Archive for February, 2020
A review of the Academy Award-winning film “Parasite”
February 10th, 2020 by Roger Darlington
I saw this South Korean work just hours before it won four Academy Awards making it the first non-English language film to win Best Picture in the 92 years of the Oscars. Impressive though “Parasite” is, I’m not sure that it’s quite that good. I would probably have made different choices for Best Picture (“Joker”), Best Director […]
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Here’s a wonderful toolkit for all teachers who want to inspire their students
February 10th, 2020 by Roger Darlington
“Values And Visions” is a book written to engage students between 8-16 years old and to empower the teachers of such students with a conceptual framework and no less than 130 practical exercises. This work of over 300 pages looks, feels, and reads like no other book you will have ever seen in a classroom: […]
Posted in Miscellaneous | Comments (1)
Now that Brexit is ‘done’, what happens next?
February 7th, 2020 by Roger Darlington
A week ago, the United Kingdom left the European Union after membership of 47 years. In a practical sense, nothing changed because we now have a transition period but, in an emotional sense, everything changed because – depending on your point of view – either we took back or control or (my view) we stupidly […]
Posted in British current affairs | Comments (2)
A review of “The Secret Commonwealth” by Philip Pullman
February 5th, 2020 by Roger Darlington
This is the second part of the trilogy “The Book Of Dust”, following the original trilogy of “His Dark Materials”. This novel is a sequel to the first three, set some 10 years after them and therefore some 20 years after “La Belle Sauvage” which was the first part of “The Book Of Dust”. The […]
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American politics in (in)action
February 4th, 2020 by Roger Darlington
They can’t impeach a president who is as guilty as hell. They can’t count caucus votes in one of the least populous states in the union. If you want to know more about the American political system, check out my guide. But we Brits can’t be smug. We couldn’t hold a clean referendum on the […]
Posted in American current affairs, British current affairs | Comments (0)
A review of the latest Clint Eastwood film “Richard Jewell”
February 4th, 2020 by Roger Darlington
I’m not sure how well this film will do outside the United States since the titular name will be unfamiliar to non-Americans. Jewell was a security guard at a concert celebrating the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta when he spotted a suspicious backpack and managed to have most of the nearby spectators cleared from the […]
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Why does Iowa always vote first anyway?
February 3rd, 2020 by Roger Darlington
Today Democratic Party supporters in the state of Iowa will hold caucuses to decide who they want as their candidate in November’s American presidential election. Iowa always goes first in the selection process which gives this small, rural, white state exceptional importance – but why? Well, it hasn’t in fact always been the case. Democrats […]
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“The Night Of The Bayonets” – a World War Two story that you’ve never heard
February 1st, 2020 by Roger Darlington
In the dying days of the Second World War, a group of Georgian soliders rebelled against their German ‘comrades’ on Texel Island off the coast of The Netherlands. It’s an amazing story brought to light by my good friend Eric Lee. In December, he was interviewed by Dan Snow (also known as “The History Guy”) […]
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