Most of you will know about International Women’s Day. It is the day in the UK when feminists, The Guardian and The Independent celebrate feminism and in Russia femininity, but how many of you know about Men’s Day?
Russia Pays Tribute to its Men
Men’s’ Day in Russia is actually called Army Day. It began life as the Defenders of the Fatherland Day and, as the title suggests, was reserved for those who served in the military but has now been extended to incorporate all members of the male sex.
And today, 23rd February 2021 is that day: a day on which all Russian men will be looking forward with unalloyed joy to receiving the traditional Army Day gifts: socks, shaving cream and aftershave.
Apparently, the gift policy has become so predictable that it is rumoured that Russian men have renamed the day ‘The All-Russian Day of Shaving Cream’ and some have even formed a pre-emptive coalition, stocking up in advance on socks, shaving cream and aftershave in the hope that their wives or girlfriends will get the message and present them with something quite unexpected.
Perhaps I can help them.
Russia Pays Tribute to its Men
Not many people know that I was once in the Russian military, although, as the photograph shows, it was some time ago.
Nevertheless, working on the premise that ‘when in Rome …’, and having made sure that I had enough shaving cream and aftershave to sink a US aircraft carrier, I took the precaution of purchasing not just one pair, but two pairs of thick woolen handmade socks from my local babushka. Now, I thought, let’s see wifey how inventive you can be.
Result?
It’s enough to make the nation jealous: How many Russian men can say that they are a proud owner of a masculine blue towel monogrammed with a Russian tank and flag?
The temptation to sit down tonight wearing nothing else but my blue towel whilst drinking home-made vodka with a polar meeshka may be too seductive for me to resist and far too much for my wife to bear (pun intended).
I think I can safely say that next year, it will be back to the socks and shaving cream.
I was sitting in the office of our antique shop. It was a bright, sunny afternoon one Saturday in June. A couple whom we knew as being members of the 1940s’ crowd had just parked their 1935 vehicle on the small forecourt out front. I greeted them as they entered the shop, and they said to me, in a disappointed tone, “We have just heard that the shop is closing; that you are selling up and moving.”
I replied in the affirmative.
After saying how much they would miss the shop and us (which was nice of them), they enquired where I was moving to. Over the past six months I had become an expert at answering this question. Turning away to place an advertisement on the shop’s ad board, I casually replied, “Russia.”
Nine times out of ten, on hearing this, the astounded party would cry: “Russia!”. And some even fell back a few paces, as if thrown from the bombshell I had just dropped.
On this occasion I was deprived of my fun, as the people concerned turned out to be the one in ten: they expressed no astonishment on learning that I was planning to leave ‘our wonderful democracy’, in fact they empathised with me, sounding envious that I was ‘getting out whilst I can’, and saying “we don’t blame you” and “we would like to do the same.”
Mick Hart & Olga Hart in the Vintage & Antiques Emporium
But I did not decide to leave the UK and give up the country where I was born and everything I had ever known simply because it would furnish me with a first-class opportunity to laugh at the way the UK media brainwashes people.
It is true that my wife is Russian, and some people when apprised of this fact took it for granted that this is why I wanted to move to Russia, the logic being that had my wife been Martian I would want to move to Mars or, even more irrational, had my wife come from Wisbech I would want to move to the Fens. She hadn’t, and I didn’t, and I wouldn’t. Would you?
There was, of course, a bit more to it than that.
Moving to Russia from the UK
My wife, Olga, moved to England in 2001. In Russia she had been a qualified teacher of English with 10 years’ teaching experience, but as we know, or are led to believe, educational standards in the UK are far superior than those in any other country, so her qualifications and teaching experience was immediately rendered null and void.
Being a worker not a shirker, within two days of arriving in England, Olga set out to find gainful employment, no matter what it was, and after a couple of weeks managed to obtain the envious position of waitress at d’Parys Hotel in Bedford. Not bad, we thought: from qualified teacher with 10 years’ experience to table servant in two weeks: Welcome to the UK!
Nevertheless, it was a job — a thankless job. No sooner had she started than she fell foul of a bossy young lady with a rank inferiority complex and seriously challenged people skills, whom I would eventually christen ‘Fat Arse’ ~ for reasons that would be quite apparent to you had you been acquainted with her ~ and by extension (heaven forbid!) d’Parys then became known to us and our close circle of friends as DeFatties.
