I was entertained by the first instalment of Lost Cosmonaut, which is being serialised on Radio 4. I sympathise with his description of buying a railway ticket at a Russian railway station. I’ve probably only done it once, when we went from Petersburg to Novgorod – or at least I watched Olya doing it – [...]
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Thank you Olya, for my new Soviet calendar. What better day than my birthday, to read all about the balalaika, на руÑÑком Ñзыке – and celebrate the birthday in 1723 of proto-Marxist Baron Holbach
Балалайка у руÑÑкого … как мандолина у итальÑнца, гитара у иÑпанца, банджо у американÑкого негра..
Old-world style almanacs and miscellanies [...]
Getting the right computer graphics is always problematic, particularly if you don’t want to pay for them, don’t know what you want, don’t really have any great flair in graphic design.
The Dover Clipart Collection is very interesting, though, as was the time we spent browsing through the Dover Bookshop in Covent Garden this afternoon. Interesting [...]
Not that it needed saying. Or perhaps it did: as I write, Google reports no pages containing that phrase. You can “future-proof your network” a lot, and you can also “age-proof your mind”. Perhaps they are essentially one and the same thing.
According to BBC reports, last year the president of Turkmenistan sacked thousands of healthcare workers and replaced them with military conscripts! Elsewhere, we learn that driving test candidates have to pass an exam in President Niyazov’s spiritual writings, which are contained in a book named the Ruhnama.
Isn’t it the mark of a truly deranged dictatorship, [...]
Found a great source of historical information about north-western Russia
www.around.spb.ru and its relationship
with neighbouring countries.
I learn, amongst other things, that
in the forests of the Karelia one can still find stones marking the border of 1323 between Novgorod and Sweden.
Also found this nice, hi-res tourist map of the Leningrad region.
Just happened on the very fine Raiding The 20th Century mix, mash, podcast, whatever, courtesy of DJ Food. Rather fine.
Hurrah, and thrice agayne Hurrah! It looks like Noggin the Nog is
finally about to make his appearance on DVD. According to the Dragons’ Friendly Society, The Sagas Of Noggin The Nog DVD is due for release on 30th June. Looks like it might cost a bit more than the £5 I paid for my Clangers [...]
Now that the Grand National’s safe from the knock-on effects of the Pope’s death and Charles’s ill-fated wedding, here’s what the folks back home think about the big race:
11/4
F.
ARINZE, D.
TETTAMANZI
9/2
O.
MARADIAGA
7/1
C.
HUMMES, J.
RATZINGER
14/1
L.
ORTEGA, E.
ANTONELLI, C
VONSHOENBOM
16/1
G.
BATTISTARE
18/1
D.
CASTRILLON HOYOS, G.
BIFFI, C.
SEPE
20/1
K.
O’BRIEN, A. SCOLA
Other odds on request
NOTE – FANCIED LONGSHOT:
33/1
JOSE DA CRUZ POLICARPO (Patriarch of Lisbon)
(I
might have a [...]
merkin
n. A pubic wig.
adj. & n. American
They sorely misunderestimate the Merkin people if they
think we will let them obtain nucular weapons.
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