Archive for June, 2019
Are 40% of Americans really socialists?
June 11th, 2019 by Roger Darlington
Forty per cent of Americans would rather live in a socialist country than a capitalist one, with a majority of younger women having this preference, according to a new poll conducted for HBO by Axios. This is a fascinating poll, but there are confused views on the nature of socialism (half thinks it means no […]
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A review of the classic 1930 film “The Blue Angel”
June 11th, 2019 by Roger Darlington
This was the film that acted as a bridge from the silent to the sound era for the career of noted Austrian-American director Josef von Sternberg and propelled to stardom its female lead, the then little-known Marlene Dietrich. It was produced simultaneously in German and English language versions and I saw it in German as […]
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Went to see “The Blue Angel” last night and heard this in German …
June 11th, 2019 by Roger Darlington
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Is our character essentially formed by the age of seven?
June 10th, 2019 by Roger Darlington
I’ve recently viewed three programmes on ITV in a short series called “63Up”. This is the ninth series in a remarkable project that began in 1964 with a series called “SevenUp”. Originally 14 children aged seven, but from different social backgrounds, were interviewed about their lives and hopes. Then the director Michael Apted returned to […]
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A review of the new superhero movie “X-Men: Dark Phoenix”
June 9th, 2019 by Roger Darlington
Including “The Wolverine” and “Logan” but excluding spin offs (the Deadpool” films), this is the 10th “X-Men” movie and it looks like the last. Set in the early 1990s a decade after the events of “X-Men: Apocalypse”, the story revolves around the acquisition of extraordinary powers by Jean Grey (aka the eponymous Dark Phoenix) played […]
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A review of the new film “Late Night”
June 9th, 2019 by Roger Darlington
So here’s a rarity: a film directed by a woman (a first such responsibility for Nisha Ganatra),written by a woman (a first feature film script from Mindy Kaling), with women in the two leading roles (Emma Thompson as the presenter of a late show on American television and Kaling as the token female in the […]
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Why are political opinion polls getting it wrong more often? (2)
June 5th, 2019 by Roger Darlington
I wrote a blog posting recently about the growing difficulty for opinion pollsters in forecasting accurately the result of elections. I particularly referenced the recent failure of all the pollsters in Australia to forecast the victory of the National-Liberal coalition. I wrote: “I think that what we are seeing is more voter fluidity. Class used […]
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Where are we on research to enable us to combat dementia?
June 4th, 2019 by Roger Darlington
“Over recent decades we have begun to recognise dementia as a significant problem. Resultantly, we arefavouring a focus upon prevention rather than treatment. The relative number of new cases is now in decline, with approximately 50 million people currently diagnosed with Alzheimer’s Dementia. However, as our life spans are increasing, so too are the recorded […]
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Which part of “second referendum” does Jeremy Corbyn not understand?
June 2nd, 2019 by Roger Darlington
“In the latest Opinium/Observer poll published on Sunday, the Brexit party has surged into first place, overtaking Labour. It is the first time the party has achieved top position in a national poll. The Brexit party is on 26% with Labour on 22%, the Tories on 17%, and the Lib Dems on 16%. When Labour supporters […]
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