“Christmas is coming and the goose is getting fat”, goes the old seasonal children’s rhyme. Well, Christmas is definitely coming … and Goose was the traditional fayre for Christmas dinner in Victorian England – whilst, at the same time, it was a rare treat.
In A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens wrote that in the poor Cratchit household, “you might have thought a goose the rarest of all birds; a feathered phenomenon, to which a black swan was a matter of course — and in truth it was something very like it in that house.”
When I was growing up, Christmas dinner was always Roast Chicken, with all the trimmings. Then, one year, my mother decided to have a change and bought a turkey. Turkeys were already becoming quite popular but, although I was intrigued by the change, quite frankly didn’t I wasn’t all that impressed and couldn’t see what all the fuss was about. I wanted my chicken. More…
The International Business Council, (IBC), publishes a journal called “Investment Now, which is subtitled “In for the long haul”. This can be understood in several ways, some of which are positive, but others are negative. More…
The day began with music blaring out of my computer from a CD in the Drive. This doesn’t happen very often, but is an annual event on December 16th, as is the “birthday cake” which arrived later in the day. Now, the people of Kyrgyzstan enjoy a celebration and they take every opportunity to join in any festivities, so birthdays are pretty important events here.
So, who’s birthday was it? More…
I have just got back from an invigorating afternoon – a pleasant excursion out of the office. I had been invited to act as a judge, (a sort of “external assessor”), for a business class at one of the local Universities. As part of their course in “Business Administration” they have to form teams and then prepare and present a Business Plan.
This exercise counts as part of their assessment, and the university wanted some practicing businessmen to help adjudicate and give some external element to the assessment.
I have done this before so knew roughly what to expect. This year, however, there were only four teams, so it wasn’t going to be the “marathon” that we’ve had before – or, at least it shouldn’t have been – but as it turned out it took twice as long as we had thought it would … so there is something in the saying that “work expands to fill the time available”. More…
In the west it is commonly said that if you look at the moon you can see the face of the “Man in the Moon”. The Kyrgyz know, however, that this is a mistake – it is really the face of the “Girl in the Moon”.
I was reminded of the legend this afternoon as I walked to a meeting. The sun was shining and it was quite warm, the sky was a bright light blue and, as I crossed Kievskaya, I happened to looked up and saw the moon shining brightly, high in the sky. I could see the pattern in the different shading on the surface – white and grey and it was one of those moments when my mind wandered … and I thought of the ancient Kyrgyz fairytale about the Girl in the Moon.
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Yesterday. December 11th, was International Mountain Day.
If that caught you by surprise, don’t worry about it … it seems to have gone almost unnoticed, even here in Kyrgyzstan where something like 94% of the country is classified as mountainous and the demarcation of December 11th as International Mountain Day is actually the result of a Kyrgyz initiative.
Back in the 1990’s it was the Kyrgyz delegation at the Earth Summit that raised the question of the economic and social difficulties facing mountain communities and the fragility of mountain environments.
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One of the iconic films of the twenty century was released in 1942, starring Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergamn (In the original postcard I said Lauren Bacall – well, as I have said before … we all make mistakes!) – Casablanca. At the time, nobody really expected the film to amount to much – it was a good script with a star-studded cast, but was just one of dozens of films being turned out of Hollywood each year. Based on an unstaged play, with numerous changes and adaptations being made even as filming was underway which created difficulties in keeping to the filming schedule. Humphrey Bogart was playing his first “romantic lead” role, and nobody really knew what audience reaction to expect. Originally planned for 1943, the film’s release was brought forward in order to cash in on the recent Allied invasion of North Africa but it probably didn’t any help to ensure success. It accumulated three Oscars but that was only the beginning of the accolades. As time went by, it won a following that spanned the generations and is frequently included, (near the top of the list), of list of the greatest films ever made. More…
Yesterday, December 9th, was designated by the United Nations as “International Anti-corruption Day”, as long ago as in October, 2003, when it passed the United Nations Convention against Corruption. I don’t think it has been well advertised and, to be honest, I almost missed it this year. The first I knew was when I saw a post on Twitter from one of the prominent younger Kyrgyz politicians, congratulating his “followers” on the occasion. I have made sure to write it into next year’s diary already so that this doesn’t happen again. More…
An ombudsman is an official charged with representing the interests of the public by investigating and addressing complaints reported by individual citizens. The word comes originally from the Old Swedish “umbudsmann” meaning representative, and the first official use of the term seems to date from a 1241 Danish Law. The modern use of the term began in Sweden, with the Swedish Parliamentary Ombudsman instituted in 1809, to safeguard the rights of citizens by establishing a supervisory agency independent of the executive branch. More…
For the record – here is the text of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights:
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