My old buddy Teo is now in Bishkek and drawing 'toons for the Times of Central Asia. This one in particular tickled me pink:


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Hi, LJ peeps. Basically, my beautiful iBook is up on the blocks at the moment 'coz the software (OS X-point-something) had a total freakout and now I just boot to that depressing grey screen with an apple outline on it. I know how to solve the problem, and it will be solved ... by someone else. 'Til then posting will be even more irregular than ( Read more... )

Huzzah! Farsi is done and dusted. So, tomorrow it's back to the world of nine-to-five (my baby takes the morning train tum-ti-tum). However, although my thesis isn't technically due in until mid-September, it may feature as part of a panel presentation at the CESS conference at UMich in the Fall, so I will probably have to produce a working copy ( Read more... )

Ach! or should that be !به! به I have my Farsi exam tomorrow - and I'm actually looking forward to it. Not because I have been permanently ensconsed in the library for the past 2-3 weeks, learning all there is to know about the ezafe, direct object marker or irregular verbs - I haven't, and I'm not that nerdy, despite the appearance presented by ( Read more... )

Ok. I'm back at work, I have a Farsi exam next week, but the thesis bibliography is taking over my life, like that plant monster from Doctor Who.


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CK "Bob" Brain. Osama Bin Laden. Nelson. Napoleon. And my buddy Teo.

What a strange crew that inhabits my dreams these days.

Sometimes the New Yorker surprises me. Sometimes it is genuinely informative ;-) No, seriously, I was fascinated by the article on Peter Viereck. I'm always interested in finding who is the "first" or "founder" of any given political, social, cultural, whatever school of thought.

More pretentiously, Slate's article on CabFranc was thoughtful and ( Read more... )

Today's match was, unsurprisingly, cancelled; so I have a free day. I was somewhat relieved, what with additional stress in my life (though I'm back at work ... ), so I'm on a rainy-day schedule: cleaning/housework, reading, surfing, hibernating ... the cat's a great help ( Read more... )

At 11pm Mornington Crescent was awash with Converse-wearing, faded-denim sporting, ironic t-shirt garbed hipsters. And me. The Shins rocked Koko, and I was there. You can take your stinking Antarctic Chimpanzees and stick 'em up your japsie!

Today, I got spectacles after many years of squinting and people telling me, "You should get glasses." Then, a friend told me, "You know, they [the glasses] make you look like an Uzbek." This is strange, but also coincidental; last week, following the Andijan lecture I attended a SOAS, an Uzbek woman told me, "You have very Central Asian features ( Read more... )