Old films for New Year

It's been almost twenty years since Russian television proudly proclaimed its independence from the Soviet heritage. And it's not tired to emphasize the fact on every suitable occasion. But still every New Year's eve Russian television waves a white flag of surrender to the Soviet by broadcasting old and much loved Soviet films, songs - and TV viewers are taken back to 1960-70-s just by switching the TV button on.

It's not hard to make a detailed forecast of what would be on during New Year's night and a couple of following days. I've made bets on the contents of the TV programme just for the laughs of it. "Ironia sudby", "Charodei", "Kavkazskaya plennitsa", "Ivan Vasilievich menyaet professiu" -are the films no New Year passes by without. Even cartoons broadcast in this period of time as a rule were made a couple of decades earlier. A large number of singers popular in the Soviet times are invited to participate in New Year TV programmes and sing their 20-year old or older songs, and even young performers instead of singing their own songs often prefer to make remakes of the famous hits of previous decades for New Year's concerts.

That said, I don't mean to criticise Soviet film and music industry. On the contrary, just as the majority of the population of the country, I enjoy watching these films and listening to these songs for the millionth time. I just wonder how long is our television going to shamelessly exploit people's feelings of nostalgia and repose on its laurels? The funny thing is that with the rapid development of new filming technologies, with the government's and independent sponsors' financial support and an increasing number of young people willing to pursue careers in TV and film industry, one would normally expect a surge in creativity and an abundance of new concepts for programmes and films.

However, judging by its contents Russian television still prefers to cling to its glorious past. TV bosses realise that by making changes they could risk losing a considerable amount of their audience. But they don't see or just prefer to close their eyes to the inevitable. Time passes, and generations change. And teenagers nowadays simply don't understand the values of the old days, they have different needs. And they definitely are not going to be sold nostalgia for someone's youth. And if those in the TV industry don't tackle this problem soon they will risk losing it big time to the internet which already now poses a threat by giving its users the right to choose.

Social networks are newsmakers!

World is becoming more virtual with every passing day. I'm starting to wonder where the border between "the real world" and "the virtual one" lies.

Social networks such as Facebook and Twitter are no longer just a means of passing the news. Quite frequently, they ARE the news. In 2009 alone so many funny or frankly weird events which had something to do with social networking took place.
http://uk.reuters.com/article/idUKTRE5BS17B20091229

Police reforms

Law enforcement agencies constantly give food for thought or discussion. There are so many issues on the agenda of police forces in every country. However, the problems bothering citizens of different countries concerned with their police forces are different.

According to the statistics, British police is considered to be the best in Europe and one of the best in the world. But there is still room for improvement for any police force. It was interesting for me to compare the changes the British police need to those that ideally the Russian police would have to undergo. Remarkably, improvements due to be implemented next year for British Bobbies include reduction of helicopters, upbranding of software used by police forces etc.

http://en.rian.ru/analysis/20091228/157402922.html

However, a new ethical code for the Russian "grey-uniformed men" is targeted primarily at fighting brutality, corruption and general inefficiency of the Russian police forces. Enforcing this new code, Oleg Yelnikov, an Interior Ministry spokesman, thinks that “it is very helpful to draw this ideal picture as a way of showing the officer what he should strive for in his conduct". The difference between the two systems is palpable.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article5983401.ece

Alan Alda - "Never have your dog stuffed"

Today I've finished reading Alan Alda's biography "Never have your dog stuffed" and felt sorry about it. Michael Parkinson characterised it "a fascinated read about a fascinated life". And I can't but agree with him.

Usually biographies are interesting in themselves just because of the scale of personality or the events described in the book. This is not an exception. Alan Alda is a perfect person for a biography. Actor in numerous plays and movies, among them the superpopular TV-series M*A*S*H*, playwright, director, writer, the host of the TV programme on science, and all this judging by the book he did with vivid interest, ingenuity and passion for the job - it's enough for the most fascinating life.

Add to this the style in which the book is written. Wry humour, colourful descriptions that help the reader create in his imagination any picture Mr. Alda draws, merciless scrutiny of his own thoughts, opinions, actions - in an amazing way Mr. Alda's autobiography is so subjective as in sharing the innate emotions of the writer, revealing so much of himself in this razor-sharp, smart, very emotional writing of his but at the same time as objective as humanly possible because every idea is thoroughly analysed before acknowledging its right to exist, every mistake is harshly criticised, every dellusion mocked.

As I read on, Alan Alda's biography gradually stopped just being a biography for me and melted into a philosophical novel based on real events. It's the kind of writing that forces you to forget daily trifles and relish the pleasure of pure thinking or pure feeling. It's the kind of writing that connects you with the writer, makes you feel everything he writes about is relevant to you and to an awful lot of other people. It's fascinating, profound and inspirational, in other words, a must read.

From prime minister to vampire

Recently I watched New Moon in cinema. Frankly speaking I didn’t like this saga at all, and the only reason I went there was Michael Sheen, who played vampire Aro in this film.

