Not Kings Cross – but a similar track layout

It was, of course, a computer game.  But … it wasn’t like most of the computer games that were common … either then or now.  It wasn’t of the “shoot-em-up” type.  In a way it was a combination of a role playing game, and a game of strategy.  The player assumed the role of a signalman controlling the all the “points” to Kings Cross Station, one of London’s biggest and busiest railway station.  The display was a schematic of the platforms and railway tracks leading into the station and the program was provided with a the timetable of arrivals and departures – their points of origin and destination which would dictate which track they would .  The player then had to make decisions as to which points to activate in order to allow the trains to pass and keep their designated slots on the timetable.   Just to complicate things – there were also occasional hazards built in, special trains, weather conditions, power cuts, a fire … and so on.  Points were allocated on avoiding crashes and delays.

It was played in “real time”, so it could take a whole day.  As a result, it could take all day to complete a game – most of the time spent waiting but some periods of frantic activity requiring instant reactions.  It was by no means an easy game requiring specialist knowledge, patience, analysis, quick thinking … and the ability to make decisions.

Although several people took and initial interest in the game … it was too slow for most of them and the lack of blood and gore didn’t encourage them to have a go.  I know that I only had a couple of goes but found it somewhat frustrating and didn’t have the patience to sit and gain the experience necessary to learn from my my early mistakes in order to avoid repeating them.

It did, however, give me a totally new insight into that particular pupil and his character, patience and the range of skills that he had mastered to become an expert at it … as well a certain amount about the job of a signalman and a renewed respect for them, an understanding of what they faced on a daily basis and the responsibilities they carried on their shoulders.

I think he was surprised when I took the program and used it in lessons as an example of computer simulations and how they can be used for training purposes – discussing the sort of things that the programmers had to take into account in order to create the game.  I don’t think it made any more appealing … but it did help to teach a few important aspects of life.

Some of my colleagues, (teachers of Computing and Information Technology), were a little surprised by my choice of example – most of them were using Air Traffic Control (ATC) rather than “Rail Traffic Control” … probably because there was more material available including BBC videos.

The purpose of ATC is to prevent collisions, organize and expedite the flow of traffic, and provide information and other support for pilots and the role of an Air Traffic Controller is complex – they need to be well organized individuals, quick with numeric computations and mathematics, have assertive and firm decision making skills, able to maintain ‘their cool’ and composure under pressure, and possess an excellent long-term memory.

Flightradar.com

ATC was first introduced at Croydon Airport in London as early as 1921.  In those days it was a lot simpler – sightings were done manually, planes were slower, there was more time.  The introduction of radar, faster planes and the introduction of computerized systems has meant that instant life-and-death decisions (literally) have to be made.  Sites like flightradar24 show quite how complicated the situation in the crowded skies can be.

Here in Bishkek, the situation has been complicated by the presence of the Manas Transit Center servicing military flights to Afghanistan.   In addition to the military flights, the airport services some 350 scheduled flights a week, (landings and take offs), plus charter flights, occasional flights by private planes.  It’s not as busy as the world’s major airports … such as Heathrow, (the successor to Croydon), but the responsibilities are the same.

For the record: the timetable frequently changes but at the moment there are scheduled flights between Bishkek and:

• Almaty
• Astana
• Batken
• Chelabinsk
• Delhi
• Djalal Abad
• Dubai
• Dushanbe
• Ekaterinburg
• Irkutsk
• Isfana
• Istanbul
• Kazan
• Khujand
• Kiev
• Kranadar
• Krasnoyarsk
• Moscow
• Naryn
• Novosibirsk
• Omsk
• Osh
• Seoul
• Saint Petersburg
• Surgut
• Tashkent
• Urumqi
• Ulan Bator

On 20th October, 1961,the International Federation of Air Traffic Controllers (International Federation of Air Traffic Controllers Associations, IFATCA) was established in Amsterdam.  This was to be a significant milestone in the history and development of air transport and the association now has 133 members representing some 50 thousand air traffic controllers worldwide.

The event also served as the basis for a new “professional holiday” dedicated to air traffic controllers, (the International Day of the Air Traffic Controller), giving the opportunity to stress the importance of the profession, to draw public attention to their work, to declare their achievements and to formulate plans and goals for the future.

Breathalyzer

Some dates prove to be not only memorable … but not all as easily remembered even if they prove to be significant.

December 7th, 1941, for example, was a day which President Roosevelt declared would be “a day that will live in infamy”.  October 14th, 1066, November 11th, 1918, and June 6th, 1944, are all instantly recognizable dates.   It is said that people of certain age can remember where there were when they first heard that President Kennedy had been assassinated on November 22nd, 1967.

October 8th, 1967, however, is a date that will not “ring a bell” for most people … but it is a significant date – if only because it helped to almost half the number of deaths on British roads.

To be fair, there is a certain amount of dissimulation in that statement … but something did take place on that date which undoubtedly helped bring about that creditable result.  That was the day when Parliament passed the Road Safety Act introducing, for the first time, a legally enforceable maximum “blood alcohol level” for drivers in the UK.

I say “enforceable” because of the invention of a “breathalyzer” – an electronic device which could be used as an instrument which could be used for preliminary screening those suspected of “driving under the influence” and determining if a formal blood test should be carried out.  If the instrument indicated that there was a significant amount of ethanol in the breath being tested, then a blood test was carried out.

For the record:  The effect of alcohol on drivers had been noted long before.  In 1872 a law defined to driving coaches, wagons and steam cars in a state of intoxication as a violation of public order.  In 1925 the driving of a “motor vehicle” was added to the list.  Then, in 1932, a device was developed that could analyze the alcoholic level in blood.  In 1935, the BMA, (the British Medical Association), published a study into “Traffic accidents related to alcohol” which led to an extensive campaign to implement an “evidence-based” method of analysis of blood alcohol and the House of Lords Committee recommending the introduction of this analysis to monitor drivers … but only on a voluntary basis. The first attempt to push a law through parliament to regulate the content of ethanol in the blood, (0.8 ppm – parts per million – as a maximum permissible limit), … oh, yes … and a maximum speed limit of 70 miles an hour.

Unlike the assassination of President Kennedy, I can’t say where I was and what I was doing at that particular time – but I do remember the controversy that it aroused.  In particular, there was a considerable amount of concern about the fate of the village pub.

Britain has a large number of “country pubs”, (public houses, or bars,  in villages).  There was already considerable concern about the fate of the local village shop, the post office and other facilities which were under threat.  It was thought that the introduction of the breathalyzer would mean that fewer people would drive out into the country for a drink … and lead to the demise of a “country fixture”.

Here in Kyrgyzstan the legal blood alcohol level for driving is zero.

The GAI, (the branch of the police that are responsible for enforcing the law relating to all aspects of traffic), do have breathalyzers available to them but they are very rarely used.

The standard technique is to get the driver to roll up a piece of paper into a cone and ask the driver to breathe into it.  The officer then smells the cone and if he detects a whiff of alcohol then he takes the matter further … if not, he lets the driver go.

.

Drink Driving is an issue here – much as it is elsewhere in the world.  The sentences for Driving Under the Influence were toughened a couple of years ago but a news report last year suggested that every tenth car accident is caused by a drunk driver.  Also last year there were reports of a corrupt scheme being exposed whereby members of the GAI collected “on the spot fines” which were never recorded and then paid a “retainer” to their immediate superior.

Incidentally, as I understand it, according to Kyrgyz law the payment of traffic fines must be made at local banks rather than directly to the traffic police – but as that involves them taking the driver’s license and issuing a temporary document – with the original being reclaimed from the local police station once the fine has been paid – it is easy to understand why most drivers are happy to pay an “on-the-spot fine”.

