The frog still rambles

A former student asked me what I though of this.

http://blog.properrussian.com/2011/05/why-russians-are-not-smiling.html

There are several things which spring to mind reading this article.
The first is a small incident in August last year when I was crossing the frontier between Ukraine and Russia at about 3 am. I awoke groggily and espied the boarder guards coming in, they were obviously gossiping and joking about something and walked into the vestibule smiling, but then – work to do – smiles were switched off in the blink of an eye and the ice queen border guard gave her basilisk stare at my passport.
The second incident occurred in February. It was a dark, cold day and I had been walking for quite a long time through fresh snow and when I got to work and greeted everyone one of our staff said 'I saw you walking here, I didn't recognise you – your head was down and you looked grumpy, I thought you were Russian!'
The third incident dates from June when I was taking Seriyozha back to the UK. As I approached the security ladies they were looking grim as ever, but on setting eyes at my precious cargo they all went 'awww' and one of them berated me for being too rough taking him out of the carrier (which was no easy task!). Another one held him when I was going through the check before boarding and cuddled the frightened little cat before handing him over to me as gently as possible.
I could go on with similar tales.
I like Russians enormously, but I cannot say that they are overly possessed of the social graces which are deemed so important in the west or in Japan and I think the article is largely correct. Lots of English people here are freaked out by the fact that Russians don't smile in shops (and I have lost count of the number of times babushki in produkty have looked exasperated at my attempts to ask for stuff!). But I think maybe it's a northern thing, Finns, Swedes and Estimations are not overly smiley either, except when the sun comes out.
But in a way I have come to prefer it, when I go to England I think it's deeply, deeply strange that people in coffee shops insist on making small talk when all I want is to get my drink and go. I always found it odd in Japan when I would walk into a shop and all of the assistants would stand up and bow and watch me. And always with the same smile...
So yes I can see how people from other lands find it strange, but you do know when a Russian smiles he or she means it!

Yesterday a Russian friend asked me how Thatcher was viewed in Britain and how she affected me personally.
Well a short answer to the first would be 'it depends who you ask!' and the second 'I loath Thatcherism' but longer answers need to be had.

