Archive for June, 2016
The Arab Spring (4): where and why did it fail?
June 9th, 2016 by Roger Darlington
Last weekend, I attended the first a number of short courses that I will be attending this summer at the City Literary Institute in central London. The title was “The Arab Spring” and the lecturer was Dr James Chiriyankandath of the School of Advanced Study in the University of London. Regimes fell in Tunisia, Libya, […]
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The Arab Spring (3): where did regimes change?
June 8th, 2016 by Roger Darlington
At the weekend, I attended the first a number of short courses that I will be attending this summer at the City Literary Institute in central London. The title was “The Arab Spring” and the lecturer was Dr James Chiriyankandath of the School of Advanced Study in the University of London. Out of all the […]
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The Arab Spring (2): why did it happen?
June 7th, 2016 by Roger Darlington
At the weekend, I attended the first a number of short courses that I will be attending this summer at the City Literary Institute in central London. The title was “The Arab Spring” and the lecturer was Dr James Chiriyankandath of the School of Advanced Study in the University of London. Having discussed the naming of […]
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The Arab Spring (1): why was it called that?
June 6th, 2016 by Roger Darlington
This weekend, I attended the first a number of short courses that I will be attending this summer at the City Literary Institute in central London. The title was “The Arab Spring” and the lecturer was Dr James Chiriyankandath of the School of Advanced Study in the University of London. It was a comprehensive day […]
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A review of the Israeli film “Lemon Tree”
June 5th, 2016 by Roger Darlington
I’ve only just caught up with this 2008 film in which almost all the dialogue is Arabic or Hebrew. If you can cope with sub-titles, this is worth seeing as a balanced and sensitive insight into elements of the Arab/Israeli conflict. You can read my review here.
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A review of the film version of “The Man From U.N.C.L.E.”
June 5th, 2016 by Roger Darlington
I enjoyed the television series in the mid 1960s when I was a teenager but I’m not sure that a new film version was needed. You can read my review here.
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A review of the remake of “The Jungle Book”
June 5th, 2016 by Roger Darlington
So many children’s films are so good these days you really have to have a child in the family or beg, buy or borrow one so that you can enjoy the fare. The latest splendour is the new version of “The Jungle Book” which I’ve reviewed here.
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Will the polls get it right on Britain’s EU referendum?
June 4th, 2016 by Roger Darlington
I’ve blogged several times on the growing difficulties for accurate political polling [for one example, see here]. Indeed. for all sorts of methodological and behavioural reasons, I think finding out what consumers and citizens really think is becoming harder. So I was interested in this article in the “Washington Post” by three academics which takes […]
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What is it like to be a practicing Muslim at Ramadan?
June 4th, 2016 by Roger Darlington
If you’re a practising Muslim, you’ll be preparing for the start of the month-long Ramadan which this year is expected to begin on Monday. If you’re not a Muslim, you probably have little idea what is involved. This is because so much media coverage of Islam is about the small number of fundamentalists and not […]
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How are payments made in the UK?
June 3rd, 2016 by Roger Darlington
Payments UK has released a new report giving an overview of current and future trends in UK payment behaviour. The report, UK Payment Markets 2016, reveals that cash continues to be the most popular method of payment, constituting 45% of all payments in 2015. It also predicts, however, that by 2025, cash payment will have […]
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