Original playout date: 28 October 2007
Duration: 15:08
Part One of a new series done by Huliganov of a 2007 trip back to Mother Russia. This episode shows the arrival in the first snow of the 2007/2008 winter, the taxi drive back from Sheremietievo airport into Moscow.
Continue reading “Huliganov’s Russia #1/11 – Arrival”
So here I am embarking on the first of many posts for this year. I woke up ridiculously late this morning, in fact I’m not sure that morning is actually the correct word to use, and the first thing that I thought about was to make sure that I drank coffee before breakfast because we had planned to use the red caviar that my wife’s sister recently brought from Russia for our first breakfast in the year.
Now I don’t know about you, but personally I don’t like drinking coffee straight after eating red caviar. Or black caviar for that matter with the slight proviso that I don’t buy black caviar. I worry too much about the plight of the sturgeon, and also I don’t even like it as much as I like the red caviar which comes from the salmon, and is not endangered in the way that sturgeon-derived caviar is. It is a little bit endangered but then so is everything little bit endangered. Whereas sturgeons are more than a little bit endangered.
So I took my coffee without sugar, and perceived on my weight loss initiative. I should say that I weighed in last night just before midnight at 131.6 kg. This means that in 2010 I lost the grand total of 0.4 kgs. Before you laugh and pour scorn upon my weight loss efforts, I have to say this is a bigger success than you might think. I am perfectly capable of adding on 40 kg in the course of a year just be eating what I feel like and not watching what I am about. So all I really need to do is redouble my efforts and there should be a healthy weight loss. Anyhow the target is 101,6 for the year – a loss of 30 kg.
But I decided not to be weighing myself every day or week, I decided to make that a monthly event. For the first month to be on track I need to lose about 4 or 5 kg. It does slow down as a diet progresses, you see. I will not be crash dieting, just burning more by walking instead of using the car (which remains unrepaired while I get my teeth repaired, which appears to be a long-term construction project) and having smaller portions. The key is to avoid the things which are simply empty calories, to eat less at meals so that I still think I probably haven’t eaten enough when I push away from the table, to leave food when given too large portions, to order fewer courses, and to drink water instead of juice or anything with calories in it.
Calories taken in as fluid are a particularly deceptive thing – you don’t feel full but you’ve had some of your food allowance.
Anyway, I did some Czech Goldlist and then went for a walk with my son, George. He is a bit snuffly so it was a short walk. The weather is about plus 2 outside but there’s a bit of a wind so the so-called chill factor was much in evidence. I listened to the Michel Thomas advanced Japanese course a bit while walking. I do think it’s very good despite some of the mean reviews it had on Amazon.co.uk. One person didn’t get on with the presenter’s Irish accent, but I find it quite endearing, so I do. I know Paddy O’Donohue would love it. He would probably be wanting Niamh to be his colleen if he wasn’t already wanting Enya to be.
And then I came home and had some soup and one of my wife’s ‘kotlyety’ (Russian meatballs) and then it was now!
Hopefully that wasn’t too boring, as there’s plenty more where that came from, so there is…
This is the sixth of my cycle of ten Hymns, called “The Psalms of Davey”. They are being reproduced in a special category on this blog one after another. In only one case is the tune my own (that’ll be number ten). In other cases, please follow the links to get to the midi for the tunes, courtesy of http://www.cyberhymnal.org
6. “FOR ME TO LIVE IS CHRIST”
Words Uncle Davey, Voronezh, Russia, 10th October 1985. Music Robert Jackson (1842-1914) Tune name “Trentham”. The tune appears to be named after the village of Trentham near Stoke-on-Trent, England, which has a pleasant lake backed by hills and the river Trent and the canal nearby. It is my favourite of the four famous tunes we have from this composer. It is of course a Short Meter tune, and ideal for meditative hymns. Most commonly it is sung to “Breathe on me breath of God”.
First published on the net on 24th April 2004
(NB. The picture to the right was taken in 1985, this is how I looked when I wrote this hymn.)
1.
For me to live is Christ,
For me to die is gain
Lord, may this blessed truth me guide,
In comfort and in pain.
2.
Not I it is who live
But Christ doth dwell within.
My former, carnal self hath died
And I am dead to sin.
3.
The life which now I live
I live by faith alone,
In Christ who loved me and gave
Himself, me to atone.
4.
So may the Lord restrain
Me from all other plea
And may the cross of Christ my God
My only glory be.
“”For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.”(Philippians 1 v 21) “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless, I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me” (Galatians 2 v 20) “But God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world” (Galatians 6 v 14)
The start of what has in fact been the most popular thing I’ve ever done on the internet, this is the first ever lesson of Russian in the cult course done as Viktor Dmitrievitch Huliganov.
Here in Huliganov.tv these are going to have their own section, and each of the films will have additional notes.
The vocab of each will be listed here, and you’ll be able to ask your questions in the comments sections also, and get maybe a longer answer than the ones that it’s possible to get in the original YT format.
This was only actually going to be a series of lessons on the Russian alphabet, as the vehicle not only for Russian but for other languages also, but in the course of the ten lessons, in which there are hardly any Russian words as such in the first few lessons, people started asking for real full Russian lessons, which is what then happens in RL102.
In this lesson no actual letters are given, only info on the historical background of Cyrillics. It still got to over 60,000 views! People simply love the mix of serious linguistic education with humour, so that’s what I tried to do with this course, each lesson of which contains some didactic material and then a joke and a song.
Enjoy!