Archive for March, 2013
Our round the world trip (6): Melbourne and penguins
March 11th, 2013 by Roger Darlington
Day 7 (Monday) was a public holiday in Melbourne because the state of Victoria celebrates Labour Day on the second Monday in March (each state and territory decides when to hold the holiday) and there is local festival called Moomba (the name comes from an local Aboriginal language and means something like ‘having fun’). The […]
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Our round the world trip (5): wizard! – we’re in Oz
March 10th, 2013 by Roger Darlington
Day 6 (Sunday) of our trip was effectively a travelling day. Our flight on Qantas Airways Airbus A330-200 was another ‘overnight’ journey east into the sun. The journey from Bangkok to Sydney was nine and a quarter hours, so we landed at 7 am Bangkok time but – since this part of Australia is four […]
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Our round the world trip (4): last day in Bangkok
March 9th, 2013 by Roger Darlington
After a late lunch and some chilling back at the hotel, for our last evening in Bangkok we decided to do something a little different and, following a recommendation from the hotel, had dinner at a restaurant called the “Naj Exquisite Thai Cuisine”. It was a pleasant ambience since it is located in a century-old […]
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Our round the world trip (3): what? more wats!
March 8th, 2013 by Roger Darlington
Another day in Bangkok: Day 4 (Friday) of our trip. Another wat – or two: why not? Things did not get off to a good start though. Our hotel called a taxi for us and explained our destination to the driver. However, no sooner were we on the move than he announced in very broken […]
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Our round the world trip (2): Bangkok’s Grand Palace
March 7th, 2013 by Roger Darlington
This is our first visit to Thailand, although we have been to adjacent and nearby countries Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia and Malaysia. The country has the longest-reigning monarch in the world: King Bhumibol Adulyadej (Rama IX) – who is now aged 85 – has been on the throne for 66 years. He rules over a nation […]
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Our round the world trip (1): getting to first base
March 6th, 2013 by Roger Darlington
We have been together for over three decades now and done lots of wonderful travelling as a couple, the last decade and a half mainly outside of our home continent of Europe. We have long harboured a wish to visit Australia and New Zealand, the one continent we have never experienced, but knew that it […]
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Best ever week for my web site
March 4th, 2013 by Roger Darlington
I state on the homepage of my web site that each day I receive over 8,000 visits to the site. In fact, last week, visits on the five weekdays averaged 9,000 a day. Around half of all the visits are to NightHawk. So many thanks for your interest and support. The coming month will probably […]
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A review of the new film “Arbitrage”
March 3rd, 2013 by Roger Darlington
Richard Gere gives one of the best performances of his career in the movie “Arbitrage” which I’ve reviewed here.
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So the US has now gone over the fiscal cliff – but the world does not seem to have noticed
March 2nd, 2013 by Roger Darlington
The cuts – known as the sequester and drawn up two years ago – will take $85 billion (£56 billion) from the United States federal budget this year. This will hit the American economy and in turn the world economy, so the failure of Congress to agree a more sensible tax and cuts package will […]
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10 + 1 things we’ve learned from the Eastleigh by-election
March 2nd, 2013 by Roger Darlington
According to a feature in today’s “Guardian” newspaper, there are 10 key things we can learn from the result of this week’s Parliamentary by-election in Eastleigh: The Liberal Democrats are more resilient than perhaps they realised. British voters are not certain to reject austerity in 2015. Voters do not punish parties for the misconduct of […]
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