Archive for October, 2013


A weekend in Bucharest

October 3rd, 2013 by Roger Darlington

I’m about to go on my annual break with my sister. We like to go somewhere that neither of us has visited before, so this year – our seventh such break – we are off to Bucharest for a weekend. This means that I won’t be blogging for a few days. So please look around […]

Posted in My life & thoughts | Comments (0)


Does everything happen for a reason or is it all just one big set of coincidences?

October 3rd, 2013 by Roger Darlington

This is the philosophical conundrum at the heart of a new novel called “The Coincidence Authority”. I’ve just finished reading it and you can check out my review here.

Posted in Cultural issues | Comments (0)


Which railway station has a platform zero and a platform nine and three-quarters?

October 2nd, 2013 by Roger Darlington

It’s Kings Cross station in central London which I used today to catch a train to Cambridge. I was visiting the Internet Watch Foundation which I chaired from 2000-2005 for a catch-up on their work. I guess the Platform 0 has resulted from the addition of a platform before Platform 1. Platform 9 3/4 is not […]

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Reviews of two films about the rape of Nanjing

October 1st, 2013 by Roger Darlington

I have previously viewed “City Of Life And Death”, a film about the Japanese occupation of Nanjing in 1936-37, and I reviewed it here. I have just seen another, more recent, film set in the same time and place. It is titled “The Flowers Of War” and I have reviewed it here.

Posted in Cultural issues, History | Comments (0)