Archive for May, 2011
Word of the day: prolepsis
May 25th, 2011 by Roger Darlington
This a device used by some writers of narrative fiction to refer to events that the story has not yet reached. It can heighten expectation. The technique is used effectively in the novel “The Reluctant Fundamentalist” which I’ve reviewed here.
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A review of “Blood Diamond”
May 22nd, 2011 by Roger Darlington
I’ve only just caught up with the 2006 movie “Blood Diamond” which deals with the role of conflicts diamonds in the Sierra Leone war. It’s certainly worth viewing and I’ve reviewed it here.
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Cheer up! It’s not the end of the world …
May 22nd, 2011 by Roger Darlington
Were you relieved by the news that the world did not end yesterday? Probably not. After all, we constantly have such apocalyptic forecasts which are invariably nonsense and so many religions and cultures have a story or belief about the return of some sort of saviour, something I’ve blogged about here. What was different about […]
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Time with American friends in Dover
May 21st, 2011 by Roger Darlington
The trouble with having friends all around the world is that I don’t see some of them for many years at a time. This is the case with our American friends Michael & Laura Grace who live between Washington DC and Baltimore. So, when we heard that they would be doing a trans-Atlantic cruise that […]
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Baby Catrin: progress report (9)
May 20th, 2011 by Roger Darlington
This week, I had another opportunity to check in on my beautiful granddaughter Catrin who is now four months old. She’s started to teeth and sometimes in distress, poor thing. It was another ‘daddy day’ and daddy was pretty tired, so I took Catrin out for a hour and a half to give daddy the […]
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How diverse is your community?
May 19th, 2011 by Roger Darlington
The UK’s Office of National Statistics (ONS) has just published new population estimates by ethnic group for England & Wales. The “Guardian” newspaper has an article on the subject which includes access to an interactive map. The headline message is that, of the 54 million people in England and Wales, the non-white British population has […]
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The power of words
May 18th, 2011 by Roger Darlington
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A review of “Another Year”
May 16th, 2011 by Roger Darlington
The latest Mike Leigh film is as far away from the Hollywood blockbuster as you could imagine. I’ve reviewed “Another Year” here.
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How Britain is becoming more and more unequal
May 16th, 2011 by Roger Darlington
Under a Labour Government, Britain gained a Low Pay Commission created by the Government itself. Under the Coalition Government, it now has a High Pay Commission but this has been formed by Compass with the support of the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust. The High Pay Commission has just published its Interim Report. What does this […]
Posted in British current affairs, Social policy | Comments (0)
A day in Oxford with our Chinese ‘family’
May 15th, 2011 by Roger Darlington
Vee and I spent today in Oxford visiting our Chinese ‘family’: Zhihao and Hua and their four year old son Joshua. We see them every few weeks because they really are as close to us as family. Today we visited the Oxford University Museum of Natural History (where we bought Joshua a toy snake) and […]
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