Are you sometimes confused by text or online chat abbreviations? np
January 28th, 2019 by Roger Darlington
From A3 to ZZZ, this guide lists 1,500 text message and online chat abbreviations to help you translate and understand today’s texting lingo. The guide starts with a top ten.
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A review of the new film “Colette”
January 27th, 2019 by Roger Darlington
“I’ve been a fan of Keira Knightley since “Bend It Like Beckham” in 2002. She’s had her critics but she’s maturely nicely as an actress and, in the eponymous role, this is among her best work, together with films like “Atonement” and “The Duchess”.
Here she plays real-life writer Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette in late 19th century/early 20th century France who became a sensation once she broke free of the control of her older husband Henri Gauthier-Villars whose pen name was Willy (Dominic West in fine form). As a strong woman overtaking the lesser talent of her husband, the work echoes themes in recent movies “The Wife” and “A Star Is Born”, while this is a good time for lesbian relationships in mainstream films coming – forgive the pun – at about the same time as “Disobedience” and “The Favourite”.
Colette may be a French story but the director and co-writer is the British Wash Westmoreland who dedicated the film to his late partner Richard Glatzer who also worked on the script. Also much of what passes for France is in fact location shooting in Britain and Hungary. But then the British are rather good at making costume dramas and all round this is an enjoyable work that captures the modern zeitgeist of female empowerment.
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A review of the Oscar favourite film “The Favourite”
January 26th, 2019 by Roger Darlington
By the time I went to see this film, it had already received 10 Acadeny Award nominations, so there was an incredible buzz around the work. Is this deserved? Well, it is an exceptional work but an odd one too.
Losely based on actual events, this is a (very) black comedy set at the English court in the early 18th century but directed by a Greek, Yorgos Lanthimos, who throws in some modern interpretations (notably in one dance sequence).
As well as being co-written by a woman, all three leading roles are female: Olivia Colman as the lonely and gout-ridden Queen Anne, Rachel Weisz as her aide and lover Lady Sarah, and American Emma Stone, sporting a fine English accent, as Abigail, the new rival for the Queen’s attention and affection. All three are superb and Colman is simply outstanding. The narrative is very cruel and very sexual and both language and behaviour are dirty in this gritty representation of a time of coarseness and struggle.
There is much to admire in the film. As well as the splendid acting, we have a sharply acerbic script, wonderful costumes and wigs, deliberate use of natural lighting, and magnificent locations (mainly Hampton Court Palace and Hartfield House).
But it is a weirdly disorientating and discordant work: all use of text (in the credits and 18 chapter titles) is in an almost unreadable spread-out lettering; there is regular use of loud, repetitive noises which really grind on one’s nerves; and the camerawork is kenetic with much use of wide-angle shots and other shots swinging round 180 degrees.
None of the human characters is appealling – the rabbits and ducks are cute – and most of them are utterly vain and manipulative, although motives may vary, with Lady Sarah influenced by a kind of love and Abigail spurred by her desire for status. I had some sympathy for Sarah, while my female companion identified more with Abigail. So, while this a film that I found ambitious and impressive, I cannot honestly say that I warmed to it.
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Bacteria and viruses are fighting back, but will big pharma save us?
January 25th, 2019 by Roger Darlington
“An apocalypse is looming, warn the public health experts. The spectre of a benighted world where humankind again falls prey to bacterial plagues, wiping out the frail and the young, has been hanging over us for many years now. Infections we have conquered, such as pneumonia and typhoid, will return to kill us. Surgery and chemotherapy for cancer will carry huge risks.
It’s a distant scenario as yet, but it cannot be dismissed as alarmist rhetoric. Antibiotics are no longer the cure-all for bacterial infections that they once were. Antimicrobial resistance is real. Microbes – both bacteria and viruses – are fighting back, developing resistance to the drugs invented to wipe them out. It’s an evolutionary thing. Bugs were here before we were and are evolving to survive us.”
These are the opening paragraphs of a story in today’s “Guardian” news paper which I found fascinating if disturbing. Sometimes the threats to humankind are not as visible as for instance is the case with climate change.
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Was the Munich Agreement of 1938 inevitable or avoidable?
January 23rd, 2019 by Roger Darlington
Before I read the historical novel “Munich” by Robert Harris, I decided to reread the 1988 book “Munich: The Eleventh Hour” by Robert Kee.
Was the betrayal of Czechoslovakia by Britain and France in September 1938 inevitable? Or should we have gone to war against Nazi Germany then rather than in September 1939?
You can read my review of Kee’s book here.
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What really happened in the American War of Independence?
January 22nd, 2019 by Roger Darlington
I enjoy reading history books and watching television programmes on history and I recently caught the first segment of BBC Four’s series “American History’s Biggest Fibs With Lucy Worsley” which dealt with the American War of Independence.
