313: When I'm cleaning windows...

Sorry it's been two and a half weeks since the last blog. Deadlines keep appearing with a higher  priority than the blog. Apart from that it is becoming increasingly more difficult to keep coming up with fresh ideas and new pictures that you haven't seen before. Perhaps I need to move to another city/country?
Anyway, here goes with blog number 313.
I wouldn't do the job that these guys are doing for all the tea in china! 

Here are two more pictures of Moscow's monorail system. Pleasant to travel on but yet another reference to China is apposite here. We talk about "a slow boat to China" to describe something that is very slow and takes a long time. The monorail goes from West to East (and back again of course) in the North of Moscow and saves going South then East then North on the metro to get from Timiryazevskiy to VDNKh. It runs fairly frequently during the day but during the evening the trains are few and far between.
Today's video clip has to be George Formby singing "when I'm cleaning windows" and playing his ukulele.I have included two versions, with and without lyrics. It dates from 1936 and was initially banned by the BBC.

312: Prima Donnas

I'm just back from a run - the first one for ages. I'm struck by how very very quickly fitness levels plummet. At the beginning of the year I was running for 2 minutes and walking for 1. I slowly slowly built on that to be able to run (almost) non-stop for over an hour. And now, having not run for a couple of weeks, I'm back to the 2 minutes running and 1 minute walking regime. the "use it or lose it" maxim is just as true in sport as it is in language learning and vocabulary retention.

Why Prima Donna as the title of the blog? It has two meanings: one as the chief female singer in an opera or opera company and two as a temperamental person with an inflated view of their own talent or importance.
I was trying to arrange a lesson for tomorrow with one of my students. He suggested a meeting place  some distance from where I live and I baulked at the travelling involved to get there. (I do enough metro travelling during the week). He has a car and I felt it would be easier for him to drive. For his part he is probably thinking that if he's paying I should dance to his tune. So, a stalemate with no winner. He doesn't get the lesson and I don't get the money.

At Kiev station this morning I saw, and photographed, a collection point for people wanting to donate for "humanitarian aid for Donbass". Whichever "side" you're on in the Ukrainian "Civil War" the real losers, as always, are the local civilian population.

Finally for today, here is a photo of a syringe on the ground beneath a seat at a bus stop I was at yesterday. The first one I've seen in 6 years of travelling around Moscow. I know all big cities in the world have problems with drug addicts but so far, touch wood, it hasn't impacted on me here.

Perhaps then, to finish on a cynical note, a video clip "Lucy in the Sky with diamonds". Lots of people were "high" in the 60s but I wasn't one of them. Interesting to read the comments about whether the song is, or isn't, LSD related. Not much on the internet these days with only one side to a story - people are always prepared to add their own three pennyworth.

311: Iceland, land of ice and fire

I'm back in Cambridgeshire after having spent 3 days in Iceland. Impressions? Beautiful country, prices as expensive as Moscow or perhaps even more so, and (mostly) friendly and generous people, with an unusual sense of humour. Would I go back? Yes, but I'd need to save up again first! The dream ticket, after I win the lottery, would include a flight around the island in a helicopter,  whale and puffin watching and sea fishing, and horse riding across the lava fields.

	fish and chips in a bucket. KFC eat your heart out.
Free wrapping paper in the shopping centre	How about this for a comfortable relax in the mall
Look how open the banks are	Just some old geyser
365 days a year for millenia!

The view at 03.45, taking whilst waiting for the marshrutka!

310: Gaelic, Golspie and Glasgow

Gaelic is an adjective that means "pertaining to the Gaels", including language and culture. As a noun, it may refer to the group of languages spoken by the Gaels, or to any one of the languages individually. Different "flavours" of Gaelic are spoken in parts of Scotland, Ireland, Wales and the Isle of Man. In most of Wales, and parts of Scotland, signs are in English and Gaelic. As you can see, Gaelic is a very different language from English

I've been staying in the village of Golspie for the last week or so. This afternoon I'm heading off to Glasgow and tomorrow to Iceland. 

Icelandair have a very cunning auction to allow folks to bid for an upgrade to the cabin class. Remind me to tell you about it one day. 

To finish, here is a song sung in Gaelic by the Scottish group Runrig. Subtitles in Gaelic and English.

309: Hill walking in Sutherland

A picture tells a thousand words:

308: The Jacobites

I'm relaxing in the Highlands of Scotland. Last night and tonight in a hotel in Spean Bridge and today travelling on the Jacobite steam train from Fort William to Mallaig (and back).
The name Jacobite is well-known in this region, and throughout Scotland, as the generic name given to a series of rebellions against the English - in 1689, 1715 and 1745. For more information on these uprisings click here.
Here are a few of the photos I took during the day today, showing not only the train but also some of the magnificent scenery and the Commando memorial here at Spean Bridge.
My video clip is entitled "ye Jacobites by name" and is by the Scottish folk group The Corries.

307: False friends

The term "false friends", from a language point of view, means those words which sound the same in the foreign language but which have a different meaning. In Russian there are quite a few of these false friends, some of which are shown here, on the Master Russian site.

I came across this poster at a bus stop the other day - it is quite common to see "public service" announcements - and, as you can probably guess, it is instructions on how to recognize the symptoms of stroke. The Russian word for stroke is инсульт, which is pronounced insult. The primary usage of the English word insult is translated into Russian as оскорбление.

1.   can't smile or the mouth is skewed at an angle?

2.   can't lift both arms, or is one weaker?

3.   can't pronounce their name clearly.

4.   Doctors have just 4.5 hours to save the life of the patient.

I'm in UK at the moment and on Sunday I will be in Scotland and will take a train ride on the Jacobite steam train on the West Highland Railway line from Fort William to Mallaig. Parts of the journey (Glenfinnan viaduct) were used as the backdrop in some of the Harry Potter films. The scenery is magnificent. Looking forward to it very much.