NightHawk

This morning, I attended the second session of my course in short story writing at the City Lit in central London. Much of the session was spent discussing the homework from last week when we were asked to draft 500-800 words as the opening of a short story picking up on an object in the scene we had written about in the first session.

Three of us circulated the text of our work which was then critiqued by the tutor Wendy Brandmark and the class. I was the last of the three and I confess that I found it quite tough hearing comments which were less enthusiastic than I had hoped. A major problem, I think, is that, before I start drafting a story, I like to have a good idea how it will develop and conclude and I felt that, to assess my opening words, one really needed to see the whole story - but maybe I was just feeling defensive.

Anyway, I'll publish the full story - "A Life In A Box" - on my web site later this week and you can be the judge.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 03:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Palmyra is an atoll of a mere 4.6 square miles located in the Northern Pacific Ocean. It is incorporated territory of the United States, meaning that it is subject to all provisions contained in the United States Constitution and is permanently under U.S. sovereignty. However, it is also an unorganized territory as there is no Congressional Act specifying how it should be governed.

In fact, the issue of Palmyra’s governance is somewhat academic, as there is no indigenous population remaining nor any reason to think that there will be one in the future. For the last few years, the atoll has been manned by a group of scientists, Nature Conservancy staff and volunteers, and Fish & Wildlife representatives totalling between four and 20.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 07:33 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

If you have an hour to spare, you can watch in full the speech made by Gordon Brown to today's Labour Party Conference here.

You can read the full text and find some analysis from the BBC here.

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

Antigua and Barbuda (Spanish for "Ancient" and "Bearded") is one of the Caribbean's most prosperous nations, thanks to its tourism industry and offshore financial services. The country's strength lies in its tropical climate and good beaches, which have made it popular as a stop-off point for US cruise ships and have attracted large investments in infrastructure. The population is a mere 85,000.

For decades Antigua and Barbuda's politics was dominated by the Bird family, with Vere Bird being the country's prime minister from independence in 1981 until 1994, when he was succeeded by his son, Lester, who spent a decade in office. Underlying this stability was a succession of scandals, including allegations of corruption. The Bird family was also accused of abuse of authority.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 08:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

One might think that the most serious economic crisis in the history of global capitalism would severely dent the fortunes of the most pro-capitalist political parties in free market nations, but recent elections do not offer any such solace for social democrats like me. This weekend, there were elections in Germany, Austria and Portugal and there was little good news for social democrats.

In Germany, the Social Democratic Party (SPD) suffered its worst result for 60 years. It secured only 23.1% – a drop of more than 11% since the last election. Initial election results revealed that the Christian Democrats (CDU) and their sister party, the Christian Social Union (CSU), have secured 33.8% of the vote, with the Free Democrats (FDP) taking 14.5%, giving the parties 323 seats in the Bundestag.

Meanwhile, in Austria, support for the far-Right Freedom Party nearly doubled to 16% in a provincial election, while the centre-left won only 14% of the vote and suffered its worst result since the Second World War. In fact, since the Social Democrat Party scraped into power in a national election a year ago, it has lost every regional and labour council vote.

Only in Portugal was there good news. The centre-left Socialist Party hung on to power, despite 9% unemployment, the country's highest for 20 years. The Socialists won 36.5% of the vote, against 29% for the centre-right Social Democrats, the main opposition.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 07:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

It's been a while since I've done one of my regular weeks 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 - so let's return to the series. You can check the previous 180 entries here.

The Turks and Caicos islands lie 600 miles south-east of Florida in the Atlantic Ocean. The population is only 36,000 but the island, a popular playground for Hollywood stars and musicians, attracts 300,000 tourists a year.

In August 2009, the UK resumed day-to-day control of the islands amid ongoing allegations of widespread corruption in the British overseas territory. Local government in the islands have been suspended for up to two years while their affairs are put back in "good order". The move went ahead after a legal challenge by former premier Michael Misick failed in the court of appeal in London.

He resigned in March 2009 but, along with other senior officials, continues to deny accusations of corruption highlighted by a parliamentary committee and commission of enquiry in 2008. Misick has been accused of building a multimillion-dollar fortune financed from questionable dealings that gave property developers access to crown-owned land.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 10:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Vee and I are really looking forward to our holiday in Iran in a month or so's time (nuclear crisis permitting).

