Archive for January, 2015
A satellite picture of North Korea by night – notice anything?
January 5th, 2015 by Roger Darlington
Except for the capital Pyongyang, the nation is in darkness – a total contrast to South Korea below or China to the left or Japan to the rightI’ve just started to read a book I was given for Christmas: “North Korea” State Of Paranoia” by Paul French. I’m hoping I’ll learn more about why North […]
Posted in World current affairs | Comments (0)
There is more to the record of Tony Blair than Iraq
January 4th, 2015 by Roger Darlington
“He was Labour’s most electorally successful leader and by a long way. He took a party that had lost four elections in a row and turned it into a winning machine that secured three consecutive terms. He is one of only two people to have achieved triple back-to-back election victories since the introduction of universal […]
Posted in British current affairs | Comments (0)
Want a New Year resolution? Try this one.
January 4th, 2015 by Roger Darlington
“… resolve to cut everyone a massive amount of slack, including yourself. That’s the overarching conclusion of social psychology: we’re all staggeringly imperfect organisms, prone to making bad decisions when stress, busyness or poverty robs us of “cognitive bandwidth”. We habitually excuse our own bad behaviour as the result of special circumstances, while blaming others’ […]
Posted in Miscellaneous | Comments (0)
British general election (3): has the government really halved the deficit?
January 3rd, 2015 by Roger Darlington
The election campaign has begun and already a controversial claim has been made by the Conservative Party. The first Conservative election poster, due to be on billboards around the country, has slogans superimposed over a long straight road running through countryside, which is blended into a union flag. It lists the party’s achievements as being […]
Posted in British current affairs | Comments (1)
30 fascinating facts to mark 30 years of mobile phones in the UK
January 2nd, 2015 by Roger Darlington
I confess that I am never without my mobil phone (I’ve had an iPhone since the first one came out), but it’s amazing how quickly and totally the mobile has penetrated our lives, as revealed in these 30 quick facts.
Posted in Science & technology | Comments (0)
100 things we didn’t know a year ago
January 1st, 2015 by Roger Darlington
Interesting and unexpected facts can emerge from daily news stories and the BBC web site picks out such snippets for its weekly feature ’10 things we didn’t know last week’. You can find a compilation of 100 of the the best of 2014 here.
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