Archive for November, 2010
And how was your week?
November 19th, 2010 by Roger Darlington
As a semi-retired portfolio worker, my time is spent in a very fluid manner with considerable fluctuations in work-related events. This week proved to be very full and very varied. On Monday, I wrote my latest column on Internet matters – my 64th – for Connect, the telecommunications section of the trade union Prospect. The […]
Posted in My life & thoughts | Comments (0)
Transparency in government
November 19th, 2010 by Roger Darlington
You have to give the new Coalition Government credit for a wholly new scale of openness in setting out the detail of public expenditure. This week the government has released spending by every department over £25,000. The data covers over 194,000 individual transactions, payments to suppliers and bills covered by government departments in the first […]
Posted in British current affairs | Comments (0)
Happy birthday UNESCO
November 16th, 2010 by Roger Darlington
UNESCO is the acronym for United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization. It was established 65 years ago today as a special agency within the United Nations that would work to further peace and security through educational, scientific and cultural collaboration among countries. A UNESCO intergovernmental committee is meeting in Nairobi, Kenya from 15-19 November […]
Posted in World current affairs | Comments (0)
How happy are you?
November 15th, 2010 by Roger Darlington
I ask because of the news that the new Coalition Government in the UK is considering measuring general wellbeing as well as gross domestic product on the grounds that economic factors alone do not determine the happiness of individuals or a nation. Other countries – such as France and Canada – are thinking of similar […]
Posted in Miscellaneous | Comments (3)
Releases in Asia and Africa
November 14th, 2010 by Roger Darlington
It’s wonderful news that Nobel prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi has been released from many years of house arrest in Burma and that the British couple Paul & Rachel Chandler have been released from a year as hostages in Somalia. It must be everyone’s nightmare to be detained against one’s will for an indeterminate […]
Posted in World current affairs | Comments (0)
How many of these classic movies have you seen?
November 14th, 2010 by Roger Darlington
My web site contains many hundreds of film reviews which you can access here. Mostly the reviews are organised alphabetically by title but I have a special section called classic films to which I’ve added a new review this weekend. How many of these 35 classic films have you seen?
Posted in Cultural issues | Comments (0)
The launch of the High Pay Commission
November 13th, 2010 by Roger Darlington
I was really pleased to see earlier this week the official launch of The High Pay Commission. The Commission is an independent inquiry into top pay in the private sector. It will look at the reasons for the gap between high and low pay in the UK in recent years and why this matters The […]
Posted in British current affairs | Comments (0)
Should we have a four-day week?
November 13th, 2010 by Roger Darlington
When I was a university student in the late 1960s studying Management Sciences, there was much talk of the age of leisure. The assumption was that what we then called automation – more generally technological developments – would mean that we could produce goods and services with much fewer person hours and therefore we would […]
Posted in Miscellaneous | Comments (0)
“The Fall And Rise Of Benjamin Morris”
November 12th, 2010 by Roger Darlington
I’ve just published on my web site my latest short story – the 25th – which is entitled “The Fall And Rise Of Benjamin Morris”. You can read this story here and check out all my stories here. Please let me know what you think.
Posted in My life & thoughts | Comments (4)
Why are Americans so angry? (2)
November 11th, 2010 by Roger Darlington
I’ve already offered my view in this posting. Now an American friend has sent me this comment which is doing the rounds: “For all those Tea Party Members and everyone else who is convinced the Republicans will now save us: After The 8 Years Of The Bush/Cheney Disaster, Now You Get Mad? You didn’t get mad […]
Posted in American current affairs | Comments (0)