Before visiting a new country, I always read about its history and Iran - or Persia as it was known for a long time - has some 6,000 years of it. I've just finished a concise account of the history of this fascinating nation and reviewed it here.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 01:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Germans go to the polls tomorrow in an important federal election. To help you make sense of it, you might like to read my "Short Guide To The German Political System".

Posted by Roger Darlington at 10:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

My latest short story is called "The Face At The Window". Please give it a read and let me know what you think.

Now that work has resumed after the summer break, I'm likely to complete fewer stories that I managed over the summer but, since I'm now attending a course, they might become better.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 09:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Two and a half months after I registered for the course and having now written nine short stories for my web site, today I started a course in short story writing at the City Lit in central London. The course is from 10.15 am - 12.15 pm each Wednesday for 12 weeks and our tutor is an American called Wendy Brandmark who has published short stories and a novel called "The Angry Gods" (I've ordered a copy from Amazon).

There are 21 of us on the course with three times as many women as men. Once we had done the introductions (several teachers and journalists), we were told about the value of "The Writer's Notebook" for our ideas and reflections (I use the Notes section of my iPhone to record ideas for my stories as soon as I think of them but now I have a physical notebook to use on the course). Our exercise was to picture and describe a character from our life and our homework is to take an object from that description and see if we can develop it into the beginnings of a short story.

I'm sure that the course is really going to help me write better stories but, now that my work has resumed after the summer lull, I won't be writing as intensely as I have been doing over the summer.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 09:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Liberal Democrats are meeting in Bournemouth this week for their Annual Conference and I've been in the city to look at a super fast broadband scheme (more about that later). So far, the aspect of the conference that has attracted the most publicity is the surprise proposal that homes with a value of over £1 million pounds should be subject to an annual tax.

This is an interesting suggestion, but why should the government only tax wealth in the form of property? Why not tax all wealth? This is the position favoured by the lead character in my latest short story entitled "The PM And The MP".

Posted by Roger Darlington at 08:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This week, I attended a London event of the Skeptics In The Pub grouping. It was addressed by the writer David Aaronovitch who spoke about his recent book "Voodoo Histories" which is subtitled "The Role of the Conspiracy Theory in Shaping Modern History". I attended the event with my good friend and fellow skeptic Eric who bought me the book for my birthday. In fact, I've not read it yet, but I took the opportunity to have it signed by the author.

Aaronovitch was very fluent and persuasive. He talked about long-standing conspiracy theories such as the Protocols of the Elders of Zion which is still propogated by the likes of Hamas and Iran and he explored more contemporary conspiracy theories such as those suggesting that man did not land on the moon, Princess Diana was murdered and 9/11 was a plot by the American government or Israeli secret service. He was asked why so many people - often intelligent - believe so firmly such arrant nonsense and he suggested that it was because of "the human appetite for narrative".

I have myself written about "Why People Believe Weird Things".

Posted by Roger Darlington at 08:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

This is a fun video to start your week:

Posted by Roger Darlington at 08:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Barack Obama made brilliant use of the Internet in his primary and presidential campaigns but, now that he is in the White House, the Right is mobilising opposition against him using similar online campaigning tools heavily funded by suspect business sources.

It's not just the economic stimulus and healthcare reform that angers these Republicans; they would like to remove Obama from the presidency. They almost did it with Bill Clinton and they are going to do their darnedest against Obama.

Further information here.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 09:48 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

If you haven't visited the city of Budapest - I have twice - then you might be tempted to do so by viewing this wonderful scene brought to my attention by a good Hungarian friend.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 11:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

My latest short story is a political one entitled "The PM And The MP".

Please have a read and let me know what you think.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 07:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)

Regular readers of NightHawk may be aware of my experience in the summer when my Internet service provider Pipex managed to cut me off from the Net and take 10 days to restore my connection. If you can bear to read the sorry story, you'll find it here.

Of course, I complained to Pipex and, when I did not receive satisfaction, I went to the relevant ombudsman Otelo. The ombudsman decided that i had not exhausted Pipex's complaints procedure, so I returned to the company, got no more satisfaction, and escalated the matter again to the ombudsman.

