Archive for the ‘My life & thoughts’ Category
Ruminations on Romania (1): recent history
October 8th, 2013 by Roger Darlington
In 1861, the United Romanian Principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia was created. At the National History Museum, we saw a special exhibition to mark the centenary of the peace of Bucharest in 1913. Apparently this treaty ended the Second Balkan War. The First Balkan War of 1912-13 involved the Balkan League of Greece, Serbia, Montenegro […]
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Ruminations on Romania (2): people and politics
October 8th, 2013 by Roger Darlington
The population of Romania is around 20 million. There are two significant ethnic minorities: Hungarians and Roma. Less than 8,000 Jews remain in the country. The population of the capital Bucharest is almost 2 million. There are now only 2,500 Jews and a mere two functioning synagogues in the capital. Romanian is a Romance language […]
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Ruminations on Romania (3): our time in Bucharest
October 8th, 2013 by Roger Darlington
Our guide book – the Thomas Cook pocket guide – admitted: “even its fiercest advocate would readily admit that when taken at face value Bucharest is not Europe’s most appealing capital”. Between the world wars, Bucharest was known as “the Paris of the East” but most of the features that earned the city this appellation […]
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A weekend in Bucharest
October 3rd, 2013 by Roger Darlington
I’m about to go on my annual break with my sister. We like to go somewhere that neither of us has visited before, so this year – our seventh such break – we are off to Bucharest for a weekend. This means that I won’t be blogging for a few days. So please look around […]
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A commemorative medal for Vee’s father Karel Kuttelwascher
September 27th, 2013 by Roger Darlington
In 1985, my biography of Vee’s father was published. It was called “Night Hawk” and told the story of Karel Kuttelwascher, a Czech pilot with the wartime Royal Air Force who was the RAF’s most successful night intruder ace. At the time, we assumed that would be the end of the story – but again […]
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Can you imagine a television programme on life in a cul-de-sac? (1)
September 26th, 2013 by Roger Darlington
The power of the Internet, eh? Seven years ago, I did a short piece on this blog about living in a cul-de-sac. This week, I have received an e-mail from a television production company that is interested in putting together a TV documentary about life in a cul-de-sac: “I have just stumbled across your website […]
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Another fun time with my granddaughter Catrin
September 25th, 2013 by Roger Darlington
As regular readers of NightHawk will know, I have a wonderful granddaughter called Catrin who is now 2 years and 8 months old. I try to see her once a week and, on two occasions, I’ve looked after her overnight – both times for one night only and at our house. However, I’ve just had […]
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Five years after the collapse of Lehman Brothers, a short story partially inspired by that traumatic event
September 14th, 2013 by Roger Darlington
Five years ago this weekend, the American giant Lehman Brothers was allowed to go under, triggering a set of huge financial ripples which, all around the world, we are still feeling. Four years ago, I started writing short stories and a lead character in my very first was a victim of the Lehman collapse. The […]
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A railway station with more lines than usual
September 12th, 2013 by Roger Darlington
Today I used Victoria railway station in central London for one of my regular trips out to Snodland in Kent where I was chairing the Customer Challenge Group for South East Water. It is such a busy station that they’ve put coloured lines on the floor to indicate the direction to follow to find various […]
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Up to 10,000 visits to my web site
September 11th, 2013 by Roger Darlington
My web site – which includes this personal blog NightHawk and my professional blog CommsWatch – continues to receives a large number of visits, but the number varies by the day of the week and the month of the year. This week, I’ve had a couple of days with just over 10,000 visits – something […]
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