Archive for January, 2010
Top 50 TV dramas
January 12th, 2010 by Roger Darlington
In the “Guardian” today, there is a feature nominating what the newspaper’s seven TV critics believe to be the top 50 television dramas. Although (perhaps surprisingly) “Brideshead Revisited” came in at No 2, it’s striking how many top-ranking British and American series are about crime in one form or another – a genre that generally […]
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Forgotten World (197): Gibraltar
January 12th, 2010 by Roger Darlington
Gibraltar – a limestone crop on the southern tip of Spain – has been ruled by Britain since 1713 under the terms of the Treaty of Utrecht, but Spain continues to claim sovereignty over the territory. Gibraltar is self-governing in all areas except defence and foreign policy and it is home to a British military […]
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What is progress?
January 11th, 2010 by Roger Darlington
A longish, but very thoughtful and thought-provoking, article on this subject was in a recent edition of the “Economist” magazine. Check it out here.
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Forgotten World (196): Barbados
January 11th, 2010 by Roger Darlington
It’s time once again for one of my regular weeks of postings in my long-running series called Forgotten World – a look at parts of the world that hardly feature in our media or thoughts. You can check the previous 195 entries here. Barbados is one of the more populous and prosperous Caribbean islands and […]
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The cost of food
January 10th, 2010 by Roger Darlington
There are reports this weekend that the UK’s worst winter in 30 years means that we will face rising food prices. I’m just reading a book on the global financial crisis: “The Storm” by Vince Cable. He explains that it is estimated that, while 10 per cent of family income in spent on food in […]
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A snowy Manchester
January 9th, 2010 by Roger Darlington
My niece Saskia with her dad (my brother Ralph) and their snowman in Manchester
Posted in My life & thoughts | Comments (0)
You think you have problems …
January 9th, 2010 by Roger Darlington
Read this essay – and count yourself lucky.
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A snowy Britain
January 8th, 2010 by Roger Darlington
Britain this week as seen by a NASA satellite
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Are all Americans now on the Net?
January 7th, 2010 by Roger Darlington
We think of the United States as so technologically advanced that everyone must at least have an Internet connection even if they don’t have super fast broadband. In fact, according to this latest research, a quarter of adult American are not on the Net. If American policymakers want to tackle the issue of the digital […]
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A snowy London
January 6th, 2010 by Roger Darlington
On the outskirts of London where I live, we had a heavy downfall of snow overnight, much of the snow is still in place, and now the problem is freezing ice. However, I managed to travel into central London where amazingly there was no snow. I went into the City Lit, where I did my […]
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