Archive for November, 2006
What IS Santa doing on that chimney?
November 7th, 2006 by Roger Darlington
The “Mirror” newspaper today looks at the new Christmas stamps and wonders what is happening on the first class stamp. Is Santa spending a penny on a 32p stamp? Take a look and you decide. More controversially, there is a row going on about the secular nature of this year’s Christmas stamps (fine by me). […]
Posted in Miscellaneous | Comments (1)
Forgotten world (42): Nicaragua
November 7th, 2006 by Roger Darlington
Nicaragua was ruled by the Somoza family with US backing between 1937 and the Sandinista revolution in 1979. By 1990, the Sandinistas were defeated in elections held as part of a peace agreement with the US-sponsored counter-revolutionaries known as the Contras. Today Nicaragua is the second poorest country in Latin America. The average annual income […]
Posted in World current affairs | Comments (1)
A chip off the old block
November 6th, 2006 by Roger Darlington
Who is this Richard Darlington who is quoted today in the “Times”?. You guessed it – it’s my son speaking his capacity as Media Manager of the Institute for Public Policy Research. The boy done good.
Posted in British current affairs | Comments (0)
Forgotten world (41): The Maldives
November 6th, 2006 by Roger Darlington
On eight 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 40 entries here. This week, I am going to run an ninth series of postings on this theme. The Maldives – located in the […]
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Now I am an Enlightenist
November 5th, 2006 by Roger Darlington
“Enlightenists believe in the awe-inspiring, wonder, beauty and complexity of the universe, and aspire to unpick its mysteries by reason, constant questioning, observation, experiment, and analysis of evidence. The bedrock of our morality is empathy, from which logically springs love, forgiveness, tolerance and a profound desire to make a just, egalitarian society and reduce suffering. […]
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The Czech Night Hawk
November 5th, 2006 by Roger Darlington
My wife’s father was a Czech pilot who was the Royal Air Force’s greatest night intruder ace in the Second World War. I told the story of Karel Kuttelwascher in a book published in 1985 called “Night Hawk” and his exploits are summarized in this piece on my web site. Recently his story featured in […]
Posted in History | Comments (10)
How old are you?
November 5th, 2006 by Roger Darlington
Well, in China, you could be a year or two older. How so? In China, according to tradition, when a child is born, it is said to be one. When the Chinese New Year arrives, whatever the interval since your biological birthday, you add a year to your age. This shows, that, even something as […]
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Are rationalists the oppressed minority?
November 4th, 2006 by Roger Darlington
“Nowadays everyone’s either a conspiracy theorist or a believer in mysticism or the paranormal or a religious zealot. What’s happened to the enlightenment? Where is our voice? Nowadays, we rationalists are the oppressed minority.” I know how Jon Ronson, author of this piece, feels which is why I wrote my web essay on “The Reason […]
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Keeping up with the Joneses
November 4th, 2006 by Roger Darlington
The family name Jones means ‘son of John’ and it is especially common in Wales (13.5% of the population) because of the Welsh habit of naming themselves after their father. Indeed this week a new world record was established for a gathering of the most people with the same surname when 1,224 people called Jones […]
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Winter’s coming …
November 3rd, 2006 by Roger Darlington
… at least in the northern hemisphere (I know that I have readers around the world). It’s beeen really chilly here in London over the last few days; my friend Vojta in Prague tells me that they’ve had the first fall of snow; and my friend Jill in Calgary writes that the temperature is already […]
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