Archive for November, 2018
A review of the novel “One Hundred Years Of Solitude” by Gabriel García Márquez
November 14th, 2018 by Roger Darlington
Márquez was born in Colombia in 1927 and died in 2014. This work – perhaps his most famous – was published in 1967 and he won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1982. I finally read the work after visiting Colombia and reading his later novel “Love In The Time Of Cholera”. It is not […]
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It’s World Kindness Day – so try to be kind today … and always
November 13th, 2018 by Roger Darlington
World Kindness Day is observed internationally on 13 November each year. It was introduced in 1998 by the World Kindness Movement, a coalition of nations’ kindness NGOs. It is observed in many countries including Britain. It is very easy to be cynical about such events, but the world really needs more kindness and sometimes as […]
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Without a fair tax on tech, it could be the end of the state as we know it
November 12th, 2018 by Roger Darlington
This is the title of an interesting article by John Harris in today’s “Guardian” newspaper. He highlights two connected questions: “The first is obvious: what do we do about the corporations that are driving huge social and economic change, but have so far proved reluctant to pay anything approaching their fair share of tax? From […]
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A review of the new female heist movie “Widows”
November 10th, 2018 by Roger Darlington
It is so good to see more leading roles for women in mainstream films, even in a genre like the heist movie where men have traditionally dominated. It is only a few months ago that we had “Ocean’s Eight” where all the gang members were female and now with “Widows” again we have an all-female […]
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What actually happened in the US mid-term elections?
November 9th, 2018 by Roger Darlington
Three weeks ago, I attended a lecture at London’s City Literary Institute to discuss what was at stage in the United States mid-term elections of 6 November and this week there was a follow-up lecture to examine the actual results. Both lectures were given by the college principal Mark Malcolmson. Not all the results are […]
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This could be my last conference speech
November 7th, 2018 by Roger Darlington
I’ve been speaking in public for around 55 years, but this week I might just have made my last conference speech. The occasion was a London event organised by the consultancy Independ and the publication “The Water Report”. The title of the event was “Defining the social contract: essential public services, private business and better […]
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A review of the new political film “Peterloo”
November 5th, 2018 by Roger Darlington
On 16 August 1819 in St Peter’s Field in central Manchester, around 60,000 pro-democracy reformers gathered in a peaceful protest that turned savage when it was attacked by armed cavalry, resulting in 18 deaths and over 600 injured. Until recently, the only public commemoration of this historic event was a plaque on the wall of […]
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Only one more day to the US mid-term elections
November 5th, 2018 by Roger Darlington
Some 33 million votes have already been counted in early voting, vastly more than at this stage four years ago. Turnout is on track to be the largest in a mid-term election for more than 50 years.
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Only two more days to the US mid-term elections
November 4th, 2018 by Roger Darlington
I’ve been following this year’s mid-term elections in the United States like no other. Never have I seen a sitting president campaigning so hard in such elections, but Trump knows that these elections are all about him. In a piece in today’s “Observer” newspaper, Simon Tisdall explains that: “Set against the overwhelming weight of historical […]
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A review of the new film “Bohemian Rhapsody”
November 3rd, 2018 by Roger Darlington
This film of the British rock band Queen has had a troubled journey to the screen with a change of lead actor (Rami Malek replacing Sacha Baron Cohen) and, late in the shooting, a new director (Dexter Fletcher taking over from Bryan Singer). American-Egyptian Malek is outstanding as Indo-Parsi Freddie Mercury (originally named Farrokh Bulsara), […]
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