Archive for December, 2015


Whatever happened to Corbynomics?

December 31st, 2015 by Roger Darlington

When Jeremy Corbyn ran for the leadership of the Labour Party, he argued for a radically different approach to the austerity imposed by the Conservative Government.  Many of his proposals were borrowed from economist Richard Murphy who was allowed effectively to speak on behalf of the campaign as regards economic issues. Yet, now that Corbyn […]

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The wonderful song “Hello” by the singer Adele

December 30th, 2015 by Roger Darlington

As I explained in this posting, for Christmas I received the album “25” by Adele and I have been listening to it a lot. The opening track – the best known – is “Hello” and you can see Adele singing it here: You can find the text of the lyrics here. Thanks to my son […]

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A review of the new movie “Joy”

December 29th, 2015 by Roger Darlington

I’m a massive fan of Jennifer Lawrence but even she can’t save this film from being a disappointment. You can read my review here.

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A review of the new comedy movie “Sisters”

December 29th, 2015 by Roger Darlington

This is not a film that everyone will enjoy – it is aimed at a middle-aged demographic with broad minds when it comes to crude dialogue. But I confess that I enjoyed it. You can read my review here.

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Listening to “25” by Adele

December 27th, 2015 by Roger Darlington

I was massively impressed by Adele’s first two albums – “19” and “21” – and very pleased to receive her third, “25”, as a Christmas present. Adele has such a powerful and distinctive voice and I’m loving her latest work.

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Will the British political pollsters redeem themselves in 2016?

December 27th, 2015 by Roger Darlington

As we are reminded in detail by David Cowling – a fellow student politician from my days in the late 1960s – in this piece for the BBC, the opinion polls were spectacularly wrong in predicting the result of the General Election in May 2015. Will they start to get it right in 2016? He […]

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So how has Jeremy Corbyn done in his first 100 days as Labour leader?

December 27th, 2015 by Roger Darlington

In a leader in today’s “Observer” newspaper, we have the following assessment with which I could not disagree: “No leader could make more than fledgling progress on the long road to electability in 100 days. But Corbyn’s first three months leave the impression that he does not even see winning an election as his primary […]

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It’s Boxing Day … so time for a box set

December 26th, 2015 by Roger Darlington

In a posting three months ago, I explained how Vee and I had picked up on the American television series “Homeland” four years after it first started to be broadcast. Over a period of six nights, we saw all 12 episodes of series 1. This evening, we started on the box set of series 2 […]

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Listening to “A Head Full Of Dreams”

December 26th, 2015 by Roger Darlington

One of my Christmas presents was the latest Coldplay album: “A Head Full Of Dreams”.  It is the fifth Coldplay album in my collection. I know that critics can be quite condescending about Coldplay’s music, but it is consistent in style and consistently pleasurable and joyful. It’s the kind of music you hear a lot […]

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Christmas is too much fun to have only once a year

December 26th, 2015 by Roger Darlington

So, that’s it: another Christmas over.  Forget the presents; what’s really special about Christmas is seeing family and friends and all that delicious food and drink with some time off work. It’s a pity that we only do this sort of thing once a year. But, wait … The Americans effectively do it twice a […]

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