Posts Tagged: Russian

  • Burgess explained to the New Yorker how he named the book: 'I first heard the expression “as queer as a clockwork orange” in a London pub before the Second World War. It is an old Cockney slang phrase, implying a queerness or madness so extreme as to subvert nature, since could any notion be more bizarre than that of a clockwork orange?’ AI generated image

    Nadsat and A Clockwork Orange

    Today is the anniversary of the death of Anthony Burgess, the English novelist (22 November 1993). His most famous work is A Clockwork Orange published in 1962 and made famous by Stanley Kubrick’s 1971 film. The novel uses Burgess’ made-up slang, called Nadsat, as the characters’ language. Burgess explained to the New Yorker how he […]

  • SPolitical cartoon of a Russian oligarch tumbling from a building, with rouble notes spilling from his briefcase against a snowy Moscow Kremlin backdrop, illustrating Sudden Russian Death Syndrome.

    Sudden Russian Death Syndrome

    Defenestration—a symptom of Sudden Russian Death Syndrome (SRDS) The Atlantic, an American magazine and multi-platform publisher based in Washington, published a story on the last day of 2022 that dubbed a series of ostensibly accidental deaths and suicides of high-profile Russians, Sudden Russian Death Syndrome. Over the weekend, Pavel Antov … a man who had […]

  • Man with smoking old gun in the shadows - we often talk about the "Italian mafia", the "Russian mafia" or the "Japanese mafia". In these usages "mafia" is used to refer generically to secret societies of criminals that operate primarily as private protection firms,

    Mafia – criminal fraternities

    I have been watching a dramatic series on SBS online called Zero Zero Zero. It follows the journey of a cocaine shipment, from the time a cartel of Italian criminals (the mafia) decides to buy it until the cargo is delivered and paid for, passing through its packaging in Mexico and shipment across the Atlantic […]

  • AI generated image of Putin and his oligarchs.

    Putin and the oligarchs

    We are all watching the Russian invasion of the Ukraine (post Aug 2022) with great empathy for the Ukrainians and the hope that the Russians are repelled. The west is providing weapons and has introduced sanctions against the Russian nation, its banks and Vladimir Putin and the oligarchs. The oligarchs are central to the west’s […]

  • BOGSAT - Bunch Of Guys Sitting Around Talking - 1960s-style illustration of President John F. Kennedy meeting with advisers around a White House conference table, with plum-coloured chairs, carpet and curtains.

    BOGSAT—a bunch of guys sitting around talking

    I was reading a very serious blogpost this week, which, much to my annoyance, kept dropping acronyms into the text without explanation. Nonetheless, it did make me laugh when I looked up BOGSAT. It means a Bunch Of Guys Sitting Around Talking. According to the Urban Dictionary, it refers to regularly scheduled but worthless daily […]

  • On Sunday (3 August 2008), Alexander Solzhenitsyn, died aged 89, in his home in the Moscow area. He, through great hardship, brought the Russian word gulag, into the mainstream of the English language.

    Goodbye to the man who gave us gulag

    On Sunday (3 August 2008), Alexander Solzhenitsyn, died aged 89, in his home in the Moscow area. He, through great hardship, brought the Russian word gulag, into the mainstream of the English language. His book, The Gulag Archipelago, was written in secret while he was living in the Soviet Union and published in Paris in […]