Incidentally, this rebranding of the hotel almost caught us out when my seven-year-old stepson, who liked to be taken to d’Parys for chicken nuggets and chips, blurted out one Sunday afternoon, “I like it here in DeFatties!!”
“DeFatties?” asked Olga’s bemused manager.
“Er yes,”I quickly replied, “Daniel calls it that because I always say that we are off to d’Parys for chicken nuggets and fatty fries, instead of saying chips, and although he’s doing well with his English, he does tend to confuse his words a little.”
But I digress.
During this period of her induction into the side of British life which immigrants rarely anticipate, Olga did manage to find temporary work with an agency that needed tutors with foreign language skills to act as a guide and mentor for overseas students. She juggled both jobs and eventually migrated her waitress skills to what was then d’Parys’ sister enterprise, The Embankment Hotel in Bedford.
The Embankment Hotel, Bedford, UK (December 2019)
Whilst labouring here, in addition to working towards her UK Citizenship ‘exams’, she was also studying for a postgraduate degree at Luton University, and in the meantime landed her first education post in the UK as an advisory teacher for EMASS (Ethnic Minority Achievement Support Service).
This meant that she would have to give up her job in the hotel trade, an outcome which my stepson Daniel heartily disapproved of. His mother becoming a ‘teacher’ was a definite step down from hotel waitressing, with its chicken nuggets, fatty fries and often free ice cream.
Although the EMASS job was a demanding one, Olga enjoyed it. As she said later, she felt as if she was actually doing some good and although it was not that well paid, most importantly, she liked the staff and got on well with her boss.
It was about this time, as Olga passed her QTS (Qualified Teaching Status) exams, that I asked her, whilst she still had chance to change her mind, was being a full-time teacher really what she wanted? I had visited a couple of schools in Kaliningrad, Russia: once to collect Daniel from primary school and, on another occasion, to pick up some documents from the Russian equivalent of a UK comprehensive. On both visits I had been struck by how well behaved and polite the children and students were and how attentive and orderly they were in class compared to their British counterparts.
I was not without experience of what British schools were like. I had a near brush with school culture when I left university. Not having the faintest idea of what I wanted to do in life, I fell prey to what in those days was standard career’s advice, which was to dragoon you into teaching. Reluctantly, I went through the motions, which included three-days’ ‘teaching observation’ at a school of one’s choice ~ I chose The Ferrers School, in Higham Ferrers, Northants*.
This brief introduction was enough to convince me that by not pursuing it further I would escape a career worse than death, and that, remember, was back in the 80s, when although British schools and life in Britain generally was all going terribly wrong at least it had not gone so utterly wrong as to be irredeemable.
But, in spite of all my remonstrations to the opposite, Olga ignored my pleas, held her course and set sail into the Poe-like maelstrom of UK education, reasoning that this was her job, this is what she had been trained for and this is what she wanted to do. Besides, she enjoyed teaching and enjoyed being a teacher.
Illustration for Edgar Allan Poes’ A Descent into the Maelstrom by Harry Clarke (Attribution: Harry Clarke, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons)
Soon after qualifying she landed a job at the now no-longer-in-existence Harrowden Middle School, Bedford, and soon after that she stopped enjoying teaching and stopped enjoying being a teacher. This was the UK: being a teacher in the UK was nothing like being a teacher back home in her native country, Russia.
There are so many accounts that I could narrate to you about my wife’s experiences as a teacher in the UK, but I will leave that for a later post. Suffice it to say, it was every bit as bad as I had described it and worse, and it was no coincidence that the first school at which she worked, Harrowden, soon earnt itself the sobriquet of ‘Harrowing’.
If you are familiar to any degree with the UK education system you will not consider it to radical of me to say that UK schools and universities are little more than political indoctrination factories. The educational equivalent of ‘from the cradle to the grave’, but in this instance from primary school to university, the principal function of the education system is to inculcate, without fear of question or second thought, the dubious doctrines of so-called liberal progressiveness, particularly with regard to socially engineered and politically correct enforced multiculturalism and, in more recent years, gender engineering.
This, let us refer to it as political paedophilia, filters down from the top, through the career school heads and the ultra-left liberal staff to be consolidated by the biased nature of the texts and writers studied and reinforced by a daily helping of liberal-leftism from the BBC.