I think that Sheen is a wonderful actor and I enjoy all his works. First time I saw him in the film “Wilde”. I was so impressed by his acting that I decided to find out more about this gifted actor. I watched “Queen”, “Underworld” and “Music within” and got addicted to his acting.

The thing I like about this actor most is that he can play absolutely different characters from vampire and werewolf to prime minister and man with cerebral palsy. There are billions of actors who became famous for some role and can’t move from it. They always portray similar characters and even if they try to play someone else you can clearly see where they are from. I’ll never underestimate such actors, but I think that those who can play different roles are definitely geniuses.

For example, when I watched New Moon with my friend, it took me half an hour to assure her that Tony Blaire in Queen and Aro are the same actor. She didn’t believe me and kept saying that they are absolutely different.

As to his role in Music within I don’t have enough vocabulary to express my emotions. He portrayed a person with cerebral palsy. I was amazed by his performance. I didn’t see an actor, who portrayed a person with such a disease, I saw a man with cerebral palsy living his life. At some moments I forgot that Sheen didn’t have cerebral palsy.

So I told myself, don’t relax! There are many films with Michael Sheen that you haven’t seen yet: Unthinkable, Frost/Nixon, Bright young things, Kenneth Williams: Fantabulosa and many others.

Cafew

This Monday I arranged to meet my friends before leaving for Moscow. We thought a nice dinner in a cosy cafe would do just fine. However, the evening turned out to be more adventurous than we had expected it to be.

We chose a cafe in Harrow-on-the-Hill where we could have different kinds of food at reasonable prices. Having placed ourselves comfortably at the corner table, we headed to the cashier's to make an order. The cashier greeted us with enthusiasm and with a pleasant smile asked us... to show her our IDs.

My friend at first didn't even understand what we were required to do since we were not ordering an ounce of alcohol, and had to ask her to repeat her words. "You should show me your IDs otherwise you will have to leave this place", she said in an unconcerned voice. We asked for an explanation. She said that according to the rules if anyone stays at their cafe after 8 p.m. they have to show their IDs.

We were persistent and decided to try all the means to stay there. We insisted that we were Master course students and had our student cards on us. No result. OK, we were not having any alcohol, just a bowl of soup or chicken or anything else equally innocent. No way. The cashier was polite, understanding but she rejected our pleas to let us stay.

We left the cafe boiling just like the soup that we didn't have. It was only upon coming home and giving a second thought to this irritating situation I realised that it's silly to blame the staff at the cafe. They were just doing their job and doing it well. It's just the system designed, as I understand, to prevent adolescents from alcohol abuse by forbidding them to buy it at all. Which would be a great idea if it worked.

Unfortunately, the statistics of the increasing alcohol consumption among the young in the UK say the opposite. The number of teenagers and young people suffering from alcohol abuse is not diminishing drastically, as it would be expected, but is still disturbingly high. So unfortunately, age constraints and ID control work only to a certain degree. Most frequently, it results in chasing away potential mature and self-controlled customers (just like us *smiling self-complacently*) who just come to have a meal and even if they do have alcohol drinks it's mostly social drinking, for the sake of company, and not binge drinking, for the sake of drinking.

This is a complicated problem that can't be solved by simple measures. Probably, more
education on alcohol consumption at schools and first of all in families would be a good initiative, although of course it's difficult if not impossible to control the implementation of these ideas. But I still do believe that by forbidding alone no earth-shattering results would be achieved. People can be very ingenuous when they really crave for something, and therefore teenagers can find ways to get alcohol without actually buying it themselves.

Probably, a better idea of fighting this vice of heavy drinking would be promoting a healthier lifestyle, making it fashionable to look and feel healthy. Until dead-drunk celebrities rolling out of bars and doing crazy things remain role models for adolescents, unhealthy alcohol-consuming culture will blossom. And no strict regulations are likely to change this.

So who is the president?

I decided to take a good look at the Berlusconi’s scandal, when some mad man broke his nose. I looked through different papers, when the Daily Mail attracted my attention.

Strangely enough, it wasn’t about Silvio Berlusconi’s trauma.

http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/europe/12/14/berlusconi.milan/index.html

It was about journalistic accuracy. In the middle of the article I read that French and Russian presidents support Berlusconi and I was shocked to find out that Russian president was Putin.

Wait a minute, I wasn’t in Russia only three months but somehow the president became Putin?The responsible Daily Mail editor even didn’t want to google the name of Russia’s president…

It’s clear that some people think that the real Russian president is Putin. Believe me, as a Russian living in the UK I’m tired to hear this question: “So who is the real president of Russia?”

However, it’s not an excuse for a journalist and editor to make such a mistake. As a Russian I feel bad, when I read such things. It looks as though we live in Stone Age and it’s impossible to check the information you write!

Frankly speaking, I don’t understand what this situation actually means. The Daily Mail is a middle market newspaper, but I can’t believe that unqualified people can work there. Somehow I think that maybe they just want to show their attitude to Russia? I feel some kind of disrespect in this action.

I really hope that it was due to some technical problem and they will edit this article as soon as possible.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1235514/Italian-PM-Silvio-Berlusconi-punched-assaulted-Milan.html