Archive for May, 2009


Brown’s ticking time bombs

May 31st, 2009 by Roger Darlington

As a lifelong Labour Party member, it pains me to acknowledge this, but I’ve never known Labour to be in such dire straits. Sadly the worst is yet to come because of a succession of ticking time bombs. On Thursday, parts of the UK will have local elections and the whole of the UK will […]

Posted in British current affairs | Comments (3)


Henry VIII: man and monarch

May 30th, 2009 by Roger Darlington

Henry VIII – who reigned from 1509 to 1547 – is probably the best-known British monarch because of the size of his body and the number of his wives. But there was much more to the man who provoked the English reformation, the dissolution of the monasteries, the creation of a powerful navy and the […]

Posted in History | Comments (0)


Moral complexity in WW2 (1): ‘Operation Catapult’

May 29th, 2009 by Roger Darlington

At the beginning of the Second World War, British Prime Minister Winston felt compelled to order the Royal Navy to attack the pride of the French naval fleet in ‘Operation Catapult’, an assault which caused some 1,300 deaths and around 350 injuries – all of them citizens of France, our leading ally in the struggle […]

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Moral complexity in WW2 (2): Israel Kasztner

May 29th, 2009 by Roger Darlington

Many of you will have read the book “Schindler’s Ark” or seen the film “Schindler’s List” and know how the Czech businessman Oscar Schindler managed to affect the escape of almost 1,200 Jews from Poland so that they missed certain death in the Nazi concentration camps of World War Two. But what about the Hungarian […]

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Back online (again)

May 28th, 2009 by Roger Darlington

Regular visitors to NightHawk will know about my time off-line when I lost my Internet connection and it took about 20 calls to Pipex and 10 days for my connection to be restored. For the next two weeks, things worked like a dream. Then, about mid-day on Tuesday, I lost my connection AGAIN. Either Pipex […]

Posted in My life & thoughts | Comments (3)


Does the British political system need reform?

May 26th, 2009 by Roger Darlington

Of course, it does – and, spurred by understandable outrage over MPs’ expenses, all sorts of proposals are being mooted. Today the leader of the Conservative Party David Cameron contributes a major article in the “Guardian” newspaper of all places. So I’ve taken the opportunity to up-date my essay “A Short Guide To The British […]

Posted in British current affairs | Comments (1)


How many times have I blogged?

May 25th, 2009 by Roger Darlington

I don’t know the exact answer. But I’ve been running my personal blog NightHawk for six years and my professional blog CommsWatch for five and half years. I have precise figures for the past three years when I moved to my current hosting location and I can make a fairly good estimate for the entire […]

Posted in Internet | Comments (0)


Humour around the world

May 25th, 2009 by Roger Darlington

Here in the UK, today is a Bank Holiday, so I thought that I’d do a lighthearted posting (if you don’t live in Britain, don’t worry – this is a posting with an international dimension). I’m currently reading a book called “Quirkology” by Professor Richard Wiseman. One of the chapters is about why people find […]

Posted in Miscellaneous | Comments (0)


An audio guide to London

May 24th, 2009 by Roger Darlington

London is one of my favourite cities and the one where I have lived for the last 38 years as I’ve written on my web site here. I always like to learn more about the numerous sites of the city and my attention has recently been drawn to this audio guide to London.

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A brief guide to magic medicine

May 23rd, 2009 by Roger Darlington

My views are captured completely in this guide So why do people believe in these so-called alternative therapies? – see my explanation here. Clearly none of these therapies has passed the sort of double blind test that I am currently trialling with the polypill – see here.

Posted in Science & technology | Comments (0)