Excellent Way to Learn Russian

Since I've lived in all three of the Baltic States at various times over the past four years, it's not escaped my notice what, at times, a useful lingua franca Russian still is here. Instead of three languages of notable complexity and exclusivity (Estonian is usually plonked in a completely different language group than the other two, although it shares some items of vocabulary with Latvian) one, admittedly also difficult language, caters for all three. Not that it does exactly.The younger people often tend to learn English instead, and it's probably only possible to communicate on a superficial level with most balts in the language of the USSR, particularly here in Estonia (though presumably fine for the substantial 'Russian' population here). But, well, a lot of people can speak Russian here.
Viewing my inability to make progress in Russian bar more or less learning the alphabet plus a few daft and hackneyed words of phrases as little short of scandalous, and possibly a hindrance to getting by here (along with languishing Captain Scott style on the intermediate plateau in Estonian) it was definitely on one of my various lists as something worth doing. Forunately I got hold of the Michel Thomas method Russian courses about a month ago and haven't looked back since. As a part-time language teacher, this method had always held a certain amount of significance, or at least had done since I discovered it (via the German courses, and well before I was a language teacher). Thomas was of Polish-Jewish origin who, it is reported, discovered the deep and largely untapped potential of the brain when, of all things, he was being brutally tortured by the Gestapo (he was apparently a French Resistance agent) and discovered an ability to block out pain. I'll gladly leave that part to Michel but after the war he used his ability to extract confessions from former nazis under interrogation, this time without the use of violence, and subsequently opened a language school for the beautiful people, in Beverley Hills.
Actually it seems he was no snob, opening up his doors to school kids who'd been dubbed no hopers and seeing them make enormous progress.
I won't say anything about the method 'cos I don't think I could do it justice, except to say it's fun, if you can credit that. I've completed the foundation and 'advanced' courses (which isn't really advanced although gets you putting together, after less than 10 hours in total, constructions which might take others months or even years) and moved on to the 'vocabulary' course (which isn't really vocabulary, but a lot of essential grammar, guess they didn't want to scare people off). They're even available electronically , so you don't need to wait for a package from amazon.
I'm now speaking in Russian in shops from time to time where needed and looking forward to being able to read newspapers (which should be able to do by the time I've finished the vocab course) and speaking to real people.
Oorah!

Something for the List

Anyone that knows me, which is noone, will know that I have a penchant (relatively new-found) of making lists of things to do and ticking them off (or losing the list). Well, this will well and truly put a stop to, not the behaviour, but at least the random pieces of paper flying around. It's called 'Teux Deux' (as in 'to do') and it's great. Well, I say this, I haven't actually tried it out yet, but it's on the list! Of course it's far from the only electronic to do list app; I previously have used gmail's diary function, though that's not great for to do items (but excellent as a diary) as they get sidelined a bit in favour of the daily diary entry but this one seems really helpful and functional, enabling you to move things around if you don't get to do them on a particular day (or at least move them forwards - naturally you can't move back in time) cross them off, delete the crossed-off items OR leave them up if you like to feel pleased with yourself at how much you've achieved, etc. Of course you, as I, may have used other apps at work, but largely because you've been told to. What's nice about this is it's your own. Enjoy. Glad I managed not to call this post 'what a teux deax' or something hysterical like that.

On This Day 349 Years Ago

My wife and I up very early this day, and though the weather was very bad and the wind high, yet my Lady Batten and her maid and we two did go by our barge to Woolwich (my Lady being very fearfull) where we found both Sir Williams and much other company, expecting the weather to be better, that they might go about weighing up the Assurance, which lies there (poor ship, that I have been twice merry in, in Captn. Holland’s time,) under water, only the upper deck may be seen and the masts.

Captain Stoakes is very melancholy, and being in search for some clothes and money of his, which he says he hath lost out of his cabin.

[that would make me pretty melancholy too-ed]

I did the first office of a justice of Peace to examine a seaman thereupon, but could find no reason to commit him.

[not sure what form this examination might take! - ed]

This last tide the Kingsale was also run aboard and lost her mainmast, by another ship, which makes us think it ominous to the Guiny voyage, to have two of her ships spoilt before they go out. After dinner, my Lady being very fearfull she staid and kept my wife there, and I and another gentleman, a friend of Sir W. Pen’s, went back in the barge, very merry by the way, as far as Whitehall in her. To the Privy Seal, where I signed many pardons and some few things else.

From thence Mr. Moore and I into London to a tavern near my house, and there we drank and discoursed of ways how to put out a little money to the best advantage, and at present he has persuaded me to put out 250l. for 50l. per annum for eight years, and I think I shall do it.

[Think I might put out a little money to the best advantage - still it's easy what you can discourse about whilst drinking!!-ed]

Thence home, where I found the wench washing...,

[good stuff..]

..and I up to my study, and there did make up an even 100l., and sealed it to lie by. After that to bed.

[Me too-goodnight, ed.]

