A review of the new film “Suffragette”
October 31st, 2015 by Roger Darlington
It is hard to believe that women in the UK – as elsewhere – were denied the vote for so long and had to fight so hard for the right. The story is told in the new movie “Suffragette” which I have reviewed here.
View the film and wonder why so many people – men and women – do not use their right to vote
Posted in Cultural issues | Comments (0)
Notes on Nairobi – now a continuous narrative with links and photos
October 30th, 2015 by Roger Darlington
If you are a regular reader of NightHawk, you might have read a series of daily blog postings on my recent visit to Nairobi. I have now pulled all these postings in one continuous narrative, added a series of hyperlinks to relevant web sites, and included a selection of 19 photographs.
Check it out here.
Posted in My life & thoughts | Comments (0)
How to be happy
October 30th, 2015 by Roger Darlington
For the last eight months, each Friday I have been revisiting one of my collection of 31 short stories. This seems to have gone down well with readers of NightHawk.
So I thought that, now I have concluded the look at my short stories, i would start a new Friday series in which I revisit the short essays on the “Life Skills” section of my web site.
The first item in this section is rather boldy entitled “How To Be Happy”. Here you will find 60 short pieces of practical advice. As the last point states:
“If you try out all these suggestions and you’re still not happier, you’re either an android or an alien. In the former case, see an electronics engineer – or watch “Blade Runner”. In the latter case, go home to your own planet and tell your people that we humans will survive.”
You can check out the advice here.
Posted in My life & thoughts | Comments (0)
A visit to London’s newest tourist attraction: the Sky Garden
October 28th, 2015 by Roger Darlington
In recent years, the skyline of central London has been reshaped by a number of tall buildings which have attracted popular names like the Gerkin, the Shard, and the Cheesegrater. Another is the Walkie Talkie at 20 Fenchurch Street which curves outwards at the top and 35 floors up this building is a new attraction called the Sky Garden.
Entrance is free and one can stay as long as one wants, but one has to pre-book a time slot online. So this week I found myself joining members of my Chinese ‘family’ – Hua and her son eight year old Joshua – on a visit to the site. Although it was rather cloudy and overcast, it was lots of fun with good views of the Tower of London, Tower Bridge, City Hall, HMS Belfast, the Shard and St Paul’s Cathedral.
Posted in My life & thoughts | Comments (0)
Some consumer things that we often can’t – but should – be bothered to do
October 27th, 2015 by Roger Darlington
There’s loads of stuff we should be doing – but who has the time and who can be bothered?
Consumer websites and switching services urge us to take the time to do things to save money, but we don’t, because we haven’t got time, we don’t want to learn new passwords, we’re daunted by the process, we’re worried it will go wrong and, let’s be honest, we just can’t be bothered.
Here are some of those things we should do, but too often don’t.
Posted in Consumer matters | Comments (0)
We’ve been waiting for you, Mr Bond – my review of “Spectre”
October 26th, 2015 by Roger Darlington
It’s here; it’s released today; and I managed to see it yesterday.
It’s the latest James Bond film; it’s “Spectre”; and I’ve reviewed it here.
Posted in Cultural issues | Comments (0)
Will Kenya be the next country to be troubled following a visit by the Darlingtons?
October 25th, 2015 by Roger Darlington
Vee and I have a bit of a track record. So many of the countries we have visited in the last decade or so have just suffered civil war or political turmoil or do so shortly after our time there. Don’t believe me? Check out this list.
As regular readers of NightHawk will know, we have just visited Nairobi in Kenya. In the last few years, the country has had ethnic riots and terrorist attacks. But now they might be about to suffer exceptionally heavy rains from the cyclical effects of El Nino. You can see what is feared here.
