NightHawk

Cameroon, which obtained its independence in 1960 and today has a population of 19 million, has long been considered one of the more stable sub-Saharan African countries with one of the highest per capital GDPs. Recently, however, the situation has deteriorated with civil unrest and violence from youth groups protesting against corruption as well as food and fuel prices. President Paul Biya has been in power since 1982 and last year presidential term limits were scrapped.

In 1994 and 1996 Cameroon and Nigeria fought over the disputed, oil-rich Bakassi peninsula. Nigeria withdrew its troops from the area in 2006 in line with an international court ruling which awarded sovereignty to Cameroon. In November 2007, the Nigerian senate passed a motion declaring as illegal the Nigeria-Cameroon agreement for the Bakassi Peninsula to be handed over to Cameroon.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 09:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

My summer time project to become a short story writer continues.

Today I publish my second story entitled "Thelma And Louise - The Sequel".

You can read it here.

Do let me know what you think.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 08:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (8)

The Irish Republic, officially known as Ireland, has emerged from the conflict that marked its birth as an independent nation to become one of Europe's economic powerhouses. Long under English or British rule, Ireland lost half its population in the decades following the Great Potato Famine of the 1840s, becoming a nation of emigrants. However, since the country joined the European Community in 1973, it has been transformed from a largely agricultural society into a modern, high-technology economy.

It has a population of just over 4 million - over a quarter in the capital Dublin - mostly Catholic, compared to the 1.5 million in Northern Ireland (about one-third Catholic) which is part of the United Kingdom. Ireland's economy began to grow rapidly in the 1990s, fuelled by foreign investment. This attracted a wave of incomers to a country where, traditionally, mass emigration had been the norm. But the boom that earned Ireland the nickname of "Celtic Tiger" faltered when the country fell into recession in the wake of the global financial crisis of 2008.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 10:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

... at the moment is this huge thing:

The local council is resurfacing our crescent.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 10:06 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Lebanon was carved out of the Ottoman Empire and granted independence by the French in 1943. Clashes between Palestinian militia and Christian fighters broke out into war in 1975 and the conflict lasted until 1990. Sectarian tensions remain and the various militia are backed by countries around the region. The population of 4 million - almost half in the capital Beirut - lives in constant anxiety of another break out of major violence.

Lebanon is a parliamentary democracy which implements a special system known as confessionalism. This system is intended to ensure that sectarian conflict is kept at bay and attempts to fairly represent the demographic distribution of the 18 recognized religious groups in the governing body.

Despite perennial instability, Lebanon is somewhat buttressed from global economic crises. since it has little industry or export capacity and development is solidly financed by cash-rich Gulf companies. Large sums are also poured in by the vast Lebanese diaspora.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 07:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

You've heard the expression "the seven seas". But what are these seven seas?

In Medieval European literature, "the seven seas" referred to the following seas:
* the Persian Gulf
* the Black Sea
* the Caspian Sea
* the Red Sea, including the closed Dead Sea and the Sea of Galilee
* the Mediterranean Sea, including its marginal seas, notably the Aegean Sea.
* the Adriatic Sea
* the Arabian Sea (which is part of the Indian Ocean)

For a variety of other explanations, see here.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 09:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The two islands of Trinidad & Tobago have been run together since 1888 and became independent of Britain in 1962. They have a total population of around 1.3 million.

As the Caribbean's leading producer of oil and gas, Trinidad & Tobago is one of the region's most prosperous countries. But, as global oil and gas prices drop, so does export revenue.

The government and the police have been criticised for a failure to stem the smuggling of cocaine and heroin from Venezuela and Columbia whose drug gangs use the islands as a staging post for shipment to the United States and Europe. Violent gang crime, including kidnap and murder, is spreading from urban to rural communities.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 08:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

What do these words have in common?

1. Banana
2. Dresser
3. Grammar
4. Potato
5. Revive
6. Uneven
7. Assess

Are you peeking or have you already given up? Give it another try...

Look at each word carefully. You'll surprise yourself when you discover the answer.

Answer: No, it is not that they all have at least 2 double letters....

Give up??? Try again... I know you can get it. If not............Look below for answer.

Answer: In all of the words listed, if you take the first letter, place it at the end of the word, and then spell the word backwards, it will be the same word. Did you figure it out? No?

Posted by Roger Darlington at 02:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

It's time to have another week of postings in my long-running series called Forgotten World - a look at parts of the world that hardly feature in our media or thoughts. You can check the previous 175 entries here.

At one time, Vietnam was in the world news almost daily. This was the consequence of three decades of bitter independence wars, which the communists fought first against the colonial power France, then against US-backed South Vietnam. North and South became a unified country in 1976 after the armed forces of the communist north had seized the south of the country in the previous year.

