There must be some curse that doesn’t let me see La Belle et la Bête by Jean Cocteau. Every time it’s on TV I either forget or cannot find time to watch it. Naturally, when I received an e...
This text I wrote recently on the train, in Russian. It is a chapter in my reflections on Manchester, which I provisionally call ‘The City of Optimists’. Some of them I published in Russia...
Like many other people in Manchester tonight, I’ve just returned from the BBC Blogging Workshop. No winds could stop us this time, but no winds were blowing, anyway. The goal of the workshop was...
Hans Christian Andersen wrote about the storm that shifted the signboards. It looks like the winter frosts have left England more or less unscathed, whereby all signboards remained in their places. Ho...
When I went to Bolton a week ago, I didn’t manage to take any decent shots of Ye Olde Man & Scythe, one of Britain’s oldest pubs. (Don’t tell me anybody that North West of Englan...
There may be something good about visiting an optician. The visit (and the news of your becoming more shortsighted after three years – as if I expected a miracle to happen instead!) may inspire ...
One of my favourite paintings is The Lovers by Rene Magritte. We see a man and a woman sharing an intimate kiss, but their faces are covered with white cloths. You can certainly interpret this as an i...
The sheet music to a popular madrigal O Felici Occhi Miei by Diego Ortiz and Jacob Arcadelt can be seen in The Musicians by Caravaggio...
The poem that you’ll find below bears no dedication, although it would never have been written, had I not been driven to learn more about Portugal last summer. My interest was sparkled by the wo...
I received this leaflet from The Carphone Warehouse a couple of days ago, and I felt outraged. First of all, I was alleged to have had a relationship with Nokia 6610i. I categorically state that I hav...