Reviews of two films about the rape of Nanjing
October 1st, 2013 by Roger Darlington
I have previously viewed “City Of Life And Death”, a film about the Japanese occupation of Nanjing in 1936-37, and I reviewed it here.
I have just seen another, more recent, film set in the same time and place. It is titled “The Flowers Of War” and I have reviewed it here.
Posted in Cultural issues, History | Comments (0)
75th anniversary of the infamous Munich Agreement
September 30th, 2013 by Roger Darlington
I first became fully aware of the travesty of the 1938 Munich Agreement – whose 75th anniversary is today – when, in the early 1980s, I was researching the life of the Czechoslovak RAF pilot Karel Kuttelwascher. He was my wife’s father and my biography of him was published under the title of “Night Hawk” in 1985. As a result of Munich, he fled Czechoslovakia to await the outbreak of war and his chance to fight.
The consequence of the Munich Agreement was that Czechoslovakia – the only democracy in Central Europe – was utterly dismembered. The country lost over a quarter of its territory and about a third of its population. The web site of the Free Czechoslovak Air Force contains – as well as the full text of the (short) Agreement – a map illustrating the territorial break-up.
Just a reminder: the Agreement was between Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy on the one hand and Britain and France on the other. Czechoslovakia was not allowed to have any representative at the discussions.
One of my short stories is set on the eve of the Munich Agreement. It is called “The Edge Of War” and you can read it here.
Posted in History | Comments (0)
Why women shouldn’t be allowed to drive
September 30th, 2013 by Roger Darlington
Apparently this could affect their ovaries (!), according to an Islamic cleric in Saudi Arabia – see story here.
Will men ever run out of ridiculous excuses – often self-serving – for treating women equally?
Posted in World current affairs | Comments (2)
Two reviews of Salman Rushdie’s “Midnight’s Children”
September 29th, 2013 by Roger Darlington
Booker Prize winner Salman Rushdie published his ambitious and complex novel “Midnight’s Children” in 1981 and I finally read it 2003 [my review here].
At long last, a film has now been made of the book and I viewed it this weekend. You can read my review here.
Posted in Cultural issues | Comments (0)
My Saturday spent thinking about where I want to spend the rest of my life – it’s called the future
September 28th, 2013 by Roger Darlington
I spent all of today at an event entitled “FUTUREFEST: SHAPING THINGS TO COME” which was held at the Shoreditch Town Hall (build in 1862) in east London. We will spend the rest of our lives in the future but we spend so little time thinking about the future. So I found it a fascinating occasion. I reproduce below the notes from my iPad.
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Speakers at the event generally young (at least to me) with very good gender and ethnicity representation.
Many speak without notes and all speak very fluently.
Dominant clothing colour of speakers is black.
Welcome by Geoff Mulgan, CEO of NESTA:
80th anniversary of “The Shape of Things To Come” by H G Wells
NESTA funds groups looking at the future
“What’s posterity ever done for me?” – Groucho Marx quote
Jessica Bland, futurist at NESTA:
Flown a drone and bought Bitcoins
Pat Kane – curator of event:
“It is a sell out.”
“Think of it as Glastonbury for the mid century.”
1) Nick Karkaway – philosopher:
“Rats get all the best technology first – which bugs me,”
If our intelligence is transferred into a box – what rights does the box have?
What about if we share our intelligence until it becomes a group intelligence?
In what sense are we an individual? We cannot be conceived or live as an individual.
The nature of our parliament is the antithesis of the notion of the wisdom of crowds and ‘crowd sourcing’.
“Nothing is so technologically unimaginable as to be conceived as magic.”
“Be wrong in interesting ways.”
2) Berlolt Meyer – German social psychologist with bionic left hand to compensate for birth defect (cost = 50,000 Euros):
He can do things with his techno hand that cannot be done with a normal hand – such as revolving in 360 degrees!
“Bionic Bertolt” = product of a Channel Four television series called “How To build A Bionic Man” about putting together all the latest technology for replacing body parts and functions including artificial blood
Rats have been given extra memory through implantation of a memory chip
When the engineer who developed this chip was asked if it should be used for humans, he answered: “That I don’t know.”
Problems about such technology:
– Who will be able to afford the latest, very expensive technology? Who would be entitled to such advanced technology?
– What if bionics evolve? Technology could provide more functionality than the normal human
– Is it right to replace an existing limb by an artificial one that is more technologically advanced?
– If technology changes how people perceive disability, could disability confer an unfairful advantage? Example: Oscar Pistorious
[Next day the “Observer” newspaper carried this interview with Meyer.]
3) Peter Gregson – cellist:
Talks about why the arts matter
Challenges the type of people produced by exclusive learning of science subjects
Learning is not simply about earning
Technology cannot empathise and listen and care
An app cannot solve all our problems.
