Postcard from Bishkek

Those of you that know me will know that one of my favourite pastimes used to be playing “Trivial Pursuits”.  I have that sort of mind that “collects” trivia … I loved the Geography questions but I also enjoyed History ones as well. Although I am interested in History, my knowledge of the subject is [...]

One morning in October 1987, I woke up at six o’clock as usual, had a bite of breakfast and got into my car to drive to school.  As I emerged from the garage, I got a bit of a shock – there was absolute chaos everywhere I looked, high winds, branches of trees all over [...]

I am not particularly good at sports, although I am willing to try my hand at most.  Apart from needing a certain level of skill, most, if not all, sports also require a certain amount of dedication and a level of fitness.  It won’t come as a surprise, therefore, if I say that I am [...]

Dickens’s classic novel of the French Revolution, “The Tale of Two Cities”, has probably the best opening line and closing lines in all of British literature.  It is an extremely well crafted list of eight opposites that compliment each other almost like poetry: “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, [...]

During the Second World War, the battles raged in several different “theaters” around the world.  Despite the fact that the United States entered the conflict after being caught “off-guard” by a surprise Japanese attack in the Pacific, for various reasons the war in the European Theater was given priority.  That’s not to say that the [...]

I expected to spend most of my time this week writing about the election campaign which has now been underway for a week. I am not sure, however, what I can actually write.  There are a number of posters and banners lining the streets for this party or that.  The loudspeaker vans have been going [...]

There’s a fascination with statistics here.  I know that in the West we also have a fascination with numbers, but it seems to be taken to extreme here.   I suppose it is a consequence of the culture of “the plan” which was so prevalent in Soviet times.  Everything was done to make sure that you [...]

If last week was a Three Day Week, this week has been a Four Day Week. Friday marked the end of Ramadan, and is known here as Orozo Ait, (although elsewhere in the Muslim world it has different names – for example: “Eid al Fitr”), and is a public holiday.  Because it is based on [...]

Have you noticed how history seems to have a habit of repeating itself. The actual circumstances vary in detail, of course, but the situations and the way that people react often bear remarkable similarities.  I have written before how struck I was by the similarities between how the situations evolved in Russia in 1917 and [...]

In many ways, this week has been a quite week but also a strange week … it has provided to be a hiatus in lots of different ways.