Archive for February, 2018


A review of “La Belle Sauvage” by Philip Pullman

February 28th, 2018 by Roger Darlington

Published in 2017, we have had to wait 17 years for the first part of the trilogy “The Book Of Dust” since the publication of “The Amber Spyglass”, the final part of the trilogy “His Dark Materials”. This novel is a prequel to the other three and “La Belle Sauvage” – the name of a […]

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A media lesson on the 25th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution

February 27th, 2018 by Roger Darlington

I’ve watched every episode of the American television series “Madam Secretary” which is now half way through its fourth series, but I’ve only just caught up with the latest episode, partly because it was broadcast later in the UK than in the US and partly because I’ve been away in China. This episode explores the […]

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The Internet in China

February 27th, 2018 by Roger Darlington

I have just returned from a two-week visit to China – my fourth trip the country. In China, most web sites – including my own and usually the BBC – are usually accessible but over 3,000 sites are blocked including the American tech giants Google, Twitter and Facebook – what is often called the Great […]

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Television in China

February 26th, 2018 by Roger Darlington

I’m just back from a two week trip to China – my fourth visit to this fascinating country..  I stayed in six hotels and visited five family homes, so I saw a fair bit of local television.  I think you can learn a lot about a country by watching its television   All the hotels […]

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China in the New Year (15): more Guangzhou

February 24th, 2018 by Roger Darlington

It has been the last day of my amazing two-week visit to China with my Chinese ‘family’ Hua and son Joshua to celebrate the Chinese New Year and it was our second day in the southern city of Guangzhou. Typically we had a very varied programme. In the morning, we visited a place called Baiyun […]

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China in the New Year (14): Guangzhou

February 23rd, 2018 by Roger Darlington

We have now flown from Xiamen to Guangzhou for the final leg of our two-week trip to China. Guangzhou – which used to be called Canton – is a city the size of London, with a population of 7.4 million, located opposite Hong Kong. I spent a little time in Guangzhou on my first visit […]

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China in the New Year (13): the tulou

February 22nd, 2018 by Roger Darlington

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China in the New Year (12): Mao

February 21st, 2018 by Roger Darlington

Our first full day in southern China was political. From our hotel in Longyan, we drove around 50 km (about 30 miles) to the Memorial Site of the Gutian Congress. What do you mean, you’ve never heard of it? This two-day event in December 1929 was seminal to the success of the Chinese Communist revolution […]

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China in the New Year (11): Yichang to Wuhan to Xiamen to Longyan

February 20th, 2018 by Roger Darlington

After five days in Yichang celebrating the Chinese New Year with Hua’s relatives on her mother’s side, the last two days have been largely taken up with travelling. First, we took the train from Yichang back to Wuhan. Here we were joined by six relatives of Hua’s father who had driven over from his home […]

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China in the New Year (10): even more Yichang

February 18th, 2018 by Roger Darlington

PStill in Yichang – the home town of most of the relatives of Hua’s mother – it was a day like a game of football: of two halves – in this case, historic and modern. In the morning, a group of us visited the Yichang Museum which has over 500 artefacts on display out of […]

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