Archive for November, 2018
What would it take for Britain to have another snap General Election?
November 29th, 2018 by Roger Darlington
We are close to a constitutional crisis if, as widely expected, British Prime Minister Theresa May fails to achieve a majority vote in the House of Commons for her Brexit deal. Many – including Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn – are calling for a General Election. But how likely is that? In the past, elections to […]
Posted in British current affairs | Comments (4)
Discovery of an intact Spitfire after 76 years
November 28th, 2018 by Roger Darlington
A long-lost Second World War Spitfire flown by a pilot who was part of the “Great Escape” has been found almost entirely intact on a Norwegian mountain – 76 years after it was shot down by the Germans. The discovery is the first time for more than 20 years that a substantially complete and previously […]
Posted in History | Comments (0)
A review of the latest “Robin Hood” film
November 27th, 2018 by Roger Darlington
Following Kevin Costner (1991) and Russell Crowe (2010), we now have a much younger actor – Taron Egerton of the two “Kingsman” films – in the hands of a new film director – Otto Bathurst, all of whose previous work has been on television – attempting to do something new with this mythic hero of […]
Posted in Cultural issues | Comments (0)
Seven of the many things I learned from Joshua (aged 11)
November 26th, 2018 by Roger Darlington
I spent last week in Oxford looking after 11 year old Joshua, the son of my close Chinese friends, while both his parents were in China on separate business trips. In the course of the week, Joshua and I had many discussions and I learned so much from this clever young man including the following: […]
Posted in Miscellaneous, My life & thoughts | Comments (1)
Three things that I learned about art today
November 21st, 2018 by Roger Darlington
I spent three hours at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford today. Named after Elias Ashmolean, this is the University of Oxford’s museum of art and archaeology. It opened in 1683 and is Britain’s oldest public museum. Each day, they have a lunchtime tour on one aspect of the museum’s collection and today I went on […]
Posted in Cultural issues | Comments (0)
A review of the new Coen brothers’ movie “The Ballad Of Buster Scruggs”
November 20th, 2018 by Roger Darlington
Over a period of 35 years of filmmaking, American brothers Joel and Ethan Coen are known for a succession of movies that are invariably quirky but always engaging. This 18th movie – where again they write, produce and direct – is a six-part love letter to the Hollywood western. Each tale evokes classic characters of […]
Posted in Cultural issues | Comments (0)
The regulation of Internet content – my 100th and last IT column
November 19th, 2018 by Roger Darlington
For the past 16 years, I have written a regular column on information technology for a trade union representing professional and managerial staff in telecommunications and broadcasting. Now that I am 70 and my portfolio career is coming to an end, I’ve decided to call a halt to this exercise and I have just submitted […]
Posted in Internet | Comments (0)
The Democrats did better in the US mid-terms than was widely reported at the time
November 17th, 2018 by Roger Darlington
It is almost two weeks since the mid-term elections were held in the United States and we still do not have the full results. The day after the elections, it was widely reported that the Democrats had underperformed compared to expectations but, over the following days, the true picture emerged of more victories for the […]
Posted in American current affairs | Comments (0)
The British Government has made “a political choice” to increase poverty
November 17th, 2018 by Roger Darlington
Britain is the fifth largest economy in the world, but: About 14 million people, a fifth of the population, live in poverty and 1.5 million are destitute, being unable to afford basic essentials. Child poverty could rise by 7% between 2015 and 2022, possibly up to a rate of 40%. Who says so? Philip Alston, […]
Posted in British current affairs | Comments (2)
Who signed the 1918 Armistice Agreement for Germany and what happened to him?
November 16th, 2018 by Roger Darlington
We have just commemorated the centenary of the ending of the First World War. We all know that, following an Armistice Agreement signed in a railway carriage in rural France, hostilities ended on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month. But, until watching a BBC2 documentary entitled “WW1: The Final Hours”, […]
Posted in History | Comments (0)