A couple of weeks ago the Prime Minister was complaining about the inefficiency of the traffic police, but last week we saw exhortations for them to be more stringent in upholding the law … and there have been calls for the penalties for traffic offences to be further strengthened.

. 

I have only ever seen a breathalyzer here once … it was some twelve or thirteen years ago.  I was visiting friends in Issyk Kul and one of our number agreed to take us down to the local beach – but as there were far too many of us to fit in the car, he suggested running a relay – first one group and then return for the next group … and so on.

It was on his third trip that the local patrol stopped him … and I was one of his passengers.  They called him over to their vehicle – not a good sign.  They were chatting so long that two of got out of the car and wandered over to see what was going on, and he told us that they thought he had been drinking and wanted to impound the car.  We tried to tell them that he hadn’t and that’s when they produced the breathalyzer …

I was amazed because I hadn’t seen one here before.  I was even more amazed when they told me that he had failed the breath test … the crystals had changed colour.

 For the record: A Breathalyzer Test detects alcohol on a person’s breath by using a chemical reaction. The Breathalyzer Test itself contains several chemicals and each is a different color. The colors change when they are exposed to alcohol.  The chemical crystals  start out as orange-yellow in color and change from yellow to green when it comes in contact with alcohol. An officer can determine the amount of alcohol detected by how intensely the color changes.

I looked at the tube and asked, “What colour were they before?”  For some reason the police officers didn’t want to answer … there was the usual, “What language are you speaking? We only speak Russian” … even though we had been communicating perfectly well for the previous five minutes.  The crystals were … yellow.  A bright yellow … brighter than the original crystals … but yellow all the same.  I tried to argue that the change in brightness was because the crystals had become wet with moisture in the breath and didn’t constitute a colour change.

If I had been the driver I would have said, “Impound the car … I am going to hospital and will have a blood sample taken and analyzed … and I will see you in court!”  As it was, the driver told me and my friend to go back to the car and he carried on talking to the officers … he wasn’t keen on the idea of challenging the police so he paid the “on the spot fine” and went back to the car – and we drove off.

I am sorry – but I don’t believe he had been drinking … Of course, it is possible that, for example, he had had a beer over lunch but I had been with him all day (apart from his two trips ferrying people down to the beach) … and I hadn’t seen him take a drink.  What is more, if he had really been driving under the influence … the police wouldn’t (or at least shouldn’t) have let him back behind the wheel.

.

There was one occasion when I was driving and got stopped by a GAI officer who was conducting a random inspection.  He asked if I had been drinking and I said no.

“I think you’ve been drinking.”
“Well, you are wrong.”
“Did you drink last night?”
“One glass of wine with dinner.”
“A-HA!!!”

Uh Uh … at that point I realized I had made a mistake.

“Oh, come on,”
“Alcohol stays in the blood long after its been drunk.”
“Yes, but not that long – especially after just one glass of wine which was drunk with a meal that would absorb it.”

We stood by the side of the road for a while, arguing, and then he took me over to another officer – who happened to be in plain clothes, so I only had his word that he was an officer.  I was told that this was his captain.  He “introduced me as an “Englishman who has been drinking.”  Of course I disputed that point straight away and the captain rolled up a piece of paper into a cone and told me to breathe into it.    I complied with the request and he looked decidedly unimpressed … saying – pointing to the first officer, “Well, he thinks you’ve been drinking”.

“But I haven’t … so what happens, now?”
“You go for analysis”
“OK – lets go!”

I was told to get back in the car and the officer climbed into the passenger seat.  Excuse me, I thought to myself, I am supposed to be Driving under the influence” but I am expected to get back behind the wheel and drive the officer to the hospital so that they can undertake an analysis.  I made a mental note of that point just in case I needed to refer to it later on.  Although I had no doubts as to results of the analysis … but I did wonder if they might be doctored in some way by the doctor, (pun intended).

On the way he asked me where I was from … so I told him, England.  He asked what would happen if  I was caught drunk driving in England.  That’s when I made a second mistake by saying,

“It all depends …”
“What on?”
“For example, how much alcohol … ”
“A-ha! … not here … no alcohol at all!”
“Yes, I know … and I think that’s a lot better because it’s clear … no at all!”

Phew, I think I recovered from that mistake.

“Well, what would happen, would you loose your license?”
“Yes”
“… and pay a fine?”

Here it comes, I thought to myself …

“Yes”
“How much?
“I’m not sure but maybe a couple of hundred pounds … ”
“How much is that in Som?”
“About 15,000″

He went silent as he stared into space … presumably calculating how much he thought he could take me for …

When we arrived at the hospital, it was locked!  He knocked at the door.  No-one came.  He knocked again … Harder.  Then he started hammering the door with his fist.  Finally we heard some footsteps and the door opened.  He waltzed in announcing

“This is an Englishman … a Drunk Driver.”
“We’ll see about that … Your captain didn’t think I had been drinking”
“We’ve come for analysis.”

 We were led into a large room where there was doctor – well, they said that she was a doctor and she wore a white coat – who told me sit on the examination cot.  I started to roll up my sleeve and she said, “No”.  She handed me a beaker with some liquid in it and a straw and told me to breathe through the straw into the liquid … which I did, (thinking, “this has to be a joke … note it for the court case”).

Apparently I hadn’t breathed out enough … I was told to do it again “Take a deep breathe and blow through the straw for two minutes!”

Two minutes!

I took a deep breathe and blew … counting one thousand and one, one thousand and two, one thousand and three … to count off the seconds.  After about thirty seconds she said “Enough, You can stop.”

The beaker was put onto a table and we sat looking at it from three corners of the room … the doctor at her desk, the policeman sitting by the door – presumably so that I didn’t try to “do a runner” – and me sitting on the couch.

“What’s supposed to happen?” I asked.  ”You’ll see”, was the only reply I got.

We sat looking at for about a minute … I counted one thousand and one, one thousand and two …

Eventually the doctor quietly said, “No, it’s normal.”

“What????”, said the policeman … and fell silent … staring at the beaker  for another twenty five seconds … I counted one thousand and one, one thousand and two …

Eventually he said despondently, “OK, let’s go …”, presumably having decided he wasn’t going to get anything out of me.  We got back to the car and he asked me to drop him off back at his post.  I said, “You’ve got to be kidding”, sat down in the driver’s seat, started the engine and drove off.

. 

To be fair, both of these events happened a long time ago … but judging from the stories I hear, (such as this one), “old habits die hard”.

The Rosetta Stone

When I first moved to London, (yes, London – not Kyrgyzstan), I took a week of my holiday before starting work to explore the city.  Although I had visited London before, it was only on specific trips to attend a conference or visit a theater, or something like that.  So, I bought a travel card which gave me unlimited travel on the city’s Underground and Bus network, and every morning I got up and set out with a list of what I wanted to see and do.

There was a lot to see and do and I knew that I wouldn’t be able to “do” the city properly in the time available, but the idea was to “get my bearings” and decide which places were worth a follow up visit later on … with more time to explore more thoroughly.  

I had, for example, set time aside to visit Parliament and attend a debate; see Rodin’s sculpture of the Burghers of Calais, then cross the road to Westminster Abbey before walking further on to the Roman Catholic Westminster Cathedral.  A trip to St. Paul’s Cathedral was combined with a the Law Courts and especially the Old Bailey where I sat in on a trial for about an hour.  Another occasion I traveled to Kensington, visited Harrod’s and the  museums,  (The Science Museum, the Natural History Museum, The Victoria and Albert Museum),  before walking up to the Albert Hall, the Albert Memorial and round Hyde Park.   