Vietnam struggled to find its feet after unification and it tried at first to organise the agriculture-based economy along strict collectivist lines. But, following the successful example of China, elements of market forces and private enterprise were introduced from the late 1980s and a stock exchange opened in 2000. Foreign investment has grown and the US is Vietnam's main trading partner. After 12 years of negotiations the country joined the World Trade Organization in January 2007.

But the disparity in wealth between the 86 million who make up urban and rural Vietnam is wide and some Communist Party leaders worry that too much economic liberalisation will weaken their power base and introduce "decadent" ideas into Vietnamese society.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 08:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Earlier this week, I was travelling on a crowded train on the London underground and overheard two young school girls telling each other silly jokes.

The first asked: "What's the fastest drink in the world?" After a pause, she added: Milk - it's pasteurised before it's down your mouth."

The second responded: "OK. What's the fastest food in the world?" After a slight interval, she announced: "Too late - it's scone."

I thought that these jokes were so funny in a schoolyard way that I leaned over and told them a joke to share with their friends: "Why would you never starve in the desert? Because of all the sand which is there."

Posted by Roger Darlington at 11:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

As I explained in this posting, I intend to use a quiet summer to attempt to be come a short story writer.

I have now published my first short story. It is titled "Making A Difference" and you can read it here.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 01:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (14)

Since the last day of Postwatch when I did three media interviews (see my blog posting here), I've not done any media interviews (Consumer Focus staff take them for the organisation). However, I did a short live interview this morning for BBC Radio Somerset.

The issue was the regulation of the Internet, a topic on which I have pronounced here. A group on Facebook has been encouraging people to fish in an area of Bridgewater where it is not allowed. Also a local party advertised on Facebook was shut down purely on the basis of comments posted by kids responding which stated that they ‘couldn’t wait to get drunk’.

Regulation of the Internet is not really within the remit of either Consumer Focus or the Communications Consumer Panel - the two bodies on which I currently sit - so I spoke to the BBC in a personal capacity and amusingly was billed as "an Internet expert".

Posted by Roger Darlington at 11:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Yesterday evening was a very congenial occasion when I met for dinner two former trade union leaders with whom I used to work when I was Head of Research at the Communication Workers Union.

Tony Young used to be General Secretary of the National Communications Union and the Communication Workers Union, where he was my boss, and now, as Lord Young, he is minister for postal services and employment relations at the Department of Business, Innovation & Skills.

Morty Bahr, served as President of the 700,000-member Communications Workers of America from 1985 until his retirement in 2005. He wrote a book about his career which I've reviewed here. He is now a sprightly 83 year with six great grandchildren and still working on housing for seniors which is what brought him to London.

We ate and chatted in "Rules" which has a great atmosphere and claims to be the oldest restaurant in London being established in 1798 (as I pointed out to Morty, it was founded just after the creation of the United States).

One of the great pleasures of my 24 years employment in the trade union movement was the opportunity to work with outstanding figures with relatively little formal education but enormous intellectual and social skills. Another such man was Bryan Stanly who was my boss as General Secretary of the Post Office Engineering Union until his retirement in 1986. Earlier this week, he died aged 83 and I will attend his funeral on Monday.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 10:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

You can read about my own visit to Southern Africa here.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 09:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I'm a massive movie fan so I'm always going to see new films, but I usually frequent the same cinemas - about 10 in north-west and central London. Last night, however, our young friends Rachael and James took us to a cinema we've never visited before and it was glorious.

It's called The Rex and it's in Berkhamstead. This art deco wonder was first opened in 1938. It had to close in 1988 but it was re-opened in 2004. In the circle, the seating has a conventional layout but the comfort and leg room are superb. On the lower floor - where we were - you sit in big red, swivel chairs at small, round, candlelit tables, with white tablecloths to the floor, and at the back is a long, well-stocked bar.

Check out the history and some photos and tell me if this isn't the loveliest cinema on the planet.

If you want to know how the restoration was achieved, you can view this video:

And the film we saw? The oxymoronic and enigmatically titled "Sleep Furiously" [my review here].

Posted by Roger Darlington at 11:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Forty years ago today, man first walked on the moon and, all over the world, the media is rightly commemorating this spectacular event. At the time, I was a 21 year old student at the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology (UMIST). The Soviet Union launched Sputnik in 1957 when I was nine, so I spent my early years following excitedly each step of the so-called space race and I was certainly not going to miss Apollo 11.

