Archive for April, 2007
How long is the marathon – and why?
April 22nd, 2007 by Roger Darlington
Today we have the London marathon and one must admire anyone who attempts it. But just how long is it and why is it that length? The name, “marathon”, comes from the legend of Pheidippides, a Greek soldier, who was sent from the town of Marathon to Athens to announce that the Persians had been […]
Posted in Miscellaneous | Comments (2)
Getting tied in knots
April 21st, 2007 by Roger Darlington
Is there anything that one can’t find on the Web? A friend has drawn my attention to this amazing site which shows you how to tie every kind of knot with fast and slow illustrations. Since I’ve never even learned how to tie shoe laces correctly, I could have done with this site, 50 or […]
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What are the lessons of the Iraq invasion?
April 20th, 2007 by Roger Darlington
My attention has been drawn to a very long but very interesting and thoughtful piece on Iraq posted on the Huffington Post blog just before I went off to Israel. The author is American journalist Tish Durkin and she concludes wisely: “It’s easy to rewrite a very complex story as a dark fairy tale that […]
Posted in World current affairs | Comments (3)
Freedom of speech (1)
April 20th, 2007 by Roger Darlington
Freedom of speech is a complex and controversial issue that needs to be debated rationally. Should it be legal to argue that the Holocaust did not take place, even though this position is contrary to all credible evidence and deeply hurtful and offensive to many Jews and others? I think it should and therefore I […]
Posted in World current affairs | Comments (0)
Freedom of speech (2)
April 20th, 2007 by Roger Darlington
Freedom of speech is a complex and controversial issue that needs to be debated rationally. Should it be legal for Arabs in Israel to argue against the Jewish nature of the constitution and advocate a bilingual and multicultural state in which citizenship would no longer be granted automatically to any Jew and in which Arabs […]
Posted in World current affairs | Comments (0)
Unhappy about how to be happy
April 19th, 2007 by Roger Darlington
Usually the responses I receive to my web site material are very positive, but the Life Skills page on “How To Be Happy” – a fairly lighthearted set of ideas – has attracted an uncharacteristically vituperative e-mail as follows: “What planet are you from then? You should never advise anyone to be happy through having […]
Posted in My life & thoughts | Comments (4)
One year at Postwatch
April 18th, 2007 by Roger Darlington
It is exactly a year ago today that I started at Postwatch, the consumer watchdog for postal services, where I am the Chairman of the Greater London Region and a member of the national Council. Coincidentally I spent all today at Postwatch Headquarters, next to Victoria station in central London, where I chaired two meetings. […]
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Blogging in the Muslim world
April 18th, 2007 by Roger Darlington
In my last posting, I talked about my four years of blogging. Of course, blogging is a worldwide phenomenon and there are now over 70 million blogs although many do not seem to last long. The Muslim world is desperately in need of the freedom of speech and expression that blogging tends to encourage. But […]
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Four years of blogging
April 18th, 2007 by Roger Darlington
I had been reading about weblogs or blogs for months before I actually met someone who was running one. At a London seminar on trade union use of the Internet, held in December 2002, I came across an enthusiastic Dutchman called Oskar van Rijswijk who had been operating a blog since October and was really […]
Posted in Internet | Comments (6)
A challenge to America
April 17th, 2007 by Roger Darlington
The Internet Watch Foundation – which I chaired for six years – continues to do great work and today publishes its latest annual report with some sobering messages. New figures show the severity of online child abuse content is increasing, with a four-fold rise in images depicting the most severe abuse, such as penetrative and […]
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