They don't look like right-angled triangles to me ...

One morning I trotted off to the British Museum where I was anxious to see the Rhind Papyrus – I wanted to see if that really was a generalized Right Angled Triangle, in which case the ancient Egyptians probably knew Pythagoras’ Theorem long before he did … or did the papyrus simply contain a number of specific examples which they knew knew from experience worked, without necessarily understanding why they did … like most people who have looked at it, I couldn’t make up my mind and remain unconvinced to this day as to which it was.   

In one of the Egyptian halls, I came across what looked like a large slab of stone with inscriptions … but unlike the petroglyphs which we have here in Kyrgyzstan, these inscriptions were laid out in neat lines and obviously represented writing.  At first I didn’t really understand what I was looking at, and then I read a notice nearby and did a double take.  So, this was the Rosetta Stone - which just happens to be the most visited object in the whole museum.   

Today marks the anniversary if the stone stele  in 1799 by a French soldier in of an incredible discovery in a small village in the Nile Delta.  I contained text written in three ancient scripts: Greek, Latin and Hieroglyphics.  At that time, no one was able to read the Egyptian hieroglyphics and it is possible that the texts might have passed without much attention, except for the fact that the Greek and Latin texts were identical, in that they were translations of an official decree issued by King Ptolemy V.       

Scholars wondered if the Hieroglyphics could be another vision in ancient Egyptian … and so it was analysed in detail and so it turned out to be.    The Rosetta Stone turned out to be a multi-lingual “dictionary” and as a result, we hare now able to unlock many of the secrets of an ancient culture.

When it comes to understanding Kyrgyz, I often use what I call the “Rosetta technique”.  It’s fine if I recognize the word, but if I don’t I look if to see if there is a Russian equivalent nearby which might help to illustrate its meaning.

Here is a lit of Kyrgyz words and their English equivalent … but it’s not meant to be a Kyrgyz-English dictionary as such … but a list of some Kyrgyz words which foreigners in Kyrgyzstan, (like me), might come across:

Captain James T. Kirk of the USS Enterprise

Today marks the anniversary of the first transmission of the cult science fiction series Star Trek on BBC TV, back in 1969.

The series had been proposed by Gene Roddenberry as early as 1964 and a pilot programme filmed in 1965.  It finally went on the air in the states in September 1966 and although it originally enjoyed high ratings it then started to plummet down the ratings.  It was finally cancelled after 79 episodes across three seasons.

Oddly enough, it had finished its run in the US before it actually crossed the Atlantic to take the Saturday evening spot vacated by Dr. Who … which is how I first came across it.

Both Dr. Who and Star Trek are part of my youth … and have important lessons for us, even today.

I am writing this at a time when I see that an overhaul of the English National Curriculum will involve pupils in studying more Shakespeare.   According to one report, all pupils will be required to learn at least two of the bard’s plays between the ages of 11 and 14 … although I see no reference to his poetry.

I can’t help wondering if this is simply a case of elitism and intellectual snobbery.

Now, please don’t misunderstand me … I enjoy Shakespeare … I remember, for example, laughing out loud when reading A Comedy of Errors for the first time …  being moved by Shylock’s plea for justice in A Merchant of Venice … the romantic pathos of Romeo and Juliet … and so on … but I have to admit that I do find many of the works difficult.  It strikes me as interesting that many productions are specially staged to be bring the stories into a new light – a new interpretation for the modern world – such as in Ian McKellen’s version of Richard III.

It’s not simply, however, a case of the fact that I think that children will find Shakespeare difficult to cope with … and even if that were the case, it’s not necessarily a bad thing for them to have to come to terms with and understand the huge impact that he has had in helping to shape the English language and our modern culture.

When I first came to Kyrgyzstan, for example,  one of my first experiences of Kyrgyzstan was meeting a sixteen year old who was wading through Dostoevsky’s The Idiot, I couldn’t help but be impressed, thinking to myself how difficult it must be.  Apart from the length of the novel, I know that I had found Crime and Punishment and The Brothers Karamazov as extremely heavy going and that was as an adult.  Despite that, I took the hint and found a copy which I duly read … only to be convinced that most sixteen year olds in Britain would have found it hard work.

I am sure that she got a lot out of the experience of reading Dostoevsky … but I am not sure that every sixteen year old I have met here would have coped as well … and I am certain that the kids would have struggled with one such book – yet alone two … or more..

I just wonder if there isn’t something more contemporary and relevant.

When first arrived in Kyrgyzstan I knew virtually no Russian, (I joke that knew just six words … Da, Nyet, Pravda and Izvestia, Glasnost and Perestroika – Yes, No, Truth and Well Known – two of the Soviet newspapers, Openness and Restructuring – the planks of Gorbachev’s reforms in the late 1980′s).  As a result I was taking an intensive course of Russian lessons every day.

One day my teacher turned to me and asked me about what sort of books I enjoyed … it was in a Russian lesson – so the conversation was all in Russian.

I replied that I enjoyed all sorts of books and tried to vary the genres: historical, science fiction, contemporary, factual, and so on.  She followed up by asking me about my favourite authors and why I liked particular books as opposed to others … and remember, this was all in Russian … “pigeon Russian” because I was still learning.

One of the important things I looked for in a book, I said, was that I wanted to be stimulated – to learn something.  I didn’t want to be simply entertained but to be challenged in some way.

Now, to be honest, there are indeed times, (like on a Friday night after a long and tiring week), when all I want to do is put up my feet and relax … watch some nonsense on the TV, (perhaps a sitcom), and turn off … but even then I often find that even in the midst of nonsense there is something to be learned or gained.

As a school teacher, I always made a point of picking up books which were being read in English lessons by my class … Stig of the Dump, Cider with Rosie, The Catcher in the Rye and so on.  Sometimes it helped me understand what they were talking about.

So, when I first came here, and

Even so, some fairly populist works can teach us a lot – if we are prepared to look for the lessons … even in Star Trek.

Yes, even Star Trek …

Also, as one commentator has put it, “Star Trek,  is packed with other people’s stories, be it highly inventive retellings of Greek classics, verbatim performances of Sherlock Holmes and even, it turns out, many examples of Shakespeare’s plays being appropriated and adapted to the twenty-fourth century.”

He continues, “Imagine what the English language will sound like 400 years into the future; imagine how the works of Gene Roddenberry will sound to readers then. Will they be any more “highbrow” because they’re old?” … concluding with a definite ” Certainly not.”

That’s not to say, however, that the stories are without value.

I was interested, for example, last year to see an article in Forbes magazine: Five Leadership Lessons From James T. Kirk.  It attracted quite a lot of attention and comment … some more positive than others.

Each “lesson” was supported by a quote from the script and an explanation Basically, they were:

1. Never stop learning: “You know the greatest danger facing us is ourselves, an irrational fear of the unknown. But there’s no such thing as the unknown– only things temporarily hidden, temporarily not understood.” … We need to keep exploring and learning … The more knowledge you have, the more creative you can be. The more you’re able to do, the more solutions you have for problems at your disposal
2. Have advisers with  different points of view: “One of the advantages of being a captain, Doctor, is being able to ask for advice without necessarily having to take it.”  … We need to ensure that we encourage creativity and innovation by listening to the advice of people with vastly different opinions. Weak leaders surround themselves with yes men who are afraid to argue with them. That fosters an organizational culture that stifles creativity and innovation, and leaves members of the organization afraid to speak up. That can leave the organization unable to solve problems or change course. Organizations that allow for differences of opinion are better at developing innovation, better at solving problems, and better at avoiding groupthink. 
3. Be part of the Away Team: “Risk is our business. That’s what this starship is all about. That’s why we’re aboard her.” ….  It’s easy to trap yourself in the corner office and forget what life is like on the front lines. When you lose that perspective, it’s that much harder to understand what your team is doing.  We need to occasionally get down in the trenches with the members of our teams so we understand their needs and earn their trust and loyalty.
4. Play Poker, Not Chess: “Not chess, Mr. Spock. Poker. Do you know the game?” Chess has its place, but life is a game of probabilities, not well defined and rigid rules. And often understanding your opponents is a much greater advantage than the cards you have in your hand.  We need to understand the psychology of our competitors.
5. Blow up the Enterprise: “‘All I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by.’ You could feel the wind at your back in those days. The sounds of the sea beneath you, and even if you take away the wind and the water it’s still the same. The ship is yours. You can feel her. And the stars are still there, Bones.” … even if we are driven by a passion and commitment, we still need to learn to radically change course when circumstances dictate … no matter how painful it is, to “blow up the Enterprise”, change what isn’t working and embark on a new path, .
   

