World Book Night and me
October 31st, 2011 by Roger Darlington
World Book Night – now in its second year – is a unique collaboration between publishers, booksellers, librarians, writers and individual members of the public – all of whom are committed to sharing their love of books and reading with the wider world and through participating in the giving away of 1,000,000 specially printed books.
Members of the public are invited to apply to be one of the 20,000 givers of 24 copies of their chosen book selected from the list of 25. The books will be distributed by givers on World Book Night on 23 April 2012 and further copies will be distributed centrally by World Book Night through prisons, libraries, hospitals and other places where books are not readily available in line with World Book Night’s charitable objectives.
I have applied to be one of the givers. Which book have I selected? “The Remains Of The Day” by Kazuo Ishiguro. Why? Because the main characters in the book – which I have not actually read myself – work for Lord Darlington which is my surname. I thought this would be a good hook to encourage me and my friends to read this acclaimed novel.
Posted in Cultural issues, My life & thoughts | Comments (3)
Time for Osborne to adopt Plan B
October 30th, 2011 by Roger Darlington
“It is now clear that plan A isn’t working. Wave after wave of economic figures from HM Treasury, national and international economic institutions such as the OECD, the IFS and the IMF have all concluded that the British economy is faltering. The UK jobless total is now at its highest for more than 17 years, while growth has all but stalled.
We urge the government to adopt emergency and commonsense measures for a Plan B that can quickly save jobs and create new ones. A recovery plan could include reversing cuts to protect jobs in the public sector, directing quantitative easing to a green new deal to create thousands of new jobs, increasing benefits to put money into the pockets of those on lower and middle incomes and thus increase aggregate demand.
This could in part be paid for by the introduction of a financial transactions tax. The government could do far more to create the space for new and innovative industries and companies to flourish. One idea is a British investment bank, to leverage and back investment in low-carbon sectors such as housing, transport and renewable energy.
Doing nothing is not an option. We therefore call on the government to put the national interest first and hold an emergency budget that would instigate a Plan B for jobs, fairness and sustainability to rapidly get the economy moving again.”
This is the text of letter published in today’s “Observer” newspaper and signed by 100 leading economists. I couldn’t agree with it more.
Inevitably any Plan B would have to involve a deferral of some of the planned public expenditure cuts because current plans require reductions that are too fast and too deep. I speculated that this could be the case in a posting almost exactly one year ago,
Posted in British current affairs | Comments (0)
Overnight with my granddaughter
October 30th, 2011 by Roger Darlington
Next month is my daughter-in-law’s birthday and my son would like to take her away overnight to celebrate the event. So my beautiful granddaughter Catrin – now nine and a half months – will stay overnight with us.
It was decided that I should have a trial run at this new responsibility by staying overnight with Catrin and her parents at their central London flat and this weekend was chosen for the experiment, so last night I slept on their fold-out couch and assumed full responsibility for Catrin.
I bathed her and put her to sleep and she went off quite quickly. In the night, there were a couple of murmurs and I was ready for action but she did not actually wake up. When she did wake up, I was having trouble getting her back to sleep after some fruit, some water, and some play, when I realised that I had mixed up the time.
The battery on my analogue watch decided to expire and the clock on my iPhone mobile automatically reset itself for the turning back by one hour for the end of summertime. So the reason I couldn’t get Catrin back to sleep was that it was actually her getting up time and her mental clock was more accurate than mine.
So we played some more and then I feed her breakfast. Then I changed her and we went for an early morning stroll along the South Bank. There are only two types of people out that early on a Sunday morning – weirdos and joggers (same difference!). When I left Catrin back with her parents, I had been with her around 17 hours. I hope that i passed the test!
Posted in My life & thoughts | Comments (5)
The last four films
October 29th, 2011 by Roger Darlington
Anyone who knows me or who visits this site will appreciate that I’m a film fan and enjoy reviewing the movies that I see. So the last offerings are:
- A review of the action movie “Unstoppable”
- A review of the thriller movie “Limitless”
- A review of the strange Australian film “Sleeping Beauty”
- A review of the strange Spanish film “The Skin I Live In”
Posted in Cultural issues | Comments (0)
3% and 49% – what do these figures have in common?
October 29th, 2011 by Roger Darlington
Answer: both represent the annual increase in pay for a group of workers in Britain in 2010.
- For the workforce as a whole, the increase was 3.2% compared to a current inflation figure of 5.2%.
- For directors of the FTSE 100 companies, the increase was 49% which put the average director on £2,697,664.
More information from the source Incomes Data Services here.