Posted in My life & thoughts, World current affairs | Comments (1)
Notes on Nairobi (10): “Pan” and farewell
October 23rd, 2015 by Roger Darlington
Our seventh and last day (Thursday) was a low-key affair. Richard was away in Uganda and in the morning Emily had matters to attend, so Vee and I chilled at the hotel, just packing and reading. We were collected by Emily and Catrin about 12.30 pm and made a return visit to the Westgate Shopping Mall.
After a light lunch, we all went to see a 3D version of the new children’s film “Pan” which offers an interpretation of what might have happened before the Peter Pan story with which we are all so familiar. Some critics have panned “Pan” but it was enjoyable enough.
Afterwards Catrin visited a play area in the mall with lots of different activities to amuse kids while their parents shop. I talked to the member of staff who was working at the mall when there was the terrible terrorist attack of 2013. She was trapped in the shopping centre for around five hours before she was rescued by the security forces. It was clearly a terrifying experience.
Vee and I returned with Emily and Catrin to the house for some dinner before our evening flight. Most of Catrin’s cuddly toys are still in the UK awaiting shipment to Kenya, so we took her a Paddington bear as one of her presents and this evening we gave her a cuddly penguin as a going away present. I read her four stories from her new book “The Seven Habits Of Happy Kids” before Vee and I cuddled and kissed her goodbye. It will be months before we see her again.
Kennedy drove us to the airport when we encountered the first rain outside of our sleeping time. We did warn him that, following our visit to a country, there is often an issue and it maybe that the forecasts of heavy rains – occasioned by a seven-year El Nino cycle – will prove accurate.
Our journey took us through one of Nairobi’s many informal settlements (often called shanty towns or slums), a place called Majengo. Kennedy himself – like most urban Kenyans – lives in such an informal settlement and told us of his family’s experience during the post-election ethnic rioting of 2007. The random shooting was so traumatic for his four children that he sent them away with his wife to the west of the country where he is from. They are still there.
The airport was another new experience. Our hand luggage was searched not once (as in Britain) or twice (as in Ethiopia) but three times. The last time was by British Airways staff themselves (maybe they do not wholly trust Kenyan security). The return flight – an overnight affair- was the subject of even more sustained heavy turbulence that the outward flight.
It has been a very enjoyable and fascinating trip. It was so lovely to see the family again after two months and it will certainly be longer before we see them again. For now, it’s back to Skype.
Posted in My life & thoughts | Comments (0)
Notes on Nairobi (9): National Museum and Snake Park
October 22nd, 2015 by Roger Darlington
Day six (Wednesday) of our trip started with a morning in which Vee and I did our own thing. We organised for Kennedy to drive us from the hotel to the National Museum which proved to be full of well organised, well labelled, and most interesting exhibits. On the ground floor, the Birds Of East Africa gallery has around 900 stuffed specimens, the Great Hall Of Mammals has dozens of stuffed mammals, and the Cradle Of Civilisation gallery highlights how the earliest humans came from the Rift Valley in what is now Kenya.
Upstairs is an extensive History Of Kenya exhibition focusing especially on the British colonial period, the struggle for liberation, and the post-independence search for identity in a country of 42 tribes. Also there is an exhibition of illustrations of fauna and native peoples by the famous conservationist Joy Adamson whose rearing of the lion cub Elsa in Kenya was depicted in the 1966 film “Born Free”. Vee, who is half Czech, was fascinated to learn that Adamson was born in a part of the then Austro-Hungarian Empire which is now the Czech Republic (her original name was Friederike Gessner).
In the same grounds as the museum is a small zoo called Snake Park and we visited this too. As the name suggests, the main exhibits are snakes including the puff adder, the black mamba, the African rock python, and the Gaboon viper (with the longest fangs in the world). Other animals on display include varieties of fish plus turtles, lizards and crocodiles.
The complex also includes a cafe, restaurant and craft shop and Vee and I had a light lunch in the cafe before Kennedy picked us up and drove us out to Richard & Emily’s place. While Richard worked, Vee and I played with Emily and Catrin. They had a new children’s board game called “Faireyopolly” which is described as “a magical game for little fairies”. Somehow the smallest fairy of the players managed to wipe the board with the rest of us.