At the time that Olga was teaching, the BBC was head-over-orgasm in a tawdry sycophantic fantasy with Barack Obama, pulling out all the stops to cast him in the unlikely role of the Patron Saint of Democracy. When he was ousted in 2017, Trump was immediately framed as Bogeyman Number Two, just behind Vladimir Putin. Although Olga was unwilling to take an active part in this political grooming of youth ~ and refused to point blank ~ she had to endure considerable bullying before her case was heard, viz that she was there to teach English not enforce political views and corrupt the minds of the young.
Be careful whose sweeties they are and who you accept them from!
There are many other problems associated with working as a teacher in the UK, such as inflated bureaucracy, unnecessary paperwork, unpaid overtime etc, but these ills are universal to a good many other jobs and professions. However, one that is exclusive to teaching, and which stems from the same invasive fungus root of ‘liberal progressiveness’, is the continual round of daily abuse that teachers have to contend with both from feral pupils and their belligerent parents.
Every single day in my building, there are egregious acts of student misconduct going unchecked. Teachers are losing hope that things will ever get better, and we are tired. We are expected to be therapists, social workers, substitute parents, punching bags, and outlets for student rage and verbal abuse. Teaching is only a small percentage of what we do anymore.
Once again, I do not intend to expatiate on this here but will leave that subject for a later and more detailed post on the parlous state of the UK’s education system, in which I shall provide specific examples of incidents that my wife experienced whilst teaching.
After 20 years on the frontline of Britain’s schools, my wife had had enough. It was time to call it a day ~ get out. In many ways, this was a great pity, as teaching had been her life. In the UK, in addition to her teaching qualification, she attended and successfully completed many professional development courses and received numerous compliments and accolades from the heads of the institutions in which she had taught, from members of the teaching staff and also from pupils.
The rewarding element of teaching ~ so sad that UK’s schools are the victim of a pernicious ideology
Throughout her career, she had seen many teachers come and go, both long serving and new: some who had been ‘dreaming of escape’ for years and just could not take it anymore; others, fresh from college, who lasted less than a week before making the brave but timely decision to embark on a different career.
As if an Orwellian education system, lunatic skewed political correctness and state-sponsored delinquency was not enough, another baptism of western malfeasance awaited my wife.
In the time that she had been resident in England there had been several anti-Russian campaigns prosecuted in the extreme by the UK’s media, but in her last three years of living there the establishment and its media’s attempts to trash all things Russian and stir up rampant Russophobia had gone into overdrive, having obviously been prioritised by those who control our governments.
It was no coincidence then, and it is no coincidence now, that the anti-Russian Blitzkrieg had been launched at a time when both the British and American public’s trust in the neoliberal way had resoundingly hit the skids. The last thing that an imploding democracy needs is its 5-year cross-tickers looking elsewhere for the national, traditional values that no longer exist in their own back yard. And UK politicians would do well to remember that making history is a considerably less stable proposition than valuing and celebrating history, not to mention rewriting it or simply giving it away.
At last, incensed by the liberal propaganda machine and suffocating political correctness, Olga broached the subject to me of getting out ~ of leaving the country.
So, did I agree to go just because I am a fine husband and devoted to my wife? It would be so easy at this point to say yes, and by doing so pedestal myself as a martyr to feelings other than my own, but the truth is that it took almost three years before I, too, decided that I had had enough of the liberal canker that was so malevolently blighting the land that I loved. English born and bred, a legacy Briton with roots ~ my grandmother’s brother fought and died for his country in the First World War; my two uncles also fought in the Second World War, and my father’s brother, who was a Major in the Second World War, was awarded the Military Cross (M.C.) posthumously) ~ it should not have been an easy decision to make, and it wasn’t.
In the interim, whilst I was weighing my decision, I used to joke that the next time I went on holiday to Kaliningrad I would ask for political asylum on the grounds that I could no longer live under the oppressive liberal yoke: open borders, anti-social behaviour, ethnic-linked but never officially admitted-to crimes, increased internet censorship, and all the other politically correct baggage ~ the petty, ridiculous, meaningless stuff that is blown out of all proportion and which saturates our daily life, such as should we have a female Dr Who? how many women are there in the UK’s board rooms? not enough black actors on television, should same sex couples be allowed to adopt children, LGBT issues, gender issues, race issues and aarrrrggghhh!!
And then comes Brexit, with its liberal-motivated back-stabbing, double dealing, wriggling, writhing shiftiness and utter contempt for democracy — the liberal leavers screaming (and don’t they just!) that we must have a ‘people’s vote’ in the name of democracy when by the democratic process that is exactly what we had, it was called a referendum. (Apropos of this, it amused me recently to see the headline in one of the UK’s extreme left newspapers which claimed that if Trump was not impeached it would be a ‘threat to democracy’. Talk about ironic!)