In July 1969, I had just started a one-year sabbatical period as full-time President of the UMIST Students' Union and I secured the permission of the Institute to keep the student union building open all night so that any student who wished could witness the moon landing live. Of course, all the undergraduates had already gone home, but around 50 postgraduates stayed up with me to witness this hugely historic event.

The actual landing was at 9.17 pm our time and at 3.56 am Neil Armstrong became the first man to walk on the moon, followed shortly afterwards by Edwin Aldrin. Meanwhile Michael Collins circled the moon in the command module. It was an occasion never to be forgotten as ghost-like figure floated across the television screen like cartoon characters.

I had no sleep at all that night and continued to follow the media coverage during the following day. I waited until the blast off from the moon at 6.54 pm before I finally went to bed at 7.45 pm. Mission accomplished.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 10:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

For a more scientific critique of homeopathy, read "Bad Science" [my review here].

Posted by Roger Darlington at 09:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

On 10 July 1941, hundreds of Jewish residents of Jedwabne in German Nazi occupied Poland were massacred in an infamous incident that to this day divides opinion, especially in Poland.

Following a round up of local Jews by local Poles at the instruction of the German occupiers, a group of about 40 Jews was taken to a pre-emptied barn, killed and buried, while most of the remaining Jews, estimated at around 250-400, including many women and children, were led to the same barn later that day, locked inside and burned alive using kerosene in the presence of eight German gendarmes, who shot those who tried to escape.

After the war, responsibility was ascribed to approximately 40 non-Jewish ethnic Polish men from or around the town of Jedwabne. Some of them were later tried by the Polish communist authorities and convicted for their crimes as treason to the Polish nation.

The event is in the news today because a British Jewish leader has called on David Cameron to dissociate the Conservative Party from the views on the massacre of Polish Member of the European Parliament Michal Kaminiski. You can read more on the event itself here.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 12:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

In colloquial English, there is the expression "barking mad" which means insane. If you are a native English speaker, you've probably heard of it.

Now some people who live in London occasionally use a local variant of "barking mad" which can take several forms: "one stop/two stops/three stops towards/short of/beyond Dagenham".

So what is going on here? Well, the District Line on the London Underground has a stop called Barking. If you continue along the line out of London, in three more stops you reach a stop called Dagenham Heathway (the fourth stop is called Dagenham East). So these various phrases relating to Dagenham are ways of suggesting that someone is mad. There is even a song called "Three Stops Short Of Dagenham".

I suppose the confusion in the various forms of the saying arises from the fact that most people have no idea how many stops there are between Barking and Dagenham and whether one is thought to be short of or beyond Barkling depends on whether one is travelling out of or into London.

Do you know of any other clever phraseology for suggesting that someone has lost it?

Posted by Roger Darlington at 01:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

As long as I can remember, I have written. I've kept a personal diary since I was 14; in my professional career, I have written countless papers, reports, articles and speeches; in the mid 1980s I authored a full-scale book which was published in both the UK and the then Czechoslovakia; I've had a web site for 10 years and blogged daily almost as long. But all this is non-fiction and I've long had a yearning to try my hand at some fiction.

From this weekend, most of my work goes into a hiatus, since the bodies on which I sit do not meet in August, so I have a very light month or so ahead of me. I've decided to use the time to attempt to become a short story writer and I've set myself the target of crafting five short stories in the course of the summer.

I will, of course, publish them on my web site and invite you to read them. Please be kind ...

Posted by Roger Darlington at 06:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

The @artinloo blog asks people to 'express on a piece of toilet paper what you are thinking about at that moment' and then send the picture in to the site. Check it out here.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 06:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I've lived for 25 years in a part of north-west London called Sudbury Hill which is at the foot of Harrow-on-the-Hill but I've never been aware that 'harrow' is an object - until today. I was out of London with a friend, we dropped into a local pub for a drink, and the name of the pub was "The Harrow".

The pub sign made it clear that a harrow was a farming implement. Did you know that? According to the definition on Answers.com, a harrow is "a farm implement consisting of a heavy frame with sharp teeth or upright disks, used to break up and even off plowed ground".

Posted by Roger Darlington at 07:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

• All socks should be sold in packs of three.
• We should have a 99p coin.
• Weekends should be three days.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 08:06 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

We've all heard a lot about the growing threat to the planet from the danger of climate change. But what are the answers? The "Guardian" newspaper today has a special four-page supplement in which it considers twenty possible solutions.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 03:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The long saga of my complaint against my Internet service provider Pipex continues - see here for the original situation.

