Archive for January, 2007
“Party Animals” (2)
January 31st, 2007 by Roger Darlington
“The West Wing” it ain’t, but BBC2′ s series “Party Animals”, looks authentic and entertaining enough to keep a political junkie like me tuning in each Wednesday night. This evening saw the screening of episode 1 which was good enough to wet my appetite. The series is all about the activities of House of Commons […]
Posted in Cultural issues | Comments (4)
What are the functions of those F keys?
January 30th, 2007 by Roger Darlington
See those keys on the top row of the keyboard in front of you? F1 through to F12. Do you have any idea what they do? I confess that I never use them. But Bill Gates was on “The Daliy Show With Jon Stewart” this wek to talk about the launch of Microsoft’s new Vista […]
Posted in Internet | Comments (1)
What this critic knows
January 30th, 2007 by Roger Darlington
A week or so ago, I posted an item entitled “What do critics know?” This commented on the wildly different ratings given by various film critics to the new movie “Babel”. I promised that, when I’d seen it, I’d review it for you and now you can read my assessment here.
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Can one see the future in a glass of water?
January 29th, 2007 by Roger Darlington
Sounds silly? Well, BBC2 television devoted 30 minutes this evening to the story of an Irish healer called Mary Malone who claims to be able to foretell anyone’s future simply by glancing at a glass of water. Clearly the presenter of the programme didn’t believe this, so why give her the oxygen of publicity? However, […]
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The Great Vowel Shift
January 29th, 2007 by Roger Darlington
My mother was Italian and had trouble understanding why English spelling and pronunciation was so inconsistent compared to a straightforward language like Italian. For instance, she would pronounce the phrase “good food” with “food” rhyming with “good” (logical enough). In part, the explanation for the inconsistent pronunciation probably lies in the Great Vowel Shift which […]
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The rise and rise of the cafe
January 28th, 2007 by Roger Darlington
Many of my friends joke because, wherever I am in central London, I have a favourite cafe. Although Starbucks apparently has 166 branches within five miles of Regent Street [check out the store locator here], none of my favourite cafes is a Starbucks, although I’m not averse to calling into one, if I want a […]
Posted in Miscellaneous | Comments (1)
Which is the best country in the world?
January 27th, 2007 by Roger Darlington
“International Living” magazine judged 191 countries on their cost of living, culture and leisure, economy, environment, freedom, health, infrastructure, safety and risk, and climate. France came top for the second year running. You can see why here. Britain only ranked 37th. A spokeswoman for the magazine said: “Britain is still relatively high on the list […]
Posted in World current affairs | Comments (3)
Why are so many of them JB?
January 27th, 2007 by Roger Darlington
This week, I watched “The Bourne Supremacy” [my review here]. This led me to thinking: why do so many fictional heroes have the initials JB? As well as Jason Bourne, we have James Bond from the 007 franchise and Jack Bauer from the television series “24”.
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“The Daily Show With Jon Stewart”
January 26th, 2007 by Roger Darlington
The British are fond of disparaging American television, but we have nothing quite like “The Daily Show With Jon Stewart” which is shown here on E4. This evening’s show in Britain (yesterday’s in the US) featured a savage dissection of Dick Cheney’s puny effort to defend the Bush administration following this week’s State of the […]
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Who is Klaus Schwab?
January 26th, 2007 by Roger Darlington
He is the founder and chairman of the World Economic Forum which has been meeting annually in Davos, Switzerland, for the past 36 years. Klaus himself is a German-born 68 year old academic who has been a professor of business policy at Geneva University since 1972. Last year, I was at a conference in Geneva […]
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