Cultural Reducator TIm Flowers

Tim Flowers is an ESL (English as a Second Language) teacher based in the capital city of one of the baltic states. He is 42 years old. His previous job was working for the Post Office (main sorting office - as a superintendent) and this excellent and relevant background has given him a good grasp of the fundamentals of the English language, and the art of teaching it to others.
He hails, as he likes to say, from Northamptonshire in England, a very glamorous part of the world indeed, and so is not at all out of place mingling with the gliterati of the Old Town where he hangs out on a Friday or Saturday night.
He likes beer.

Managed to get through a whole lesson today without once using the textbook. Now, your run of the mill ESL teacher wouldn't be able to do this, mind, but I can wing this as I've been doing it so long, and I managed to get it down to a fine art, with just me talking for an hour and a half about US politics, something I know a lot about, the knowledge from which I know my students are all really keen to benefit
I see myself as a cultural re-educator; for years people in this country were cut off by a system which, whilst sound in its principles (Marx being a really sound person, something I know all about having read the first 11 pages of "Das Kapital" on the trolleybus before proceeding to sound off about it to all and sundry) was deformed in its execution. Trotsky 'now there would have been your man, such a shame they had to shoot him. Anyway as I was saying before I interuptted [sic - ed ](my flow of genius, these people who I teach really know nothing. They're all racist (probably) and they've hardly lived or seen anything of the real world. Well, one or two of them go on regular business trips to North America and the far east, and another just got back from a holiday in the Cayman Islands, but they're just tourists, they've no idea about how it really is for ordinary people. Forgot to set homework, as the students had already packed up and started leaving before I'd finished (we'd only overrun by about 14 minutes), oh well, homework is the Sanatogen of the masses, I don't believe in it (and I don't want to have to mark it either), surely just the honour of having me as their teacher is enough? Now, just for a quick ciggie break before I announce, unsolicited and uninvited, to everyone in the staffroom that that lesson I just taught was 'shit' (it wasn't really) though not because of me (I spent a full 8 minutes preparing it) but because of demotivated, unenthusiastic and lazy students...javascript:void(0)

Irritating and Hackneyed Things People Say and the Corresponding Punishment

Just a short run down (urghh, hating this already) of a select few of those lazy, placemaker cliches that even fairly educated people come out with just for the sake of emitting sounds from their vocal tract in an effort to numb the pain and emptiness, and the penalty that befits...
1) "At the end of the day". Ok I know this is figurative but that doesn't alter the fact that it's at best, a lazy, lazy verbal crutch and synonymous with "this is my opinion and/or line or sales pitch, nothing you say or do is going to alter it".
PENALTY: Firing Squad. At dawn. No, better still, at the end of the day.
2) "If you look at it logically"..as opposed to what? What are you trying to say, that your interlocutor is an irrational and neurotic individual who needs to be brought back to reality with a bang, courtesy of your incisive (and deeply patronizing) intervention.
PENALTY: To be patronized to death and canonized as, as Victor Lewis Smith dubbed Esther Rantzen, the Patron Saint of Patronizers.
3) "I don't want to make an issue of this". Yes you do. Insofar as I understand this meaning of the word 'issue', which is to say, point of contention or debate, it might be better to at least be honest and say "I'm not going to discuss this on an equal footing with you since you are not my equal at least in this case, so you are going to do what I say". Or words to that effect.
PENALTY: "I don't want to make an issue out of your death with torments..."
4) "It's just one of those things." Found myself guilty of this committing this affront to several hundred years of accumulated ingenuity and inventiveness in the English language, only the other day. I was talking about Estonia's occupation as part of the USSR as being 'just one of those things'. One of what things? What the hell do you mean? Furthermore, the cliche if I understand it correctly is intened as dismissing whatever it's being tagged to as being unavoidable or even insignificant, which was not what I meant, and which is why therefore this phrase is moribund - if it can't be avoided or isn't very important, then why bother commenting on it at all, you're just wasting time.
PENALTY: Death? Well it's just one of those things isn't it....
5) "History repeats itself" - ok, when the Spanish Armada comes round again or we literally reinvent the wheel then I'll subscribe to that, otherwise STFU. As an aside, a writer (unfortunately I've forgotten the reference - could be Andrew Marr) played on this beautifully once when he/she wrote that history doesn't repeat itself, it rhymes..
PENALTY: Time for Torquemada to repeat himself.
6) "Sweden has the highest suicide rate in the world"...urghh..zzz...why do people say that? Even if it weren't merely trumpeting what a million people (or far more) have said in (formerly) smoky pubs up and down the land (I know, I know, a cliche too, at least I didn't put 'length and breadth..'), what conclusions are we to draw from it and what possible comfort can it bring to anyone regardless of whether they've been touched by suicide or no. Apart from anything, it's patently not true, at least according to wikipedia, though this info itself is out of date and seemingly impossible to corroborate.
PENALTY: deported to Sweden.
7) Finally, the phrase which really should have followed the grottiest, most one dimensional EastEnders character to the grave, but sadly didn't: "No offence" or it's even more florid bastard halfling "no disrepsect to yourself". The get out clause of all get out clauses (along with "it's meant ironically"). Surely by making such a statement you're in fact indicating that, yes, I do indeed intend to cause offence; either that or "oh shit I've just realized I said that to the wrong person, or when the wrong person was in earshot" thus indicating a certain amount of Janus-facedness since if that person hadn't been present then the get out clause would have been unnecessary.
PENALTY: To be reduced to tears by as sustained and ruthless verbal barrage, punctuated, of course, with the "no offence" disclaimer.