Is it any wonder that some people are protesting about our unfair society?
Posted in British current affairs | Comments (0)
The three stages of “Slumdog Millionaire”
October 28th, 2011 by Roger Darlington
Posted in Cultural issues, World current affairs | Comments (0)
How fair is life in Britain?
October 28th, 2011 by Roger Darlington
As explained in this article, according to the German think tank the Bertelsmann Foundation, Britain only ranks 15th in a study of 31 wealthy nations. The main reasons are low expenditure on child poverty, high levels of youth unemployed, and substantial income inequality. This is why I was so attracted to the arguments in the seminal work “The Spirit Level” [my review here].
What does the German report say about other countries? Iceland, Norway, Denmark, Sweden and Finland top the ranking for fairness. The United States, Greece, Chile, Mexico and Turkey are the worst performers. Further information here.
Posted in British current affairs, World current affairs | Comments (0)
The challenge of rising energy prices
October 27th, 2011 by Roger Darlington
This week, I attended a roundtable on energy policy organised by Consumer Focus on whose Board I sit. It was a fascinating event on an important topic with some very knowledgeable speakers from both the UK and elsewhere in Europe on both the top table and in the audience.
For UK consumers, the average household energy bill has doubled in the last seven years from £550 to £1,300 a year. Recent price increase announcements suggest that many households will soon be paying around £1,500 a year for their gas and electricity.
One ‘solution’ which is often mentioned is switching to another supplier who offers a better deal. But this is not an easy process even with the assistance of comparison web sites. We were told that the UK energy market currently has around 400 tariff options. No wonder that switching levels have fallen and that nearly half of those who switch move to a worse deal. The Government speaker at the roundtable was Energy Minister Charles Hendry who admitted that he himself had thought of switching but gave up when he found the process too complex. The regulator Ofgem is supposed to be working with the ‘Big Six’ suppliers to move to fewer and simpler tariff options. Monique Goyens of BEUC suggested that we we are in danger of moving from a situation of accusations of the industry mis-selling to blame on the consumer for miss-buying.
Another possible ‘solution’ is smart meters which was the subject of considerable discussion at the roundtable. The industry supports the roll-out of smart meters because it should make it easier for them to balance supply and demand throughout the day and week. However, there were many criticisms: smart meters are not going to be available for some years because the roll-out programme is 2014-2019; the programme is costly and the cost is being borne by consumers while the savings are going to the suppliers; the meters will usually be in a position where consumers are in no realistic position to check the readings for different activities and times; even, then readings will show usage and not cost; even if a consumer can check the meter, the options for changing activity are limited since, while the dishwater or washing machine could be used at night, people’s meal times and heating requirements are not flexible.
Consultant Linda Lennard made the powerful point: “We are expecting consumers to fix a failed and failing market”. Retired academic Dr Brenda Boardman was particularly eloquent on the impact of rising energy prices on the poor: we are seeing more and more fuel poverty (more than 20% of income going to energy bills) with some 20-25% of homes now classed as fuel poor; the poor often pay the highest unit cost and pay up-front with the use of pre-paid meters; and the poor can least afford energy saving measures like insulation of cavity walls and lofts.
Posted in Consumer matters | Comments (1)
The soaring population of Zambia
October 25th, 2011 by Roger Darlington
There’s a lot of media coverage of population issues at the moment because the UN estimates that the world population will reach 7 billion on 31 October 2011. Obviously in absolute numbers, population growth in China and India is grabbing the headlines. However, in percentage terms, the greatest rise is likely to be in Zambia.
According to the UN, the current population of Zambia is 13 million, but by the end of the century it is estimated to reach around 140 million – a percentage rise of almost 1,000%. This is because women in Zambia have an average of 6.2 children, a figure that has hardly changed in decades.
Seven years ago, Vee and I visited Zambia to see Victoria Falls [my account here]. We befriended our hotel maid Mutinta who has since graduated as a teacher and we are still in regular contact with her. Zambia is going to have a lot of children to educate and more seriously mouths to feed.
More information here.
Posted in World current affairs | Comments (0)
The runaway train in the USA
October 25th, 2011 by Roger Darlington
Could an unmanned freight train – long and loaded with dangerous chemicals – run uncontrolled and at high speed through the USA for two hours? That’s the premise of the 2010 movie “Unstoppable” that I’ve just seen on DVD – my review here.
The film claims to be inspired by true events, an incident called the ‘Crazy Eights’ which occurred in 2001. The movie exaggerates many of the details, but the core of the narrative is valid as you can read here.
Posted in Cultural issues | Comments (0)