June 28, 201015 yr The best book on modern Russia. http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2008/feb/1...uardianreview21
June 28, 201015 yr The fantasy is fuelled by passion, the humour by grief. For example, in a fine episode set in the frozen north, our fox discovers that the Russians get their oil by employing werewolves to invoke the spirit of a brindled cow - the cow who, in a folktale, helped poor little Khavroshka with her tasks and finally made her rich by dying and coming back as a tree with leaves of gold. If the werewolves can make the cow's skull weep, oil will spring from the ground, like a black tree with leaves of gold. This is a fine, rich metaphor for our increasingly insane exploitation of nature's generosity - and is it very much more improbable than what we "really" do nowadays in order to get oil? Right, that's my holiday reading sorted then. Tom Clancy can wait.
June 28, 201015 yr Must've lost a lot in translation. "Moral indignation is a standard strategy for endowing the idiot with dignity." Marshall McLuhan
June 28, 201015 yr Mike... I came up with Crate 3.0 technology. Crate 4.0 - we shall just have to wait and see.Down and out on the Solomani RimNow the Spinward Marches don't look so GRIM!
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