How information technology came to the aid of the babysitter
November 22nd, 2012 by Roger Darlington
On Wednesday, the nursery attended by my granddaughter Catrin (almost two) was closed for staff training and my son and daughter-in-law asked me if i could help out by looking after her for the day. My clever plan was to team up with my young friend Jen and her son James (just over two) and for the four of us to visit the Science Museum in central London. I have done this separately with Jen & James and with Catrin and I was sure that the kids would absolutely love being there together.
Sadly it didn’t work out like that. James was just recovering from chicken pox and Catrin had been off nursery the previous day with a temperature and a cough. So I had to spend the whole of Wednesday – except for a half half visit to a cafe for some fresh air – at Catrin’s flat. I have to say that, even though she was not well, she was so good and as adorable as ever. But it was a challenge for a 64 year old man.
We played lots, we read lots – and we used my iPad to look at photos of earlier times together and my iPad to make virtual cakes and enjoy interactive stories, and we even accessed recorded programmes on the television (notably episodes of “Raa Raa” on Ceebies). Thank goodness for the new technology. How did we ever bring up children without it?!?
Catrin’s language skills are really impressive and she picks up words and phrases so fast. Yesterday her favourite new phrase was: “Not working!” The little angel was mimicking my reaction every time I failed to get the technology to do what I or she wanted.
Posted in My life & thoughts | Comments (5)
Is the customer really king?
November 20th, 2012 by Roger Darlington
The whole of my portfolio career of the last 10 years has been about representing the interests of the customer/consumer/citizen – see my current and previous appointments here.
So I was interested this afternoon when I visited the offices of the Hacked Off campaign for effective regulation of the press because it is located in the building housing Westminster City Hall. By the lifts, there are six slogans designed to inspire the staff of Westminster Council including this one:
Posted in Consumer matters | Comments (0)
Three splendid novels about to appear as major films
November 19th, 2012 by Roger Darlington
Literature is a major source for cinema since both art forms essentially deal in storytelling.
Three excellent novels which I have read are about to appear as films that I will certainly want to see. They are:
- “Midnight’s Children” by Salmon Rushdie – my review here.
- “Cloud Atlas” by David Mitchell – my review here.
- “Life Of Pi” by Yann Martel – my review here.
Posted in Cultural issues | Comments (0)
The 50th anniversary of “Lawrence Of Arabia”
November 18th, 2012 by Roger Darlington
As everyone who knows me and/or visits NightHawk will appreciate , I am a massive film fan. My card index of films viewed now stands at 2.143 and I’ve reviewed lots of the more recent movies here.
My all-time favourite film is “Lawrence Of Arabia” which I have reviewed here. I first saw it when I was 14 on its release in 1963 and to date I have seen it a total of 10 times.
But my cinema buddy Spence – a 39 year old who goes to the cinema far more often than me – has never seen it. So I’ve invited him to a 50th anniversary showing at the “Empire” in London’s Leicester Square” this afternoon. He’s in for a treat …
Posted in Cultural issues, My life & thoughts | Comments (3)
How shale gas will massively impact the world of geopolitics
November 16th, 2012 by Roger Darlington
Ever since the end of the Second World War when the United States emerged as the pre-eminent world power, one of the givens of geopolitics has been that the American economy – the world’s largest – was substantially dependent on energy imports, largely from the Middle East. This has required the US to support authoritarian regimes like Saudi Arabia and to intervene physically in places like Iraq. If you’ll forgive the pun, you could say that the Arabs had the Americans over a barrel.
Something similar has been the recent case in relation to Europe’s dependence on Russia for oil and gas. When the Russians have want to put pressure on countries they didn’t like, they just upped the price or squeezed the supply.
But, as explained in this article, all this could be about to change because new sources of energy are coming from shale gas as a result of technological developments in a process known as ‘fracking’. This could make the US the world’s biggest producer of oil and gas by as early as 2017.
What does the mean for America?
“Exploitation of fields in Appalachian states such as West Virginia and Pennsylvania, and further west in North Dakota, have transformed the US’s energy outlook pretty much overnight. Professor Dieter Helm, an energy expert at Oxford University, said: “In the US, shale gas didn’t exist in 2004. Now it represents 30% of the market.”
If all the known shale gas resources were developed to their commercial potential in North America and other new fields, production could more than quadruple over the next two decades, and account for more than half of US natural gas production by the early 2030s, according to recent study by the Harvard Kennedy School Belfer Centre.”
What does it mean for the Russians?
“Russia is the most vulnerable of the current petro-states because of the central role of gas to its international standing. Moscow’s sway over eastern and central Europe is dependent on Gazprom, which has used its dominance to set favourable terms, selling long-term contracts linked to the oil price.
Now, as more and more of the liquefied natural gas (LNG) formerly intended for the US finds its way on to the western market, the spot gas price is coming adrift of the oil price and the Europeans have new options, which will lessen their dependence on a single dominant seller.”