Even though Democracy ~ battered, bloody, tarnished, sullied, bribed, threatened and subjected to all manner of shameful legal illegalities ~ would eventually break free from its criminal leave abductors, thanks primarily to Nigel Farage, by now my mind was made up. We were sailing on a cultural Titanic. It was time to leave the sinking ship
There were some who asked, “Why not got to Spain?” and “Why not go to France”. I suspect my reply was somewhat too obtuse for them: “The EU ~ NGOs ~ Merkel”.
And now, when fellow Brits ask me ‘do I like living in Russia?’ I play their game. Knowing what they want to hear, I reply, in a suitably pained tone: “Why did I do it …?” And as a triumphant smile begins to dawn on their faces, before they can say I told you so I quickly conclude my statement with, “ … leave it so long, I mean. I should have moved ten years’ ago!”
Next (when I have time to write in between beers) ‘What I like about life in Kaliningrad’
When it’s gone, it’s gone … Updated 5 March 2024 | First published: 16 September 2021 ~ Death of the House of Culture Remembering Zalivino’s House of Culture. The space once occupied by the House of Culture is now just a bed of hardcore and thistles. Here is what it was like before they made… Читать далее: Death of the House of Culture
What I like about Kaliningrad Updated 18 April 2022 | First published: 2 March 2021 ~ Kaliningrad beyond the headlines of the West [INTRO} I wrote this piece over a year ago, at a time when western media had nothing better to do than push a hysteria-fomenting narrative about the coronavirus pandemic; now, apparently, it… Читать далее: Kaliningrad beyond the headlines of the West
Diary of a Self-isolator: Day 645 [9 December 2021] Published: 8 December 2021 ~ Vaccination Passports Stop the Spread of Underpants Diary of a self-isolator is one of a series of posts and thoughts on self-isolating in Kaliningrad. Links to previous posts appear at the end of this post. It’s amazing isn’t it! Just when… Читать далее: Vaccination Passports Stop the Spread of Underpants
In Memory of a Good Friend Published: 1 November 2021 ~ Celebrating the Memory of Königsberg Tour Guide Stas 28th November 2021. Today was the anniversary of Stas Konovalov’s death. After paying our resects at the graveside, a group, consisting of family, close friends and neighbours, were brought together by Stas’ mother for a memorial… Читать далее: Celebrating the Memory of Königsberg Tour Guide Stas
“Bucket!” he shouted. They hadn’t let him in! Diary of a Self-isolator: Day 608 [2 November 2021] Published: 2 November 2021~Old Tin Buckets & QR Codes So I said to my wife, “No, I don’t think so. I’ve got better things to do this morning.” But she looked so disappointed that I relented, saying, five… Читать далее: Old Tin Buckets & QR Codes
The Reset people want is more Churchillian than Economic-Elitist-Tech
Published: 14 February 2021 ~ The Great Reset Answer or Suspicious Coincidence?
The UK has never been more divided than it is now, thanks to coronavirus, or rather the way in which coronavirus is being presented and handled by the British establishment. Whilst divisions exist within divisions, making it somewhat more complicated than the comparatively straightforward Brexit divide, with open-border liberals on one side and legacy Brits on the other, the main groups can be separated into three distinct confederacies.
Those who accept and support lockdown unconditionally and are, or at least appear to be, quite content to spend the rest of their unnatural days mask-ridden and locked away. These are the hardline lockdowners, the majority of which, funnily enough, are freedom-espousing liberals.
The second group comprises those who think that the UK is ruled by a bunch of gross incompetents, a Conservative-Labour cabal, who, running around in ever decreasing circles, should really have disappeared by now and hopefully eventually will once they have learnt to tell the difference between their elbow and their arse.
The third group are those who earnestly believe that coronavirus and the misinformation/disinformation industry that has grown up around it, together with the bizarre, confusing melee of totalitarian-type rules and restrictions, are part of a grand plan to bring about a radical, global shift in economic and social structures, which will blight the lives of the many whilst filling the coffers of the elitist few.
The Great Reset Answer or Suspicious Coincidence?
Although the latter group is summarily slapped down by liberal media censorship, sectioned under its willful wackos, weirdos, freaks and cranks act, there is no doubt that the tide of public opinion has changed and in the absence of consistent strategy, openness and more plausible explanations, it is the suspicions of this group that are gaining wider acceptance among the British public.
