Archive for July, 2009
My first short story
July 24th, 2009 by Roger Darlington
As I explained in this posting, I intend to use a quiet summer to attempt to be come a short story writer. I have now published my first short story. It is titled “Making A Difference” and you can read it here.
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First media interview in a while
July 24th, 2009 by Roger Darlington
Since the last day of Postwatch when I did three media interviews (see my blog posting here), I’ve not done any media interviews (Consumer Focus staff take them for the organisation). However, I did a short live interview this morning for BBC Radio Somerset. The issue was the regulation of the Internet, a topic on […]
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Dinner with former labour leaders
July 24th, 2009 by Roger Darlington
Yesterday evening was a very congenial occasion when I met for dinner two former trade union leaders with whom I used to work when I was Head of Research at the Communication Workers Union. Tony Young used to be General Secretary of the National Communications Union and the Communication Workers Union, where he was my […]
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An African thunderstorm
July 22nd, 2009 by Roger Darlington
You can read about my own visit to Southern Africa here.
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The best cinema in the world
July 21st, 2009 by Roger Darlington
I’m a massive movie fan so I’m always going to see new films, but I usually frequent the same cinemas – about 10 in north-west and central London. Last night, however, our young friends Rachael and James took us to a cinema we’ve never visited before and it was glorious. It’s called The Rex and […]
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40 years since one small step
July 20th, 2009 by Roger Darlington
Forty years ago today, man first walked on the moon and, all over the world, the media is rightly commemorating this spectacular event. At the time, I was a 21 year old student at the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology (UMIST). The Soviet Union launched Sputnik in 1957 when I was nine, […]
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The magic of homeopathy
July 19th, 2009 by Roger Darlington
For a more scientific critique of homeopathy, read “Bad Science” [my review here].
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Remembering the Jedwabne massacre
July 19th, 2009 by Roger Darlington
On 10 July 1941, hundreds of Jewish residents of Jedwabne in German Nazi occupied Poland were massacred in an infamous incident that to this day divides opinion, especially in Poland. Following a round up of local Jews by local Poles at the instruction of the German occupiers, a group of about 40 Jews was taken […]
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Dagenham and madness
July 18th, 2009 by Roger Darlington
In colloquial English, there is the expression “barking mad” which means insane. If you are a native English speaker, you’ve probably heard of it. Now some people who live in London occasionally use a local variant of “barking mad” which can take several forms: “one stop/two stops/three stops towards/short of/beyond Dagenham”. So what is going […]
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The summer of short stories
July 17th, 2009 by Roger Darlington
As long as I can remember, I have written. I’ve kept a personal diary since I was 14; in my professional career, I have written countless papers, reports, articles and speeches; in the mid 1980s I authored a full-scale book which was published in both the UK and the then Czechoslovakia; I’ve had a web […]
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