I am quite sure that, if he put his mind to it, then Alex Knapp, the author could have come up with a number of other examples … but may have been handicapped by a word limit and the fact that it seems to have been part of an on-going series, including:

• Five Leadership Lessons From Jean-Luc Picard
• Five Leadership Lessons From Christopher Nolan’s Batman Trilogy
• Five Leadership Mistakes Of The Galactic Empire
• The Seven Habits Of Highly Effective Hobbits

not to mention the more general articles:

• Workplace Leadership Tips
• Good Leadership Skills
• Corporate Team Building Activities
• Innovative Leadership Styles

As Knapp said in his closing paragraph:

In his many years of service to the Federation, James Kirk embodied several leadership lessons that we can use in our own lives … By following these lessons, we can lead our organizations into places where none have gone before.

Whether we agree or disagree with Knapp’s argument … my point is that the stories can provide a challenge and stimulus for thought and learning … for those that have ears to hear and eyes to see.

Thomas Cook ... father of the "package tour"

Today marks the anniversary of the first ever “package tour” – on 5th July, 1841.

It was offered by a certain Thomas Cook.  The 33 year old cabinet maker, Baptist preacher and Temperance activist organized a special train excursion for 540 fellow Temperance workers to attend a rally in neighbouring Loughborough – eleven miles away.  He negotiated a special price with the railway company, including food for the journey, from which he received a commission.  Although this was not the first “chartered train service”, it was the first to be offered to the general public.

This was followed by several other trips and then the railway agreed to enter a general agreement formalizing the arrangement.  He started organizing further afield – to Scotland Apparently, however, he wasn’t exactly a commercial “whizzkid” and ended up going bankrupt.  Fortunately, this didn’t deter him and his persistence paid off and he arranged packages for people to attend the Great Exhibition in London and later to Paris, Switzerland and beyond … Italy, Egypt and the United States.

He set up a company with his son and Thomas Cook and Son Ltd. established itself as a leading tour operator … with offices around the world.

He was responsible for a number of other innovations, such as the Holiday Brochure, Hotel Vouchers and Travellers’ Cheques.

The company that he founded, together with his son, has undergone many changes, facing many challenges – but it is still one of the leaders … and one of the most recognizable names … in the industry.

Now, not everyone wants to take a package tour … many people want to travel independently … I have done both in my time and they both have their relative advantages and disadvantages.

I remember watching a travel programme on TV back in the late 1970′s – or maybe the early 1980′s that looked at one of the issues which, depending on how you look at it, could be considered either as an advantage – or a disadvantage.

Each week the programme presented a report from a couple of destinations – some of the reports given by a members of a small team of “professional” travel journalists employed to work on the whole series,, (i.e. that’s basically all they ever did), and others by guest celebrities.  There was also a “news” spot giving information about special deals on offer by different companies, and another for “travel advice” where as well as feedback from viewers.

Needless to say, the programme was very popular and inspired many people to consider holiday destinations that they may never have thought about otherwise.

As time went by, they also developed an investigative and campaigning slot … and today they would probably cover topics like “sustainable tourism”, “responsible tourism”, “sex tourism” and the like.  I remember one of those “investigative” reports very well … I can’t remember what it was called – well it was about 30 years ago – but it was all all about “are you getting a fair deal when you book through a travel agent?”

After a brief introduction when the reporter selected several hotels out of published Holiday brochures, he then called the hotels direct and asked about the same type of room that was on offer in the brochure – and discovered that he was offered a totally different price … as it turned out, a much cheaper price.  He then went into how the industry worked – block bookings made by travel companies at huge discounts, but then always being able to sell them all … about them having to print the brochures, open offices on Britain’s High Streets, maintain a company representative in the resorts to handle any issues that arise … and so on … oh, and yes … to make a profit.

If I remember correctly, the main thrust of the report wasn’t that the companies were overcharging, but that people could get a better deal by things themselves, doing some research and booking directly.

However, the reporter then went to one of the resort – chosen randomly … or specifically because there appeared to be a substantial markup in the price … and interviewed some of the holiday makers.  I remember one interview particularly … sitting on sun beds arranged around the pool, he stopped and chatted to a young family in swim suits.  He asked them about their holiday and how it was going … all was well and they happy, very pleased and there were smiles all round.  Then the reporter asked, “if it’s not a secret, can you tell me how much you paid?”  Once he had elicited an answer he followed up with, “would you be surprised if I told you that you could booked the same package cheaper by contacting the airline and the hotel and booking directly?” … The person he was interviewing went silent … and when he said how they could have saved … he was obviously somewhat shaken.

I remember thinking to myself that it was a particularly insensitive and irresponsible example of reporting … and my reaction was: “You b******!  You have just ruined that person’s holiday.”

It was made worse by the fact that, although they were covered in the full report, he didn’t really go through there and then with the people he was interviewing what the additional expense also bought – the fact that there was a company infrastructure provided to do the research; make preliminary bookings – and thus carry the risk of penalties in the event that rooms weren’t sold; have sales representatives in the home country and, (more importantly), and someone in place at the destination to help look after clients giving advice and sort out problems; making alternative arrangements in the case of unforeseen emergencies; the bonded arrangements to cater for company failures; someone to complain to in the event of some deficiency in the event that something wasn’t as they had been led to expect … and so on.

It seemed to be quite clear that the holiday maker was upset and angry feeling that he had been “cheated”.  If he had known what he was paying for then he could have been in a position to decide for himself if he valued those things enough to buy a “package deal” and pay the higher price … or if he wanted to save some money, take the risk and do it all himself.

An example of Information Skills

The kids quite often have to produce reports for school, (called a Doklad or Referat).  I well remember having to do these when I was at school, but they seem to have things a lot easier these days, (or is that just “old age” talking?).

When we set the task of writing a report on topics like Volcanoes, or Bees, we could start with the class textbook, but you couldn’t really just stop there … for one thing, everyone’s report would be very short … and virtually identical.

For several years, one lesson a week was always timetabled in the school library.  I think that it was thought that we could use the time to peruse the shelves and select a book a read … but most of us seemed to reagrd it as a whaste of time – a “doss” lesson.  However, it proved to be quite useful at time because was also used to teach us what later came to be known as “library skills” and eventually “information skills” – we learned our way around the library, how to look for things in the card catalogue indexes, and so on … searching for information, making notes, taking references, and then combining the results of our “research” from different sources into a composite whole.  We would often use this time to help prepare our assigned reports.

So, those of us who were a bit more studious, or ambitions, would trot off to the local library, which carried a wider selection of materials to trawl.  Even so, it was sometimes frustrating that there was so little information – the library would carry just one or two copies of a book, so if you got there late you would find that someone else had taken all the good stuff.

