Archive for February, 2017


Who is Inspector Sands and why does he receive so many announcements?

February 28th, 2017 by Roger Darlington

I travel a lot on the London Underground system and in recent weeks I have heard several announcements calling on Inspector Sands to go to the control room. What’s all this about? The Inspector Sands voice message is an automated message which is activated when the station fire alarm sounds. The message gives staff an […]

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Remembering Sir Gerald Kaufman MP

February 27th, 2017 by Roger Darlington

I was saddened to hear the news today of the death of Gerald Kaufman, the Labour Member of Parliament who was the longest-serving member of the House of Commons, having clocked up an amazing 47 years when he died. I joined the Labour Party in 1969 in the Manchester Ardwick constituency where Kaufman was first […]

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US Senator Tim Kaine on the need for a new strategy for American foreign policy

February 25th, 2017 by Roger Darlington

This week, I made my first visit to London’s Chatham House – officially the Royal Institute of International Affairs – at the invitation of a friend who is a member and runs the website Make Me Aware. We were there to hear an address by Tim Kaine, a Democratic senator for Virginia, a member of […]

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The Experiment: Georgia’s Forgotten Revolution 1918-1921

February 23rd, 2017 by Roger Darlington

Yesterday evening, I was at the Georgian Embassy in London to hear a fascinating talk by my good friend Eric Lee. The subject of the address was the content of a book which he has written and will be published by Zed Books in September 2017. He told us about a particular period in a […]

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A review of the new film “The Great Wall”

February 22nd, 2017 by Roger Darlington

Chinese director Zhang Yimou is a huge talent. I was enormously impressed by his films “House Of Flying Daggers” [my review here] and “Hero” [my review here] and, of course, this is the man who was responsible for the opening ceremony of the 2008 Beijing Olympics. So expectations were high for “The Great Wall”. his […]

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What’s happening to our post office network?

February 21st, 2017 by Roger Darlington

You may have noticed changes in the look or operation or even location of your local post office. Why is this happening? It’s because fewer people are using post offices than in the past and many of the transactions conducted generate low income for Post Office Limited, but customers value having a local post office […]

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A review of the novel “Tightrope”

February 19th, 2017 by Roger Darlington

“The Girl Who Fell From The Sky” [my review here] was a very well-written work that introduced us to a fascinating character, newly-recruited wartime SOE agent Marian Sutro. The novel ended dramatically and the sequel “Tightrope” explains what happened to Marian and what she did next. It is an excellent work which I have reviewed […]

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A review of the film “Maggie’s Plan”

February 18th, 2017 by Roger Darlington

I bet you missed this film which was released last year. It came in under the radar and disappeared too quickly for me to catch it at the cinema. But now I’ve seen it on the small screen and I feel that, as well as being under-known, it’s under-rated. You can read my review here.

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American politics: now fact is stranger than fiction

February 17th, 2017 by Roger Darlington

I’m a bit of a political junkie and I love political dramas in the movies or on television. “The West Wing” was my all-time favourite TV series – I watched all 155 episodes as they were broadcast and every episode again when it was out in a box set. So, a while back,  I thought […]

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“Love Actually” revisited – love it! (1)

February 16th, 2017 by Roger Darlington

We loved the characters in the the 2013 Christmas film classic “Love Actually”. But what has actually happened to them in the intervening 13 years? Well, it seems that we are about to find out in a 10-minute special catch-up being produced to boost charity appeals in Britain and America. Titled “Red Nose Day Actually”, […]

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