Archive for May, 2021
How long have we been here?
May 12th, 2021 by Roger Darlington
By ‘we’, I mean humankind. By ‘here’, I mean the universe. Consider these amazing facts: The universe is 13.8 billion years old. The Earth is 4.5 billion years old. Humankind has been around for about 200,000 years. So the universe is around 70,000 times older than humans. If the age of the universe was represented […]
Posted in Science & technology | Comments (0)
The local elections: definitely bad news for Labour – but maybe not that bad and certainly far from unique
May 10th, 2021 by Roger Darlington
As a lifelong member of the Labour Party, naturally I am extremely disappointed by the results of the elections held on Thursday. But I’m not despondent. The most dramatic result was the loss of a Parliamentary by-election in Hartlepool. This certainly underlines a loss of support in the north-east, but Hartlepool is a bit special. […]
Posted in British current affairs | Comments (5)
A review of the 2018 film “The Girl In The Spider’s Web”
May 9th, 2021 by Roger Darlington
Each of the three “Millennium” novels produced by the Swedish crime writer Stieg Larsson before his death was made into a successful Swedish-language film with the mesmerising Noomi Rapace as the vengeful computer hacker Lisbeth Salander. The first book was then made into an English-language film with Rooney Mara as Salander and here we have […]
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A chronology of the world of “His Dark Materials” and “The Book Of Dust”
May 7th, 2021 by Roger Darlington
If – like me – you’re a fan of Philip Pullman’s world of Lyra Belacqua aka Silvertongue, you might be interested in a chronology of the eight books published so far as part of the extended narrative which covers almost half a century. So I offer you: “Once Upon A Time In The North” – […]
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Happy 200th birthday to the “Guardian” newspaper
May 5th, 2021 by Roger Darlington
For half a century now, I’ve read the “Guardian” newspaper and, even today, I regularly spend between one and two hours a day devouring its unique curation of stories from the UK and around the world. Its coverage of the coronavirus global pandemic has been outstanding. Most of the time, it reflects – more than […]
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Was Napoleon a hero or a villain?
May 5th, 2021 by Roger Darlington
If you’ve ever visited Paris, you might have been to Les Invalides and see the tomb of Napoleon. I have never seen a more majestic resting place. But, if you’ve ever visited London, you might have used Waterloo Station or crossed Waterloo Bridge. Both commemorate the final defeat of Napoleon in 1815. Today is the […]
Posted in History | Comments (0)
Word of the day: flâneur
May 3rd, 2021 by Roger Darlington
A friend used this term today to describe me. I’d never heard of it and had to look it up. Flâneur is a French term meaning ‘stroller’ used by nineteenth-century French poet Charles Baudelaire to identify an observer of modern urban life. I guess this captures the essence of my Facebook page, especially since I moved to central […]
Posted in Consumer matters, My life & thoughts | Comments (0)
A review of the 2013 film “Lone Survivor”
May 3rd, 2021 by Roger Darlington
In the summer of 2005, Operation Red Wings was an attempt to take out a Taliban leader in Afghanistan mounted by a team of four Navy SEALs. It is not a spoiler – check out the title of the film – to explain that only one of the SEALs made it alive. He was Marcus […]
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