Something Like an Inverted Pareto Principle

According to my big brother Seth, if you give a group of people a certain job or task, 2 per cent of it will make a balls of it. That's not quite how he said it being the urbane and refined wunderkind that he is, but that's what he meant.
I have to say, I know he's American, but this figure seems very low to me indeed. Here in Estonia I'd expect something a little higher (but not a lot) since it means 98 people out of a 100 will get it right if he's right, and if that were the case there wouldn't be quite so many people wandering round with long faces, moaning about the bad 'economical and financical (sic) situation'...it's got to be more than 2 per cent of the population's fault!
Maybe I'm just pessimistic though. Or maybe most of that 2 per cent happens to find themselves in positions of responsibility and authority when we'd be better off turning the tables and all having a crack at things.
I think that's what happened in Britain during the war. Everyone had a crack at being foreign secretary, or chancellor or whatever, just for about a month at a time...

BFK Recommends Dodo - Shock

Benedict Francis-Kentigern, or BFK as we know him, is an affable motoring journalist of the old school. Dropping out of some big public school somewhere in England to pursue his passion of pretending to race cars, he's acquired such an array of tweed jackets with leather elbow patches, arran sweaters and empty travel sweet tins, that you can't help but ignore him. Look forward to BFK's occasional reports on motoring, cars, and what drives the people that drive them, in his section to be found somewhere on the site.
Hi gang, I just had to tell you about I new product which I'm really excited about and which has just arrived at the Puumaja. It's called Dodo Juice, and, despite it's name, isn't really made from a dodo nor is it primarily juice, but rather a vast range of hip-to-the-jive (or whatever the young people are saying nowadays) car detailing products.
Essentially, car detailing means keeping your car's interior and exterior uber-clean, and dodo juice focuses on the latter. No more ragged sponges from under the sink, and grit-swilling bucket of fairy liquid once every 3 months, you can now wash, clay ( to removed contaminants like bits of dead fly and deeply encrusted grime) polish, wax and protect your car, all using the Dodo Juice range.
In my opinion the waxes are the flagship products and they come in a selection of 8, four 'soft' waxes and four 'hard'. There's also a limited edition 'austintacious' range, which evokes memories of my old mini clubman days (well, I had a mini clubman key fob anyway).
These waxes look and smell very tempting (it was with a sinking feeling that my youngest grandaughter woke me up at zero-crack hundred hours when staying over the other weekend, saying 'Grandpa, this marzipan tastes funny'!) and have tropical themed names like 'Rainforest Rub' and 'Banana Armour' but there's a serious point to them. They contain Carnauba wax, derived from the leaves of a specific type of palm tree which grows in tropical latin america, and other natural ingredients including beeswax. This is what gives the waxes their protective oomph and helps to encourage passers by using your car's paintwork as a mirror.
There's a whole load more, including synthetic products called sealants, which perform a similar function to wax, quick detailing products like 'Red Mist', paraphernalia such as a huge furry glove nicknamed the 'wookie's fist' (for washing the car, it's a little more forgiving than a scouring pad I find) and even a spray called 'Time to Dry', which, believe it or not, speeds up the drying process after you've washed the car! Sunday afternoons in Shakespeare Drive will never be the same again, all the neighbours are going to want some Dodo Juice of their own now.
Well, they'll have to visit dodojuice.com to do that, or if in Estonia, they can always contact the Puumaja crew, who are now distributing this wonderful product, straight to your door if necessary. And...

ok that's enough plugging - ed

Don't See 'Old Dogs' at the Cinema..

..I beseech you. You'd be better off watching old dogs in the street, pissing against lamposts or shagging.

I should have guessed when I saw Robin Williams and John Travolta were going to be a in a 'comedy' featuring a dog, but no...in fact the dog premise is a lame tack on, an attempted metaphor I suppose but which just wastes everyone's time including those involved. This wouldn't pass the '10 minute test' chez the Puumaja, where my flatmate and I give TV1000's nightly offerings that exact amount of time to impress. A series of unrelated, poorly based 'japes' with these totally disgusting and un-cute 'cute' kids, continual screaming and shouting and overacting, bizarre visual gags and a denoument so predictable you could see it coming from the second or third minute, it was one of those rare movies that actually leaves me feeling angry.

As someone hilariously said about another turkey, Schindler's List is funnier...

Lesson learned, always read rotten tomatoes (which gave it 5 per cent!) or something very like it before checking out a movie and don't go to the cinema just for going to the cinema (especially if it's in Tartu and you live in Tallinn!).