I shall start reading Murakami as soon as I finish Umberto Eco’s new novel, The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana. It is a story of a man in his 60s (very much resembling the Master himself), who ...
From now on, if you’re lazy or too busy with work but still want to further your education, you can do so with the help of the ever mighty Google. The Berkeley University in California has start...
‘Voxpops are not representative – it’s just a few people who stopped to talk to you on a rainy Friday afternoon‘ (an old journalistic adage). It’s Thursday, but it’...
I love research. I adore it. There is nothing better than to look for something and to find it in the most unexpected place. For example, I’ve been following the fate of the late Sergei Bondarch...
I don’t know if I told you but I do love the mystery of a name. I have already explored it once, but of course the problem of strange names doesn’t befall the humans only. They also befall...
Is pain-inflicting, self-mutilating "art" worthy of such name? Can we not sympathise with another person until we literally wear his shoes and physically experience his sufferings? ...
Medieval poetry, in spite of its literary images, was in truth quite pathetic in describing a woman. Naturally, all women were ‘fair beauties’, but, like in painting, poetry rarely went mu...
When I first came to England four years ago in mid-July, it’s been raining cats and dogs for two long weeks. It was very cold, plus I didn’t take any sweater with me and, being an incorrig...
http://www.therubaiyat.com/ Complete Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. I know some verses relatively well in Russian, but haven’t found them in the English translation yet. One of my favourite is this (...
Soaps can teach very many things to those who watch them (I’m not among those, so I must be unbearably ignorant). They can also highlight various issues, and so both Coronation Street and Emmerd...