stands alone and does not require the audience to have any familiarity with other super-heroes which enables it to reach out to a new (especially female) audience.
The narrative is straightforward, starting on the well-realised Amazonian island of Themyscira and then moving, via 1918 London, onto a blood-splattered battlefield at the conclusion of the First World War. There are effective action sequences but also some nice humorous touches in a work that does not take itself too seriously and delivers handsomely on the entertainment front. Chris Pine is ideal as the good-looking American who leads Diana from one world to the other and introduces her to the best and the worst of humankind, while David Thewlis is interesting casting for a vital dual role.
The flaws in the film include the easy defeat of the main villain (after all, he is a god) and an excessive running time and some feminists will criticise the portrayal of the titular heroine, but overall the work is a major success that deservedly will do well at the box office.
Posted in Cultural issues | Comments (0)
The 35 words you’re (probably) getting wrong
June 6th, 2017 by Roger Darlington
I think that English is an easy language to pick up quickly at the basic level – no declension of nouns, minimal conjugation of verbs, a fairly forgiving approach to word order. But’s it’s a tough language to speak well – a massive vocabulary with lots of words that seem similar or the same, inconsistent pronunciation of letters, and an awful lot of tenses.
In this article in today’s Guardian” newspaper. Harold Evans looks at 35 words which are commonly misused – such as continual/continuous, disinterested/ uninterested, less/fewer. Check it out and improve your word usage.
Posted in Cultural issues | Comments (0)
What is the Qatar spat all about? And why have there been so many foiled and successful terrorists incidents in the UK recently?
June 6th, 2017 by Roger Darlington
In a perceptive article in today’s “Guardian” newspaper, Paul Mason examines “Britain’s game of thrones in the Gulf”.
On the clash between Saudi Arabia and Qatar, he agues:
“The issue torturing the Saudi monarchy is Iran. Obama made peace with Iran in 2015, in the face of Saudi and Israeli opposition. Qatar is diplomatically closer to Iran. It has also supported (outside Qatar) the spread of political Islam – that is, of parties prepared to operate within nominally democratic institutions. The Saudis’ strategic aim, by contrast, is to end the peace deal with Iran and to stifle the emergence of political Islam full stop.”
On the recent terrorist sure in Britain. he suggests:
“We do not know why Britain has suddenly become the target for a jihadi terror surge: five foiled attempts and three gruesomely successful ones in 70 days. One possible explanation is that, with the increased tempo of fighting in Mosul and towards Raqqa, it is becoming clear to the thousands of jihadi fantasists sitting in bedrooms across Europe, that their “caliphate” will soon be over. If so, the question arises: a) what will replace it on the ground and b) how to deal with the survivors as they fan out to do damage here?”
Posted in American current affairs, British current affairs | Comments (0)
Is political opposition in Parliament dead?
June 5th, 2017 by Roger Darlington
This was the title of a Drive Time programme recently featured on a radio station called Voice of Islam and I was invited to contribute to the item. The programme was billed as follows:
“We spoke about the role of the opposition in Parliament and whether it was as effective as it could be. The first caller, Roger Darlington, who had worked for the Opposition in the 1970s spoke about his experiences and generally said that opposition worked both in and outside Parliament to check the Government quiet effectively.
We also spoke to Professor Finlayson who explained the different ways debate could be construed, and that in some ways Parliament did still offer room for debate of the argumentative kind. He went on to give examples of when a speech in Parliament had been particularly powerful.
In covering how opposition forces could work outside Parliament to bring about change, Professor Usherwood explained how different Eurosceptics had got on the Brexit bandwagon for a short period of time to change the direction of British politics. However, they now lacked direction.
A member of the public, Hamish Chapman, reflected on the course of the discussion with some scepticism. He suggested that politicians needed to be taught how to debate if the public were to take them seriously.”
If you want to listen to the podcast – my interview is from 12-23 minutes – you can access it here.
Posted in British current affairs | Comments (0)
A review of last year’s film “Inferno”
June 3rd, 2017 by Roger Darlington
This is the third cinematic outing for Robert Langdon, the fictional character created by the best-selling author Dan Jones. Previously we’ve had “The Da Vinci Code” (2006) and “Angels & Demons” (2009). Now (2016) he’s back played again by Tom Hanks with Ron Howard again in the director’s chair but a new female accomplice, the British actress Felicity Jones.
The stakes are absurdly high: a visionary wants to recalibrate humankind by wiping out half of it – that’s approaching 4 billion people – with a deadly virus that can only be tracked down by decoding all sorts of messages relating to Dante and the Inferno.
I found the film visually appealling because the action takes us from Florence to Venice to Istanbul and I’ve been to all three cities and visited all the buildings featured in the plot. But it’s all very silly with dialogue full of portentous declarations about cultural artefacts, lots of running around by the principal actors, and regular twists in which the good guy/girl becomes the bad guy/girl and vice versa.
Just leave your brain to one side and try to enjoy the ride.
Posted in Cultural issues | Comments (0)
Could Labour really win the General Election?
June 2nd, 2017 by Roger Darlington
We started the election campaign with Theresa May being much more popular than her party and Jeremy Corbyn being much less popular than his party. As the campaign has gone on, there is no doubt that May is doing less well and Corbyn is doing rather better than expected.
Equally it is clear that the Conservative lead over Labour has narrowed significantly. But is Labour really within striking distance of becoming the largest single party in the House of Commons?
There has been real excitement in Labour quarters over the latest YouGov/Times poll that suggests that the gap between the Tories and Labour is now down to just 3%. And yet most other polls still show the Conservatives with a double-digit lead. How can this be?
As this helpful article explains, the key issue is whether younger voters will actually turn up at the polling stations and what judgement the different polling forecasters are making about young voter turnout. Alan Travis writes:
“Put simply the polls such as Survation and YouGov are doing a brilliant job in reaching more 18-to-24-year-olds than other polling companies. But in doing so they are in danger of repeating the mistake the polling companies made in the 2015 general election when they overstated the Labour vote and understated the Conservative vote.
This is because while younger voters may tell pollsters in large numbers they intend to vote Labour, they are far less likely to actually make it to the polling station. The difference is quite big. Only 44% of 18-24s in the ICM poll say they are 10/10 certain to vote next Thursday, compared with 66% of 35-64s and 80% of over-65s.
As a result of the inquiry into the 2015 UK polling debacle, companies such as ICM and Comres now weight their voting intention figures for younger and less affluent voters by their actual turnout rates at previous elections. Other companies such as Survation and YouGov are not doing this and weighting them by current turnout intentions.”
Posted in British current affairs | Comments (0)
A review of “The Course Of Love” by Alain de Botton
June 1st, 2017 by Roger Darlington
The author de Botton is known mainly for his philosophical works and this book purports to be a rare venture into fiction, but it hardly qualifies.
It has a fair degree of characterisation, being all about Rabin Khan and Kristen McLelland who marry, have children, and struggle to keep their relationship alive and respectful, but there is no real plot and minimal dialogue plus interventions from the author every few pages commenting from a psychological point of view on what is going on and what the principals are feeling.
The novel – if we can call it that – seeks to provide an antidote to romanticism. It argues that “there is no one more likely to destroy us than the person we marry” and the theme of the work is that “love is a skill, not just an enthusiasm” suggesting that therapy is in some ways “the greatest invention of the age”.
Posted in Cultural issues | Comments (0)