SD or HD? – that is the question
April 6th, 2014 by Roger Darlington
We’ve had a High Definition-ready television set for a while but so far we have been content to view Standard Definition television.
This weekend though we upgraded our Sky subscription to take some HD channels and we acquired a Sky+ HD box. Don’t you just love new technology?
Many thanks to Vee’s nephew Martin for technical advice and support.
Posted in My life & thoughts, Science & technology | Comments (4)
Sometimes it’s a good idea to revisit an old film: “Under Fire”
April 6th, 2014 by Roger Darlington
I’m a big movie fan and I’ve put hundreds of film reviews on my web site here. But I don’t see the same film more than once very often because there are so many other movies that I want to view.
However, this weekend, I rented a film that I first saw in the cinema 30 years ago. It is the Roger Spottiswoode movie “Under Fire” which portrays the Sandinista revolution in Nicaragua. I have reviewed it here.
I wanted to see the work again because I recently visited Nicaragua and went to a couple of the cities represented in the movie. You can read about my time in the country here.
Posted in Cultural issues, History | Comments (0)
A review of Rowling’s adult novel “The Casual Vacancy”
April 5th, 2014 by Roger Darlington
You can read read my review here.
Posted in Cultural issues | Comments (0)
Two reviews of “Cloud Atlas”: the book and the film
April 5th, 2014 by Roger Darlington
Some years ago, I read the 500+ page 2004 novel “Cloud Atlas” written by David Mitchell and found it ambitious but enjoyable. You can read my review here.
This week, I caught up with the near-3 hour 2012 film version. It took some getting into but I did find it an impressive interpretation of a complex work. You can read my review here.
Posted in Cultural issues | Comments (0)
The good news: the most democratic month in world history
April 4th, 2014 by Roger Darlington
In terms of sheer numbers, this April will be the most democratic month the world has ever seen as national elections take place in half a dozen countries with total electorates of more than one billion people – in India, Afghanistan, Hungary, Indonesia, Algeria and Iraq.
Check out a summary of the elections here.
The largest election will be in India and I have written a short guide to the Indian political system here.
Posted in World current affairs | Comments (0)
The bad news: Syria becomes an ever-greater tragedy
April 4th, 2014 by Roger Darlington
The civil war in Syria has now been running inexorably for three years. In that time:
- At least 150,000 people have been killed.
- The total number of deaths could be about 22o,000.
- Half the population is believed to have fled their homes.
- The total number of refugees is around 2.5 million.
- One million of the Syrian refugees are in Lebanon.
- Syrian refugees make up a quarter of Lebanon’s resident population.
- The situation in Lebanon is the highest per capita concentration of refugees worldwide.
My wife and I visited Syria and Lebanon a couple of weeks before the civil war broke out. We are probably going to be among the last tourists to Syria in a generation.
You can read the account of our trip here.
Posted in My life & thoughts, World current affairs | Comments (0)
Now a competitor to Royal Mail is delivering some of my mail
April 2nd, 2014 by Roger Darlington
For almost a decade now, Royal Mail has faced competition.
However, almost all this competition has taken the form of other licensed mail operators collecting and sorting mail from selected business customers and then injecting that mail into the Royal Mail network for final delivery to homes and businesses. This form of competition is called ‘downstream access’ and the competitors pays Royal Mail an agreed access charge for the delivery service.
An alternative form of competition is called ‘end-to-end’. This involves the competitor collecting, sorting and delivering the mail. Until recently end-to-end volumes were small and involved senders and recipients in the business sector.
Now though Royal Mail’s most serious competitor TNT Post – which is owned by the privatised mail incumbent operator in the Netherlands PostNL – is providing end-to-end services involving domestic recipients. This started two years ago in Manchester. It is now being rolled out in London (I live in the north-west of the city) and we received our first TNT- delivered item this week. The company plans to have a national network by next year.
Generally it is good for customers to have a choice of provider and for an incumbent provider to face competition which can drive efficiency.
The problem is that Royal Mail has a ‘universal service obligation’ which obliges it to deliver to every household in the country six days a week, whereas TNT Post can choose which households it covers and only delivers on alternate days. Royal Mail attempts to pay decent wages and provide good conditions to its staff, whereas TNT Post staff have inferior pay and conditions.
All this is happening in a letter market which has been declining by 5 or 6% a year for around five years now, mainly as a result of electronic substitution. As Royal Mail faces the double whammy of a declining share of a declining market, the provision of the current universal service will come under increasing threat. You have been warned.
Posted in Consumer matters | Comments (0)
How old was Noah?
April 1st, 2014 by Roger Darlington
I’m looking forward to seeing the film “Noah”. I enjoy special effects movies and I admire the actor Russell Crowe.
But how old was Noah? According to the Book of Genesis in the Bible, Noah was 500 years ago when he begat Shem, Ham and Japheth which is am amazing feat of virility.
Noah was it seems aged 600 at the time of the flood which made his construction of the ark and the survival of the flood all the more impressive. It appears that he lived another 350 years after the flood, making him 950 when he died.
Do people really believe this stuff?
Posted in History | Comments (0)
Who was the first Jew?
April 1st, 2014 by Roger Darlington
Many of my closest friends are Jewish but I still have a lot to learn about the Jewish people and the Jewish faith.
Recently I have been contemplating the origin of the Jews. Just who was the first Jew? Like so much to do with the Jewish story, the answer is not straightforward.
According to this source, the answer is simple. The first Jew was Abraham.
But according to this source, Abraham was not a Jew. Nor was his son Isaac. Nor was Isaac’s son Jacob. Moses and Aaron were also not Jews. This source insists that the first Jews were the children of Jacob’s son Judah.
A third source states:
‘If by “Jew” we mean “Hebrew,” Abraham was the first Jew. If by “Jew” we mean “of the tribe of Judah,” Judah was the first Jew. If by “Jew” we mean “the first person in the Bible to be referred to as a Jew,” the nameless Jews in 2 Kings chapters 16—25 were the first Jews. Generally speaking, people today use the term Jew to refer to “a person who is of the chosen people of Israel.” With that in mind, Abraham should be considered the first Jew.’
Posted in History | Comments (0)
All aspects of food security to be impacted by climate change insists latest UN expert report
March 31st, 2014 by Roger Darlington
Following a review of more than 12,000 peer-reviewed scientific studies claimed to be “the most solid evidence you can get in any scientific discipline”, the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has produced a new report endorsed by officials from 115 countries.
You can read the BBC coverage of the report here.
One aspect of climate change highlighted by the UN report is the impact on food security. The scientists insist that there is enough evidence to say for certain that climate change is affecting food production on land and sea.
The rate of increase in crop yields is slowing – especially in wheat – raising doubts as to whether food production will keep up with the demand of a growing population. Changes in temperature and rainfall patterns could lead to food price rises of between 3% and 84% by 2050.
You can read more on this aspect of the report here.
Posted in Environment | Comments (0)