Archive for November, 2006


Rich & Em’s engagement party

November 30th, 2006 by Roger Darlington

Last night saw a very special family event, the engagement party of our son Richard and his partner Emily. The venue was a basement room of the Cinnamon Club near Westminster Abbey in central London. Emily & Rich – a winning team Since Rich works at the Institute for Public Policy Research and Em works […]

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Forgotten world (49): Equatorial Guinea

November 30th, 2006 by Roger Darlington

The tiny state of Equatorial Guinea has five inhabited islands and a mainland portion of jungle. It is one of the smallest countries in Africa with only 520,000 citizens. In 1979, nine years after independence from Spain, President Teodoro Obiang Nguema seized power, and has been absolute ruler ever since. In the past decade, the […]

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Forgotten world (48): Ethiopia

November 29th, 2006 by Roger Darlington

Ethiopia is Africa’s oldest independent country. Apart from a five-year occupation by Mussolini’s Italy, it has never been colonised. Although largely free from the coups that have plagued other African countries, Ethiopia’s turmoil has been no less devastating. Drought, famine, war and ill-conceived policies brought millions to the brink of starvation in the 1970s and […]

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Forgotten world (47): Dominican Republic

November 28th, 2006 by Roger Darlington

The Dominican Republic – once a Spanish colony – occupies the eastern two-thirds of the island of Hispaniola. It has a population of 9M. While the country remains one of the poorest countries in the Caribbean, there is a huge gap between the rich and the poor, with the richest being the white descendants of […]

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Forgotten world (46): Haiti

November 27th, 2006 by Roger Darlington

On nine occasions now, I’ve had a week-long feature on NightHawk devoted to parts of the world that tend to be under-reported or even forgotten. You can check out the previous 45 entries here. This week, I am going to run a tenth series of postings on this theme. Haiti – once a French colony […]

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Further impressions of Paris

November 26th, 2006 by Roger Darlington

I’ve just returned from my second weekend in Paris in five weeks. This one was with my sister Silvia. The weather was not so good – rain and wind – but we still saw a lot and had fun. Again I visited the Eiffel Tower but again we could only go to the second stage […]

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Paris in the late Autumn

November 23rd, 2006 by Roger Darlington

A month ago, I had a long weekend in Paris with my wife Vee and our young Chinese friends Hua & Zhihao. I blogged about the visit here. I’m now off for another long weekend in Paris, this time with my sister Silvia. Although it is only a matter of weeks since my last visit, […]

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What is a free smile?

November 22nd, 2006 by Roger Darlington

While in the centre of London recently, I saw a van with an unusual decor and took this photo with my mobile. Can any reader explain what this is about?

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The Hungarian revolution revisited

November 21st, 2006 by Roger Darlington

At the time of the 50th anniversary of the Hungarian revolution of 1956, I did a posting about the event. Today I finished reading an excellent new book published to coincide with the anniversary and you can read my review. In the decade and a half since the collapse of Communism in Central & Eastern […]

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Bond back big-time

November 20th, 2006 by Roger Darlington

The “Times” reports that, on its opening weekend, the latest James Bond film “Casino Royale” [my review here] took a record £13M. It is the most successful opening weekend of any Bond film with takings 40% ahead of “Die Another Day” [my review here] . I read every Bond book as a teenager and I’ve […]

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