You only have to cast an eye along the comments at the end of online news reports and videos to see that the UK public, in looking for a way out of the conflicting messages and contradictions maze, is finding answers in explanations that favour above all else a neoliberal global conspiracy often referred to as the Great Reset, named after the eponymous book, Covid-19: The Great Reset, written by Klaus Schwab, the Executive Chairman of the World Economic Forum, and Thierry Malleret.
The Great Reset Answer or Suspicious Coincidence?
If your prejudice lies in dismissing conspiracy theories, so be it, but when I read that the usual liberal suspects ~ the BBC, The New York Times and The Guardian, among others ~ had denounced this view as ‘baseless’, a far-right conspiracy theory and, even worse, that progressive-policy open-borders Biden has used ideas from the Great Reset with which to line his speeches, I thought ‘ay up!!!’.
I have to say that seen through the prism of the Great Reset the ‘mishandling’ of the ‘coronavirus pandemic’ makes a lot more sense than the mass of contradictions disseminated to us by the mainstream media and inflicted on us by roller coaster politics and the not so merry-go-round and around of episodic lockdowns.
If true, we can honestly say that what up until now has been a political movement operating insidiously by stealth and subterfuge has been brought out into the open, either blatantly by arrogance or by the force of its own desperation and, in the process is exposing itself for what it really is and what it really wants. In other words, the old kid liberal gloves, fashioned out of the bogus skin of philanthropy, equality, fairness, freedom and the milk of human kindness are well and truly off, revealing the cold, callous, manipulating digits of the greedy, grasping, money-grabbing globalists and their greasy-thumbed liberal agenda.
If this is what they are up to, then the biggest hand that they have overplayed so far has to be Hat Mancocks’ (blast, Bill Gates and his ever-dysfunctional spellchecker ~ I have the same problem when I try to spell ‘liberal’ and it comes out ‘totalitarian’), ‘we’ll force them into hotels and give them 10 years in nick’ speech.
At the end of this post, I have included a random selection of comments taken from a news video of Matt Hancock laying down the law. It should give you a fair insight into how the British public ~ the still-thinking faction of the British public ~ feel.
The Great Reset Answer or Suspicious Coincidence?
And here’s your homework: After reading it, browse around on the internet and read some of the mainstream media articles and watch the various videos ~ interviews, discussions, news features etc ~ and then read the comments (note that some mainstream online news companies have ‘turned the comments off’ no doubt feeling the heat of truth!). Look at what people are saying and who ~ by political persuasion ~ is saying what. Then think, Great Reset and who, by political persuasion, are in favour of this and why. At the end of this exercise, you may be ~ should be ~ asking yourself why on earth would you put your trust in a so-called liberal democracy?
I am not saying that the Great Reset is the answer or the wrong answer, like a mysterious virus that never originated from where we suspect it did (so say the WHO), it could quite easily be just another of life’s odd coincidences. Couldn’t it?
Now you can say that I’ve grown bitter but of this you may be sure The rich have got their channels in the bedrooms of the poor And there’s a mighty judgment coming, but I may be wrong You see, you hear these funny voices In the Tower of Song ~ Leonard Cohen
Comments on Mat Hancock’s Hotels & Prison Speech (unedited)
{Note: If you think the situation is bad under a Conservative government, think how much worse it could be under a looney left administration! As they don’t say but should, there’s a silver lining in every pair of underpants!}
This is the most bizarre action ever taken. Why are we not facing up to the fact; this island is no longer free. With the daily news all about lockdowns and police arrests, and closures, we are sounding more like a country at war with our own people
It’s so sad that people are not rising up against this tyranny
TYRANNY AT IT’S FINEST! WELCOME TO 1930S NAZI GERMANY.. yet we have not learnt from past mistakes.
Pity they didn’t close the borders a year ago. Oh and patrol the channel and send the illegals back
All about the money money. Nothing to do with the virus. And some people think this is going to end because of the vaccine not a hope they have made millions out of it and will not like giving up making easy money
Millions… don’t you mean billions !
People think the money is the Power,it is a powerful tool but these Bozo’s hold sway over millions of people, divide and conquer is what they want, then they control with ease.
Welcome to your new police state,neighbours reporting neighbours lockdowns every winter limited travel,
What a joke… people get less for armed robbery!
what are you going to do about the illegals that come in by boat send them back this is ridiculous people can kill people and get less than 10-years they’re getting 10 years and they haven’t even done a crime this country is a prison in itself you just locked in your houses
It’s a pity they don’t get ten years for lying to the public.
