This was another нельзя, but your fearless correspondent just looked squarely at the нельзяист and said, in English, "May the holy Mother of God keep you from the sin of covetousness, especially with regard to other people's pixels." Often I have found jokes baffle Russians. Though they have a tremendous sense of humour, many do not like a lot of what seems funny to Britons. For example, the Borat film is universally disliked. It is thought cheap, racist and contemptuous. I do not know anyone in Britain who does not think it hilarious. I got a serious ticking off from Tanya, for example, after we emerged from the enormous church in the Peter and Paul fortress in St Petersburg and I had said a few times, not very loudly, as I walked past the immense line of people queueing to get into what I thought was a not very interesting building, "Бога нет." These are the famous words which Gagarin is supposed to have uttered from Vostok, as he circled the earth for the first time. It means, "There is no God." He had been up "in heaven" and was in a position to settle the intractable, one thousand nine hundred and sixty one-year old controversy for the first time. Tanya was not amused. Well, I could understand that. But I was not amused when she said she seriously expected me to desist from such jokes in the future.
Wednesday, 6 June 2007
Doing the decorating
This was another нельзя, but your fearless correspondent just looked squarely at the нельзяист and said, in English, "May the holy Mother of God keep you from the sin of covetousness, especially with regard to other people's pixels." Often I have found jokes baffle Russians. Though they have a tremendous sense of humour, many do not like a lot of what seems funny to Britons. For example, the Borat film is universally disliked. It is thought cheap, racist and contemptuous. I do not know anyone in Britain who does not think it hilarious. I got a serious ticking off from Tanya, for example, after we emerged from the enormous church in the Peter and Paul fortress in St Petersburg and I had said a few times, not very loudly, as I walked past the immense line of people queueing to get into what I thought was a not very interesting building, "Бога нет." These are the famous words which Gagarin is supposed to have uttered from Vostok, as he circled the earth for the first time. It means, "There is no God." He had been up "in heaven" and was in a position to settle the intractable, one thousand nine hundred and sixty one-year old controversy for the first time. Tanya was not amused. Well, I could understand that. But I was not amused when she said she seriously expected me to desist from such jokes in the future.
