Archive for the ‘My life & thoughts’ Category
Day one in the Balkans
May 12th, 2022 by Roger Darlington
I am a man who loves his sleep, so it was a tough gig for me to rise at 3.30 am on the departure day of my holiday. This was necessary because of the need to check in by 4.25 am for my flight from Luton Airport. I spent the night at the nearby Ibis […]
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BACK TO THE BALKANS: KOSOVO, ALBANIA & NORTH MACEDONIA
May 10th, 2022 by Roger Darlington
What was originally called on its formation in 1918 the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, then in 1929 was renamed the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, and in 1946 became the Federal People’s Republic of Yugoslavia broke up in the course of three wars in the early 1990s into no less than seven small states. […]
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Have you missed me?
May 4th, 2022 by Roger Darlington
I’ve been blogging almost every day now for 19 years, but I’ve been silent on NightHawk for three weeks – not through choice but because of technical problems. These are now sorted, thanks to my friend Gary. I’m especially pleased because shortly I’ll be going on a holiday to the Balkans and I’d like to […]
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Have you ever heard of Mardin in Turkey?
January 24th, 2022 by Roger Darlington
I hadn’t until last night when I had dinner in a Turkish restaurant called “Sumak” (the name of a spice) in the Crouch End district of north London. The walls of the restaurant are adorned with four large pictures of different cities: Paris, Rome, London, and one I did not recognise. I was told that […]
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That time when I almost went to work at 10 Downing Street …
January 17th, 2022 by Roger Darlington
All this talk of activity in 10 Downing Street reminds me that, following the appointment of Jim Callaghan as Labour Prime Minister in 1976, I was offered a position in his Political Office at No 10. Since it was a political post, it could not be paid by public funds and sufficient funding from trade […]
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Here’s some good advice: beware of my holiday destinations
January 6th, 2022 by Roger Darlington
The joke among our family and friends is that, when I choose to visit a particular part of the world for a holiday, something dramatic often happens there. The latest incidence of this recurrent pattern follows my recent posting that this year I’m hoping to visit five of the -stans of Central Asia: Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, […]
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The sad burning of the South African Parliament Building
January 3rd, 2022 by Roger Darlington
I was sad to hear of the news of the fire at the South African Parliament Building in Cape Town. Somehow it seems symbolic of the flawed attempt to create a new democracy in South Africa. But more immediately it poses questions such as: how did the arsonist gain entry to the building? why did […]
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It’s a special anniversary for my diary writing
December 31st, 2021 by Roger Darlington
On New Year’s Eve 1961, I started to write a diary. Since then, I’ve managed an entry for every single day. So today I celebrate exactly 60 years of recording my daily activities. The total number of daily entries now stands at 21,913. The historian David Kynaston has made a total of six visits to study my diaries […]
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My Christmas gift to you
December 26th, 2021 by Roger Darlington
It’s my latest short story entitled “After Life” which you can read here. To access all my short stories click here If you would like to have my short stories in book form, you can purchase “The Rooms In My Mind” for a very modest price on Amazon click here
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Life at the moment feels like a waiting game
December 20th, 2021 by Roger Darlington
I’m waiting to see if … … England enters into some kind of fourth lockdown to combat the impact of the Omicron variant of the corona virus … the western nations will honour their undertakings to provide anti-covid vaccines to the developing nations so that we reduce the incidence of deaths, illness and new variants […]
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