Is classical music still relevant? Popularity is not the same as relevance.
Concludes by playing a short piece on his cello
4) Paul Mason – Channel Four culture editor:
Capitalism is an organism .. It has a beginning, a middle and an end .. It mutates … We got wrong what the end would be.
Slide = four Kondratieff waves in the US financial markets of 1789-2003
Each wave of capitalism driven by a wave of technological innovations
We are living through a messed up start of the fifth wave delayed by the printing of money
Characteristics of Wave 5.0
– rise of the network
– growth of information goods
– development of non-hierarchical structures
– arrival of the eco-determined markets
Information goods have destroyed the notion of scarcity and so destroyed the price formation mechanism
Physical goods now have information content that can be replicated by 3D printing
Corporate responses:
1) Monopolise information eg Amazon, Google, Big Pharma
2) Skate on edge of falling prices and expanding demand
3) Develop non-market forms of production eg Wikipedia
“Everything is pervaded by the fight between the network and the hierarchy.”
The networked individual will not accept an unchanged capitalism.
5) Sadie Crease – professor of cyber-security:
All solutions to world problems – like food scarcity – depend on cyber-security
What does it mean to be citizens of cyber-space? What is our carbon footprint in cyber-space?
There are coding errors that can be employed by the malevolent.
These errors can be purchased on “the dark web”.
These hugely complex systems are hard to understand and protect.
The future is not about data but the intelligence in data (big data)
We will all be potential victims of attack because we will all have embedded technology.
In the future, there will be digital viruses like digital superbugs.
Should we develop a new form of governance where there are no secrets and no need for leaking?
6) David Runciman:
What is the future of democracy?
Very little change in politics over the last 25 years.
Yet most rapid change in technological change
No political revolution because we have had a technological revolution.
Governments better at using the technology to control citizens than citizens are at using the technology to control governments whether in democracies or dictatorships.
Some think we are moving to “technocraries” where technological elites rule eg China. Control but no adaptability.
In Italy and Greece, where normal democratic government was suspended, it was replaced by bankers. Adaptability but no control.
Bad alternative – these two systems rival each other.
Good alternative – “rebooted democracy” = not e-democracy but scaling down to level of the city and scaling up to level of continent.
7) Vinay Gupta:
Talks about open source housing – examples in Haiti
The city is where you go to make enough money to move to the country.
About half the world lives on land where they grow their own food in unhygienic conditions
These people could leapfrog past western citizens to live in rural units with low-cost, city-level standards of technology such as clean water, solar panels and tablet computers.
We have to look to this model because there is not enough metal, let alone enough money, for 9 billion to live in western-style housing with two vehicles each.
8) Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg:
PlastIc bags were seen as better than paper bags, plastic bottled water was seen as better than glass bottles, but they have created new issues – so we assume that design and technology makes things “better”.
Synthetic biology presents new opportunities for design
A kind of chemical yoghurt could be used to diagnose problems in the body that would show itself in the creation of particularly coloured excreta
Mentions project called synthetic aesthetics – can you design nature? can you design a synthetic computer?
9) Tom Kenyon:
Talks about the future of schools –
- All students will have an Internet connected device
- All schools will need to have adequate WiFi access
- Teachers will become more competent in ICT
- On demand video will play a bigger role in teaching
- 3D design and printing will become common
- Games will become a bigger part of education
- we will have new versions of assessment with use of Big Data
- We will see virtual schools
- We will see fewer examinations because we will have real time data.
10) Anab Jain:
How do we rethink health? She uses an imagined future scenario.
The future National Heath Insurance service provides DNA testing to all citizens which leads to insurance levels based on risk of ill-health.
Might need to seek gene therapy, but can one afford it or go for underground unlicensed genetic therapy?
Turns to the reality of now and wish of governments to create a national database of the DNA of all its citizens.
Another danger is an attempt by ambitious parents to determine genetic skills of their children through genetic tests.
New gene therapies can not only cure diseases but make us resistant to things we do not have.
11) Rachel Armstrong:
Talks about “black sky thinking” which is way beyond “blue sky thinking”
Mentions various singularities such as The AI Singularity (when computers became capable of creating themselves) and The Transhuman Singularity (when we live beyond our bodies) and The Interstellar Singularity (when humans leave the solar system).
12) Tamar Kasriel – business futurist:
Uses phrase “actuarial escape velocity” = our deaths before many of these technological scenarios happen
In her work, she uses scenario planning developed by Herman Khan of Rand Corporation. This accepts that any system is complex and multi-faceted and that we cannot be certain of the future but can examine the most likely scenarios.
Classic scenario planning uses a two by two analysis
Three elements for using business planning in our personal lives:
1) Accept uncertainty and understand the locus of control – what do you have the power to control and what is outside your control?