There is no escaping the fact that, for better or for worse, I am a child of Thatcher. I was born 2 years after she got into power and throughout my childhood she was somehow there in the background, a hairdo like my granny's and her face wallpapered onto the 6 o'clock news every night. My parents were both Thatcher voters unsurprisingly, they were upper middle middle class (my mother's family is Tory to its constituent atoms. Dad's family were traditionally liberal, being of mercantile stock. More on that later), alarmed at the mess the country had got into during the 70s. Patriots, they applauded the Falklands endeavour and I absorbed their feelings, although these grew increasingly qualified during the course of her reign until they were glad to see her depart. Naturally when I reached the age of reason I became a radical socialist and while I am not that strident now I am still considerably to the left of my mother (though I think less so of my father).
But as I say, I am a child of Thatcher. My formative years seeing the first female PM would have given me an idea that women and men were equal. I am basically a meritocrat (one of the reasons why I so loath the present government is that it is dominated by an old Etonian elite based on their old boys network – hardly run according to the principals of their heroine!), believe in hard work, saving and not taking anything from anyone if I can help it. I don't know how far these are my own values or the values of Thatcher's Britain but I hold them nonetheless. However, I also believe that I was lucky, being born into a family which could provide and helped me as far as it could to a good start in life. Others born in 1981 were not so lucky.
And here we come to the biggest problem with Thatcherism, its lack of mercy. She proclaimed loudly that 'there is no such thing as society' when in fact there is. Thatcherism was a deeply uncaring philosophy.
'Whatever is done for men or classes, to a certain extent takes away the stimulus and necessity of doing for themselves; and where men are subjected to over-guidance and over-government, the inevitable tendency is to render them comparatively helpless.' (Samual Smiles). There is something in that, and I am no fan of the nanny state. But similarly, people do need help. Lassaiz faire economics did nothing to help the poor in the Victorian England Mrs T so admired, poverty did not begin to be solved without actual legislation and the eventual creation of the welfare state. People do need a leg up and to be taught to fish, as was done when people were permitted to buy their own council houses. But getting people on the property ladder merely drove up house prices (I doubt I'll ever be a house owner in the UK) and for those who for whatever reason didn't jump on the bandwagon? She abandoned the north and let it rot, preferring to let the market deal with everything which for much of the time it couldn't and can't as we see today. Meanwhile, although people are selfish inherently, I don't believe that encouraging this is a good thing. Independence is attractive, that's why I believe Thatcherism resonates with our national psyche, but I strongly feel it has created conditions whereby money is seen as a measure of personal worth rather than as a means of exchange.
Let us go back to the north. While undoubtedly the nationalised industries needed something doing to them I can't help but feel it was foolish to close them down altogether, Britain lost its manufacturing base, becoming a financial giant instead. But money is a chimerical thing. I am no economist but it seems bizarre to me to expect perpetual growth when fundamentally the markets depend on confidence and confidence is elusive. I cannot help but feel that money has to come from something concrete and Britain's being a net importer cannot be a good thing. Similarly, in the north there are now generations of people who have been on the dole and the negative psychological effect must be pretty strong. But as they are not middle class the educators and those in power can happily ignore them.
When she declared 'There is no such thing as society', she meant that people should use their own inner resources to help themselves. But she did not bank on the cultural and psychological barriers to that. Poverty is isolating and deadening. It cannot be cured by personal initiative alone, help must be given. Especially in the north in the 80s when there was literally no work around. People survived (I've survived on 25-30 quid a week after paying rent before now. It wasn't much fun but I did it) but is it really living? Can one think and dream and aspire while merely surviving? No. Job creation schemes for the young might have helped but one good friend of mine is a veteran of these things and according to him the standard practice was to work the young person to death while they had them and then give them the boot just before the end of the training period and have to provide them with certification and/or work.
She was quick enough to aid the Falklands, it fitted in with her jingoistic parochialism which totally failed to empathise the Chileans (her chum Pinochet helped her after all), the people of South Africa and probably did extreme damage to the Northern Irish peace process. She knew she was right and while in some cases a leader shouldn't listen, in most others she should. Her total lack of imagination and flexibility alienated vast swathes of the UK and divided the country between her supporters and her foes.
At the end of the day she wasn't a conservative. Conservatism is after all concerned with preserving the status quo, she was an old fashioned free market liberal (though very socially conservative – but that's another tale for another time!) but she changed the norms. Every subsequent Prime Minister has had to be her disciple, whether willingly (Blair) or unwillingly (Major, Brown and I believe Cameron strangely enough). They have all follwed the intellectual programme she began and I don't think that it has ultimately been to the benefit of the nation. Privatisation made logical sense for somethings but it really has been taken to absurd extremes and I fear education and the health service are going that way slowly.
I don't like the feeling of rejoicing when someone has died (honest!) but the Britain she set the conditions for is a place with no mercy for the weak an unfortunate and Disraeli would be turning in his grave to see the 2 nations.

I am still here. Believe it or not.

I am working a lot but next week shouldn't be too bad. I like the money I am getting. Money is good.

I am on a diet and someone at work asked me if I had been working out as I appeared to be more slender. No one could have had a better valentine's day present :D

It was warm (+2 last week) and horrible. Now it is -6 and sunny which is much better.

1. What did you do in 2012 that you'd never done before?
Became an examiner, went to Ukraine, renewed a job contract, became a cat "owner" in my own right, had an 8 hour domestic flight, had an operation.

2. Did you keep your new years' resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
Well, I worked hard and saved! But I failed to make any headway with Russian.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
My sister and assorted friends

4. Did anyone close to you die?
No

5. What countries did you visit?
Russia (if that counts), Turkey, Romania and Ukraine

6. What would you like to have in 2013 that you lacked in 2012?
Less weight, more money,more clients.

7. What dates from 2012 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
August, taking the train to Ukraine from Buchrest.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
Saving!

9. What was your biggest failure?
Losing students

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
Twice pulling muscles on my ribs. A massive throat infection. Having my toenail removed due to ingrowingness.

11. What was the best thing you bought?
Books and train tickets and JEWELS!!!

12. Whose behavior merited celebration?
My chums :)

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?
Our new DOS, a friend who in desperation has done some really stupid shit.

