Archive for the ‘My life & thoughts’ Category
The plans for my next book
November 28th, 2025 by Roger Darlington
It’s taken me 13 months, but today I finished writing my next (the fifth) book “Everyone Has A Story”. There are 33 profiles of friends of mine with interesting stories. The profiles are typically around 2,000 words and the total word count is 73,000. I now have to check through all the text (December), have […]
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What the best year to have been born?
November 22nd, 2025 by Roger Darlington
The “Guardian” newspaper this week published this letter: I agree with Julian Richer: the circumstances into which we are born affect how we get on in life (It’s time to bust the meritocracy myth – I’ll be first to say I’m lucky, 18 November). I had a relatively ordinary background and worked in the public […]
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Visit to Tunisia (9): conclusion
October 19th, 2025 by Roger Darlington
Tunisia deserves to be more popular as a tourist attraction, especially with Europeans, than it is. For the British, it is a flight of only two to two and a half hours and there is no time difference. All the signage is in French as well as Arabic, French is widely spoken, and English is […]
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Visit to Tunisia (8): Sousse
October 10th, 2025 by Roger Darlington
The last day of our trip (Friday) was spent in Sousse. Sousse is in the central-east of the country, on the Gulf of Hammamet, which is a part of the Mediterranean Sea. It has a population of 217,000. We started at the Archaeological Museum which houses one of the largest mosaic collections in the world. […]
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Visit to Tunisia (7): El Djem and Monastir
October 9th, 2025 by Roger Darlington
Thursday was a long but enjoyable day, starting at 9 am and finishing about 5 pm. Using Sousse as a base for local travel, we visited two historic towns. The first was El Djem, called Thysdrus in Roman times, which is a drive of just over an hour south of Sousse. This is the […]
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Visit to Tunisia (6): Kairouan
October 8th, 2025 by Roger Darlington
Wednesday was another early start as at 8 am we left Tunis to head due south on a modern motorway. It was the hottest day as the temperature rose to 31C. Our destination was Kairouan. Kairouan – the name means ‘military camp’ in Arabic – is Tunisia’s oldest city, founded in 670 AD by Oqba […]
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Visit to Tunisia (5): Carthage
October 8th, 2025 by Roger Darlington
What remained of Wednesday afternoon was devoted to Carthage. Located in the north-east suburbs of Tunis, this was the capital of the ancient Carthaginian civilisation that was a major trading empire from the 6th century BC. It was home to Hannibal and his elephants. However, it was destroyed by the Romans in 146 BC. About […]
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Visit to Tunisia (4): Tunis
October 8th, 2025 by Roger Darlington
Tuesday was spent in and around Tunis. It was a long day, because we left the hotel at 8.45 am and did not return till 5.40 pm, so we were out for 9 hours. But there was very little travel and fine weather and wonderful attractions. The capital of Tunisia, which gives its name to […]
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Visit to Tunisia (3): Testour and Dougga
October 6th, 2025 by Roger Darlington
The second day of our tour (Monday) involved a long drive to Roman ruins and our guide was keen to avoid crowds and heat, so we made an early start of 8 am. In fact, once we were there, we had the place almost to ourselves and the weather veered between overcast, spitting and then […]
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Visit to Tunisia (2): Uthina and Sidi Bou Said
October 5th, 2025 by Roger Darlington
On Saturday afternoon, we arrived at Gatwick Airport the recommended two hours before our flight, only to find that it was delayed and then delayed again by the impact of Storm Amy. So , after a wait of four and a half hours, we finally took off two and a half hours late. We flew […]
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