2) Need to be objective and rational. To change perspective, can go off site and extend timescale
3) Planning for your future is a process which you have to do for yourself.
13) Rohan Gunatillake – meditator:
“Training is the most important thing.”
Does a little experiment = silence. Asks how we reacted to this strange absence of speech
How do we use “attentional technologies” ie anything with a screen.
These technologies are fragmenting our attention because they are funded by advertisements. What would it be like if we put mindfulness at the centre of technological design?
Explicit mindfulness technology = headset which enables you to understand your neural connections.
Indirect well being technology = web site designed to promote mindfulness
1) Interface design that rewards patience
2) How can communication represent people rather than data?
3) How can we design hardware to remind us that we are here physically?
Web will go through a mid life crisis before it is transformed.
14) Alice Casey:
Talks about activism in the future and how the Internet will change we way we organise.
Shows map of informal settlement on the outskirts of Nairobi called Kibera
– blank on official map but populated with information through personal digital tools
Mentions sites like avaaz.org, 38 degrees, change.org which some criticise as “slackavism”
In Iceland, people trying to write a new constitution online to replace current one because of the banking crisis
15) Kathy Hinde – audio-visual artist who plays piano:
Talks of pieces of music which are open score and different every time they are played
Shows video of birds ‘playing’ her old suspended piano
16) Marek Kohn:
He talks about Britain’s climate in 2100
On present trends, global temperatures could rise by 4C by end of the century
For UK, there could be quite agreeable temperatures (+2C) but cities will be hot and water will be scarce in summer and south will be more impacted than the north.
Rest of Europe will bake so “British weather will become the envy of the world.”
But climate change could alter human relations (limited shared space) and buildings will change shape (fewer outside walls)
Also UK will be impacted by the economic changes caused by climate change throughout the rest of Europe and the world
17) Ian Goldin – South African from the Oxford Martin School:
“This is the best time to be alive.” We live at a period which he calls “the new renaissance” and yet …
The first Renaissance was not a time of economic progress
In many societies today, we see rejection of immigration and internationalism
Most of our global institutions date from just after the Second World War
Decisions which are rational for us as individuals not rational for societies or the world
This what led to the financial crisis of 2008 and what leads to massive environmental consequences.
So: “We need to accept a loss of individual and national sovereignty.”
Mentions threat of pandemics because declining impact of antibiotics and the growth of airline travel.
18) Ben Hammersley (magnificent moustache):
In US, Karl Rove once told a bunch of journalists that they were in the reality business but that is not how the political world works today.
So much of our way of thinking is based on metaphors and the use of the same metaphors in a new context – for instance, desktop or folders in a computer context
How do we shift metaphors?
We decide whether to licence new drugs depending on analysis of benefits and costs and risks.
Could we use the same approach to assess the efficacy of various counter terrorism measures?
“Countries are incredibly weird.” We base so much of our life based on lines which are historical accidents drawn on maps by people who are dead now.
Only one of the countries at time of Columbus in 1492 still exists within the same borders (Portugal).
We could redraw national boundaries based on personal similarities derived from social data.
Patriotism should be assigned to groups of people and not to lumps of soil.
19) Alex Fleetwood – founder of game design studio:
He talks of the design and building of game places which need to incorporate plasticity.
20) Alice Taylor – creator of Makies (married to Cory Doctorow):
Talks about the maker movement
Maker skills and traditional manufacturing are colliding
Kids can create their own dolls or toys which are then produced in local manufacturing units using 3D printing processes
Over next decade, many homes will have 3D printers or people can go to the neighbourhood 3D printing unit
Only at the very end of the day were participants invited to talk together and participate. I was one who took to a microphone briefly and talked of the need for politicians to look at how public services could be better delivered using these new technologies.
Posted in Science & technology | Comments (5)
A commemorative medal for Vee’s father Karel Kuttelwascher
September 27th, 2013 by Roger Darlington
In 1985, my biography of Vee’s father was published. It was called “Night Hawk” and told the story of Karel Kuttelwascher, a Czech pilot with the wartime Royal Air Force who was the RAF’s most successful night intruder ace. At the time, we assumed that would be the end of the story – but again and again matters have come back to Vee to remind her of her father.
A lot of these events flow from the collapse of Communism in Central and Eastern Europe in 1989. The people of what was then Czechoslovakia – now the Czech and Slovak Republics – wanted to rediscover a history which had been denied to them, notably the contribution of the Czechoslovaks to the wartime Western allies as well as the Soviet Union. So my book was published in Czech in 1993.
So many things have happened since then – all sorts of commemorations and awards and even a television programme. And today we were at the Czech Embassy in London for the latest episode in this amazing story.
