How the coronavirus lockdown introduced me to online home schooling
March 26th, 2020 by Roger Darlington
This CV crisis – and especially the resultant UK lockdown – is leading to a much more intensive use of a variety of online communications services by me and very many others. In this first week, I have had a FaceTime chat with one friend, a Skype lunch with another friend, and a Facebook Messenger coffee break with two other friends.
Especially interesting has been my introduction to home schooling through Skype. My eldest granddaughter (aged nine) is not at school and I was asked to assist in her home education and allocated the subject of Victorian history. This required some research and preparation but seemed to go well.
As a result, I was invited to repeat the lesson for the son – same age as my eldest granddaughter – of a good friend of mine.
Both sessions were just an hour. I tried to make the sessions interactive with questions and discussion plus a couple of short videos, two writing exercises and a final quiz. I’m not sure exactly how my two little students found the project but, for me as 71 year old living alone, it was a joy to interact with two such delightful and bright youngsters.
But I can’t do too much of this. Each day I have my own 16th century history lesson in the form of reading about the life of Thomas Cromwell via the 900-page novel “The Mirror And The Light” by Hilary Mantel.
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A year of living on London’s South Bank – now such a different experience
March 25th, 2020 by Roger Darlington
A year ago today, I moved home for the first time in 35 years. I went from a four-bedroom house in London’s suburbs to a two-bedroom flat on London’s South Bank. It was a major downsizing operation which involved a substantial process of decluttering. It was stressful but it was a great move. Yet how different is my world – and, of course everyone else’s – now.
As a person living alone, I enjoyed chatting to the concierges who operated a 24 hour service in the building, but now they are rightly all at home. Next door is a pharmacy and round the corner is a small Waitrose and now, more than ever, I am grateful to have them so close. My morning routine was to go to my nearest cafe – Caffe Nero just a couple of minutes away – to read the “Guardian” online but, of course, like every cafe and restaurant it is now closed.
I live a minute away from the embankment and the River Thames and I can still take my daily walk. Before CV, the embankment was always thronged with people going to and from work and tourists from every country on the globe. Now everyone is working from home and there are no tourists. There are just the joggers.
I have loved living so close to so many places of culture and entertainment: ten minutes away from the National Theatre, the British Film Institute, the Royal Festival Hall, Tate Modern – all closed now.
So it is an utterly different world – but so it is for everyone. I am fortunate to be in good health with supportive family and friends – and a 900 page novel to read. Stay well everyone.
Posted in My life & thoughts, Uncategorized | Comments (0)
In other news … there is still a ferocious conflict in the Middle East
March 22nd, 2020 by Roger Darlington
I’ve just finished reading a new book called “Black Wave” by Kim Ghattas.
Ghattas is a Lebanese writer and Emmy Award-winning journalist who covered the Middle East for 20 years for the BBC and the “Financial Times”. The ‘black wave’ of the title is the tsunami of Islamic fundamentalism that has flooded the Middle East and her informative and insightful book covers developments over the last 40 years in Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Egypt and Pakistan with references to Afghanistan, Yemen and Turkey. It is an ambitious scope with a good deal of information, but Ghattas is an accomplished writer who enlivens her narratives with stories of brave individuals seeking a more inclusive and humanistic Islam.
Too many people in the West see recent events as a clash of civilisations between the rational, democratic world and the inexpicable Islamic world and have an massively inflated fear of Islamist-inspired terrorism. In reality, as Ghattas, states: “The largest number of victims of jihadist violence are Muslims themselves within their own countries”. The theme of this book is that there is in effect a civil war within Islam itself between the majority Sunni world and the minority Shia world and, within each section of Islam, between minority fundamentalists and the majority of tolerant Muslims. In national terms, this conflict is a titantic battle between Saudi Arabia and Iran who are ruled by adherents of very particular and extreme versions of respectively Sunni and Shia thought.
The schism goes back to the death of the prophet Muhammad in 632. What we now call the Sunni tradition believes that the succession from the prophet should be determined by selection, commencing with the prophet’s close companion Abu Bakr, and that the prime authority should be a ruling caliph. What we now call the Shia tradition believes that succession should be through the prophet’s descendents, starting with his cousin Ali, and that the prime authority should be the local imam.
Today, in Saudi Arabia, the controlling Al-Saud dynasty follows a particular version of Sunnism based on the teaching of the 18th century religious preacher Ibn Abdelwahhab (hence the term Wahhabism) which is part of the Hanabali school, the strictist of the four main schools of jurisprudence. Meanwhile, in Iran, almost all Muslims are Twelvers, named after the Twelfth and last Imam who lives in occultation and will reappear as the promised Mahdi, and, since the revolution of 1979, the country has had a version of Shism which merges religion and politics and places power in the Supreme Leader and the Guardianship of the Jurist.
Saudi Arabia seeks to dominate the Middle East through the use of vast sums of oil money to fund madrassas and organisations that propagate its peculiar view of Islam. For its part, Iran projects its influence through military means via use of its Revolutionary Guards in Syria, its sponsorship of Hezbollah in Lebabon, and its support for proxies in Iraq. Currently the two powers are indirectly locked in a brutal conflict in Yemen with the Saudis backing the Sunni government and Iran supporting the Shia Houthi rebels.
This is a story of what Ghattas calls “the sectarianisation of faith”” where “despair drives people to faith” and yet, as she points out: “In all of the 6,236 verses of the Quran, there is not a single verse calling on Muslims to silence blasphemers by force”. In a short concluding chapter, Ghattas writes: “Travelling around the region to conduct my reporting for this book, I oscillated between despair and hope … Between despair and hope, I ultimately settled on hope”. It would be encouraging to learn that there is meaningful evidence for such hope, but really her hope is based on no more than a belief in the courage of selected reformers, even though the last chapter of the book is about the savage killing of her colleague and friend Jamal Khashoggi.