I don’t like the way Worsley feels compelled to dress up in period costume, but she has an interesting take on history which she defines as “the knitting together of rival interpretations”.
So, as regards the War of Independence, she reveals that Paul Revere never made it to Concord, the Liberty Bell wasn’t rung at the declaration of independence, and George Washington was a slave owner, and explains that the patriots could never have won without the support of the French.
I once read an excellent book on the American War of Independence, from which I learned a lot, and you can read my review here.
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How did most of the Jews of Denmark manage to escape the Holocaust?
January 21st, 2019 by Roger Darlington
In October 1943, Adolf Hitler ordered that all the Jews in Nazi-occupied Denmark be arrested and deported. Yet the Danes managed to evacuate 7,220 of the country’s 7,800 Jews plus 686 non-Jewish spouses, by sea to nearby neutral Sweden. How was this possible?
In the last couple of years, I’ve been trying to go to more theatre events in London and this intriguing question was at the heart of the play that I attended this weekend. The venue was the Park Theatre at Finsbury Park and the work was called “Rosenbaum’s Rescue”.
It is the first play written by Alexander Bodin Saphir whose mother is Danish and whose grandparents were involved in the rescue. In many ways, it is a minimalist production: only one set, all the action in the space of a few hours, and only four characters.
But the work raises some huge themes: what is the truth? how important is the truth? were the Danes that ‘good’? were the Germans that ‘evil’? how do we assess good and evil?
The play is both informative and challenging and even manages some wry humour.
You can read a little more about the play here and read a short interview with the writer here. Finally, you can learn more about this amazing historical event here.
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Who will be the Democratic candidate in the US presidential election of 2020?
January 20th, 2019 by Roger Darlington
A good American friend of mine – a Democrat – believes that Donald Trump is best opposed by Bernie Sanders in the US presidential election of 2020. I ventured to suggest to him that Trump will not be the Republican candidate and Sanders will not be the Democrat candidate. So will be standing for the two parties?
I think that the Republican candidate could well be Mike Pence following the resignation of Trump when his Vice-President automatically takes over the top job and the GOP decides to stick with the new man in the White House as its candidate.
Who will be the Democratic candidate? I really have no idea. It’s just too soon to say. But I really don’t think it will be Bernie.
Currently seven have declared that they are seeking the candidacy and at least 23 others have been mooted for the position. Who are these 30 hopefuls? Check them out here.
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A review of the new political film “The Front Runner”
January 19th, 2019 by Roger Darlington
Gary Hart was a US senator for Colorado who, after a credible but failed attempt to win the Democratic presidential nomination in 1984, was the eponymous leader in the race to secure that nomination in 1988 when he was forced to withdraw because of news of an extramarital affair.
This story is told in a film directed and co-written by Canadian Jason Reitman who is known for his cinematic work on social issues and here has deliberately adopted a naturalistic style. Hugh Jackson is accomplished as the charismatic, fluent and liberal senator who, like the candidate in “The Candidate” (1972), wishes to remain authentic; J.K. Simmons as always is excellent as his campaign manager Bill Dixon; but the female roles – Vera Farmiga as the hurt wife and Sara Paxton as the girlfriend – are underwritten.
Well-made though the film is, it tells a simple tale in a conventional manner with no surprises or insights – so why was it made? It was based on a book titled “The Truth Is Out: The Week Politics Went Tabloid” and looks at how the media – especially the “Miami Herald” and the “Washington Post” – handled the scandal, so it appears to be inviting us to look back sympathetically to an earlier, simpler age when a politician like JFK could have multiple affairs and the media looked the other way.
If that was the reason for making the movie, the timing is odd when we have an occupant of the White House whose affairs (well, some of them) are very public but his political base simply does not seem to care.”The Front Runner” ends with the information that Gary Hart and his wife remain together 30 years later with the implication that, if she could forgive his misdeanour, perhaps the media and the voters should have been willing to do so too.
If – like me – you enjoy films with political themes, check out my reviews of many such movies here.
I’m waiting now for “Vice”.
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Which planet is most often closest to the Earth?
January 18th, 2019 by Roger Darlington
The closest planet to the Earth varies depending on where the various planets are in their orbits. So which planet is most often closest to the Earth?
The approximate statistics for which planet is closest to the Earth are:
Mercury: 46% of the time
Venus: 36% of the time
Mars: 18% of the time
It is a bit counterintuitive, because Venus’s orbit is closest to Earth’s orbit. Mars’s orbit is not much further. But Venus and/or Mars are often a long way away from Earth, on the opposite side of the Sun.
However, being so close to the Sun, Mercury is never as far away. At those times, Mercury is usually closer. And overall, it’s closest 46% of the time!
[My thanks to my friend Nick Hobson for drawing this information to my attention. He discovered it from this episode of the radio programme “More Or Less”.]
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