26.3.09

on paranoia

A Russian blogger, Dmitry Solovyov, was arrested yesterday, essentially for having criticised the police and security forces on LiveJournal. How did this become a crime?
The charges against him claim that the posts were made "with the aim of inciting hatred and hostility against a social group among an indefinite number of people" and that they undermine "the foundations of the constitutional system and the state's security," The matter has been turned into a criminal case as "Solovyov is suspected of actions aimed at inciting hatred or hostility and humiliating a group of people depending on their affiliation with certain social groups, such as Interior Ministry and FSB officers" claim more authorities. And now it seems they are trying to use technology to identify all the people who posted comments on the blog, I suppose to arrest them as well? If the authorities think this will make the problem go away, they are predictably wrong. I had never heard of this guy or his blog until he was arrested, but I shall be googling it now!

24.3.09

death in the UK

So the british press has spent the past week covering in depth the deaths of two country’s celebrities.

Natasha Richardson died in a freak ski accident on Wednesday. She was sort of my family’s favourite actress, or rather, various members of her family were. (my dad often preferred Vanessa, my mother always like Corin). My mother like Richardson best in the Parent Trap, my father I think would vote for her role in the White Countess, and I liked her best live, in Caberet. My mother once commented that both Richardson and her mother, Vanessa Redgrave, were in their very different ways so stereotypically English. That her death caused such an outpouring of sadness in so many circles in this country suggests my mother had a point.

Yet stereotypically English can apparently mean many things. Richardson had class and style, and she always seemed to carry herself with dignity and discretion in public. She spoke English with a posh accent and her French was fluent. Yet the over the top outpouring of grief over the death of Jade Goody suggests that is not necessarily the image all people in this country connect with.

There are few people on this planet seemingly less destined for stardom than Goody was, and how she turned herself into a multi-millionaire still rather perplexes me. But then, it seems she represented an image many people….respected? Stephan Fry called her a ‘Princess Di from the wrong side of the tracks’ one of the mourners outside her house called her ‘our Essex Princess.’ She notoriously shot to fame by wondering on camera what asparagus might be, and if ‘East Angular’ was abroad. Contrary to all traditional stereotypes of Britishness, she was loud, abrasive and crude, and the public loved it. Perhaps we should not be surprised. The stereotypes of British coolness is both antiquated and classist. Britain has far more Jade Goodys in it than Natasha Richardsons

17.3.09

the future

“Saca la cuenta, un tercio de las horas de tu vida se gastarán durmiendo, un tercio trasladándote de un lado para otro y cumpliendo rutinas, y el tercio más interesante se te irá trabajando, por eso es major hacerlo en algo que te guste.”



Excellent advice….but how to implement it?



Advice anyone?

11.3.09

networking

This week I had to attend a “networking” event for Russians in London (read “pianka”).
For reasons beyond my comprehension, this event was held on a boat. Every time another boat went by, ours would shake and bobble about, which as the evening wore on and people became progressively more intoxicated, proved to be a lethal combination.
The crowd was predictably scary. There were lots of business men in expensive suits, and lots of women who looked like they were….um…in a different sort of business.
It took me one quick survey of the scene to realise I was
the only non- Russian woman there
the shortest woman there
the darkest woman there
the worst dressed woman there
the ugliest woman there
the only, um, non for profit woman there.

My colleagues and I took over a leather sofa in the corner and studied these creatures (the men were not really worth studying)

and we drank

and obviously at some moment i had to go to the toilet. i got in ok, but after i flushed and attempted to leave the stall...something happened to the door and it JUST WOULD NOT OPEN!!
i shook it, i pulled at it....but nothing. finally a female voice shouted "pomoch?" whereupon i explained my predicament. to cut a long and pathetic story short, i was liberated from my toilet cell by three coke-snorting prostitutes. when the door swung open and i looked up at my 6 foot tall blonde liberators, i felt like a troll being released from an underground pit.

i might need to change jobs.

on reading 2

I have been devouring the world of ebooks.
It is amazing the volume of material out there: I have been rereading hemingway again, after over a decade. And Ernesto sabato. And enjoying Tzvetan Todorov for entirely personal and non-academic reasons! This is all pure escapism. Monday and Tuesday I found myself in a conference on the financial crisis. The banking sector is falling apart, and no one has any idea when the bottom will become visible. One of the major presenters at the conference (head of a large division at RBS) introduced himself saying “at RBS we do now sell postage stamps in addition to our other services.” I have heard the same comments over and over again the past few months. My brain is exhausted from the gloom and doom, mainly because I simply have no clue what to do about it all, other than to desperately try to remain employed, at least somewhere. I am at a loss for other solutions. So I sit back and enjoy fiction. And some of Bob Woodward’s books on the last Bush administration, which read like fiction, even if they are unfortunately more reality than not. My mind drifts over to japananese manga. Then on to Hungarian fiction. I giggle through a travelogue on Buenos aires. It is not that I am trying to ignore reality, I just don’t know what else to do with it, and I figure I might as well enjoy my time as best I can, until I come up with a more productive use of it.