Otelo has now concluded the investigation and found that everything I stated was true. Its conclusion is as follows:

"In light of the issues discussed above and my recommendation of Mr Darlington’s complaint, I will recommend that the Ombudsman requires Pipex to:
· send a letter of apology;
· confirm in writing what the actual problem was and why it took longer to fix it, than might have been expected; and
· credit a further £25 to Mr Darlington’s broadband account to reflect shortfalls in customer service and to cover the cost of an ADSL broadband filter."

The money doesn't matter to me. I still want to know why I lost my connection and why it took so long to resolve. Over four months later and after lengthy complaints to Pipex and Otelo, is this too much to ask?

Footnote: What are the odds? I wrote the blog posting above in the morning and this afternoon I had an e-mail from Pipex inviting me to complete an online satisfaction survey. I did - and they won't like it.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 12:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

The Consumer Focus Board papers posted to me in central London on 8 September reached me today in north-west London on 17 September!

Perhaps I should take it up with the consumer body for postal services. Aaah, that would be Consumer Focus then.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 11:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This video clip is both richly sardonic and strangely moving.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 11:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

In this list, NightHawk features at No 90.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 10:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

So now an authoritative and independent report has spelled out at great length that both the Palestinians and the Israelis were guilty of war crimes last December and January. The 574-page report from esteemed judge Richard Goldstone is based on 188 interviews, more than 10,000 pages of documentation and 1,200 photographs and other material.

Both sides should be condemned for the relevant actions, both sides should bring those responsible to justice, and if they do not then matters should be referred to the International Criminal Court.

Further information here.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 08:33 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Here in Britain today sees the start of the National Consumer Week. An important part of this is the "Know your consumer rights" campaign which kicks off today.

Since Consumer Focus (on whose Board I sit) is one of the campaign partners, our CEO Ed Mayo will be speaking alongside Kevin Brennan MP, Consumer Affairs Minister, Ron Gainsford, CEO, Trading Standards Institute and Vivienne Dewes, Office of Fair Trading at the launch at the Bluewater shopping centre, Kent.

The "Know Your Consumer Rights" campaign aims to educate people about their three key rights - that whatever they buy must:
· fit the description given
· be of satisfactory quality
· be suitable for purpose

and to encourage them to visit Consumer Direct or phone 08454 040506 for more detailed advice.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 08:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This weekend, my wife and I - together with friends Ivan and Ros - visited a place called Brickendonbury which is a little bit north of London in Hertfordshire.

The Brickendonbury estate, has a long and colourful history. Little is known about it until Saxon times (approx. 500 AD), when the hill site was claimed by the Saxon, Brica. The word don means hill - the bury was added in medieval times and indicates the site of a manor house: hence Brickendonbury, a fortified manor house standing on Brica's hill. The estate is mentioned in the Domesday survey of 1086 and parts of the mansion are known to date back to the late 1600s.

The part of the history of Brickendonbury which really interested us four was the Second World War.

From 1939-45, the site was used by the Special Operations Executive, European Theatre of War, and became Station 17, specialising in training agents and resistance workers in industrial sabotage. Vital operations, such as the daring raid to destroy the Norwegian heavy water plant (part of Germany's nuclear bomb programme) and the bombing of the Renault engineering plant in France, were launched from the estate. A television documentary "The Secret War" showed archive film of parts of the estate being used for rehearsing such raids and a reminder of these activities was found during building work in 1973, when unexploded hand grenades and live mortar shells were discovered in the drained moat!

Station 17 of the SOE had a link with the killing of the Nazi leader in Prague Reinhard Heydrich in May 1942. The two SOE agents who carried out the assassination were the Czech Jan Kubiš and and the Slovak Jozef Gabčík and both spent some time as part of their training at Brickendonbury.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 12:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Many teachers are - and, possibly with some reason, as this article in today's "Sunday Times" explains.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 10:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

According to the data compiled annually by the Office of National Statistics (ONS), the most popular names for children born in England & Wales during 2008 were as follows:

There are some patterns here.

First of all, it is striking how traditional most of the names are for both boys and girls, although for the boys it is interesting that the familiar form of names rather than the original version is often preferred - Jack instead of John (first for the 14th year running), Alfie instead of Alfred, Harry instead of Harold, Charlie instead of Charles.

