Archive for January, 2014
The London street called Crutched Friars
January 15th, 2014 by Roger Darlington
I have lived in London now for over 40 years and one of the many reasons I love the city is because it is so old and so saturated in history. This week I visited a street in Central London that I have never even heard of before, the wonderfully named Crutched Friars. The explanation […]
Posted in History, My life & thoughts | Comments (0)
Still more confirmation of the truth of evolution
January 14th, 2014 by Roger Darlington
It was in 2004 that scientists discovered a fossil called Tiktaalik, a 375m-year-old freshwater creature which was a link in the evolutionary chain from fish to amphibian, but at that time only the front part was available. This week, we have news about the back part which confirms the importance of Tiktaalik in demonstrating how evolution has […]
Posted in Science & technology | Comments (0)
What you heard but did not see in the movie “Gravity”
January 14th, 2014 by Roger Darlington
This week, at the Golden Globes, “Gravity” [my review here] won the Best Director award for Mexican director Alfonso Cuardón. If you’ve seen this brilliant film, you will remember the bit where Dr Ryan Stone is in radio contact with someone on Earth speaking an unfamiliar language. The director’s son has produced this very short feature revealing what […]
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Beware the holiday destination of the Darlingtons
January 13th, 2014 by Roger Darlington
The joke among our family and friends is that, when we choose to visit a particular part of the world for our holiday, something dramatic often happens there. I suppose it started when we made our first visit to what was then Czechoslovakia in 1988. The following year the country overthrew Communism in its ‘velvet […]
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A review of “Mandela: Long Walk To Freedom”
January 12th, 2014 by Roger Darlington
You can read my review of the film here and my review of the book here.
Posted in Cultural issues | Comments (0)
Should we abandon the notion of essentialism and accept that most things are relative and changing?
January 12th, 2014 by Roger Darlington
I’m a qualified fan of the evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins. I think that he is incredibly bright and writes a great deal of sense, but he can express himself in rather insensitive language. I was fascinated by a piece he has contributed on essentialism to this weekend’s “Observer” newspaper: “Essentialism – what I’ve called “the […]
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Why in Hungary there are no ‘cheers!’ with beers
January 11th, 2014 by Roger Darlington
I had lunch in a central London restaurant this week and fell into conversation with our Hungarian waiter, deploying all half dozen of my Hungarian words. He told me something about Hungarians that i did not know , even though I have been to the country three times. I found the explanation in this piece […]
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My three year old granddaughter after a three week interval
January 10th, 2014 by Roger Darlington
My granddaughter Catrin will be three years old next week. Ever since she was born, I’ve tried to see her each week because I love being with her and sharing her physical and intellectual development. I had a wonderful day with her before Christmas but I didn’t see her at all over Christmas and the […]
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A review of the movie “American Hustle”
January 8th, 2014 by Roger Darlington
So much talent and so much fun in 138 minutes – my review here.
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Has the weather gone mad?
January 7th, 2014 by Roger Darlington
Here in the UK, the last month has seen truly miserable weather. We have had storm after storm with strong winds and lashing rain, often accompanied by high tides. The result has been some serious flooding. According to this blog posting by the Met Office: “December 2013 is the stormiest December in records dating back to […]
Posted in British current affairs, My life & thoughts | Comments (0)