Archive for October, 2011


World Book Night and me

October 31st, 2011 by Roger Darlington

World Book Night – now in its second year – is a unique collaboration between publishers, booksellers, librarians, writers and individual members of the public – all of whom are committed to sharing their love of books and reading with the wider world and through participating in the giving away of 1,000,000 specially printed books. […]

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Time for Osborne to adopt Plan B

October 30th, 2011 by Roger Darlington

“It is now clear that plan A isn’t working. Wave after wave of economic figures from HM Treasury, national and international economic institutions such as the OECD, the IFS and the IMF have all concluded that the British economy is faltering. The UK jobless total is now at its highest for more than 17 years, […]

Posted in British current affairs | Comments (0)


Overnight with my granddaughter

October 30th, 2011 by Roger Darlington

Next month is my daughter-in-law’s birthday and my son would like to take her away overnight to celebrate the event. So my beautiful granddaughter Catrin – now nine and a half months – will stay overnight with us. It was decided that I should have a trial run at this new responsibility by staying overnight […]

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The last four films

October 29th, 2011 by Roger Darlington

Anyone who knows me or who visits this site will appreciate that I’m a film fan and enjoy reviewing the movies that I see. So the last offerings are: A review of the action movie “Unstoppable” A review of the thriller movie “Limitless” A review of the strange Australian film “Sleeping Beauty” A review of […]

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3% and 49% – what do these figures have in common?

October 29th, 2011 by Roger Darlington

Answer: both represent the annual increase in pay for a group of workers in Britain in 2010. For the workforce as a whole, the increase was 3.2% compared to a current inflation figure of 5.2%. For directors of the FTSE 100 companies, the increase was 49% which put the average director on £2,697,664. More information […]

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The three stages of “Slumdog Millionaire”

October 28th, 2011 by Roger Darlington

The book – my review here. The film – my review here. The reality – the story here.

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How fair is life in Britain?

October 28th, 2011 by Roger Darlington

As explained in this article, according to the German think tank the Bertelsmann Foundation, Britain only ranks 15th in a study of 31 wealthy nations. The main reasons are low expenditure on child poverty, high levels of youth unemployed, and substantial income inequality. This is why I was so attracted to the arguments in the seminal […]

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The challenge of rising energy prices

October 27th, 2011 by Roger Darlington

This week, I attended a roundtable on energy policy organised by Consumer Focus on whose Board I sit. It was a fascinating event on an important topic with some very knowledgeable speakers from both the UK and elsewhere in Europe on both the top table and in the audience. For UK consumers, the average household […]

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The soaring population of Zambia

October 25th, 2011 by Roger Darlington

There’s a lot of media coverage of population issues at the moment because the UN estimates that the world population will reach 7 billion on 31 October 2011. Obviously in absolute numbers, population growth in China and India is grabbing the headlines. However, in percentage terms, the greatest rise is likely to be in Zambia. […]

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The runaway train in the USA

October 25th, 2011 by Roger Darlington

Could an unmanned  freight train – long and loaded with dangerous chemicals – run uncontrolled and at high speed through the USA for two hours? That’s the premise of the 2010 movie “Unstoppable” that I’ve just seen on DVD – my review here. The film claims to be inspired by true events, an incident called […]

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