I had a slight advantage because my grandfather had, and gave to my mother when I was quite young, a copy of the seven volume Harmsworth Self Educator.  These large, thick volumes had thick green and red card covers and seemed to be embossed in gold lettering.  The text was arranged in double columns and was difficult to read because it was in small type, and most of the few illustrations that it contained were black and white line drawing, although there were some photographs and the occasional colour print.

Another reason it was sometimes difficult to read what that it was quite old.  I seem to remember that it was dated 1917 or 1918, but it could have been 1914.

For the record: Harmsworth was first published in 1906 with subsequent issues in 1907 and 1914 … and possibly other, but I can’t find any data on further editions.  It was the work of the legendary author and educationalist Arthur Mee, a name which still rings a bell with me, even if it passes by the younger generation as a meaningless.

Anyway, as a result, the contents were somewhat dated … even then – not just from before my time, but from the time before either of my parents were born.  The topics represented those of interests of a different world … Edwardian England and Grammar schools rather than the Swinging Sixties and Beatlemania.  I quickly realized, however, that although some articles were on topics that were not particularly useful or relevant in the “modern world”, others could be a mine of useful information … I particularly remeber the extra credit, the bonus “brownie points” that I earned for my reports on Volcanoes and Bees, thans the supplementary information I trawled out of Harmsworth.

See, I did learn something in those Library Lessons – they weren’t a total waste of time!

About this time a number of weekly publications were being published which were designed to be collected and then “bound” together in a cover making a complete book.  I remember the classic was called “Look and Learn” and it was full of short articles of informative text with brightly coloured illustrations.  Lots of parents started subscribing in the hope of giving their children a head start in their education … but there were problems.

• Although they were attractive in appearance, they were still perceived as “work” and comics took precedence, be they humourous like the Dandy and the Beano, full of war and adventure stories or tried to combine the “entertainment” with the educational, (like the Eagle).
• Although they weren’t all that expensive in themselves, the comics were a lot cheaper … and when you calculated the cost of buying the complete set, you suddenly realized that it would have been cheaper to go out and buy an encyclopedia or a set of books on particular topics that interested you.
• Indeed, having to appealing to a wide audience, each issue was filled with a variety of topics, many of which seemed uninteresting to the particular individual holding it in his or her hands.  In the first few issues, this wasn’t a big problem because it was novel and each article was scoured … just in case.  In time, however, you came to know which articles you would find interesting and so read intently, which ones might have something of interest and so you would quickly scan through them, and which ones were going to be boring and could be skipped over. In time, as you  picked and chose which articles were worth the effort, you began to get a sense that money which could have supplemented your meager allowance, or “pocket money”, was being wasted.
• What’s more, if for some reason you missed an issue or lost one then the whole set was spoiled … and there was a tendency for the print runs of the early issues to be quite large, but the final issues in the series were produced in quite small quantities as the number of subscribers had fallen off over the course of time.

I sometimes feel that I want to weep when I see how the kids prepare their referats these days.  Although there are good bookshops in Bishkek with a variety of attractive and informative books, most of them jump onto the internet and google the topic – if they haven’t already found found an article in the Russian version of  Wikipedia.  They find an article and cut and paste sections into Word, print it – add a cover sheet and hand it in.

And they get good marks!

Have you noticed how they put DYING at the end of the word?

Here, the system doesn’t just rely on what is handed in – their marks are also supposed to be based on an oral report, (or summary), and answering questions based on it, (… known as a “defence”).

Once one of the kids, (I won’t mention which one), forgot that he had to produce a referat and once he had been reminded the evening before it was due to be handed in, logged on and produced a lengthy report in half an hour flat.  When I protested, he assured me that it would be OK – he’d fluff his way through the “oral defense” of his work.  Unfortunately for him, I happened to know something about that particular topic and posed two or three questions which completely threw him.  I hope he got the message.

On another occasion, when I tried the same trick on one of the others who had also assured me that he would bluff his way through the defence, he retorted me by saying that he had read the introduction to the Wikipedia article and would simply repeat that in his oral summary – and find a way to dodge any really difficult questions.  Apparently his technique worked – as took great pleasure when he told me his grades afterwards.

It’s even worse … there are websites with lots of pre-written referats, you just have t go searching to find one that matches your topic … (I suppose that’s an example of information skills at work) … print our the copy and add a front page.  And, if you can’t find one that matches the topic you’ve been set – don’t worry – you can order it … and someone will write it for you … for a fee, of course.

The sad thing is that the same thing seems to happen all over the world.  Although there are programs and schemes to identify and filter out plagarism, there still seems to be a lot of it around.

To be fair, I once got taken to task by a reader who told me that there a remarkable resemblance between one of my postcards and the relevant Wikipedia article.  Now, as it happens, I had seen the wikipedia article and had used it as one of my sources … not that, one of my sources … I was taught to seek out information from a variety of sources, make notes and then write the report – referring to sources where appropriate.  Now I am not an academic and I don’t put footnotes quoting all m y sources … in fact, I can’t always remember where I learned something.  (A old newspaper clipping in my collection, for example, might, or might not, have the date and publication it came from.)

As it happens, on this particular occasion, I was able to respond by pointing to several things in the postcard that were not in the wikipedia article – and vice versa … thus, (I hope), illustrating that I had simply used it as a source … once source among several.

Neither am I a journalist, so I don’t have to double, or triple source everything I use in a report.  Where I am using a single source I do try to give credit and say where it came from, for example, by providing a link … but I confess that I am not always consistent in this.

Anyway, I have tried to always make it clear that what I write is how I see things … at the time of writing … and that I acknowledge that I might be mistaken.

For the record: It’s worth mentioning that today marks the anniversary of the publication of the first ever encyclopedia, called name “The Encyclopedia, or an explanatory dictionary of sciences, arts and crafts“, in Paris, in 1747.  It was the brainchild of the publisher Louis Bretton, who approached Denis Diderot, (the well known philosopher, writer and educator), to coordinate the project.  Diderot willingly agreed, and then dedicated 25 years of his life to it, drawing contributions from some of the most eminent people of his time, such as: Voltaire, Goldbach, Rousseay, Montesquieu … and so on.

The Encyclopedia consisted of some 35 volumes – 17 volumes containing sixty thousand articles and 11 volumes of engravings to illustrate the text.  In 1776/7, another four volumes were added,and in 1780 a two volume index.

The first edition comprised some 4250 copies, but was reprinted several times.  With the impressive list of contributors, (humanist and rationalists), many of the topics were directed against Feudalism and Catholicism and thus it helped to inform and shape the French Revolution.   It also led to the creation of similar projects in other countries: Germany; Spain and Russia … and, of course, Britain with the Encyclopedia Britannica.

Oh, yes … and Kyrgyzstan.

The Encyclopedia Kyrgyzstana is not, however, a general reference book … it’s a single volume containing a collection of articles about Kyrgyzstan: the Geography, History, Peoples and Economy, Art and Sciences, Culture and Crafts, Religion and Folklore … and so on.

It was originally based on the Encyclopedia of the Kygrgyz SSR – one of a series of projects launched in the Soviet Union.  After Independence a new version was produced with some of the original articles, some rewritten and some new articles.  The Academy of Sciences have plans to produce a new edition which will ruin to several volumes … but I won’t take as long to produce as Diderot’s did.

]]> http://ianbek.kg/?feed=rss2&p=13086 0 http://ianbek.kg/?p=12012 http://ianbek.kg/?p=12012#comments Tue, 16 Apr 2013 01:00:17 +0000 http://ianbek.kg/?p=12012

On the Malvern Hills

Not long ago on Facebook, I was intrigued to see some posts from one of my cousins who has just moved house … to Malvern - my home town.  It struck me as an odd coincidence because, although we are related, he’s never actually lived there before, so it’s not as if he was returning to a childhood home.