They should all be banged up and key thrown away for trying to pass this hideous Corona virus bill. Won’t be long before we’re not allowed to have an alternative opinion without being sectioned and forcibly jabbed. That’s not on the news is it.
The vaccine was meant to be the light at the end of the tunnel and yet it seems , ever since the start of its administration , U.K. is going into more and more draconian measures beyond reason. It’s just shocking.
Too little too late. Should have shut the borders a year ago.
What the hell is going on ??? You can murder someone and get less prison time. And all the while the illegal immigrants pour in to a warm welcome and a hotel. It’s scary how undemocratic this country now is. This is just wrong on every level the borders should have been closed 10 months ago but to talk of 10 years in prison is just madness
100% this is just the start but I’m afraid a lot of the country still believe in everything these muppets are telling them stay in stay in stay in many have been brain washed that much people are scared to even step outside there front doors very sad to see
Diary of a Self-isolator: Day 333 [10 February 2021] or Russia’s Near Normal vs the West’s New Normal
Published: 10 February 2021 ~ Russia aims for pre-Covid Near Normality
There are a few weeks to go yet before I can legitimately celebrate my first Covid self-isolation anniversary, but as that peculiar milestone approaches there are other positives that merit raising a glass or two.
Top of the pops must be the worldwide thumbs up for Russia’s Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine. Following news of its approval by one of the UK’s most prestigious medical journals, the Lancet, begrudgingly the West’s media has been forced to concede that Sputnik V flew first past the finishing post in their international vaccine race, proving against all odds that the classic adage ‘who dares wins’ is still the winning formula.
The ‘bugger, we got it wrong’ factor is almost palpable in hindsight, as the great bastions (I think that’s the right word?) of the neoliberal press twist and turn within themselves to corkscrew a last derogative spin out of what remains of their discredited cynicism, and inevitably in the process come away from it all looking and sounding rather mardy.
With the EU let down somewhat embarrassingly by a vaccine supply bottleneck and other problems with its two main vaccines, one developed by AstraZeneca and Oxford University, and another by Pfizer and Germany’s BioNTech, let’s hope that neoliberal globalist politics will not get in the way should Angela Merkel’s welcome mat need to be rolled out quickly for Sputnik V. After all, the international nature of a pandemic requires international co-operation.
Pre-Covid Near Normality
Another reason for celebration, but one tempered by caution and common sense, is the understanding that daily coronavirus cases in Russia are down 50 per cent from their peak in mid-December 2020*. With infection numbers said to be travelling in the right direction, downwards, it would appear that in some parts of the country steps are being taken to relax coronavirus restrictions*, a move which represents an entirely different approach to the ‘no light at the end of the tunnel’ endless lockdown scenarios with which my family, friends and the rest of the nation are faced in embattled Britain.
In Moscow, limitations on opening times of pubs, restaurants and clubs are due to be removed (I should say so!), and full-time teaching in universities is to be resumed.
Cheering news for those who have been staunch and consistent critics of the efficacy of masking-up is that based on evidence of increasing immunity the days of mandatory face masks might soon be over in Russia. And not before time.
Recently, I was pulled up by a tram conductress ~ one of those large redoubtable babushkas ~ for being maskless on public transport. I had not forgotten to wear my mask, and neither was I making a formal protest; the face towel had simply chosen to leap from my pocket as I was boarding the tram. I did try to improvise by wrapping my scarf around my mush, but this stout defender of rules are rules was not the sort to take prisoners. Fortunately for me, my wife procured a spare mask from her handbag and honour was seen to be done ~ in other words, I narrowly escaped the humiliation of having my maskless arse kicked off the tram.
Had this happened it would have been a grave injustice, as I, for one, have found wearing a mask to be particularly useful recently, possibly not as a hedge against catching coronavirus but most definitely as an effective face glove, as temperatures in Kaliningrad plummet to minus 20. If the weather carries on like this debunking global warming, I will have no choice but to snip off the fur-lined flaps from the sides of my spare ushanka (hat) and attach two bits of elastic to them.
However, whilst we wait for this to happen, here is a quick recap of the latest response to coronavirus as reported in Russian media:
🤞There is hope in the air that soon we might all be enjoying more air as part of nationwide demasking.
