Archive for the ‘My life & thoughts’ Category
Would you fly with Ethiopian Airlines?
August 19th, 2022 by Roger Darlington
There is an amazing story that two pilots with Ethiopian Airlines fell asleep at 37,000ft (11,000m), missing an airport runway before waking to land the aircraft safely. The news raises the question would you fly with this airline? Well, I did – six times in two weeks as you will see from this account of […]
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How would you like to die?
August 11th, 2022 by Roger Darlington
It was just over 50 years ago but I still remember it. I was in my early 20s and very active politically in the Labour Party. I had represented my Constituency Labour Party at the Labour Party Annual Conference and I went round all the wards giving my report of the event. This particular meeting […]
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The tragedy of Sri Lanka
July 9th, 2022 by Roger Darlington
For months now, Sri Lanka has been in the grip of an economic crisis that has devastated the country and utterly impoverished most of its citizens. The latest news is that the Presidential Palace has been stormed and the Prime Minister’s home has been burned down. It is something of a joke among my family […]
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The blog is back. Roger that.
July 7th, 2022 by Roger Darlington
About six weeks ago, I found that I could no longer post new items on this blog. It proved to be a really difficult issue that my IT mate Gary worked on a lot. But now he’s cracked it – and I’m back. Many, many thanks Gary. This is is the longest that I’ve not […]
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A holiday in the Balkans: Kosovo, Albania & North Macedonia
May 19th, 2022 by Roger Darlington
I’ve just returned from a most enjoyable week’s holiday in the Balkans visiting three small states in the region. You might have been reading my daily blog postings of the trip. However, I’ve now drawn all the blog postings together into a single narrative for my web site which you can read here.
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Day seven in the Balkans
May 17th, 2022 by Roger Darlington
The last day of our trip (day seven) was the least challenging since it was the shortest and all around or in Pristina. Setting off at the (to us) late hour of 10 am, it was only a 20 minute drive to the site of the Battle of Kosovo which has been called “the cradle […]
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Day six in the Balkans
May 16th, 2022 by Roger Darlington
Day six – the penultimate one – and how did it go? We left our hotel in Skopje at 9 am and arrived at our hotel in Pristina at 6.20 pm and, in the intervening nine or so hours, we visited four locations in two countries in excellent weather (26C). Starting the day with […]
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Day five in the Balkans
May 15th, 2022 by Roger Darlington
Day five was wholly in North Macedonia but involved a lot of travel on some really poor roads. We left Ohrid in the south-east of the country and travelled north-west to the middle of the nation. Here we visited the Stobi archaeological site which was a reminder of the long and rich history of this […]
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Day four in the Balkans
May 14th, 2022 by Roger Darlington
Day four and time to move on to the third country of our tour: North Macedonia. It was 8.45 am when we left our hotel in Tirana and headed east. After a refreshment stop, we crossed the border at Qafe Thane and proceeded into North Macedonia. Now most people know Macedonia as the birthplace of […]
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Day two in the Balkans
May 12th, 2022 by Roger Darlington
Starting at 9 am, the second day of our holiday was different from the first. To start with, we had all had a full night’s sleep. Then, except for a brief look at the Kosovan town of Gjakova, we spent the day over in Albania. Immediately the terrain changed as we drove on rough roads […]
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