In the case of boys, three of the top nine names begin with the letter 'J'. In the case of girls, six of the top ten names end with the sound 'ee' and 11 of the top 20 names contain one or more of the letter 'l'.

On the other hand, the name David - which is the second most common name in Britain - slipped out of the top 50 of names chosen for baby boys born in 2004 and has stayed out. Similarly Margaret - the most common female name in the population as a whole - does not even appear in the top 100 names chosen for girls these days.

It should be noted that the Office of National Statistics (ONS) produces its ranking of the popularity of names using the exact spelling of the name given at birth registration. If one combines the numbers for names with very similar spellings, a different picture is revealed. For boys, combining the occurrence of Mohammed, Muhammad and Mohammad would put the name third - a reflection of the changing ethnicity of the British population. Similarly, if one combines the occurrence of Isabelle, Isabella, Isabel and Isobel, one would find the name top by far of the girls' list.

You can see a fuller list of the most popular baby names and more analysis here.

If you're one of NightHawk's many American readers, you'll find the comparable US data here.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 09:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

When I'm working on the PC, I often like to listen to music - either Classic FM on the radio or one of my CDs on the computer. This afternoon, I've been listening to my CDs of an Uzbek singer called Sevara Nazarkhan.

I know - you've never heard of her. Neither had I until I visited Uzbekistan three years ago [my account here]. It's good stuff.

You can learn more about Sevara here.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 07:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Over the summer, Friday has been the day that I've posted a new short story in my new writing phase and today is no exception.

I've now posted my eighth short story which is about relationships and is called "The Dinner Party".

Please check it out and let me know what you think.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 11:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (13)

President Barack Obama has addressed Congress in an effort to break the deadlock on passage of a healthcare reform bill.

You can read the full text here.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 09:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Maybe the world will end?!? But maybe not.

I hope not - I still have a lot of short stories to write ...

Posted by Roger Darlington at 11:06 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

In this article - long but so informative and convincing - Paul Krugman, "New York Times" op-ed columnist and winner of the 2008 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Science, argues:

"So here’s what I think economists have to do. First, they have to face up to the inconvenient reality that financial markets fall far short of perfection, that they are subject to extraordinary delusions and the madness of crowds. Second, they have to admit — and this will be very hard for the people who giggled and whispered over Keynes — that Keynesian economics remains the best framework we have for making sense of recessions and depressions. Third, they’ll have to do their best to incorporate the realities of finance into macroeconomics.

Many economists will find these changes deeply disturbing. It will be a long time, if ever, before the new, more realistic approaches to finance and macroeconomics offer the same kind of clarity, completeness and sheer beauty that characterizes the full neoclassical approach. To some economists that will be a reason to cling to neoclassicism, despite its utter failure to make sense of the greatest economic crisis in three generations. This seems, however, like a good time to recall the words of H. L. Mencken: “There is always an easy solution to every human problem — neat, plausible and wrong.”

When it comes to the all-too-human problem of recessions and depressions, economists need to abandon the neat but wrong solution of assuming that everyone is rational and markets work perfectly. The vision that emerges as the profession rethinks its foundations may not be all that clear; it certainly won’t be neat; but we can hope that it will have the virtue of being at least partly right."

Posted by Roger Darlington at 08:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I spent the day attending a meeting of the Communications Consumer Panel and learned that our Ofcom colleagues had no connectivity almost all day thanks to COLT.

I got home to find that my fixed line wasn't working thanks to BT. Once I had fought my way through the company's automated answering systems, I reported the fault and wait to have it resolved.

Footnote (9/9/09): I have to say that BT's fault report service did well. The fault - a defective card at the exchange - was corrected in 24 hours and, along the way, I received three SMS messages and a call to report progress and then completion.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 08:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

More than three years ago, the position of Western Sahara was one of the first places to feature in my long-running series called "Forgotten World" - see here.

Eighteen years ago today, the Polisario Front (the Western Saharan liberation movement) laid down their arms, ending a 16-year war with Morocco. As part of a UN-negotiated ceasefire a referendum on self-determination was promised but has yet to be carried out.

The need to resolve this dead-lock is highlighted in this letter.