The first weekend after the move, he and his family went for a walk on the famous Malvern Hills … he wrote about it glowing terms and posted some fine photographs on his Facebook page.  It’s sometimes seems strange, but people living in Malvern often take the hills which so dominate the town for granted and rarely venture forth on their slopes, yet alone to the summit.  I admit that I didn’t go onto the hills all that often, and now I think “what a wasted opportunity!”

To be fair … I have to admit that even here, in Kyrgyzstan, I don’t get out and about as much as I would like and so, even though the mountains are so near and within easy reach … I rarely get to visit places like Ala Archa, (just 40 kilometers from the center of Bishkek), unless I have a particular reason.

On one occasion, however, I was taken as a young child on school trip up the Malvern Hills … and I remember the teacher pointing to two little trenches and saying that this was once a Gold Mine.  Now that caught my attention!  She did point out that the mine was pretty ancient, pre-Roman and that it wasn’t a rich deposit … in fact it would cost more to extract the gold than it was worth on the open market.   All the same, the news gave a new meaning and significance to the old saying “There’s Gold in them there hills!”

The cost of extracting the mineral from the ore varies according to the grade of the deposit.  Some veins are rich having a high concentration, whilst others – such as that in my home town – relatively low concentration.  I am told that there is plenty of gold ore lying around but because of its density most of the earth’s natural ore sank through the earth’s surface towards the magma core at the center planet in the early years of its formation.  It appears that most of the gold mined throughout history actually arrived on the planet later on and was deposited by meteorites.

It’s been over the years for a variety of purposes … for coinage (of course), but also jewelry and other decorative purposes – such as gold leaf used for embossing, but also in electrical components and other industrial process, (taking account of its specific chemical and physical properties) and even in medicine and as a culinary ingredient!

You need a lot of ore to get a very little amount of gold.  It depends on the concentration and the type of deposit, (what other minerals are with it), but in general terms, 5 or 6 tons are needed to extract just one Troy ounce, (or 30 grams), of Gold.

According to a recent article on the BBC website, in all of human history there has only been something like 171300 tonnes of gold mined in the whole of human history.  Apparently there is some dispute over that figure, some scholars think it could be about just 155000 tonnes, whilst others think that it should be about two and half million tonnes.  It’s also estimated that there is about 52000 tonnes left to be extracted from the ground.

Taking the 171300 tonnes figure as a guide, all that gold could fit into a cube with sides of about 20 meters.  That doesn’t sound like much but at approximately six million dollars a ton, it represents USD10,135,500,000,000.  It also represents something like 34,260,000,000  tons of ore – and the 52000 of reserves left to be mined represents about 1,040,000,000, tons of ore.

For the record: Gold is obviously an important element in Kyrgyzstan.  The Kumtor Gold Mine, (in the Issyk Kul oblast – about 350 kilmeters from Bishkek), is notable for several reasons – for example, at 4000 meters above sea level, it’s the second highest gold mining operation in the world and it’s estimated to be the world’s seventh largest gold deposit … but also because it accounts for something like 12% of the Kyrgyz economy.

It started operation in 1997, after several years of exploratory work and negotiations.  In fact, Soviet geologists were well aware of the existence of the deposit well before Independence, but the altitude and difficulty of exploration meant that it’s development was put on hold.  It was only after Independence that the government of the fledgling state opened discussions with a Canadian mining company with a view to exploiting the deposit.

The Soviet geologists knew of other deposits as well … there were something like 170 proven deposits in the Republic, (one of the largest proven gold reserves in the world with something like 2000 tons of the precious metal … out of global reserve of 52000 tonnes!), making it the third republic in in the former USSR as a gold producer after Russia and Uzbekistan.  Indeed, the Makmal mine near Kazarman in the Djalal Abad oblast, which used to produce about 15 tons of ore a year, was the Soviet Union’s largest gold mine.

Since then there have been more deposits discovered.  There are currently about 40 deposits which are thought could be commercially viable, but new technology should make the extraction of the precious mineral even more viable from the smaller and less concentrated of the deposits that would once have been considered, (like Malvern), as uneconomic and not viable for exploitation.

Many of the deposits being studied and will hopefully soon come on stream are in the Talas and Chatkal regions.  Jeroy, (Kyrgyzstan’s second largest deposit), Taldy Bulak and Andaash, Solton Sary and Kuran Dhzailiau.

Unfortunately, however, the development of the deposits has not been without difficulty … social and political as much as technical.  The Kumtor mine has been dogged by claims of environmental infringements, (such as when a lorry carrying cyanide fell off a bridge spilling its load into the Barskoon river in 1998, questions over the tailing dumps where are remains from the mining process are placed and glacier retreat),  industrial disputes, claims of corruption tied to the administration of both of Kyrgyzstan’s first two Presidents, renegotiation of the investment agreements, tax disputes and calls for the operating company to have its license revoked and for it to be nationalized.

In other parts of the country, other investors have also encountered problems, often with the local population, but also to do with licenses being revoked.

 As a result, the government are having trouble attracting investors, even though the country was recently named as Mining Country of the Year, (beating Papua New Guinea, Myanmar and Australia for the award), at a conference in Hong Kong, (Mines and Money 2013),  on the basis of reforms in the mining sector, investment attractiveness and the ease of doing business.

One of the most interesting things from the BBC article was the fact that all of that gold, well most of it anyway, is still in circulation today – melted down and recycled …

Although I have to admit that this assertion took me a bit by surprise.  I wonder how much gold has been lost like when King John lost the Crown Jewels in the Wash? … if he actually did … or buried in tombs yet to be discovered like King Tutankhamun’s?, or the gold leaf plated on statues of the Buddha or temple roofs only to be lost by erosion?  Still, I suppose that is just a drop in the ocean – or a small sliver off that cube.

However, that may be about to change … about 12% of the gold in use today is employed in sectors like the electronics industry where it is used in such small quantities in individual products that recovery and recycling may not economically viable.

All of a sudden, those 2000 tonnes of reserves secreted away in the Tien Shan mountains  might well prove to be even more valuable in the future … if, that is, the price of gold doesn’t continue to plummet.

Value of Kyrgyzstan's shares in Centerra Gold

Today’s news that the price has plummeted to a new two year low, (25% down from it’s all time high of USD1800 an ounce in 2011), upon weak economic data emerging from China and concerns about the knock on effect on inflation, (meaning investors have less reason to hold gold to avoid a corresponding decline in the value of cash investments”), following the news that Cyprus intends to sell its gold reserves in order to cope its financial crisis, all highlights how volatile the value of those deposits really is.

I suppose that we, here in Kyrgyzstan, shouldn’t be too surprised.  After all, we’ve seen the same sort of volatility in the value of the country’s stake in the Kumtor gold mine plummet as the Parliament, Government and prominent figures have mounted a sustained and relentless campaign against the operation and the concessions the company won from the original agreement under President Akiev and the reorganization under his successor, President Bakiev – as shown clearly in this inforgaphic from the news agency K-News, (which is in Russian – but the graph and figures probably speak for themselves).

All this will have an detrimental effect on Kyrgyzstan … not only on the potential value of the deposits but also on the value of any gold that is produced on the country’s current account balances, as the value of the ore that is ore that is extracted will also fall.

It adds yet more uncertainty to the context where prominent politicians are calling for the renouncement of the current agreement with Centerra, threatening mass rallies, (promising 10,000 protesters, “revolution” and the dissolution of parliament), claiming that “If the Canadian side does not agree to these terms, Kyrgyzstan is ready to attract new investors to develop Kumtor deposit or to work on its own.”