Having filed an online complaint with Pipex and received a totally unsatisfactory reaction, on 21 May 2009, I filed an online complaint against Pipex with the ombudsman Otelo. They replied in a letter dated 2 June 2009 suggesting that I had not reached deadlock with Pipex and advising me of a Pipex address in Birmingham with which I should continued to pursue the complaint.

I wrote to Pipex on 3 June 2009. I have now received a response dated 9 July 2009. The Pipex letter states: “I trust that this now resolves the issue and will be closing the case”. I regard this as a deadlock letter and therefore I am now referring the case back to Otelo for support and assistance since I have not received from Pipex what I sought and requested.

In the intervening month since I first tried to register my complaint with Otelo, all that Pipex has done is to credit me with a further £20 as a goodwill gesture. However, in my letter of 3 June 2009 to Pipex, I did not seek a further apology or further compensation. What I sought was an explanation of why it took so long (10 days) and was so confusing (multiple calls) to resolve my lack of connection. Furthermore I sought an explanation of how the company intends to ensure that this sort of failure will not be repeated.

The deadlock letter from Pipex makes no effort whatsoever to explain why my fault occurred and took 10 days to resolve and it offers no information whatsoever as to how the company intends to change its procedures to avoid the risk of repetition of this terrible customer experience.

I am left to wonder whether Pipex understand what went wrong with my Internet connection and have any idea how to improve their complaint processes. I very much hope that Otelo can obtain the relevant information from the company - but I'm not holding my breath.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 06:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Imagine swimming 2.4 miles (3.8 km). Imagine cycling 112 miles (180 km). Imagine running a marathon of 26.2 miles (42.2 km). Now imagine doing one after the other after the other - all on the same day. The event is called The Iron Man and it took place today in Zurich in Switzerland.

One of Vee's nephew's - David Rowe - was one of the 2,200 participants in this amazing ordeal (official number 1171). He did the 2.4 mile swim in 1:08:25, the 112 mile cycling in 5:36:01 and the 26.2 mile marathon in 3:47:27. That made a total time of 10:37:39 which put him at number 573 out of the 2,200 participants.

I am in utter awe of David's performance and congratulate him BIG time.

David's blog Rowe Running sets the scene and no doubt - once he has recovered - he'll be giving a full account of how it went.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 03:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

My sister's youngest son Dom is 30 today and the family celebrated the event at a special gathering near to his home close to Blackburn. The chosen venue was the wonderfully named pub "The Clog and Billycock" in the Lancashire village of Pleasington.

It was only a small gathering of 12 but represented three generations of the family. The menu was excellent with some original fare (I had fried cauliflower for the first time) and, to conclude the meal, my sister (Dom's mother) had baked a delicious birthday cake (I had two slices).

For Vee and me, driving there from London and back again was a round trip of some 450 miles, but it was a thoroughly enjoyable gathering.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 09:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I've just spend two days at the Brit Oval cricket ground in south London as part of an away day for the Board of Consumer Focus. Since my interest in cricket is zilch, I declined the offer of a short tour of the ground. Instead I enjoyed looking at the resident family of foxes that were exploring the ground before the following day's match.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 08:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This week, I started to read a novel called "The Book Thief" by Australian author Markus Zusak.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 10:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Adapted from an e-mail circular doing the rounds ....

Three names I go by

1. Roger

2. Rog (my brother and sister)

3. Rogiček (my Czech 'family')

Three jobs I have had in my life

1. Research Assistant in the House of Commons

2. Special Adviser to a Cabinet Minister

3. Head of Research for a trade union

Three places I have lived

1. South Manchester (Rusholme, Fallowfield & Withington)

2. East London (Leyton & Leytonstone)

3. West London (Sudbury Hill)

Three TV shows that I watch

1. "Desperate Housewives"

2. "Brothers & Sisters"

3. "Friday Night With Jonathan Ross"

Three places I have been

1. Prague, Czech Republic (22 times)

2. Taj Mahal, India

3. Iguassu Falls, Brazil/Argentina

Three places that I want to visit

1. Iran

2. Australia

3. New Zealand

Three of my favorite foods

1. Rice pudding

2. Banoffee pie

3. Sticky toffee pudding

(Can you see a theme?)

Three of my favourite drinks

1. Cappuccino

2. Red wine

3. Mango lassi

Three things I am looking forward to

1. Writing my first short story

2. Becoming a grandfather

3. Celebrating my 100th birthday

Posted by Roger Darlington at 10:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

My wife and I are due to visit Iran on holiday in October. We've already booked the tour and paid the deposit. Now I'm following the political developments in Iran with more than usual attention and I guess the venom currently being directed by the authorities against Britain means that our trip is now somewhat problematic. But things might be different in a few months.