14. Where did most of your money go?
books and food

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
Sergei Koshkovich Imbirov :D (the cat), TRAVEL!

16. What song will always remind you of 2012?
Love like Blood as I have been listening to it no end this autumn.

17. Compared to this time last year, are you happier/sadder; fatter/thinner; richer/poorer?
a) About the same though pensive about all the things I need to get done next year
b) Fatter :(
c) Richer :)

18. What do you wish you'd done more of?
Improving my mind, writing

19. What do you wish you'd done less of?
Faffing

20. How will you be spending Christmas?
I went to church, sang carols and spent the day with my family

21. Did you fall in love in 2012?
Nope though I fancied a few people. I wish Russian men weren't so beautiful as all the nice ones are taken and the rest are bastards!

22. How many one-night stands?
none

23. What was your favourite TV program?
I downloaded Mary Beard's stuff which I much enjoyed. The Thick of It!

24. Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last year?
the new DOS

25. What was the best book you read?
Life and Fate, Istanbul, the third reich triogy, silverland, The plot against America

26. What was your greatest musical discovery?
Rediscovering Killing Joke whom I last listened to aged 6!

27. What did you want and get?
Money

28. What did you want and not get?
More money and more travel. Actually I got most of the things I wanted this year.

29. What was your favourite film of this year?
Nothing really stands out.

30. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
31, I ate fish and chips at Dunwich with my parents and then drank cider.

31.What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
More money and more time to relax. Sunnier weather.

32. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2012?
The usual but more boring.

33. What kept you sane?
Reading, the internet, my cat and my friends.

34. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
None comes to my mind

35. What political issue stirred you the most?
The continued rape of the poor by the Tories. "Legitimate Rape" and the US elections. The senseless death of Savita Halappanavar. I kept my nose out of Russian politics.

36. Who did you miss?
The family.

37. Who was the best new person you met?
Mari with whom I couchsurfed in St Pete, Brendon (the first flatmate since Graeme who hasn't driven me stark staring mad) Ash, Jill, Andrew and new teachers, Anton, Marja, Sergei and my new niece little Iris :)

38. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2012.
Keep on moving.

39. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year:
Nothing comes to my mind

Well it's been a year. it hasn't always gone smoothly but I can say on the whole it worked out positively for me. I hope for more of the same next year.
otherwise I am worried about the floods hitting the UK, the problems my countries are facing and the poverty which is killing friends ad which has driven one person I care about into hiding.It's an odd numbered year though which in my personal superstitious nonsense is more lucky!

The baby was born last night and thus far all is well :D

We have a new director of studies and I'm not sure if I like her. She's far, far, far too businesslike and efficient... Goodness knows what will happen but I think there is going to be civil war at school considering we are all too individualistic to enjoy that sort of thing.

I'll be fine when I'm settled in, but right now I feel sad about going again. I wish there were a little more stability in my life and that I were in a position to give more time and help to my folks but the fact is I am not and I don't think I will be for some time to come. I genuinely would like a home in this country - but work?

Hey ho. I am so glad at least I am going back to friends and something which I know already.

I have work for this week at Bury language school which is good (££) and nice (meeting old students) but today proved a little trying.

There were several students I remember from last year whom I enjoyed catching up with and One i didn't. A complete livewire and attention whore with no sense of what is appropriate. Because he knew me from last year he took that to mean I was his pal, made a number of dubious jokes and of course completely disrupted the lesson. Towards the end of period 2 (which I have to say I hadn't planned properly) some of the kids started singing and one disgruntled student took a recording of it. Not unnaturally I am not best pleased I allowed it to get out of hand. Tomorrow I will be a bitch!

Poke me into writing people!

This month I have:
Had the whole of my toenail removed
Had a stinking cold
Had more work than I want but also somewhat less money
Tried skating for the first time. I suck.
Felt seriously tired.
Seen Rammstein :D
Lost my kindle in a cafe :(
Been helping to organise a British week for Couchsurfing and I am worried in case I offended an overly sensitive DJ
And I am going to move tomorrow.
Can we stop the world for a few minutes please?