Posted in World current affairs | Comments (0)
“I’m still standing”
March 20th, 2020 by Roger Darlington
Posted in Cultural issues | Comments (0)
Where does your country come in the World Happiness Report?
March 20th, 2020 by Roger Darlington
Since the first World Happiness Report in 2012, four different countries have held the top position: Denmark in 2012, 2013 and 2016, Switzerland in 2015, Norway in 2017, and now Finland in 2018, 2019 and 2020.
With its continuing upward trend in average scores, Finland consolidated its hold on first place, and is now significantly ahead of Denmark in second place. The remaining countries in the top ten are Switzerland, Iceland, Norway, the Netherlands, Sweden, New Zealand, and Austria, followed by top-10 newcomer Luxembourg.
The Top 20 happiest countries are:
- Finland
- Denmark
- Switzerland
- Iceland
- Norway
- The Netherlands
- Sweden
- New Zealand
- Luxembourg
- Austria
- Canada
- Australia
- UK
- Israel
- Costa Rica
- Ireland
- Germany
- US
- Czech Republic
- Belgium
You can access the full 2020 report here.
Posted in World current affairs | Comments (0)
If you would be interested in tracking in real time accurate data on the spread of coronavirus worldwide, there is a web site that is doing that
March 18th, 2020 by Roger Darlington
Amazingly the site has been set up by an American boy of just 17, Avi Schiffmann, a high school junior from Mercer Island outside Seattle. But the site is using reputable sources such as the Word Health Organisation.
You can access the site here. As I write this posting, the global number of confirmed cases has just reached 200,000 (but, of course, there are many, many more unrecorded cases) and the global number of deaths is almost 8,000 (but, of course, this is set to rise substantially.
For UK readers of this blog, there are three statistics which are worth remembering:
- The modelling suggested that, without severe social distancing and isolation practices, the death toll could be around 260,000.
- The modelling suggested that, with the current severe social distancing and isolation practices, the death toll could be around 20,000 or lower.
- Seasonal flu kills around 8,000 a year in this country in a ‘normal’ season.
Posted in British current affairs, Science & technology, World current affairs | Comments (0)
What was the greatest film ever made? Let me make a nomination.
March 17th, 2020 by Roger Darlington
Readers of this blog will know of my love for the cinema.
At the weekend, I ‘braved’ the coronavirus to go to the British Film Instiute and see my all-time favourite film on the big screen. Since it was first released in 1962, over a period of almost six decades, I’ve viewed “Lawrence Of Arabia” a total of 12 times and on each occasion it is simply awesome.
You can read my review of the film here.
What would be your nomination for best movie or at least favourite film?
Posted in Cultural issues | Comments (0)
“Parasite” becomes highest earning subtitled film
March 14th, 2020 by Roger Darlington
The Oscar-winning horror-thriller “Parasite” has become the highest earning foreign language film at the UK box office, overtaking the 2004 Mel Gibson-directed film “The Passion of the Christ”.
Curzon, the South Korean film’s UK distributors, has reported that “Parasite” has passed “Passion”’s cumulative total of £11,078,861 on 6 March. “Parasite” was released on 7 February in the UK, and had taken £1.4m before the Oscars. However, its Best Picture win had a dramatic effect, with takings of more than £2.5m in the post-Oscar weekend.
In the US, where the film has been on release since May 2019, it has taken $52.8m, well behind “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon”’s $128.1m, recorded in 2000.
You can read my review of “Parasite” here.
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Coronavirus (or Covid-19): where and who was patient zero?
March 13th, 2020 by Roger Darlington
Whenever there is a global pandemic, it is natural to wonder how it all started.
We still don’t know for sure where the Black Death of the mid 14th century originated although, in October 2010, medical geneticists suggested that all three of the great waves of the plague originated in China. Similarly there are different views about the origins of the so-called Spanish Flu of 1918-1920 and, in a recent posting, I highlighted a common view that it started in the United States.
There’s so much we still have to learn about the current coronavirus (or Covid-19) global pandemic, but already there is debate about its origins. Most informed observers believe that it all started in the area of Wuhan in China – where I have stayed on two visits – but some in China are claiming (without evidence) that it originated in the USA.
According to Chinese government data seen by the “South China Morning Post“, a 55 year-old from Hubei province could have been the first person to have contracted Covid-19. Interestingly this infection is dated to 17 November 2019, a couple of months before the virus hit the headlines. The relevant individual has not yet been identified publicly.
One of the essential factors in combatting a global pandemic is transparency from the beginning. The lack of such transparency by the Chinse authorities at the start may have longer-term implications for the Chinese Communist Party.
Posted in History, Science & technology, World current affairs | Comments (0)
Coronavirus: nine reasons to be reassured
March 11th, 2020 by Roger Darlington
The “Guardian” newspapers has pulled together material to show that, while coronavirus is a serious challenge, there are reasons to be reassured:
- We know what it is.
- We can test for it.
- We know that it can be contained (albeit at considerable cost).
- Catching it is not that that easy (if we are careful) and we can kill it quite easily.
- In most cases, symptoms are mild and young people are at very low risk.
- People are recovering from it.
- Hundreds of scientific articles have already been written about it.
- Vaccine prototypes exist.
- Dozens of treatments are already been tested.
You can read the full article here.
Posted in Science & technology, World current affairs | Comments (0)