Archive for December, 2008
The Darlington Christmas newsletter
December 14th, 2008 by Roger Darlington
Vee and I have spent a lot of today writing Christmas cards to our many friends around the world. As always, we included the latest edition of the famous Darlington Christmas newsletter which you can read here.
Posted in My life & thoughts | Comments (1)
Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah”
December 14th, 2008 by Roger Darlington
I don’t watch the television series “The X Factor”, but I know from the news that this year’s competition was won by Alexandra Burke with a rendition of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah”. Now this is a song I love. Although first recorded in 1984, I first came across it only when it was used in an […]
Posted in Cultural issues | Comments (3)
What Americans believe
December 12th, 2008 by Roger Darlington
There’s some fascinating data here – including the information that 24% of Americans believe that they were once someone else. I guess that I would find it hard to be an American – of the 17 beliefs tested, I only hold one (a belief in evolution) and apparently that is a minority view in the […]
Posted in American current affairs | Comments (1)
The moon tonight
December 12th, 2008 by Roger Darlington
You might want to check out the moon tonight – because this evening’s full moon could appear up to 14% bigger and 30% brighter than other full moons this year. How come? Well, the moon’s orbit is not circular but elliptical which means that the distance between the moon and the Earth is not constant […]
Posted in Miscellaneous | Comments (4)
What’s the most expensive cup of coffee in the world?
December 11th, 2008 by Roger Darlington
I’m a big coffee drinker – especially cappuccino – and I spend a lot of time in central London, so I’m used to paying a lot for my coffee. But today was something else. This morning, I met a colleague for a working discussion over coffee and, at the Hilton Hotel by Paddington station, my […]
Posted in My life & thoughts | Comments (4)
A message from America
December 10th, 2008 by Roger Darlington
From a viral e-mail that is making the rounds: To: The World From: The USA Subject: Technical Notice Dear World, The United States of America, your quality supplier of ideals of liberty and democracy, would like to apologize for its 2001-2008 service outage. The technical fault that led to this eight-year service interruption has been […]
Posted in American current affairs | Comments (0)
Nearly a billion starving
December 10th, 2008 by Roger Darlington
The fact that you’re reading this blog posting means that you have access to the Internet and probably own a computer which by definition puts you in a favourable economic category in world terms, even if your standard of living and perhaps your employment and housing prospects are threatened by the current global financial crisis. […]
Posted in World current affairs | Comments (0)
Get a letter from Santa
December 10th, 2008 by Roger Darlington
As it’s the festive season, I thought I’d tell you about BT’s letter-to-Santa initiative. As part of the company’s partnership with ChildLine, for a suggested donation of £5.00 to the charity you can order a personalised letter from Santa to be sent to the child or children of your choice. We’ve arranged for two young […]
Posted in Miscellaneous | Comments (2)
And the winner is …
December 9th, 2008 by Roger Darlington
It’s sometime since I’ve run a quiz but I volunteered to run one this week for an away day in Birmingham organised for the Boards of Consumer Focus, Consumer Focus Scotland, Consumer Focus Wales and Consumer Focus Northern Ireland Post. We had fun but, since economic times are hard, I decided that the prize for […]
Posted in Consumer matters | Comments (0)
Size really does matter
December 8th, 2008 by Roger Darlington
As you will see here and here.
Posted in Science & technology | Comments (0)