🤞As there are no strict lockdowns in Russia, they will not be lifted, but spirits may still be lifted by relaxing what restrictions there are.
🤞Normal service is beginning to be resumed in the nation’s universities and, most importantly, in the bars, clubs and restaurants.
😁Sputnik V gets 10 out of 10 in the International Vaccine Race and quick to criticise critics 10 out of 10 for egg on their face. And doesn’t it serve them right!
Published: 8 February 2021 ~ Awesome Königsberg Cathedral Organ Concerts
We recently received a kind invitation to attend an organ concert at Königsberg Cathedral. This was the first time that I had been to a concert there, and I was keen to discover if the sound of the cathedral’s pipe organ was as impressive as it looked.
With temperatures outside falling to as low as -17 degrees, we were surprised, happily surprised, to discover that in spite of the capacious size of the cathedral it was warm and comfortable. For a cathedral that had been reduced to a shell in the Second World War by RAF bombing and subsequently and painstakingly restored, the atmosphere and ambience is superb. Lighting is important in any environment, but particularly so in exhibition and concert halls, and here it cannot be faulted.
The colonnades, sturdy walls and Gothic vaulted ceiling served the acoustics well, the hard surfaces reflecting the quieter notes distinctly and the deeper tones with generous resonance. The organ rolled, rumbled and reverberated, the multiple dense sounds thundering spectacularly from numerous points within the buildings chambers.
I will admit that I am not much of an opera aficionado, but on this occasion I felt that the dulcet tones of the singer complimented and contrasted perfectly with the rich and varied tones of the pipe organ.
At the close of the concert, we chose to walk around the back of the cathedral, past Kant’s tomb. My wife, Olga, rightly commented that here, outside and within the cathedral, you can still feel the spirit of the city of Königsberg.
This was so true, and I felt rather guilty that I had not visited the cathedral more frequently since moving to Kaliningrad.
I confess that since the death of our friend Victor Ryabinin in the summer of 2019, I have been purposefully avoiding the cathedral and the surrounding area. The cathedral and Kneiphof island are only a stone’s throw away from Victor Ryabinin’s former art studio and as such constituted the epicentre of his cultural and historical world. There were so many memories that I did not want to face, and so many more, like this evening’s, which he may once have been a part of but now never will ~ at least in person.
But you cannot hide forever, and I was glad that I had agreed to go to the concert.
Even in the falling temperatures and with noses like beetroots, Olga managed to snap off some photos of the cathedral on a cold winter’s night, which capture the magical quality of the external lighting and how it is used to imaginative effect.
Brrrr: It was time to rattle back home on the number 5 tram and, once indoors, make with the cognac!
Königsberg Cathedral Organ Concerts: Königsberg Cathedral website: http://sobor39.ru/
Concert details for 6th February 2021
Titular organist of the Cathedral, laureate of international competitions, Mansur Yusupov
Soloist of the Kaliningrad Regional Philharmonic, laureate of international competitions, Anahit Mkrtchyan (soprano)
Music and song featured works from the following composers:
A. Vivaldi A. Scarlatti G. F. Handel J. Pergolesi J. S. Bach V. Gomez M. Lawrence, A. Babajanyan
Published: 5 February 2021 ~ How Russophobia makes the West look Silly
Have you noticed how anti-Russian hysteria whipped up by the UK media comes in waves? It is rather like a bad case of diarrhoea, very often brought on by something uncomfortable happening on the home front which swiftly requires some form of diversion.
Why is the West so Silly?
A couple of years ago, the UK media’s Russophobia ramp-up preoccupied itself with the terrors that Brits would face if they travelled to Russia for the World Cup, Dr Salisbury and the Mysterious Case of the Skripals, watch out there are hackers about, and the omnipotent cyber power that Russia is said to possess which enables it to steal into one’s sub-conscious and influence the way one votes, from Brexit or not-to-Brexit to presidential elections. Incidentally, how does this work? Here I am committed to vote Remain in the Brexit referendum. I read something on social media, purported to have been written by someone from a foreign power, telling me to vote the opposite way. Bingo, I’ll vote to Leave!! I mean, would you? Do you? Does it …? Or, in the United States: I am going to vote for the Democrats. I always vote for them. I don’t know why, perhaps it’s because my mum does. She’s very PC and cannot have enough ‘isms’ in her life. But wait a moment, I have just read something that has told me to vote for Trump! Right, Trump it is.
I’ve just had a word with our cat, Ginger, about this, and all he can say is ‘give me some grub or let me scratch and bite you’. And then he rolled over and purred.