As usual, we ate early and at a different place. This evening, we went to an Ethiopian restaurant called “Abyssinia” where all our dishes were served on one huge circular plate into which we all dipped with “injera” (a spongy kind of flatbread). I missed my dessert though so, back at the hotel, I had banana split before we went to our room.
Vee and I have now said farewell to Richard. In the last two months, he has already worked in Kenya, South Africa, Ethiopia and Zambia and tomorrow he flies to Uganda. We have no idea when we will see him again.
Posted in My life & thoughts | Comments (0)
Notes on Nairobi (8): beads, giraffes and Blixen
October 21st, 2015 by Roger Darlington
“Jambo!” (“Hello!”) as we say here in Nairobi.
Day five (Tuesday) of our trip was Mashujaa Day, also known as Heroes’ Day (“mashujaa” is Swahili for “heroes”). This is a national day in Kenya, which is observed on 20 October as a public holiday to honour all those who contributed towards the struggle for Kenya’s independence or positively contributed in the post independence Kenya. Richard still had to work but again Emily and Catrin collected us from our hotel mid morning. We drove out to the most fashionable district of Nairobi called Karen which is named after the Danish writer Karen Blixen (aka Isak Dinesen).
First stop was the location of the factory and a shop of a wonderful enterprise called “Kazuri” (the name means “small and beautiful” in Swahili). Founded in 1975 with just two workers, today this organisation employs 340, mostly single mothers who would otherwise find local employment hard to find. The main output is jewellery made of brightly-coloured ceramic beads, each of which is hand-made and hand-painted on the site.
Although it was a public holiday and the factory was closed, we were given a conducted tour of the site and an explanation of the manufacture of the beads and the ethos of the enterprise which has a private clinic for the staff and their immediate family. Emily already had a number of items of jewellery from “Kazuri” and Vee and I bought five pieces ourselves.
Next stop was another inspiring location: the Giraffe Centre of the African Fund for Endangered Wildlife. This was founded in 1979 to protect a particular giraffe subspecies called the Rothschild’s giraffe. At that time, there were no more than 120 of these beautiful animals, but today there are more than 300 with around half a dozen on display at any one time at the centre.
The great feature of the centre is that visitors can feed food pellets to the giraffes at either ground level or from a raised wooden structure. If one is so inclined, one can hold a pellet between one’s lips or teeth and wait for a giraffe to lean down and gobble it up while using its long and rough tongue to lick one’s face. Catrin had done this on a previous visit and both Vee and Emily did it this time (I gave it a miss and just took photographs of the encounters). Vee reckoned it was the most romantic kiss she has had in years and is hoping that the giraffe in question will be calling her before we leave the country.
At this point, we stopped for lunch at a place called “Tamambo” on a site that used to be part of Karen Blixen’s coffee plantation. The ambience was delightful: we ate outside on the well-kept lawn at a table with a large umbrella sheltering us from the sun. The food was excellent too with a wide choice of both main courses and desserts.
Our third and final stop of the day was to the Karen Blixen House. Sitting underneath a large tree in the extensive grounds, a guide told us the story of the house (built in 1912) and Karen Blixen (born 1885, time in Kenya 1914-1931, died 1962) before taking us on a tour of the house itself. Internationally Blixen is best known as the author of the biographical work “Out Of Africa” (published in 1937) which was made into a film of the same name in 1985 starring Meryl Streep as Blixen and Robert Redford as her lover Denys Finch. In the museum shop, Vee and I bought ourselves a souvenir of Kenya-: a wooden set of wild animals sitting round a table having tea.
We were back at the hotel at 5.30 pm where we were joined by Richard. We always need to eat dinner early because of Catrin’s bedtime, so we all ate this evening at the hotel.
Posted in My life & thoughts | Comments (3)