Archive for April, 2014
SD or HD? – that is the question
April 6th, 2014 by Roger Darlington
We’ve had a High Definition-ready television set for a while but so far we have been content to view Standard Definition television. This weekend though we upgraded our Sky subscription to take some HD channels and we acquired a Sky+ HD box. Don’t you just love new technology? Many thanks to Vee’s nephew Martin for […]
Posted in My life & thoughts, Science & technology | Comments (4)
Sometimes it’s a good idea to revisit an old film: “Under Fire”
April 6th, 2014 by Roger Darlington
I’m a big movie fan and I’ve put hundreds of film reviews on my web site here. But I don’t see the same film more than once very often because there are so many other movies that I want to view. However, this weekend, I rented a film that I first saw in the cinema 30 years […]
Posted in Cultural issues, History | Comments (0)
A review of Rowling’s adult novel “The Casual Vacancy”
April 5th, 2014 by Roger Darlington
You can read read my review here.
Posted in Cultural issues | Comments (0)
Two reviews of “Cloud Atlas”: the book and the film
April 5th, 2014 by Roger Darlington
Some years ago, I read the 500+ page 2004 novel “Cloud Atlas” written by David Mitchell and found it ambitious but enjoyable. You can read my review here. This week, I caught up with the near-3 hour 2012 film version. It took some getting into but I did find it an impressive interpretation of a […]
Posted in Cultural issues | Comments (0)
The good news: the most democratic month in world history
April 4th, 2014 by Roger Darlington
In terms of sheer numbers, this April will be the most democratic month the world has ever seen as national elections take place in half a dozen countries with total electorates of more than one billion people – in India, Afghanistan, Hungary, Indonesia, Algeria and Iraq. Check out a summary of the elections here. The […]
Posted in World current affairs | Comments (0)
The bad news: Syria becomes an ever-greater tragedy
April 4th, 2014 by Roger Darlington
The civil war in Syria has now been running inexorably for three years. In that time: At least 150,000 people have been killed. The total number of deaths could be about 22o,000. Half the population is believed to have fled their homes. The total number of refugees is around 2.5 million. One million of the […]
Posted in My life & thoughts, World current affairs | Comments (0)
Now a competitor to Royal Mail is delivering some of my mail
April 2nd, 2014 by Roger Darlington
For almost a decade now, Royal Mail has faced competition. However, almost all this competition has taken the form of other licensed mail operators collecting and sorting mail from selected business customers and then injecting that mail into the Royal Mail network for final delivery to homes and businesses. This form of competition is called […]
Posted in Consumer matters | Comments (0)
How old was Noah?
April 1st, 2014 by Roger Darlington
I’m looking forward to seeing the film “Noah”. I enjoy special effects movies and I admire the actor Russell Crowe. But how old was Noah? According to the Book of Genesis in the Bible, Noah was 500 years ago when he begat Shem, Ham and Japheth which is am amazing feat of virility. Noah was it seems aged 600 at the time […]
Posted in History | Comments (0)
Who was the first Jew?
April 1st, 2014 by Roger Darlington
Many of my closest friends are Jewish but I still have a lot to learn about the Jewish people and the Jewish faith. Recently I have been contemplating the origin of the Jews. Just who was the first Jew? Like so much to do with the Jewish story, the answer is not straightforward. According to […]
Posted in History | Comments (0)