Archive for May, 2021


How does the death toll from Covid-19 compare with that for the Spanish flu?

May 27th, 2021 by Roger Darlington

I did an earlier posting comparing the current coronavirus pandemic with the so-called Spanish flu. We don’t know the death toll from the Spanish flu. It is usually estimated as between 20 – 50 million, but the lowest estimate is 17 million and the highest is 100 million. The current pandemic is far from over, […]

Posted in Science & technology | Comments (0)


How many people die from HIV/AIDS?

May 27th, 2021 by Roger Darlington

As we begin to see a way of eventually eliminating Covid-19 when the global death toll is around 3.5M and still rising, we should remember that HIV/AIDS is still a global killer and so far we do have a vaccine for it. Around 700,00 people die from HIV/AIDS each year; in some countries it is the leading […]

Posted in Science & technology | Comments (0)


A review of the new film “Sound Of Metal”

May 27th, 2021 by Roger Darlington

Ruben (British Pakistani actor Riz Ahmed) is a drummer and Lou (Olivia Cooke) is the guitarist and singer in a punk-metal duo called Blackgammon. Both are recovering addicts in a loving but complicated co-dependent relationship. They seem to be on the cusp of some professional success when Ruben suffers a sudden and catastrophic loss of […]

Posted in Cultural issues | Comments (0)


There are so many ways to die – linguistically, that is

May 24th, 2021 by Roger Darlington

Check out this list. I rather like the expression “to kick the bucket” – but there is no certainty around the explanation of the origin of this expression.

Posted in Cultural issues | Comments (0)


Word of the day: pareidolia

May 22nd, 2021 by Roger Darlington

Pareidolia is the tendency for perception to impose a meaningful interpretation on a nebulous visual stimulus (so that one sees an object, pattern or meaning where in fact there is none).  Common examples are perceived images of animals, faces, or objects in cloud formations, or lunar pareidolia like the Man in the Moon or the Moon Rabbit. The concept of pareidolia […]

Posted in Cultural issues | Comments (0)


A review of the new film “Nomadland”

May 19th, 2021 by Roger Darlington

By the time restrictions had eased on the third lockdown in pandemic Britain and I was able to see this film on the big screen, it had already received three Academy Awards, winning Best Director (Chloé Zhao), Best Actress (Frances McDormand) and Best Film. It is a remarkably original work, mixing a fictional story of […]

Posted in Cultural issues | Comments (0)


A review of the new film “Ammonite”

May 19th, 2021 by Roger Darlington

I had expected a celebration of the talent of an under-appreciated female scientist (like “Radioactive”) but instead found a tender tale of a lesbian relationship between a talented woman and her mentee ( a bit like “Portrait Of A Lady On Fire”). The reality is that there is absolutely no evidence of a relationship between […]

Posted in Cultural issues | Comments (0)


A review of the 2019 film “Animals”

May 17th, 2021 by Roger Darlington

British writer Emma Jane Unsworth wrote the screenplay for this film adaptation of her novel “Animals” which is relocated from Manchester to Dublin and examines the close but complex relationship between two best friends of a decade who live together are now in their late 20s: Irish Laura (Holliday Grainger), who aspires to be a […]

Posted in Cultural issues | Comments (0)


Word of the day: peng

May 15th, 2021 by Roger Darlington

I’ve only just discovered this word which shows how uncool I am. It’s a London slang word meaning:  very beautiful or attractive: I saw a girl – she was peng.  extremely good: That burger looks peng.  More examples That jacket is peng! I’d go out with that boy, he’s well peng. There was an online page called “Britain’s pengest teens“. So where does the word come from? I understand that ‘peng’ was originally a term used […]

Posted in Cultural issues | Comments (0)


A review of “The Midnight Library” by Matt Haig

May 14th, 2021 by Roger Darlington

As we know from Matt Haig’s non-fiction work “Reasons To Stay Alive”, at the age of just 24 he had a major depressive breakdown in which he contemplated suicide. It took him many years to recover and writing was one of the things that helped him cope. He has now become a best-selling author of […]

Posted in Cultural issues | Comments (0)