Weekend News and yet another holiday

It seems that these Russians love a good excuse for a celebration. Not only have they still not taken the New Year decorations down but it seems that each week there is another holiday to celebrate. Two weeks ago it was men's day and this coming Wednesday it's women's day. So everyone has time off work and it means they don't want to learn English, yay. To celebrate I'm going to see a Russian dance show and I'll probably eat cake because that's the custom.

In my lesson with the teachers it was my duty to teach them all about our art and heritage so I showed them an episode of The Office which they found funny I think, although I'm not sure if they understood all of Ricky Gervais' dialogue or the accent. I also managed to get them to compare some great poetry from their own culture, in the form of Pushkin, with Britain's finest lyrical meister, Morrissey. They were mightily impressed with the Mozza and wanted to hear the tunes. It must have been a shock for them to learn that we do actually have some decent music in our country as the exports that make it over here don't say much about our tastes. In fact I have realised that this is where pop stars come when their careers are dead. It's pop star heaven! We have Ricky Martin, Cher and the lovely Gareth Gates (known here as Garrooooooth Gates) constantly playing on the radio.

So I went to a bookshop yesterday and guess who I saw browsing through the fiction section? None other than Dostoevsky himself. I said 'Priviet Fyodor' and he said hi. I recommended Nick Hornby's High Fidelity but he'd already read it. We discussed the merits of modern British fiction he said his favourite book in the last century had been Bridget Jones' Diary and that he loved the film also. I told him I didn't like the ending to Crime and Punishment and he told me I was too cynical and that I must read it again. He ended up buying nothing and said he wanted to save his money for the new Tony Parson's novel. I liked him he was very tall and good looking.