Which returns to the questions:

• how attractive are those deposits to a new investor in a volatile marketplace? and
• does Kyrgyzstan have the wherewithal, the financial resources, personnel with expertise and experience … and the time, to resolve the difficult issues in uncertain times ahead?

Whatever the future holds, even with volatile prices, Kyrgyzstan’s mineral reserves – and that’s not just gold – will be important factor and play a vital role in the potential for the future development of the country … but, sometimes, it feels like walking a tightrope.

Postbox

Most days the doorbell rings and a little old lady hands over the newspapers which I eagerly take, and start scanning before anyone else gets their hands on them,  If I don’t, then there’s a good chance that I won’t ever get to see them as someone else will pick them up and that’s the last I’ll see of them.

As well as the newspapers, she may also hand over the odd letter, because she is also the postwoman and newspaper delivery to your door is just one of the service offered by Kyrgyz pochtasi – the Kyrgyz post office.

Postman Bob

My father was also a postman, working for the Royal Mail for all of his working life except for the time he served as a tank driver in the Second World War.  Although he enjoyed his work, it wasn’t exactly an easy life.

I don’t know what it is like today, but back in those days postmen worked a shift system.  One week he would get up in the early morning hours – about 4:00am and head into the Post Office to sort out mail before setting off on his round, walking the streets shouldering a heavy mail sack in all weathers, (in sunshine and rain, in fog and in snow), delivering letters and small packets and finishing at about midday.

The next week he get the chance to lie in during the morning then head to the Post Office at about midday and then spend the afternoon driving a van around some of the outlying villages, delivering mail and emptying post boxes, finally getting home again in the early evening.  I think he preferred the afternoon shift as it gave him more freedom.

Over the years he got to know and established good friendships with many of the people on his routes.  On several occasions when he was retired and I was visiting home, I would take him for a drive into the country and he would often ask me to take him down this or that route – pointing out the different farm houses and telling me who used to live there and a little bit of their family history.

Apparently, when the chance for promotion came his way, he turned it down.  He enjoyed the open road too much.  My mother never really forgave him and blamed his ill health later in life on the demanding rigours of the routine.

It could have been worse … ask Kevin Costner who played The Postman in the 1997 film based on David Brin’s post apocalypse book …  a nomadic survivor who flees a warlord’s army while unwittingly inspiring hope of restoring peace.  On the other hand, he could have served in one of the worlds most famous postal services of all time: The Pony Express.

The famous Pony Express logo

The service started on April 3rd, 1860, when the first rider mounted his horse and set out from the town of St. Joseph in Missouri and headed West … across the Great Plains of the Mid West, over the Rocky Mountains and the Sierra Nevada to Sacramento in California.  Using a series of 184 relay stations located anywhere from 5 to 25 miles apart, (between 8 and 40 kilometers – depending on the local terrain), where fresh horses were always available, the riders were able to cover the vast distance of almost 2000 miles in just ten days … that might seem a long time today, but back then, (before the days of telegraph service became established – yet alone the telephone or the internet), this was revolutionary and helped to cement the place of California in the United States – separated as it was from the rest of the country by territories that had yet to be absorbed into the Union.

The importance of the Pony Express is hard to quantify … it certainly went down as a cultural icon and I remember, as a child, reading stories and watching films based on the fearless exploits of the riders who’s motto was “The Mail must go through“.  This image may well have had something to do with the image of William Cody, (otherwise known as Buffalo Bill – who claimed to have been one of them … although, apparently, some people have questioned this), and his travelling Wild West Show which did much to promote and popularize it.

The surprising thing about the Pony Express is that it was very much a “flash in the pan” – a short lived venture.  Just eighteen months later it was ceased operation, having been superseded by the new-fangled telegraph.  The image and service of delivering letters and packets was, however, perpetuated – albeit at a much more sedate pace … at first by the Wells Fargo Stage Company and later the US Postal Service.

I’m not sure how easy or difficult it is working for Kyrgyz pochtasi.  There aren’t that many letters for the pochtalian – postwoman – to deliver … but I suspect there may be some stress because I sometimes have to run after her because she has tried to give us a neighbour’s mail having mixed up the addresses.  (To be fair, that’s usually when the letter is from abroad and the address has been written in a foreign language – English).

She’ll also deliver small packets but anything larger has to be collected from the post office – either the local branch office or the Glavpochtamt - main post office – on the corner of Sovietskaya and Prospect Chui.  Only courier services like DHL, FedEx, UPS, OCS or EMS will deliver parcels to your door.

Mail within Kyrgyzstan is usually quite efficient – delivered within a day (at least in Bishkek) or a couple of days if it has to travel from the regions.  International mail may take a lot longer … but that’s because it has to come through other distribution hubs.  A couple of weeks ago I received a Christmas card posted in the States in mid January, but it only arrived in Bishkek in mid March.

Kyrgyz Pochtasi  is a state enterprise, established in 1993, to operate postal services for the newly independent country.  It has over 800 offices and 4000 employees which serve all parts of the country and handles three and a half million letters and 150,000 parcels each year.

It’s portfolio of services covers not only the delivery of mail – and newspapers, but offers over 50 different services … postal services, financial, (paying bills, making money transfers, etc.), they operate a microfinance facility, and it’s even possible to buy tickets for trains, planes, theaters and so on, through them.  Internet access is available at some of their offices.

Well, I remember my first impressions of Bishkek … and I have to admit that they were not exactly good … although I think I fared better than Saffia Farr who describes her first impressions in her book “Revolution Baby“: the depressing and demoralizing, dark and dismal streets that welcomed her to Bishkek.

(Having said that, she too came to appreciate the idiosyncrasies of life here in Bishkek and was sad when it was eventually time to take her leave).

If she arrive in what appeared to be the dead of night, it was light and bright sunshine when I arrived.

That was in mid morning one day in July 1994.  I had arrived at Almaty in the early hours of the morning on flight from Moscow.  I wasn’t alone, I was travelling with a friend, an international lawyer who had already been to both to Alamty and Bishkek several times and knew both cities well.  He had arranged for us to be met at Almaty by someone, (a father, uncle, distant relative or friend of one of his Kazakh interpreters), and his vehicle, a Zhigulu or Moskvitch, (I forget which), was not much younger than him.

I was given the front passenger seat so that, (or so I was told), I could enjoy the countryside as we motored along – even thought my friend knew Russian and would have been able to talk to the driver on the 2509 kilometer, or four hour journey – and I didn’t, so couldn’t.   He told me that, as he already knew the road, it would be more interesting for me to sit up front.  I wasn’t fooled.  I knew that, because of the early hour and the fact that he couldn’t really do so on the plane, he really wanted to catch up on his beauty sleep.  Sure enough he curled up on the back seat and settled down for a nap whilst I settled down on what would have  been the drivers side in a British car.

The seat belts didn’t work but the old man laid it across my shoulder so that it looked like it did, (although I doubt if that would passed more than a cursory inspection and have fooled the GAI – or traffic police – thus avoiding a fine).

As it happens, once we left the outskirts of the metropolis behind us, I too fell asleep.   I woke once or twice as we trundled along.  On one occasion I drowsily noted the mountains to my left and the long open steppe to my right but the highlight was being startled to see a cow emerge from underneath some trees lining the road, chased by two “cowboys” on horseback. whooping and screaming to move it along.

I woke from my fitful slumbers as the car drove into Bishkek.   I was greeted by a dry and dusty “village street” with low rise bungalows – single storey houses – behind low rise fences and high gates … nothing like English country cottages that line the streets of villages in the Cotswolds or Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple stories  set in the village of St. Margaret Mead.  The wide boulevard came to a spacious crossroads and we turned right.  Somehow, I think that was a mistake.

