Archive for July, 2016


Reasons to be cheerful

July 13th, 2016 by Roger Darlington

Most of my personal and professional acquaintances voted – like me – for Britain to remain a member of the European Union and are – like me – deeply troubled by the narrow decision to leave the EU. But there are still many reasons to be cheerful that we live at this special time in […]

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The curse of Brexit

July 12th, 2016 by Roger Darlington

As soon as we knew the result of the referendum on British membership of the European Union, I did a posting arguing that it changed EVERYTHING. It will take months, years, decades before we understand all the implications and consequences but, in the intervening three weeks, the impact on our political leaders has been huge. Let’s […]

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The day that Bruce Springstein met my four year old friend Hope

July 11th, 2016 by Roger Darlington

Four years ago, I did a posting about meeting baby Hope for the first time. Four years on, Hope was with her mother at a Bruce Springstein concert in Oslo when something wonderful happened. You can see the video made by a member of the audience here:

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Muslims and modernity: the road from jihad to Brexit

July 10th, 2016 by Roger Darlington

As a believer in lifelong learning, I regularly attend short courses at a London further education college called the City Lit. This weekend, I attended a one-day course entitled “Hope And History: A Short Introduction To Contemporary Issues In Muslim Contexts”. Our tutor was Pakistani-born Dr Farid Panjwani, a lecturer at the Institute of Education, […]

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Wonderful new revolving sculpture at London’s St Pancras station

July 9th, 2016 by Roger Darlington

Yesterday, I started and ended the day at St Pancras railway station in central London, meeting my sister from her train from Leicester and then taking her back there for her train home. St Pancras is always an exciting place, but this time I was captivated by a revolving and twisted blade of aluminium hanging […]

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Has anyone actually read the Chilcot Report?

July 8th, 2016 by Roger Darlington

The Chilcot Report on the invasion of Iraq consists of 12 volumes adding up to some 2.6 million words. Even the Executive Summary runs to 145 pages. According to an item in the “Guardian” newspaper, on average people read about 250 words a minute so, on that estimate, it would take 10,400 minutes or about […]

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A review of the action comedy “Central Intelligence”

July 7th, 2016 by Roger Darlington

Hard day at the office? Want to unwind and laugh a bit? You could do worse than view this new release which pairs The Rock with The Mouth. Check out my review here.

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What Alastair Campbell has to say about the Chilcot Inquiry on the Iraq War

July 7th, 2016 by Roger Darlington

If ever the word tragedy was appropriate, it applies in spades to the whole experience of the Iraq War. It is too simple to view the actions of British politicians and officials – especially Tony Blair – as the acts of evil men. Enormous mistakes were made but essentially they were made by people who […]

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What is blue, green and grey water?

July 6th, 2016 by Roger Darlington

As part of my work as a consumer advocate, for over four years now I’ve been active in the water sector chairing a Customer Challenge Group for South East Water. So I’ve been attending lots of discussions and events about water and trying to keep up with all the acronyms and terminology in the sector. […]

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Was Marx actually a Marxist?

July 5th, 2016 by Roger Darlington

I’ve just watched a recording of the BBC 4 profile of Karl Marx, the first programme in a new short series of great thinkers presented by British historian Bettany Hughes. I’ve always recoiled from most of the ideas in Marxism and, when I read a biography of Marx, I rather recoiled from the man himself. […]

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