The Puumaja Mees Is Unwell and Will Return Soon

Cold Weather

According to the thermometer on the car it was -14 degrees in the afternoon yesterday. Anyway it felt cold, but it's kinda nice too, a proper season too. Got the wood burning fire going daily now in the puumaja, which means I'm gonna run out of wood soon. Hopefully there's somewhere that will sell me some more..

Top Ten Stones Songs

Just a random list, which more or less fizzles out not long after Brian's demise..
1) Come On - simply as it was the first. Great harmonica work too.
2) 19th Nervous Breakdown - fantastically bitchy lyrics.
3) Under My Thumb - relatively sophisticated chord progression for the time, brilliantly evil (note to self, stop using '-ly' adjectival qualifiers, or whatver they are).
4) You Can't Always Get What You Want - so true.
5) Lady Jane - I was never sure if this was a reference to Lady Jane Grey, but it's a nice idea.
6) Ruby Tuesday - kinda renaissancey sound that an American band would never be able to pull off.
7) Stupid Girl - simple, get the impression they wrote, recorded and finished it in about two hours and that was all it needed.
8) Sympathy for the Devil- Purely due to the sentiment and the historical references to the Russian Revolution etc.
9) Start Me Up - great subject matter for a mainstream song, 'you make a dead man come' - just admirable.
10) Connection - from the Between the Buttons Album, again something that was probably intended as a filler and yet pisses all over most bands' finest tunes.

On This Day 341 Years Ago

[...ie 14th December 1668..]

This day I hear, and am glad, that the King hath prorogued the Parliament to October next; and, among other reasons, it will give me time to go to France, I hope.

[..would that it were that modern day monarchs in England would prorogue Parliament, preferably until twentington o'clock on the 33rd May.]

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)