Although I had assumed that he was “a local”, the driver was from Almaty and didn’t really know his way around Bishkek.  Now I know that he should have carried on straight and turned right at the next crossroads.  Once he had realized his mistake he tried to correct it and signaled to turn left.  ”Where’s he going?”, I thought to myself, as he pulled onto what appeared to be waste ground between two blocks of “high rise” apartments and we lurched right and left, forwards and backwards, tilting this way and that as he attempted to navigate the potholes.

For the record: A pothole is a type of disruption or blemish in the surface of a roadway where a portion of the road material has broken away, leaving a hole.  They can be more than a nuisance … they can actually be a real danger to cyclists and others. According to one statistic I have seen, there’s an average of one for every 110 meters of road in the UK.

We were, in fact on a side street – an “unmade” road, or what we would have called back in the UK, an “unadopted road”.  The path the road would take was laid out, but there was no asphalt … as that was the responsibility of the residents.

There are quite a lot of those roads here in Bishkek.  According to a news report this week, there are 1374 kilometers of roads here in Bishkek – of which just over half, 722 kilometers, are asphalted; the remaining 652 kilometers are classified as “gravel roads”.  Currently, only 120 kilometers are in what is called “good condition” and some 602 kilometers are in a “completely worn out” state or in need of “major repair”.

Those statistics came with a story about how the city council were preparing to start some of those major repairs.  In fact, they are planning to spend some 35 million som on repairing pot holes in the city streets – but, although that sounds like a lot, there are an awful lot of potholes.  Fortunately, in addition the city also has received a grant from China and there is a USD20 million loan from Turkey, some of which will  which also be used to help repair some of the capital’s streets.

The state of Kyrgyzstan’s roads has long been a topic of conversation.  The travel advice issued by both the State Department and the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office, for example, highlight the number of potholes … and missing manhole covers … which, I have to admit, constitute a risk as well as making for somewhat uncomfortable journeys.

One review on Trip Advisor, (not one for the Silk Road Lodge – but, to be fair, it could easily have been … when we built the hotel we had the road outside made up … but over the course of time, erosion and road works have taken their toll), drew attention to the fact that:

… there were no street lights when we were there, and lots of huge potholes and open manhole covers. You have to be very vigilant where you are walking, which can be tough in the dark.

It’s not just a topic of conversation amongst foreigners.  A friend of mine tells how, when she was visiting relatives in New Zealand, they stopped the car and got out to take photographs … not of the mountains or some other fantastic scenery, but because they had come across a pot hole.

As it happens, there has been quite a lot of attention paid to pot holes here in Bishkek over the winter.

The “activist” son of the ex-President of Kyrgyzstan, Roza Otunbaeva, got so upset at the inactivity of the local authority in addressing the issue, that he and some friends bought a couple of tons of asphalt and patched up 107 potholes on sections of three of the main city streets, posting photos on twitter and Facebook.   The municipal authorities then hit back by claiming that the repairs were substandard and not according to the building codes … a factor which they stressed when announcing their latest measures this week.

Another activist has taken to posting links to websites like Fill that hole in the UK and the Report a Pothole page operated by Edmonton in Canada.

I think it will take a long time before we get to that level of service here in Bishkek, but at least something seems to be being done to address the issue …

Back in the UK, we tend to think of the Spring Equinox, (March 21st), as the first day of Spring – and, apparently, this identification is shared with Poland.  It’s not an official holiday there, but it is seems to be popular amongst children as, traditionally, its a day when children play truant from school.

It seems that in the States and Canada they have a similar tradition which they call “Senior Skip Day” (or “Beach day” in eastern Canada) – although the date varies among different schools.

It seems that “truancy” is fairly widespread here.  Although school attendance is supposed to be compulsory, there are a lot of children who don’t go to school.  Some of them simply can’t get enrolled … in order to do so, their parents have to be registered at a local address – a propiska.  Many do not!  Especially in the newly constructed suburbs – some of which are not official.

A lot of other children “work”, they have “jobs” in the bazaars as “barrow boys” or as a tachist, (collecting bottles), like Almaz or collecting discarded  rubbish on the polygon (Bishkek’s rubbish dump), or simply as “street children“.

When I was working as a teacher back in the UK, there were always a few children who played truant … in one school, for example, there was a child who was nearly always present at the start of the week, on Mondays, was usually there the next day … but by Wednesday it was 50-50 if he would be present or not, he was not often at school on Thursday and rarely ever attend on Friday!

On the other hand, they often stood out simply because they were the only people of their age on the street during the day.  They were often picked up by the police who asked why they weren’t in school.  Of course, they could always make up an excuse, like they had a dentist’s appointment, but an experienced police officer would soon get used to the pattern and sometimes they would drive a student back to school.

Here it is not so simple … many schools operate on a shift system – with some classes attending school in the morning and others having lessons in the afternoon.  This has the advantage that fewer buildings are needed … one building can cater for twice as many pupils than if there was just one “shift”  but it also means that only half of the school population are in lessons at any one time … and so children roaming the streets during the daytime are not an unusual sight.

One day, when the kids weren’t at school , I asked why not.  I understand that, sometimes, they have to miss classes in order to, for example, attend a hospital clinic or visit the Voenncommat to sort out questions their impending military service.  When we started talking about whether they were playing “hookey” they asked me if I had never ever skipped classes and I had to own up … Once.

Just once?

Yes … just once.

It was in the final year of compulsory schooling after we had finished exams.  Those who were leaving school and going to get jobs were allowed to leave after their final examinations, but those of us who were returning for the Sixth Form were expected to finish the last two weeks of school.  A special programme of activities was arranged … preparatory classes for our A-Level studies, for example, or talks from specially invited external speakers.

Well, our teachers arranged for us to undertake a Geographical survey the other end of town … measuring stream flows and that sort of thing.  After a couple of days of this, I told the teacher that the next day I would be in school and I told the teachers in school that I would be at the survey site.  In short – I did a Ferris  Bueller and took the day off.

To my horror, that was the day that the Head Teacher decided to come looking for me.  Sure enough, everyone said that I was at the survey site – and fortunately he was satisfied with that answer … but someone who had also been on the survey knew that I wasn’t there and sought me out that evening to warn me.

I have to admit that I spent a very uncomfortable night … worrying why on earth he wanted to see me.  Had I been discovered?  Why was it so important, anyway?, after all, it was just a time filling exercise.  What would he do?, Would he tell me that I couldn’t return to the Sixth Form?

The next morning I waited outside his office – not exactly quaking in my boots, but full of apprehension all the same.

He came out of his office and saw me waiting in the corridor and said : “Ah, Claytor.  I was looking for you yesterday, where were you?”  I gulped … and told a lie – “I was at the survey site, sir” - hoping against hope that he hadn’t already checked.  It seems he hadn’t because he then told me that he was going to make me Deputy Head Boy in September which meant that, if I didn’t do anything to “blot my copybook” in the meantime, I would be made the school’s Head Boy the following year.

I didn’t know what to do with myself.  Although I felt very happy at the news – and relieved – the irony of the situation was not lost on me.  It’s been a lesson I have always tried to keep in mind ever since … when you are tempted to do something that isn’t quite right … just remember that you never know when you might be caught out …

As it happens, I was lucky in that my little lie was never discovered … I was never caught out and I managed to keep my copy book clean … I became Head Boy … but I always felt a little uncomfortable about it.

So, to all my readers in Kyrgyzstan Happy Norus! … and to those in Poland: Happy Truancy Day!