Archive for September, 2016
A review of the recent film “Woman In Gold”
September 21st, 2016 by Roger Darlington
Helen Mirren gives another golden performance as an Austrian refugee in the United States seeking the restitution of the most famous of Gustav Klimt’s paintings. You can read my review here. And you can find a picture of the magnificent painting itself here.
Posted in Cultural issues | Comments (0)
How can the consumer voice be better heard in the regulation of essential services?
September 20th, 2016 by Roger Darlington
The Essential Services Access Network (ESAN) – which I chair – will hold an important one day conference on Wednesday 2 November 2016 focusing on the consumer voice in the regulation of essential services such as water, energy, communications, financial services and transport. The event will be held at the BT Tower in central London. […]
Posted in Consumer matters | Comments (0)
The amazing rice fields of Japan
September 19th, 2016 by Roger Darlington
A friend drew my attention to something rather special. Check this out and be amazed …
Posted in Environment | Comments (0)
A review of the new film “Bridget Jones’s Baby”
September 18th, 2016 by Roger Darlington
In the beginning (1996), there was the novel by Helen Fielding [my review here]. Then, in 2001, we had the first film “Bridget Jones’s Diary” [my review here] followed, quite quickly in 2004, by “Bridget Jones: The Edge Of Reason” [my review here]. Twelve years later, the London singleton is back with “Bridget’s Jones’s Baby” which was released in […]
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A review of the Italian novel “The Story Of A New Name”
September 16th, 2016 by Roger Darlington
My summer reading project is to complete as much as possible of the four works that make up the ‘Neapolitan Novels’, an acclaimed series by the Italian author Elena Ferrante. This is a saga of the 60-year friendship between two girls from a poor neighbourhood of Naples after the Second World War: the narrator Elena […]
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What was it like in Aleppo before the civil war?
September 15th, 2016 by Roger Darlington
There is currently a fragile ceasefire in Syria where the civil war has been raging for five long and bitter years and some 400,000 have died. The ceasefire has had a particular impact on the commercial capital of the country Aleppo where the regime holds the west and the rebels occupy the east. But Aleppo […]
Posted in World current affairs | Comments (0)
The hottest September day since 1949 (now since 1911)
September 13th, 2016 by Roger Darlington
Here in London, the weather has been incredible today for mid September. The peak temperature – towards 2 pm – was an amazing 32C (of oldies, like me, that’s 90F). Fortunately I had no meetings today, so I did not need to endure the London underground to travel into the city centre. Instead I ate […]
Posted in My life & thoughts | Comments (0)
The assassination of Reinhard Heydrich (3): a review of the new film “Anthropoid”
September 11th, 2016 by Roger Darlington
The 1942 killing of Nazi leader Reinhard Heydrich in Prague has now been the subject of five films. Earlier this week, I wrote about the 1975 work “Operation: Daybreak” [my review here]. This weekend, a new version of these dramatic events was released and I have now seen “Anthropoid” – the best cinematic version of […]
Posted in Cultural issues, History | Comments (0)
Professor Yehuda Bauer and anti-Semitism
September 10th, 2016 by Roger Darlington
Earlier this week, I went along to the London School of Economics for a session with Professor Yehuda Bauer who made some introductory remarks on anti-Semitism and then took questions. Born in what was then Czechoslovakia and partially educated in Cardiff, Bauer is a distinguished Israeli academic and historian. This amazing guy is now 90 and spoke […]
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The assassination of Reinhard Heydrich (2): a review of the film “Operation: Daybreak”
September 9th, 2016 by Roger Darlington
This weekend, “Anthropoid” – a film about the 1942 assassination of the Nazi leader Reinhard Heydrich – has been released and I intend to see it. But first I wanted to revisit an earlier (1975) film on the same subject: “Operation: Daybreak”. You can read my review here.
Posted in Cultural issues, History | Comments (0)