Archive for October, 2020


What is the most important relationship in global politics?

October 30th, 2020 by Roger Darlington

In my last posting, I wrote about a talk hosted online by the London School of Economics. The talk was delivered by Fareed Zakaria who is an Indian-American journalist, political scientist, and author. He was introducing ideas from his new book “Ten Lessons For a Post-Pandemic World”, The session was chaired by AndrĂ©s Velasco, formerly finance […]

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“The next crisis could be the last crisis.”

October 29th, 2020 by Roger Darlington

Before the global pandemic, I would regularly attend free evening lectures at the London School of Economics. Now such events are all online and this week I attended a particularly fascinating talk by Fareed Zakaria who is an Indian-American journalist, political scientist, and author. He was introducing ideas from his new book “Ten Lessons For a […]

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What the United States Supreme Court now looks like

October 27th, 2020 by Roger Darlington

A mere one week before the US presidential election when it looks as if the Republicans will lose both the White House and the Senate, Amy Coney Barrett – nominated by Donald Trump and approved by the Republican-controlled Senate – has been appointed to the country’s Supreme Court. In the history of the United States, […]

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A review of the new film version of “Rebecca”

October 26th, 2020 by Roger Darlington

If you’re going to remake a classic movie, you need a lot of confidence and talent and perhaps a new angle. English novelist Daphne du Maurier wrote the famous “Rebecca”, published in 1938, and Alfred Hitchcock directed the film version of 1940 which won the Academy Award for Best Picture. It was an impressive cast: […]

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You can’t beat a good pun

October 21st, 2020 by Roger Darlington

I changed my iPod’s name to Titanic. It’s syncing now.  England has no kidney bank, but it does have a Liverpool.  Haunted French pancakes give me the crepes.  This girl today said she recognized me from the Vegetarians Club, but I’d swear I’ve never met herbivore.  I know a guy who’s addicted to drinking brake […]

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Ever heard of the rape of Nanjing?

October 20th, 2020 by Roger Darlington

In 1931, Japan occupied a whole swath of north-east China called Manchuria. Then, in 1937, the Japanese moved to occupy as much as possible of the more-populated parts of China. At this time, the capital of China was Nanjing and, over six weeks from mid December 1937 to mid January 1938, Japanese troops occupied the […]

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How can the Democrats make the American political system a bit fairer?

October 10th, 2020 by Roger Darlington

Everybody knows that the 2016 presidential election was won by Republican candidate Donald Trump even though the Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton won almost three million more votes. The explanation is that the President is not elected directly but chosen by an Electoral College which is biased in favour of the smaller rural states which generally […]

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Which countries suffered the greatest death tolls in the Second World War?

October 8th, 2020 by Roger Darlington

World War Two was the deadliest conflict in history. An estimated 70-85 million people perished. But some countries suffered very much more than others. Precise figures are impossible to determine and new research has revised some previous estimates. For the purpose of this blog posting, I am going to use figures from the Wikipedia page […]

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A review of “The Eight Hundred”, a controversial film on the battle for Shanghai in 1937

October 6th, 2020 by Roger Darlington

For more than seven decades, the American, British and Russian film industries have given us one war movie after another representing the successes of their nations in the Second World War. Now that the Chinese film sector is such a powerhouse, it is understandable that it would want to get in on the act. The […]

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A review of the 1995 classic film “Clueless”

October 2nd, 2020 by Roger Darlington

Although I’m a massive movie fan, I guess that it’s not surprising that I never caught “Clueless”. At the time of its release, I was a father in his late 40s – not exactly the demographic attracted to this witty satire of teenage life in Beverley Hills very loosely based on the Jane Austen novel […]

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