Archive for April, 2020
Evolution got us here and hopefully science will get us out of here
April 16th, 2020 by Roger Darlington
For four weeks now, I’ve been providing a weekly online lesson in Victorian history to two nine year olds who cannot be at school, one a granddaughter and the other the son of a close friend. This week, we covered some developments in science and technology in the Victorian era. The engineer we looked at […]
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Coronavirus is not an enemy; it is a pandemic. This is not a war; it is a crisis.
April 12th, 2020 by Roger Darlington
It’s interesting how some politicians like Donald Trump and Boris Johnson talk of the coronavirus as if it is a person – a cunning arch enemy with evil intent that can be defeated like the Nazis. On his discharge from hospital today, the Prime Minister declared “We will win”. What does winning mean when already […]
Posted in Science & technology, World current affairs | Comments (0)
Word of the day: furlough
April 10th, 2020 by Roger Darlington
Until a couple of weeks ago, most people had never heard the word furlough. Now it is everywhere. But what does it mean? And where did it come from? As a noun, it has three meanings: a vacation or leave of absence granted to an enlisted person a temporary leave of absence authorised for a prisoner from a penitentiary a usually temporary layoff from work Clearly, in current circumstances of the coronavirus crisis, it is the last meaning that is relevant. […]
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Political reform in Victorian Britain – and why democracy is always a work in progress
April 9th, 2020 by Roger Darlington
I have now delivered three online lessons on Victorian history for two nine year old that I know as their parents endeavour to keep the kids occupied while schools are closed. This week, we covered the challenging issue of political reform. After all, there were key development in the Victorian era and it’s never too […]
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Ever heard of the Pilgrimage of Grace?
April 8th, 2020 by Roger Darlington
Neither had I – until I read about it in “The Mirror And The Light”, the 900-page novel by Hilary Mantel which is sustaining me during the period of lockdown as a result of the coronaviris crisis. The so-called Pilgrimage was a northern rebellion against Henry VIII’s government in i536-1537, originally led by Robert Aske […]
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What were the five worst times and places to be alive in human history?
April 6th, 2020 by Roger Darlington
Life is tough now. Everywhere in the world is threatened by the coronavirus. I don’t want in any way to understate the challenges we all face, but maybe we now have the time and motivation to recall that, in the course of human history, things have often been worse, much much worse. This video suggests […]
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How has this week in lockdown been for you? The Internet has made it tolerable for me.
April 5th, 2020 by Roger Darlington
I live alone and I’m in a vulnerable group age-wise for the coronavirus. So I’ve been observing all the lockdown precautions, but still having a walk each day. What has made this experience much more tolerable though has been access to modern communications, especially the Internet. On Monday, I used FaceTime to deliver an online […]
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The importance of rivers to the earliest civilisations
April 3rd, 2020 by Roger Darlington
During the lockdown period of this coronavirus crisis, I’m running online lessons in Victorian history for a couple of nine year olds. This week, we covered developments in transportation and industrialisation. For the transportation section, I suggested that the history of transport could be seen as having five stages: rivers & seas, roads, canals, railways […]
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The Marsh family of Faversham in Kent sharing their lockdown-themed coronavirus pandemic in the style of Les Misérables
April 2nd, 2020 by Roger Darlington
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Victoria and Albert – their names are everywhere
April 1st, 2020 by Roger Darlington
This coronavirus crisis has found me running online lessons in Victorian history for a couple of nine year olds. We’re using Skype to have a one-hour session each week and we’re finding it fun. Naturally we started with Queen Victoria herself who ruled Britain from 1837 to 1901, a record 37 years – until the […]
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