Archive for June, 2018


Holiday in Cyprus (7): Troodos Mountains

June 30th, 2018 by Roger Darlington

On Saturday, we were out for over nine hours on a day trip to the Troodos Mountains, a location that is 90 million years old and now a UNESCO global geopark. The mountains themselves are not far from Limassol, but the mountain range is extensive and our minibus had to proceed really slowly because we […]

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Holiday in Cyprus (6): Southern Nicosia

June 29th, 2018 by Roger Darlington

After three days touring the Turkish north of Cyprus, today (Friday) the four of us on the North & South package left behind in Kyrenia the four signed up for the North Only package and started three days in the Greek south of the island. Whereas yesterday we had visited the northern part of the […]

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Holiday in Cyprus (5): Northern Nicosia

June 28th, 2018 by Roger Darlington

On the third day of the northern part of our Cyprus trip (Thursday), we drove to the capital which is just half an hour away. Known as Lefkosia in Greek and Lefkoşa in Turkish, the name given to the city by the English is Nicosia. Since the Turkish invasion of 1974, it has been the […]

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Holiday in Cyprus (4): Famagusta

June 27th, 2018 by Roger Darlington

On the second day of the northern part of our Cyprus trip (Wednesday), we drove from Kyrenia all the way to Famagusta on the eastern coast of the island which took just under an hour and an half. Originally built by the Phoenicians, the city was totally enclosed by ramparts by the Venetians and these […]

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Holiday in Cyprus (3): Kyrenia

June 26th, 2018 by Roger Darlington

On Tuesday, I was woken at 4.30 am by the broadcasting of the Islamic call to prayer, a reminder that I was in north Cyprus and not south Cyprus. At 9 am, we met our guide for the northern part of our tour of the island: Sezain Patterson whose English was brilliant on account of […]

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Holiday in Cyprus (2): arrival

June 26th, 2018 by Roger Darlington

On Monday, the flight from London to Larnaca was just over four hours and the time difference between Britain and Cyprus is two hours, so it took the best part of the day reaching the island. At Larnaca, I met the other members of the group. Since I was travelling alone, I was hoping for […]

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Holiday in Cyprus (1): introduction

June 25th, 2018 by Roger Darlington

Top of my bucket list is – so long as I have reasonable health and wealth – to have visited as many countries as my age.  I’m 70 today and I’m off to Cyprus which will be my 72nd country. It is an organised tour with the company Voyages Jules Verne and involves equal time […]

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A review of “Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid”

June 24th, 2018 by Roger Darlington

I’ve recently viewed again (fourth time) this classic from 1969. This immensely popular film is a chase movie, a buddy movie, an action-comedy movie, all in the guise of a western. It declares at the beginning: “Most of what follows is true”. Sure there was a Butch and a Kid, played respectively by Paul Newman […]

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Whose side is Turkey on?

June 24th, 2018 by Roger Darlington

“The US and Europe need Turkey for a host of strategic, political, practical and geographical reasons. But Turkey under Erdogan is proving a less than constant friend. Not so much an ally, it is increasingly seen as a threat.” On the day when Turkey holds hard-fought presidential and parliamentary elections, Simon Tisdall uses an article […]

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A review of the new movie “Ocean’s Eight”

June 23rd, 2018 by Roger Darlington

One effective way of providing more high-profile roles for more talented actresses is to take an existing successful franchise and gender-swap the characters. It was tried with “Ghostbusters” and now we have a female version of the ensemble heist movie that we saw with “Ocean’s Eleven” (2001) [my review here], “Ocean’s Twelve” (2004) [my review here] […]

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