Archive for July, 2019
Online connectivity and confidence still a work in progress
July 19th, 2019 by Roger Darlington
This week, I attended an event at the British Library organised by the communications regulator Ofcom under the title “Making Sense Of Media”. At this occasion, Ofcom launched a Making Sense Of Media Network and a Making Sense Of Media Advisory Panel. The proportion of non-users of the Internet in the UK is unchanged since […]
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A review of the new documentary film “Apollo 11”
July 16th, 2019 by Roger Darlington
I was 21 and a student union leader when Neil Armstrong became the first man to walk on the moon and I kept the student union building open all night so that we could witness this historic occasion live – even though they were hazy pictures on a small screen. So I thoroughly enjoyed the […]
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A review of the new movie “Spider-Man: Far From Home”
July 14th, 2019 by Roger Darlington
This is the second film dedicated to the third representation of Spider-Man in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) and we have the same director (Jon Watts) and the same leading actor (Tom Holland) as well as a host of other returning stars including Spidey’s Aunt May (Marisa Tomei) and teenage love interest MJ (Zendaya). It […]
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Did you know about these air crashes?
July 13th, 2019 by Roger Darlington
This week, I saw a really good play titled “Napoli, Brooklyn” which featured an air crash. Only when I went on the Net did I find that the crash really happened. If you’re an American reader of this blog, did you know about the incident? On Friday, 16 December 1960, a United AirlinesDouglas DC-8, bound for […]
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How far are the eight planets from the Sun?
July 12th, 2019 by Roger Darlington
I’ve been watching the BBC series “The Planets” presented by Professor Brian Cox. It’s a fascinating series and seems to underline that everything is more complicated that you thought with tremendous changes over time. For instance, the orbits of the planets round the Sun have changed dramatically over billions of years, especially that of Jupiter. […]
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The world population of 7.7 billion forecast to reach 10.9 billion
July 11th, 2019 by Roger Darlington
Today we mark World Population Day. As a recent article in the “Guardian newspaper put it: “This will be the 30th anniversary of the annual event set up by the United Nations in 1989 – when there were a mere 5 billion people on Earth – to focus attention on the urgency of our impending population crisis. […]
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How big (or small) are the eight planets?
July 10th, 2019 by Roger Darlington
I’ve been watching the BBC series “The Planets” presented by Professor Brian Cox. It’s a fascinating series and seems to underline that everything is more complicated that you thought with tremendous changes over time. Start with size. I think we grow up thinking that the planets are of roughly similar size with some a bit […]
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What’s in a name? Depends whether you’re called Craig and Gemma or Jaxon and Aria.
July 9th, 2019 by Roger Darlington
“It could be curtains for Craig. One of the most popular boys’ names of the postwar era is facing oblivion if current trends continue, as the speed with which parents tire of old names and rally around new ones appears to be accelerating. Lee, Ross and Shaun are on their way out too, according to […]
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A review of the award-winning novel “Normal People” by Sally Rooney
July 4th, 2019 by Roger Darlington
I recently read “Ordinary People” by Diana Evans and now I have consumed “Normal People”, which was longlisted for the Booker Prize, the second novel by Irish writer Sally Rooney. Of course, in a sense, nobody is ordinary or normal, but both these works deal with people who are living quotidian lives with which one […]
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A review of the Beatles-themed movie “Yesterday”
July 3rd, 2019 by Roger Darlington
Over the years, British writer Richard Curtis has scripted some wonderful romantic comedies: “Four Weddings And A Funeral”, “Notting Hill”, and “Love Actually”. And British director Danny Boyle has given us such work as “Trainspotting” and “Slumdog Millionaire”. So a pairing of the two in “Yesterday” promises much. Certainly Himesh Patel as pub singer Jack […]
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