Archive for December, 2013
A review of the film “This Is 40”
December 9th, 2013 by Roger Darlington
Remember the comedy “Knocked Up” written and directed by Judd Apatow? Well, he and some of his characters are back in this painfully funny movie which I’ve reviewed here.
Posted in Cultural issues | Comments (0)
Why is gold so valuable?
December 8th, 2013 by Roger Darlington
I don’t possess any gold. Even my wedding ring is white gold. But many people love gold and for centuries it has been a source of value to so much of humankind. On the BBC web site, Justin Rowlatt offers this explanation for the metal’s appeal.
Posted in Science & technology | Comments (0)
Are men really from Mars? Are women really from Venus?
December 8th, 2013 by Roger Darlington
Or are both genders shaped by their cultural experiences on planet Earth? “Yes, men and women probably do have differently wired brains, but there is little convincing evidence to suggest these variations are caused by anything other than cultural factors. Males develop improved spatial skills not because of an innate superiority but because they are […]
Posted in Cultural issues, Science & technology | Comments (1)
Can you send an e-mail? Then you’re cleverer than a Nobel Prize winner.
December 7th, 2013 by Roger Darlington
He’s never sent an e-mail or even browsed the web. He’s never made a mobile call and he doesn’t own a television. Yet he has recently won the Nobel Prize for Physics for his prediction of the existence of the Higgs boson particle. He is the brilliant but eccentric scientist Peter Higgs. See an interview with […]
Posted in Science & technology | Comments (1)
Madiba, we thank you for inspiring us
December 6th, 2013 by Roger Darlington
Although expected for so long, the news is still so sad. In my lifetime, I have never known the death of anyone to affect so many people so deeply as the loss of Nelson Mandela. On 11 June 1988, Vee and I attended a concert in (the old) Wembley Stadium in London to mark Mandela’s […]
Posted in My life & thoughts, World current affairs | Comments (1)
An evening with the film critic Mark Kermode
December 5th, 2013 by Roger Darlington
This week, I went to hear a talk by the “Observer” film critic Mark Kermode. The venue was the “Phoenix” cinema in East Finchely in London. This was Mark’s local cinema when we grew up. It has recently celebrated its 100th anniversary and claims to be the longest running cinema in the country. Ironically, when I […]
Posted in Cultural issues, My life & thoughts | Comments (2)
As President Obama attacks the inequality of wealth in America, what is the size of the problem and the scale of the injustice?
December 5th, 2013 by Roger Darlington
Posted in American current affairs | Comments (0)
How do children in your country do at maths, reading and science?
December 4th, 2013 by Roger Darlington
Every three years, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) conducts its Programme for Internenational Student Achievement (PISA) and it has just published the results for 2012. The testing of 15 year olds is in mathematics, reading and science and this time 65 countries and regions took part. How did the UK do? We […]
Posted in World current affairs | Comments (1)
My first Christmas lunch of the year and how I bumped into Jesse Jackson
December 3rd, 2013 by Roger Darlington
As part of my work portfolio, I chair the Policy Stakeholder Committee of Nominet, the body which operates the .uk domain name system for the Internet. The pattern is that we have a conference call once a month, we meet in London once a quarter, and we meet at Nominet offices in the Oxford Science Park once a […]
Posted in My life & thoughts | Comments (0)
What’s been driving me crazy the last three months
December 2nd, 2013 by Roger Darlington
Recently I have blogged here and here to explain that, for the last 20 months, I have been chairing the Customer Challenge Group of South East Water which has to submit views on the company’s business plan for 2015-2020 to the water regulator Ofwat . Each water company in England & Wales has a CCG which has […]
Posted in Consumer matters, My life & thoughts | Comments (0)