What does it mean for other energy-producing nations?
“Long-term consequences for the rest of the world are hard to predict but it is probably safe to say that many of the regimes whose global role rests on hydrocarbons alone are likely to be significantly weakened, if not swept away.
That includes the monarchies that have thus far withstood the Arab spring. Their persistence has depended on a historically high oil price and unquestioning western backing. Both those conditions are now in question.”
The development of shale gas and oil will hit hard the economics of renewable energy sources like wind and solar and it will have a devastating effect on climate change because it will dramatically increase greenhouse gas emissions. It’s a complicated world ….
Posted in Environment, World current affairs | Comments (0)
Can China sustain its rate of growth and will it really become a superpower?
November 15th, 2012 by Roger Darlington
This week, the Chinese Communist Party is holding its 18th National Congress to make a once in a decade change in its leadership. This has led much of the media to highlight the expectation that in a few years China will become the largest economy in the world and to speculate about whether China is on the road to becoming a new global superpower.
As I have mentioned in a couple of recent postings, I am in the process of reading a book entitled “The Next 100 Years” by George Friedman.
He asserts: “China’s economy is not nearly as robust as it might seem, and its political stability, which depends heavily on continued growth, is even more precarious.”
At the heart of this assessment is China’s debt burden. Friedman argues that the country is not truly capitalist and therefore capital allocation is not determined by markets but by cronyism. He insists that “a remarkably large number of these loans have gone bad – ‘nonperforming’ in the jargon of banking.”
The figures he quotes are that somewhere between $600 billion and $900 billion of loans are bad. This is between a quarter and a third of China’s GDP – “a staggering amount”. He says of China’s bad debt rate: “China’s, under the most conservative estimate, is about 25 per cent – and I would argue the number is closer to 40 per cent”.
Friedman reminds the reader of the Japanese experience. In the 1980s, Japan had an astonishing growth rate and Americans were terrified that Japan was taking over global trade. The debt bubble burst and, for the last two decades, the Japanese economy has been stagnant. Japan has survived this because living standards were high and the country enjoys social cohesion.
According to Friedman, “China is Japan on steroids.” But he goes on: “The problem for China is political. China is held together by money, not ideology. When there is an economic downturn and the money stops rolling in, not only will the banking system spasm, but the entire fabric of Chinese society will shudder.”
This weakening of the central power, the rise in regional dissent, the relative isolation of the country geographically, its lack of a stong navy, all lead Friedman to state boldly: “I don’t share the view that China is going to be a major world power.”
Posted in World current affairs | Comments (1)
Word of the day: pleonexia
November 14th, 2012 by Roger Darlington
This is a term invented by the Ancient Greeks which means ‘an overreaching desire for more than one’s share’ – which describes the behaviour of the economic elites in both capitalist and developing countries today.
You’ll find a slightly fuller discussion on this Wikipedia page.
Posted in Cultural issues | Comments (0)
Happy birthday Vee and happy Diwali everyone
November 13th, 2012 by Roger Darlington
Today is my wife’s birthday and coincidentally it is also the birthday of her twin sister. I took Vee out for lunch to one of her favourite cafes: “The Doll’s House” on Harrow-on-the- Hill. For her present, I’ve ordered an iPad mini which Apple tells me is on the way but hasn’t arrived yet. Vee having her own iPad will stop all the contests over use of the iPad which I bought for work purposes but Vee has spent more time embracing than me.
As we settle down for a quiet evening’s television, the skies around us are exploding with fireworks. Where we live in north-west London, the local Asian community ensure that Diwali is a much bigger event than Bonfire Night which tends to occur about the same time. This year, the five-day festival of Diwali ends today – and don’t we know it! Good to see people enjoying themselves on the ‘Festival of Lights’.
Posted in My life & thoughts | Comments (0)
A half term report on Britain’s Coalition Government
November 13th, 2012 by Roger Darlington
We are half way through the five year term of the British Parliament elected in June 2010. We have had a Coalition Govrenment dominated by the Conservative Party.
So, how has the Government done? The Labour Party opposition has helpfully produced this assessment.
Posted in British current affairs | Comments (0)
Word of the day: neologism
November 13th, 2012 by Roger Darlington
A clever friend of mine used this word in an e-mail to me recently and I thought that I should give it some exposure, so that you can slip in into your next conversation!
The Wikipedia page defines the word as meaning “a newly coined term, word, or phrase, that may be in the process of entering common use, but has not yet been accepted into mainstream language”.
Wikipedia offers quite a selection of examples. But I’m not sure when a neologism ceases to be one and becomes mainstream.
Coincidently today the “Oxford English Dictionary” offers some of the most recent neologisms led by ‘omnishambles’ – see story here.
Posted in Cultural issues | Comments (0)