A review of the remake of “Ghostbusters”
July 22nd, 2016 by Roger Darlington
This film has had mixed reviews and forced its black star to leave Twitter but I enjoyed it. You can read my review here.
Posted in Cultural issues | Comments (0)
The beginning and the end of the novel “War And Peace”
July 21st, 2016 by Roger Darlington
At the beginning of the year, I did a blog posting titled “Have you ever read ‘War And Peace’?” and then two months later another blog posting titled “How to cover ‘War And Peace’ in six hours”. Recently I read an article entitled “War and Peace: the 10 things you need to know (if you haven’t actually read it)”. The last point in this article stated:
“The book has the worst opening sentence of any major novel, ever. It also has the very worst closing sentence by a country mile, which you will have to read four times before deciding that its proposition is perfect nonsense. In between, its greatness goes without saying: what sometimes gets forgotten is that it is not just great, but also the best novel ever written – the warmest, the roundest, the best story and the most interesting.”
So, as a service to the readers of this blog, today I offer you the text of the opening and closing of “War And Peace”.
The first line is as follows:
“Well, Prince, so Genoa and Lucca are now just family estates of the Buonapartes.”
The final paragraph is as follows:
“In the first case it was necessary to renounce the consciousness of an unreal immobility in space and to recognize a motion we did not feel; in the present case it is similarly necessary to renounce a freedom that does not exist, and to recognize a dependence of which we are not conscious.”
I confess that these extracts from “War And Peace” do nothing to encourage me to read the mammoth novel, but I’m sure that there are some readers of NightHawk who are ready to defend the book’s virtues.
Posted in Cultural issues | Comments (0)
What Britain’s new Foreign Secretary had to say at his first media conference
July 20th, 2016 by Roger Darlington
“We can spend an awfully long time going over lots of stuff that I’ve written over the last 30 years … all of which in my view have been taken out of context, through what alchemy I do not know – somehow misconstrued that it would really take me too long to engage in a full global itinerary of apology to all concerned.
… There is a rich thesaurus of things that I have said that have one way or the other I don’t know how that has been misconstrued. Most people when they read these things in their proper context can see what was intended, and indeed virtually everyone I have met in this job understands that very well particularly on the international scene.”
Boris Johnson, 19 July 2016 – an utter embarrassment
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Half of low income households at risk of missing out on vital welfare benefits
July 19th, 2016 by Roger Darlington
You hear a lot of political propaganda in this country and others about how so many people choose to live on welfare benefits as a lifestyle choice when allegedly they could simply go out and obtain satisfying paid work. The reality is, of course, utterly different. It is estimated by the Government itself that the amount of benefits to which UK citizens are entitled but which they do not claim is over £13 billion a year.
I chair a body called the Essential Services Access Network and one of our members is a body called Turn2Us. New research by the organisation has found that almost half (48%) of low income households are not claiming the welfare benefits and tax credits to which they could be entitled. Turn2Us is currently running a campaign to encourage low income households to claim the benefits to which they are entitled.
Posted in British current affairs | Comments (0)
Does the world need another Tarzan movie?
July 18th, 2016 by Roger Darlington
So many films are remakes or sequels. It seems that moviemakers are terribly risk averse and are reluctant to try new characters and stories. So now we have yet another Tarzan film which really does little to distinguish the franchise. You can read my review here.
But, if we have to return to characters that have previously exhibited box office success, I am more than happy to see another Jason Bourne movies and one is coming soon.
Posted in Cultural issues | Comments (0)
A review of “The Lady In The Van”
July 17th, 2016 by Roger Darlington
First a book; then a stage play; then a radio adaptation; and finally a film. It is a remarkable, and mostly true, story that slowly unfolds to portray a character as damaged as she is eccentric. Check out my review of the movie here.
Posted in Cultural issues | Comments (0)
Trying to understand the phenomenon of global political Islam
July 16th, 2016 by Roger Darlington
We don’t yet fully understand the motivation behind the terrible attack at Nice, but it seems that the perpetrator, as well as being mentally ill, was inspired by Islamic fundamentalism. We don’t yet know the background to the attempted coup in Turkey, but it seems that sections of the military are concerned about a shift by the government to a more Islamic society.
Against this background, this week I started a short course at the City Literary Institute in London with the title “Global Political Islam”. Our lecturer is Dr Nomaan Hanif whose family comes from the Indian part of Kashmir although he was born and brought up in the UK.