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

If you live in Britain, you'll be saying: what summer? For the third consecutive year, it's been pretty wet here in the UK. Today effectively I go back to work with the scheduling of a number of meetings in town.

During the summer, I didn't go away (that comes later in the year) and professionally I had a very quiet month or two (very few meetings), so I spent the time having fun and crafting some short stories.

So far, I've put seven on my web site and you might like to check them out:

"The Edge Of War"

"A Friend Indeed"

"The Hostage"

"Making A Difference"

"A Moment In Time"

"Six Degrees Of Separation"

"Thelma And Louise - The Sequel"

In a couple of weeks time, I start a part-time course in short story writing to learn some techniques and polish my skills - so more stories to come.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 09:06 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Lena Corner struggled to choose a name for her second son. After six weeks, she eventually settled on Ralph (my brother's name) but, after six months, she changed it to Huxley. You can read her explanation here.

I'm fascinated by how parents name their children and I've written an account of naming practices around the world here.

Are you a parent? How did you select your child's name?

Posted by Roger Darlington at 12:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

If you've ever travelled on the London underground - and I do constantly - you may enjoy this odd anagram version of the station names.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 01:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The ideas keep flowing and so today I publish my seventh short story entitled "A Moment In Time".

Like the others, it's different from previous stories, so please check it out and let me know what you think.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 12:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Following Sunday's stunning election victory by the Democratic Party of Japan, the traditionally dominant Liberal Democratic Party is in opposition for only the second time since the current political system was constructed after the Second World War (and that was only for 11 months).

Japanese politics is set to become much more interesting and I've now substantially revised my "Short Guide To The Japanese Political System".

Posted by Roger Darlington at 05:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The answer might surprise you.

It all started when about 20 people gathered in the laboratory of Len Kleinrock at the University of California, Los Angeles, to watch as two bulky computers passed meaningless test data through a 15-foot gray cable.

That was 2 September 1969 - exactly 40 years ago today.

Further information here.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 01:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The victim was a 43-year old unmarried Catholic farmer called Franz Honiok and he was murdered by the SS on 31 August 1939 at a radio station in Gliwice in what was then Germany.

You can read the details in this fascinating article in the "Daily Telegraph".

Posted by Roger Darlington at 05:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

In two days time, events in Britain will mark the country's declaration of war on German exactly 70 years ago. For the Poles, however, the war started on 1 September 1939 when the German battleship "Schleswig-Holstein" opened fire at point-blank range on the Polish fort at Westerplatte. Events to mark the occasion have been held today in Poland - see here - and you can read about the seven-day Battle of Westerplatte here.

We tend to think of major wars - and World War II was overwhelmingly the most destructive in history - as having neat start and end dates. But, in reality, when the Second World War began and ended depends on one’s national perspective.

For China and Japan, the war effectively started with the so-called Manchurian Incident on 18 September 1931. For Czechs and Slovaks, the war began on 15 March 1939 when the Germans occupied those parts of the country not already ‘given’ to Hitler at the Munich conference six months earlier.

Following Germany’s invasion of Poland, Britain declared war at 11 am on 3 September 1939 and France followed suit at 5 pm the same day. Italy did not declare war on France until 10 June 1940. The Soviet Union only entered the war when invaded by Germany on 22 June 1941. The United States did not enter the war until the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941.

The Americans only declared war on the Japanese; on 11 December 1941, Hitler and Mussolini declared war on the USA for reasons that remain obscure but which effectively sealed the outcome of the war. The Soviet Union only declared war on Japan on 8 August 1945 (after the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima).

For most of Europe, the war ended on Victory in Europe (VE) Day 8 May 1945 but, for the Soviet Union, VE Day was 9 May 1945. This was because the allies had agreed to celebrate victory on 9 May, but journalists broke the news prematurely. For military forces in Asia, the end of the war was on Victory in Japan (VJ) Day 15 August 1945.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 12:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

I've never used an Internet cafe in the UK. I've always had a PC at home or at work. And, as for the coffee, it's awful and most such so-called cafes don't actually serve coffee these days.

Of course, 30% of UK homes still don't have Net access. Surprisingly, however, it seems that even people with a PC at home chose to use Net cafes.

BBC online offers some answers.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 12:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)