I DIDN'T THINK MY WEBLOG WAS THAT SHODDY

Hello. I had this site recommended to me. Apparently it's just like mine except professional. So if you want to read some stories about Russia by someone who's actually there, check it out. Plus he's got lots of pictures. Whereas I have two.

http://www.peterabryan.co.uk/

YES, I AM A COMPUTER GENIUS

You may not believe this, but I actually did a little bit of coding to improve my weblog. If you look at any of the entries on this blog, now you'll see a little envelope symbol by the title, after 'Posted by James'. If you click on this envelope, you can forward the entry to a friend. Cool hey?

You are not, however, according to Blogger, allowed to use this feature for 'excessive self promotion'. Whereas me writing about myself day-in, day-out is fine.

Also, incidentally, if you click on the word 'Posted' itself then you can read the entry in a separate page. And if you click on a photo you can see a big version. This is all very high-tech.

Isn't it ironic that my weblog suddenly gets really cool when I've got nothing else to write about?

'KHARCHO!' 'BLESS YOU!'



When I was living in Moscow I had great fun rummaging through the cupboards in the flat as they were all full of junk from the 1970s. One of the treasures I uncovered was a postcard series which featured traditional recipes from all the corners of the Soviet Union. Each card had a picture of a dish on the front, and a recipe on the back. I took the card for my favourite dish, a Georgian lamb soup called 'Kharcho' (Har-CHO), back to England with me.

Anyway, last night I cooked it for the first time, following the Russian cooking instructions. And the finished dish was edible! It had prunes in! And it actually cost quite a lot to buy the ingredients!

If anyone would like the recipe for Kharcho, just let me know. I'd scan the other side of the card in too, but it wouldn't help unless you could speak Russian, and then you'd be better off just asking a Russian how to cook it.

APOLOGY

Yes, there's been quite a while since posts. Um, a couple of months. I even started to get complaints, surprisingly from people who see me on a regular basis. So, sorry about that. But now there will be photos (with enthusiastic captions!) so I hope that it compensates.


RUSSIA SIEGE

The school seige was terrible, that goes without saying. I don't know if you noticed, but the BBC captioned it 'Russia seige', which I suppose is true on several different levels.

Of course there is going to be a crackdown on civil liberties in Russia, and more government-backed murders in Chechnya. The parallels between what is happening in Russia, and what is happening in the US, are pretty clear. I'm sure that the same process would happen here too, if we had a 9/11 or a school siege of our own. Think of how it would affect the ID card argument.

I've been working on a parable. Here it is.


MY PARABLE

A man was stung by a bee. So he took a big plank and smashed the fuck out of the nearest beehive. Well, of course, he got stung a lot more. 'I knew that was going to happen,' thought the man. 'And it proves I hit the right beehive, and that I was right to hit the beehive. My mistake was not hitting it hard enough.'

OH MY GOD IT'S FULL OF PICTURES



No, it's not a mirage brought on by excessive vodka; I have just worked out how I can post pictures to the weblog. So here is one of me in my old flat at Planernaya in Moscow. I think it was taken in late spring.

Isn't it a glorious place to live? Gareth is still there, lucky boy. Have a good look at the tasteful bedding. And the decorative wallpaper. Now that's what I call the high life. Oh, but don't even ask about my hair - I was just about to have it cut.