Postcard from Bishkek

The name Bruce often conjures up images of Scotland … which I suppose is down to stories of King Robert the Bruce, (1274-1329).  It’s actually a French name – deriving from the place name, Brix, and it apparently arrived in Scotland with the Normans … although William never actually Conquered that land. Since then it’s […]

Today, May 5th, is not just a public holiday here in Kyrgyzstan - Constitution Day , but it is also the birthday of such people as: Karl Marx, the great theorist behind the social, political and economic theory of Communism,(1818); Ferdinand von Richthofen who coined the term Great Silk Road, (1833); Klavdia Antipina an anthropologist who was […]

Ever since 1993, May 3rd has been earmarked by the United Nations as World Press Freedom Day. The General Assembly of the United Assembly declared World Press Freedom Day to raise awareness of the importance of the freedom of the press and to remind governments of their duty to respect and uphold the right to […]

Perfect Day is a song written by Lou Reed in 1972,and featured on his iconic album Transformer … and was the B-side of what was probably his most famous (or infamous) record, Walk on the Wild Side. I have commented before how some dates seem to attract more than their fair share of particular types […]

Back in the autumn of 1962 a film was released which was to have a significant effect on the genre of espionage movies in the West: Dr. No, based on the James Bond novel by Ian Fleming.  Indeed, Bond is not just a Western icon, even here everyone knows about James Bond. Although it was […]

They say that there are some books that pretend to have read … but which, in fact, very few people have actually done so. In the various lists of such books that we “lie” about are works like: The Bible; 1984 by George Orwell; Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy; A Passage to India by EM Forster; Atlas Shrugged and […]

There’s an interesting trend on social media to post photographs – some are beautiful, fascinating, evocative … but, unfortunately an awful lot of them are, (not to mince words), dross … snapshots that may be of interest to those who post them, their immediate family and friends – but because they have been posted on-line […]

Back in 1971 a new advert for coca Cola appeared on TV … and although it was based on a not so successful radio jingle …  it turned out to be a highly successful advert, not only for Coca Cola also in it’s on right becoming a chart topping single in the UK, (spending 4 weeks […]

Today, 22nd March, marks World Water Day – and has done so ever since 1993 having been approved as such by the General Assembly the previous year.  The idea of the day is to encourage member nations to implement measures regarding the world’s water resources.  Perhaps one of the most concrete aspects of the day […]

Although I expect to see reports on American Football, Baseball, Basketball and Ice Hockey, I am often amazed as I watch the sports reports on CNN … by the graphic descriptions of the archetypal British with the typical American fixation with sporting statistics.  Most Americans … no, most people outside Britain, Australia, New Zealand, India, Pakistan, […]