Kremlin Kids Gone Wild!

Life is not easy for the offspring of dictators. Look at Gaddafi’s kids, who are either dead, in prison or in exile. Bashar al-Assad would have been an ophthalmologist if his elder brother hadn’t died. But now he has to kill thousands or be killed himself. Even Kim Jong-un, allegedly the supreme overlord of 24 million North Koreans looks vaguely terrified by the awesome responsibility of carrying on the family tradition of EVIL.

Requiem For A Hitler

The first time I saw Alexander Shishkin, the greatest Adolf Hitler lookalike in the history of the planet, I was in awe. This tall, cadaverous man didn’t just look like Hitler, he looked like a Hitler that had died and been dug up again. It was eerie: the sunken cheekbones, the severe parting and of course the black moustache were almost enough to persuade you that Hitler was indeed back from the dead.

World Goes Crazy, Gorilla Makes Break for Freedom

The world, friends, is a preposterous place. I thought that this week when, intending to write a newsy column, I started perusing headlines. Very soon my head was aching from all the absurdity and violence.

A Cross-Cultural Comparison of Russian and American Crime

Sometimes I wonder if a nation’s crime, like its cuisine, can tell us something about its character. When I was first exposed to Russian crime in the 1990s in the Death Porn section of the eXile newspaper, it certainly seemed to have a unique flavor. There was a heavy emphasis on vodka, businessmen getting shot in the pod’yezd, provincial misery, child victims, corrupt cops, and lots of Really Stupid Criminals.

Beware of Falling Space Rocks!

Earlier this week, I read that a Tunguska-sized meteorite is hurtling in our direction at great speed and immediately felt quite excited at the apocalyptic potential of this space-rock. For those not in the know, “Tunguska” refers to an earlier piece of cosmic debris that exploded above the Krasnoyarsk region in 1908, with a force 1000 times as powerful as that of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima.

Notes on the Landscapes Spotted in the Backgrounds of News Reports

Recently I started a daily ritual of watching Euronews after dinner. I’m not sure why I find the channel so absorbing, as when I actually lived in Europe I found it incredibly dull. And not dull in a smug, irritating BBC way but just… soul-crushingly boring, as is characteristic of anything that begins with the chilling prefix “Euro-”. Perhaps it’s only now, after years spent in a land where the news is delivered exclusively by pompous, Botoxed egomaniacs that I can appreciate the channel’s relatively understated style. Or then again, maybe I’m just digging the stuff I can see in the backgrounds.

Congratulations President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov of Turkmenistan on Your Outstanding Election Victory!

With the world currently rocked by political unrest and open rebellion, I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov of Turkmenistan on his resounding victory in last week’s elections. Apparently he won 97% of the vote! This is quite spectacular, although admittedly not as spectacular as the type of result his predecessor Saparmurat “Turkmenbashi” Niyazov regularly enjoyed. He could win reelection with 99.5% support. But it’s pretty good all the same.