Archive for September, 2009


From the sublime to the ridiculous

September 8th, 2009 by Roger Darlington

I spent the day attending a meeting of the Communications Consumer Panel and learned that our Ofcom colleagues had no connectivity almost all day thanks to COLT. I got home to find that my fixed line wasn’t working thanks to BT. Once I had fought my way through the company’s automated answering systems, I reported […]

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The Western Sahara problem

September 7th, 2009 by Roger Darlington

More than three years ago, the position of Western Sahara was one of the first places to feature in my long-running series called “Forgotten World” – see here. Eighteen years ago today, the Polisario Front (the Western Saharan liberation movement) laid down their arms, ending a 16-year war with Morocco. As part of a UN-negotiated […]

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The summer is over

September 7th, 2009 by Roger Darlington

If you live in Britain, you’ll be saying: what summer? For the third consecutive year, it’s been pretty wet here in the UK. Today effectively I go back to work with the scheduling of a number of meetings in town. During the summer, I didn’t go away (that comes later in the year) and professionally […]

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What’s in a name?

September 5th, 2009 by Roger Darlington

Lena Corner struggled to choose a name for her second son. After six weeks, she eventually settled on Ralph (my brother’s name) but, after six months, she changed it to Huxley. You can read her explanation here. I’m fascinated by how parents name their children and I’ve written an account of naming practices around the […]

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Anagram version of London tube map

September 4th, 2009 by Roger Darlington

If you’ve ever travelled on the London underground – and I do constantly – you may enjoy this odd anagram version of the station names.

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My seventh short story

September 4th, 2009 by Roger Darlington

The ideas keep flowing and so today I publish my seventh short story entitled “A Moment In Time”. Like the others, it’s different from previous stories, so please check it out and let me know what you think.

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The Japanese general election (2)

September 2nd, 2009 by Roger Darlington

Following Sunday’s stunning election victory by the Democratic Party of Japan, the traditionally dominant Liberal Democratic Party is in opposition for only the second time since the current political system was constructed after the Second World War (and that was only for 11 months). Japanese politics is set to become much more interesting and I’ve […]

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How old is the Internet?

September 2nd, 2009 by Roger Darlington

The answer might surprise you. It all started when about 20 people gathered in the laboratory of Len Kleinrock at the University of California, Los Angeles, to watch as two bulky computers passed meaningless test data through a 15-foot gray cable. That was 2 September 1969 – exactly 40 years ago today. Further information here.

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The first casuality of World War Two

September 1st, 2009 by Roger Darlington

The victim was a 43-year old unmarried Catholic farmer called Franz Honiok and he was murdered by the SS on 31 August 1939 at a radio station in Gliwice in what was then Germany. You can read the details in this fascinating article in the “Daily Telegraph”.

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The start (and end) of World War Two

September 1st, 2009 by Roger Darlington

In two days time, events in Britain will mark the country’s declaration of war on German exactly 70 years ago. For the Poles, however, the war started on 1 September 1939 when the German battleship “Schleswig-Holstein” opened fire at point-blank range on the Polish fort at Westerplatte. Events to mark the occasion have been held […]

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