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- Denis Giles
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In the days of old, even just a hundred years ago, nations made secret agreements with each other. These treaties were thrown on the face of a warring enemy, who suddenly realized they had a more formidable conflict in their hands after they saw the secret treaty.
Some important secret treaties of that era were the secretly concluded treaty of Ottoman–German alliance, concluded at Constantinople on August 2, 1914. That treaty provided that Germany and Turkey would remain neutral in the conflict between Austria-Hungary and Serbia, but if Russia intervened "with active military measures" the two countries would become military allies. Another important secret treaty was the Treaty of London, concluded on April 26, 1915, in which Italy was promised certain territorial concessions in exchange for joining the war on the Triple Entente (Allied) side. Another secret treaty was the Treaty of Bucharest, concluded between Romania and the Triple Entente powers (Britain, France, Italy, and Russia) on August 17, 1916; under this treaty, Romania pledged to attack Austria-Hungary and not to seek a separate peace in exchange for certain territorial gains. Article 16 of that treaty provided that "The present arrangement shall be held secret."
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- Denis Giles
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The stuffed teddy bear, belonging to one of my daughter’s when she’d been little, now sat in all regality on a little rocking chair, also belonging to my other daughter when she was little. The bear looked at me with its beady eyes, “Why are you pacing up and down Bob?”
“The heat is killing me!” I said, even as I wondered at the back of my mind, how teddy, belonging to children of mine, had the audacity to call me ‘Bob’, but never mind, the heat was too much for me to care about such trivialities and I continued my pacing.
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- Denis Giles
- Hits: 341
People coming home ask me why I still keep most of my junk, and I tell them of the same conversation I had with my car. “Where’s the car?” they ask, and I tell them about the talk we had:
“Garages!” said my car that day, “are meant for cars but look inside your garage, the whole of last night I was cramped against that silly cot which went on sliding onto me.”
“That’s my old baby cot,” I said stubbornly.
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- Denis Giles
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Mumbai's air-conditioned trains have finally arrived. Why did they take so long? For a few years now, Mumbai has been talking about air-conditioned local suburban trains! Every day as commuters sweat it out in the stuffy, humid jam packed trains, they have been dreaming of the day when ACs will cool their journey to the city. Four million people must be having the same dream every day. And finally the day arrived when the prototype or sample air-conditioned train made by the Integral Coach Factory in Chennai arrived in the city. The showpiece train was put on the tracks and must have even started on its trial run, when some engineer must have shouted with fright, “The train is too tall, it won’t pass under that bridge!”
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- Denis Giles
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It was blistering hot as I lay on the deckchair, in a beach somewhere in the country, and like all Indians, was happy to have the large umbrella protecting me from the harsh sun blazing overhead. But, not the middle-aged white couple next to me. They seemed to be enjoying the sun, albeit a little grumpily as I soon found out, when I turned to them, smiled and asked how they managed the heat so well.