Nevertheless, such was the panic engendered by this media-created long arm of the Russian state, even longer than the famous long arm of the British law, that my mother was convinced that when she woke up one morning and found that the wheelie bin had gone that it must be the Russians who’d dun it!
Sputnik V romps home
I can see that you are not comfortable with the diarrohea metaphor, so let’s try another. How about a militaristic one, in which there are major battles and random cases of sniping?
For example, when the Russian vaccine Sputnik V was announced last year as the world’s first coronavirus vaccine, it sparked nothing short of a full-scale war in the West’s mainstream and science journal media.
Examples of Headline News in the West
Experts Raise Alarm As Putin Says Russia Has Approved World’s First Covid-19 Vaccine
Russia approves Sputnik V Covid vaccine despite testing safety concerns
We have no idea if the Russian Covid vaccine is safe or effective
Russia’s Fast-Track Coronavirus Vaccine Draws Outrage over Safety
Russia is spreading lies about Covid vaccines, says UK military chief
UK ‘95% sure’ Russian hackers tried to steal coronavirus vaccine research (Who wrote this one? Was it ‘Highly Likely’ Theresa May?)
It began politely enough, with the odd shot or two fired at the vaccine’s validity based on scientific testing protocols, but soon escalated into the bellicose language that we have come to expect in the Coronavirus & Cyber Cold War era, with accusations of disinformation, misinformation, no information and, yep you’ve got it, hacking.
As the first salvos gradually diminished, the sniping continued sporadically until, on 2 February 2021, The Lancet, an esteemed British medical journal, published the results from a phase 3 trial of the Sputnik V Covid-19 vaccine in an article headlined ‘Sputnik V COVID-19 vaccine candidate appears safe and effective’. On the same day, the BBC ran this article, ‘Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine has 92% efficacy in trial’, in which, in recognition of the unjust way in which Russia had been treated, it was quoted that “we should be more careful about being overly critical about other countries’ vaccine designs.”
A muted apology but an apology all the same.
It was quite obvious, and therefore understandable, that with western mainstream media using the phrase ‘vaccine race’ freely from the outset to dramatise research efforts to develop a Covid vaccine, that considerable pique would follow when on entering the race, which was pretty much a closed affair, Russia left its western ‘competitors’ standing, pipping them at the post before they had time to pip.
Of course, the US and Brit government will never forgive Russia for coming first in their race, apart from the loss of prestige there is all that globalist vaccine money to think of, but they are doing their utmost to detract from it by focusing instead on selectively publishing photographs taken of street protests recently staged in Russian cities.
I asked my dear and well-informed friend, Lord Wollocks, what he thought about this:
“Deflection technique. A bit embarrassing for the West of late. Lots of civil disorder. Last thing that they want [in the UK or the States] are their people looking in the direction of the former USSR and saying, ‘my word but things look a lot more civilised over there’, especially if they make the not-so quantum leap from a land blighted by coronavirus mishandling and BLM riots to one which holds unswayable store on conservative norms and family values.”
And off went Wollocks, to make a cup of tea.
No one, not even Lord Wollocks, made any connection between the good visual copy of street protests elsewhere coinciding with Biden coming to power, but that was possibly because if all else fails there is always this little bit of land, Kaliningrad and its region, at which to level one’s sites.
A rather Silly case of Russophobia
Western media has a never abating obsession for what it calls the strategic military importance of Russia’s westernmost outpost. In the past 10 years it has been in and out of the press more times than something attending a gender reassignment surgery which cannot quite make up its mind. On one hand, Kaliningrad has a ‘taste for western Europe’, on the other, it has a lot of clout for resisting western Europe, but should there be nothing more to snipe at Kaliningrad makes a convenient target.
Wait a mo! If I was going to nip into someone else’s backyard and switch off the dog so that my mates could rush in behind me and claim squatters’ rights, why would I want to tell the owners of the yard what I was going to do? Whatever happened to secrets? More to the point, what do spies and military generals put on their CVs when they are seeking alternative employment?
I mentioned this news report to a Russian friend of mine as we were standing in the supermarket trying to decide which brand of vodka to buy. I said, “Analysts say Poland could win Russia-NATO war by invading Kaliningrad and securing Moscow’s nukes.” “Really,” he said, raising an eyebrow. He thought for a moment, scratched his head and then asked, solemnly, “So, which vodka is it to be?”