Our hosts were the Defence Attaché Colonel Roman Siwek and the Military Attaché Lieutenant Colonel René Klapáč. They presented Vee with a medal and certificate from the Czech Ministry of Defence and a bouquet of flowers from themselves and served us with coffee and becherovka. The medal was specially produced in 2008 to mark the 90th anniversary of the founding what was then Czechoslovakia and Vee was given a numbered copy to mark her father’s wartime exploits.
It is remarkable really. It was 1942 when Karel Kuttelwascher shot down 18 German aircraft and was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross twice. He could never have imagined that, over 70 years later, people would still be remembering him and that a daughter in London would be representing him at a medal ceremony.
Vee with Roman Siwek (L) and René Klapáč (R)
plus medal and certificate
Posted in My life & thoughts | Comments (0)
A review of the film “2 Days In Paris”
September 27th, 2013 by Roger Darlington
One of the great things about being a subscriber to a service like Lovefilm is that you can rent films from way back.
So, as a fan of Julie Delpy, I’ve just rented and viewed the 2007 movie “2 Days In Paris” on which she performed multiple roles. You can read my review here.
Now I want to see the sequel “2 Days In New York” which came out in 2012.
Posted in Cultural issues | Comments (0)
Which countries are in the wrong time zone?
September 26th, 2013 by Roger Darlington
As Einstein said, time is relative, so the time we choose to live in is not always obvious.
Check out this fascinating little piece on strange time choices.
Posted in Miscellaneous | Comments (0)
Can you imagine a television programme on life in a cul-de-sac? (1)
September 26th, 2013 by Roger Darlington
The power of the Internet, eh? Seven years ago, I did a short piece on this blog about living in a cul-de-sac. This week, I have received an e-mail from a television production company that is interested in putting together a TV documentary about life in a cul-de-sac:
“I have just stumbled across your website and a piece you wrote on cul-de-sacs. I wondered if you still lived in yours in NW London or had moved on. The reason being is that I am working on a development idea (so not yet commissioned) for a possible documentary series on life on a cul-de-sac. As someone who grew up on one down in West Sussex, it was fantastic to grow up being able to play outside and run around, something few children can do these days.”
The idea might come to nothing or they may choose a different cul-de-sac, but who knows?
Posted in My life & thoughts | Comments (2)
Another fun time with my granddaughter Catrin
September 25th, 2013 by Roger Darlington
As regular readers of NightHawk will know, I have a wonderful granddaughter called Catrin who is now 2 years and 8 months old. I try to see her once a week and, on two occasions, I’ve looked after her overnight – both times for one night only and at our house. However, I’ve just had the experience of looking after her for two nights at her parents’ flat while they attended a conference.
When I joined her on Sunday morning, I had not in fact seen her for three weeks, because she and her parents had been visiting relatives in Montreal. Even in three weeks, she has become more fluent and, with her tumbling blonde curls, she looks cuter than ever too, so we had lots of fun.
We spent Sunday on London’s South Bank where she wanted to walk on and climb on anything and everything. She thinks that steps are great, but then I have to carry the buggy after her.
The fountain and sand have gone now that the summer is over, but we went on the merry-go-round together, Catrin went on the children’s Austin cars ride, we had lots of time in the London Aquarium seeing clown fish, sea horses, star fish, manta rays, sharks and penguins, and we visited the Jubilee Gardens playground. Before returning to the flat, I took her for tea to a branch of “Pizza Express” where she devoured the children’s budget special of dough balls and raw vegetables, cheese-topped pizza, and vanilla ice cream.
About 6 am next morning, Catrin burst into her parent’s bedroom, found me still asleep, and shouted “Wake up, granddad!” We then had about half-an-hour as she shrieked and laughed and jumped all over me. It’s some time since I’ve had a two year old bouncing on me in bed – about three and a half decades, actually. Such fun.The, while I shaved and showered, she sat on her little chair in the living room and watched recorded episodes of “Peppa Pig”.
Monday was actually easy because I took her to nursery which is her usual schedule for weekdays. She was not keen on me leaving her and i was told later that she was pretending to telephone me. I used the time to draft one of my regular columns on communications issues and to start reading a newly-published novel called “The Coincidence Authority”. When I collected her from nursery, she literally ran into my arms.
The evening started well: I persuaded her to have a bath and to let me wash her hair and we read the usual stories. But, boy, it took ages for me to get her to sleep – maybe granddad is not tough enough or perhaps she was still on Canadian time .
Next morning though, she was up after me (I think she probably heard me) and insisted that I make her porridge rather than simply give her the usual Weetabix. she wanted me to narrate the story of “Goldilocks And The Three Bears” while I fed her the porridge whose temperature was just right.Then I had to get her to nursery again before I went off to work.
A cheeky smile from Catrin,
wearing her Chinese outfit,
as she waits for
the merry-go-round to start
Posted in My life & thoughts | Comments (1)