Урок 30, 1997

I learned Russian for about two years, more than fifteen years ago, with the Athens branch of the Pushkin Institute. When I visited Kazakhstan in late 1997, I got by easily enough and even now, I can figure out what our slavic northern neighbours are talking about, despite how they treat their articles. Feels like only yesterday, but fifteen years sounds like a long time ago...

Part of a new series, called "Cleaning out my closet" (ComC), where I present things I find while tidying up packing boxes from our recent house moving.

Leaves, 1980s

This is from the early 1980s, a collage of autumnal leaves, made no doubt after a nature walk. When I was younger, I could probably have named all of the trees these came from. Now I doubt I can identify one.

Part of a new series, called "Cleaning out my closet" (ComC), where I present things I find while tidying up packing boxes from our recent house moving.

Avocado, June 1980

June 23rd
This is my avocado. It needs to be watered every Friday. Its got light green leaves. We have lots of cacti in our class. We have a green pepper. We have lots of other plants.



This also dates to June 1980. I still have an avocado plant, though obviously not the stringy-looking one in the image.

Part of a new series, called "Cleaning out my closet" (ComC), where I present things I find while tidying up packing boxes from our recent house moving.

Cyclops, June 1980

June 24th
My puppet is a cyclops from Greek mythology. Odyssiuses ship landed on a greek island. He went to a cave for shelter not knowing it was a cave of a cyclops. Then he came back with his herd of sheep. He ate two of the men for lunch the other two for dinner. Odyssius gave him some wine when he was drunk they made him blind. He screamed nobody made me blind.

Nearly at the beginning of the story he said that his name was Nobody.



The text is from an exercise book I came across at the weekend from 1980. The spelling is great. I have photographs of the Cyclops puppet, but I am not sure if it is still around. I very much like the post punchline explanation of the whole thing - nearly at the beginning of the story... I also like the was the cyclops is never named when the subject of the sentence, always “he”, even when this is confusing to the flow of the text. Well tried, indeed. I have recycled the exercise book.

Part of a new series, called "Cleaning out my closet" (ComC), where I present things I find while tidying up packing boxes from our recent house moving.

The dead pool

STELIOS
1. 105 William Shatner
2. 48 Jim Bowen
3. 93 Arnold Palmer
4. 41 Chuck Berry
5. 65 Rhodes Boyson
6. 91 Noam Chomsky
7. 1 Queen Mum
8. 32 Tony Curtis
9. 77 Marti Caine
10. 54 Warren Mitchel[l]


I date this piece from between November 1992 and July 1993, probably in the first part of this range. We got together with ten other guys (I am pretty sure they were all guys) and put ten names each into a hat and then drew names for each of us. The idea is that the guy holding the card with the first celebrity to die would win the pot. In short, betting on random outcome events. I came across my card, written in someone else’s hand while cleaning out boxes from our recent moving house thing.

It is interesting to note that of my list, I recognise / recognised only six of the names. I had six entertainers, one sportsman, one academic, one politician and one Royal. Also interesting to note is that I got a real bum deal, given that seven of my celebs are still very much alive, though some have been in and out of hospital recently, almost 20 years after the list was drafted. Only the Tony Curtis (2010), the Queen Mum (2002) and Marti Caine (1995) are gone and although Marti Caine left us soonest someone else won. I can’t remember who actually won the jackpot and with which names.

One of a new series, called "Cleaning out my closet" (ComC), where I present things I find while tidying up packing boxes from our recent house moving.

Trojan war so much alive still

THE TROJAN WAR

Six hundred ships
Set sail from shore
And soon arrived at Troy

Our attack began
And when we’d won
We gladly sailed for home

By Stelios

[Good **]


I date this to between 1979 and 1981, probably in the middle of this range. I just want to comment on the quality of the stick man and wooden horse, surely worth the two stars; also on the interesting use of the first person personal pronoun. I would say that is shows how the young Stelios identifies with the subject (rather than believes that he was there when the shit went down). If he had been there he would know that there were in excess of 1,000 ships.

The first of a new series, called "Cleaning out my closet" (ComC), where I present things I find while tidying up packing boxes from our recent house moving.