It was immediately apparent that this is going to be a difficult course, not least because of the problem of language.
Dr Hanif told us that the term “global political Islam” is a western construct based on secular notions of separation of church and state. In fact, there is no such thing as non-political Islam because there is no distinction between politics and religion in traditional Islam. The lecturer admitted that he used the course title as a kind of marketing tool. Then, having said that really there is no such thing as global political Islam, be argued that “it is the fastest growing phenomenon in the world”.
This problem of language is everywhere in a discussion of Islam. Indeed the very word ‘state’ means different things in English and Arabic and no country would claim to be an Islamic state. That term is reserved in Islamic thought for the caliphate that existed in the first 30 years after the death of the Prophet Mohammed. This is why the name ISIS is so evocative and powerful.
Dr Hanif explained that the Arabic language is fundamental to Islam. It was the language of Mohammed, the Koran and the Hadith (the collected sayings of the Prophet). The problem is that the Arabic of the Koran and the Hadith are different. The Koran is said to be the purest form of Arabic and, in meaning, style and grammar, so perfect that it can never be imitated.
Furthermore there is a difference between Sharia Arabic and linguistic Arabic. So a term like ‘jihad’ means a military conquest in the former but simply a personal struggle in the latter. The term ‘peace’ means peace under the submission of Islam in the former and the more western notion of non-violence in the latter. This is one of the reasons why there is a debate about whether Islam is or is not a religion of peace.
This is going to be a tough course.
Posted in World current affairs | Comments (3)
Why I visit Snodland so often
July 15th, 2016 by Roger Darlington
You’ve probably never heard of Snodland which sounds like somewhere in a story of Noddy and Big Ears. In fact, Snodland is a village in Kent where the company South East Water is headquartered.
For the last four or so years, I have chaired the company’s Customer Challenge Group – now called Customer Panel – so I’ve visited the location often and had many discussions about the performance of the company.
Just in case you wonder what I discuss in Snodland or have some interest in the regulation of the water sector, I thought that you might like to know that today the Customer Panel published an Annual Report which I wrote on behalf of the members. You can access it here.
Posted in Consumer matters, My life & thoughts | Comments (0)
Some odd choices in Theresa May’s new Cabinet
July 15th, 2016 by Roger Darlington
In the last three weeks, British politics has been a whirlwind of surprises. The latest shocks come with the appointment of a new Cabinet by the new Prime Minister Theresa May.
Most shocking of all is Boris Johnson as Foreign Secretary. He is infamous for his many gaffes and insults denigrating various foreign figures and groups. I wonder how many occasions of faux pas (apparently he is fluent in French) we will have to witness before he is forced to resign.
Then we have Andrea Leadsom as the new head of the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. This is a woman who wondered as energy minister whether climate change is real, once called for the abolition of farming subsidies, and now wants to repeal the ban on fox hunting.
Priti Patel is now Secretary of State for International Development even though she has a history of scepticism about foreign aid and even called for the Department to be abolished.
And then there were the appointments that were not made.
There is no Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change because there is now no such department. Energy has gone into the Department of Business and Climate Change does not figure in the title of any Government Department.
There is no Cabinet post for former Work and Pensions Secretary Stephen Crabb. One minute he is standing to be Leader of the Conservative Party and Prime Minister; the next moment he is leaving government altogether for “personal reasons”.
Eight other Cabinet Ministers have simply been dropped – banished to to the backbenches. They include George Osborne who as Chancellor has been the second most powerful person in Whitehall. Ouch!
You couldn’t make it up ….
Posted in British current affairs | Comments (3)
How can we use behavioural economics to better understand customers ?
July 14th, 2016 by Roger Darlington
In my capacity as Chair of the South East Water Customer Panel, some months ago I met Julien Lancha, Chief Customer Officer and co-founder of a company called Advizzo which advises companies on how to use behavioural insights to better serve their customers. I’ve met him several times since and we’ve had some fascinating discussions.
Following that first meeting though, I was so impressed by Advizzo’s thinking that I put them in touch with SEW. I’m pleased to say that this week South East Water publicly announced a collaborative programme with Advizzo.
One of the areas where Advizzo will be working with SEW is on communications with customers on issues like water saving. One of the behavioural insights which will be used is that customers respond better to water savings messages if you compare their water usage with that of their neighbours rather than an emphasis on cost savings or environmental impacts.
Posted in Consumer matters | Comments (0)