My Lords, Ladies and Gentlemen...

Cheered up by memories of the Cold War

nobody@vox.com(Tubbydammer) — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 21:37:52 +0200

Today was a good day. The three DVDs I ordered from Go Faster Strip arrived, along with some Richard Herring bonus material. This is the second time I've ordered from them and they seem very reliable and they aren't at all expensive. Three DVDs may seem a lot but I have a 33 hour journey to Christchurch on Thursday - assuming all the planes travel to schedule - so three DVDs and a good long book (Miss Marple Omnibus) are definite requirements.

I'm also glad to see that more stuff is appearing on Speechification, now that summer is nearing its end. The ABC documentary about the only hooker in the village promises an interesting story, as does the two part documentary about Two Tone. Between the book, the DVDs and an iPod full of podcasts I should arrive somewhere close to sane.

But the thing that really cheered me up today was a map. The Strange Maps blog regularly comes up with fascinating pieces of cartography. Maps of people, places, stories, languages and more. Today's map came courtesy of the New York Times, which used some clever software and a database to show a lovely map of the medal table for all the previous Olympic Games.

Strange Maps showed the map for the Athens games but I don't think that was the most interesting map in the set shown on the NY Times web site. That was the map for the 1980 games. As soon as I saw it I knew that something was wrong and based on that I knew who the host was.

Where's the USA

OK, if you go to the full map on the NY Times site you'll see the name of the host city in the top right corner. But this one screams "Moscow!" at you even if you didn't look there. East Germany is just too big and there's no USA. Not one medal for America must mean that they didn't let their athletes compete and that must mean the Olympics overshadowed by the Afghan invasion.

That's not funny, but the fact that the East German bubble is so swollen by medals that it spreads over the edge like an athlete full of anabolic steroids is. Not that I approve of the state poisoning athletes so that they can win in a proxy battle against a cold war enemy - but the imagery itself is quite amusing.

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Bolshoi Ballet Evening Opens My Eyes

nobody@vox.com(Tubbydammer) — Thu, 21 Sep 2006 10:07:37 +0200

Of course I've seen plays, operas and ballets before, but when I went to the Bolshoi Ballet on Tuesday night I didn't really get ballet. It definitely wasn't the music, which I love, it was the dancing. I've never really understood watching dancing. I think this may have started when I was taken to see Cats as a child. I absolutely hated it and wanted to leave from about five minutes in.

But when Kate offered me a chance to go to the Bolshoi Ballet, I leaped at it. It's an icon of Russian culture; it's a rare opportunity; and I love Shostakovich's music. We took the cheapest seats in the house, and they had a very restricted view, but I didn't care because I was just there for the music.

IMG_8851_bolshoi_ticket

IMG_8852_bolshoi_programme

Of course, I did watch some of the dancing from the first act, but I had a very restricted view and it wasn't really working for me, so I just leant back, closed my eyes an opened my ears to the music.

Five minutes into the second half, Agata, Arno and I were tapped on the shoulder by an usher. She moved us to new seats that gave us an unrestricted, head-on view of the stage. Suddenly the dance came alive and I knew ballet was all about.

But don't try and take me to see Cats.

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The rapture... and the rapture

nobody@vox.com(Tubbydammer) — Mon, 18 Sep 2006 19:22:23 +0200

Nick has found true happiness in Moscow...

IMG_8833_nick

And the ladies found somewhere to pee...

IMG_8841_ladies

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Oh, and did I mention the food?

nobody@vox.com(Tubbydammer) — Sun, 17 Sep 2006 21:12:55 +0200

IMG_8773_black_caviar

Words escape me. Mmmmm.

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Landed in Moscow

nobody@vox.com(Tubbydammer) — Sun, 17 Sep 2006 14:47:19 +0200

Ahhh, it's good to be back in this city. It looks better and better each time I come back and visit. When I was here in September 2001 the smog was really bad. Just five years later the smog is gone, as are almost all the old rustbuckets that produced it. The air's clean, the buildings are looking more beautiful and people seem happier. Yay for Moscow.

IMG_8764_moscow

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I'm off to Moscow in the morning

nobody@vox.com(Tubbydammer) — Sat, 16 Sep 2006 21:50:31 +0200

I'm off to Moscow in the morning. It will be my fourth trip to Russia's capital, and I have to say that I'm really looking forward to it. Moscow's a fantastic city, and it seems to have gotten better over the last five years.

IMG_5592_st_basils

This time I'm going with the smallest bag yet. Nonetheless, I think I should still have room for a couple of bottles of Русский стандарт on the way back :-)

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