Archive for the ‘My life & thoughts’ Category
“Your martini, Mr Bond. Shaken not stirred.”
August 21st, 2012 by Roger Darlington
In my teenage years in the 1960s, James Bond was as much a part of my cultural landscape as The Beatles. I read all 14 Bond books by Ian Fleming. As each film came out, I saw it at the cinema, starting with “Dr No” in 1962 and my favourite “From Russia With Love” a […]
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What is the worst opening sentence to a novel?
August 15th, 2012 by Roger Darlington
There is an annual competition to determine the answer and you can see this year’s winner here. I’ve never written a novel, but I have crafted 28 short stories and I hope that none of them has such a terrible opening sentence. You can be the judge here.
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40 photos of our visit to America
August 4th, 2012 by Roger Darlington
It’s two months since Vee and I spent a couple of weeks on holiday in the United States in the Washington DC and New York City vicinities. I managed to put an account of the trip on my web site as soon as we returned, since I had been writing it up as we went […]
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How to spot the big five in Kruger
July 31st, 2012 by Roger Darlington
The ‘big five’ are buffalo, elephant, leopard, lion and rhino. You can see them all in South Africa’s Kruger National Park. There are two ways to do this. One is to be incredibly lucky – as I was on a visit to the park in 2004. You can read my account here. The other way is […]
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The Olympic torch passes our road …
July 25th, 2012 by Roger Darlington
… but I am not there to see it. At about 10.30 am this morning, on Day 68 of the Olympic Torch Relay around the UK, the flame passed down Harrow Road in Sudbury Hill in north-west London, just two minutes walk from our home. My wife Vee and brother-in-law Derek were there to see […]
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The tradition of bun throwing in Abingdon
July 21st, 2012 by Roger Darlington
Vee and I spent today in Abingdon visiting our Chinese ‘family’: Zhihao, Hua and five year old Joshua. Abingdon claims to be the oldest continuously populated town in Britain with people living there for some 6,000 years. Certainly it is very proud of its history and traditions. Two weeks ago, the Abingdon County Hall Museum […]
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The 150th anniversary of the Xaverian College
July 8th, 2012 by Roger Darlington
There are so many American movies where former high school students return for a 5th or 10th anniversary event – but we don’t have this sort of tradition in Britain. Imagine my surprise then when I was invited to return to the secondary school which I left in 1966 – an amazing 46 years ago. […]
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More fun time with baby Catrin
July 6th, 2012 by Roger Darlington
It’s been three weeks since I blogged about my wonderful granddaughter Catrin and, in the interval, I’ve seen her twice, each time collecting her from nursery and then babysitting. She continues to grow in confidence with her walking and she is more and more expressive. She is so playful with such an impish sense of […]
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A record three months of rain since my water appointment
July 2nd, 2012 by Roger Darlington
I have now been Chair of the Customer Challenge Group at South East Water for three months. As explained here, the three months April, May & June are now confirmed as the wettest on record in the UK. Some people say that there is no such thing as coincidence …
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Thank goodness, we’re no longer in the United States (1)
July 2nd, 2012 by Roger Darlington
Our major holiday in 2011 was a week in Syria [my account here] and a couple of weeks later the revolution began there and continues its bloody course to this day. Our major holiday this year was two weeks in the United States [my account here] – including one week in the Washington DC area […]
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