Archive for March, 2011


Baby Catrin: progress report (7)

March 31st, 2011 by Roger Darlington

Today I babysat my granddaughter Catrin for the second time in her 10-week life. I was with her for five hours and, while her parents were working, alone with her for three hours .  I took her out in her pram and walked along London’s South Bank, stopping for me to have a coffee at […]

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The meaning of the Arab Awakening

March 31st, 2011 by Roger Darlington

This week, I attended the last session in my 12-week course on “International Relations And World Conflict” led by lecturer Dr Dale Mineshima-Lowe and held at the City Lit in central London.  The course has coincided with an explosion of dissent in north Africa and the Middle East which has been called the Arab Awakening, […]

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A history of Lebanon

March 30th, 2011 by Roger Darlington

As regular readers of NightHawk will know, I have recently returned from a trip to Syria and Lebanon – you can read my account and view photographs here. During the holiday, I was reading a book on the modern history of Lebanon entitled “Beware Of Small States”. I’ve only now managed to write a review […]

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The Greek scholar Hypatia

March 30th, 2011 by Roger Darlington

This week, I saw a film called “Agora” which tells the story of the fourth century female philosopher and mathematician Hypatia. The film is a disappointment [my review here] but the life it portrays is fascinating [a short biography here].

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If Saddam Hussein was still in power

March 29th, 2011 by Roger Darlington

… this year’s Arab uprisings could never have happened, states Christopher Hitchens in this interesting article.

Posted in World current affairs | Comments (0)


Read this – and be grateful for your life

March 29th, 2011 by Roger Darlington

An interview with a victim of locked-in syndrome.

Posted in Miscellaneous | Comments (0)


The Canadian general election

March 29th, 2011 by Roger Darlington

The minority Conservative Government in Canada has just fallen and a general election will now be held on 2 May, as explained here. If you want to know the background to the election process, check out my “Short Guide To The Canadian Political System”.

Posted in World current affairs | Comments (1)


The relationship between income inequality and violent crime

March 28th, 2011 by Roger Darlington

I have blogged a number of times about the really important book “The Spirit Level” which I reviewed here. The core message of the work can be simply stated: on a whole range of significant social indicators, countries with less inequality do markedly better than those with greater inequality. The arguments in the book are […]

Posted in Social policy, World current affairs | Comments (0)


Walking from Tarifa to Budapest

March 28th, 2011 by Roger Darlington

John Hayes, husband of my Consumer Focus colleague Christine Farnish, has recently started a 5,000 kms walk along the E4 from Tarifa in Spain to Budapest in Hungary. I’m enormously impressed by such a feat and delighted that he’s blogging about each stage of the enterprise. You can check out his blog here.

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What does the USA have in common with China, Iran & North Korea?

March 28th, 2011 by Roger Darlington

It still carries out capital punishment. According to the latest statistics from Amnesty International, China accounts for more such deaths than the rest of the world put together, although the precise figure (probably several thousand) is unknown because China – which uses the death penalty for no less than 68 offences – refuses to release […]

Posted in American current affairs, World current affairs | Comments (0)