If you want an accessible summary of the crisis over the Iranian presidential election, you should look at a set of cartoon pictures. They based on the characters and style in the work "Persepolis" by Marjane Satrapi. I admired the film of this book [see my review here] and was pleased to see the new cartoon strip.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 04:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Today Vee and I made one of our regular visits to Oxford to see our Chinese 'family': Zhihao, Hua and their two-year old son Joshua. Little Josh just gets cuter every time we see him.

A couple of days ago, it was Zhihao's 35th birthday so we took the family out for a celebratory meal. Just round the corner from their flat is The Jam Factory - a delightful name for a charming place. The food and service (from a Sardinian waitress) were both good and the ambiance is very pleasant.

The restaurant doubles up as an arts centre. This is what the painter currently on show has to say about her work: "Emma Moxey invites you to interpret and inhabit an evolved and translated place in which drawings re-present, respond and correspond to topopoetic patterns of thought, memory, experience and perception". What's that?!?

Posted by Roger Darlington at 09:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

It depends enormously on life style which in turn is substantially influenced by class and wealth which in turn is shaped very much by upbringing and education.

In the UK, on average, a middle-class man will live around 10 years longer than a working class man and, in all classes, women live a bit longer than men. And the class gap in life expectancy is widening.

Also the later you are born, the longer your life expectancy - how long people will live is, on average, extending at the rate of one month every six years.

There's some new data to confirm these trends here.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 11:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This video clip is about 11 minutes, but you should watch it because it tells a remarkable story.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 08:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I suppose that, like most non-technical people, I first became aware of the Internet around 1995 when world-wide the number connected to the network doubled. Besides e-mail, for me the great benefit of the Internet was the Web (I’ve never been interested in social networks, newsgroups or gaming).

The more I used the Web, the more I thought that I should like to generate my own content on my own site. Indeed I was convinced that soon most Internet users would want to have their own site and I’ve been surprised at how few people have a site.

So, on 2 July 1999, I started my own site with the help of my wife’s nephew Martin Rowe – the first piece of content was the Darlington newsletter for Christmas 1998. In succeeding months, I taught myself Hypertext Mark-up Language (HTML) with the aid of my then CWU colleague Jane Taylor and developed the site with the encouragement of my good friend Eric Lee.

From the beginning, I have believed in the principle of simplicity, so the site is designed that any part of it can be reached with one click from the home page. Also I firmly believe that content is king, so I have concentrated on adding well-written material rather than decorating the place with spinning symbols. Finally I’m a great believer that the Web is all about links to other sites and therefore throughout my site there are lots of links to other sites relevant to the particular topic under discussion.

I confess that my site has now become something of a passion and I’ve asked myself why I love the exercise so much. My answer involves the four Cs:

* It is creative, encouraging me to develop my IT skills and my knowledge of the Internet, the links especially taking me to corners of the Web that I might not otherwise explore.
* It is continuous, enabling me to work on it whenever I have time and incrementally to build up the content and develop the format.
* It is comprehensive, allowing me to bring together all my interests from aviation to the cinema, from technology to literature, from trade unionism to travel.
* It is cohesive, permitting me to bring into one place previous as well as current work, such as extracts from my book “Night Hawk”, book and film reviews, and of course the famous Darlington Christmas letters.

Ten years ago, my web site was literally one page and had no visitors. Ten years later, it is a huge site with 120 sections and two blogs and it has between 5,000-6,000 visitors a day. Thanks for visiting.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 07:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

What November election? And why has it taken eight months to conclude?

At the beginning of November 2008, the Americans elected a new President, all of the House of Representatives and a third of the Senate. But one Senate seat was so closely contested that only this week has the final result been declared. The Democrat Al Franken beat his Republican opponent Norm Coleman by a mere 312 votes out of a total of 2.9 million in the state of Minnesota.

It is not just the people of Minnesota who have been holding their breath. The resut has profound implications for the US Congress and indeed for the world.

When Franken takes his seat in the Senate, the Democrats for the first time in three decades will potentially have 60 of the 100 seats in the chamber, possibly an unassailable majority that means they can overcome Republican blocking tactics, such as filibustering. This is because Franken will bring the total number of Democrats to 58 and there are also two independents who normally vote with them.

But on some issues Obama cannot be sure of the support of all 58 Democrats or the two independents. About 20 Democrats, though socially liberal, are conservative on fiscal matters. Also another reason why the 60-seat majority is not as solid as it seems is the ill health of two Democrats, Edward Kennedy and Robert Byrd, both of whom are often absent from the chamber.

Nothing is simple or stable in politics.

Full story here

Posted by Roger Darlington at 09:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)