Brexit anthem

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OV5_LQArLa0

Enjoy! It's a beautiful world!!!

New site to visit for all wanting my reading RECOMMENDATIONS

Making the film outlining the idea behind
Russia and the Rule of Law (see link below)

For some time now, I have been writing up my book recommendations in a shortened form which I hope will act as a useful guide for those wishing to know which books they might consider reading.
   
Most reviews give the reviewer's view of a subject, and they are often critical. My approach is different. I review ONLY books that I think are good, and then I try to give some reasons for recommending them, using longish quoted passages so that the reader can form his or her own idea of the quality of the writing or the style of argument. My reviews are short, structured and, I hope, easily readable.

All the books I cover are available to buy through Amazon, and I give links both to that and to where readers can see the authors performing online, mostly discussing the book in question or the ideas behind it. This means that readers in Russia, for example, where Amazon does not penetrate so far, can still see the authors making their arguments. It is not as good as reading the book, but it is a lot better than nothing. For those who have read the books, it adds something personal too.

I categorize the books by the subjects I am interested in which are, more or less in this order:

• Russia (law and history mostly), 
• Law (how the rule of law developed and the people who developed it)
• the Anglo-American legal world from a historical point of view, including Ireland and Scotland. 

They are all books I have read in the course of my research for my own book, to be called: Russia, and the Rule of Law (see short film at the link). Why not try the site and see what you think? This is the link: https://www.moffatrussianconferences.com/ian-mitchell-s-russia

 

CELEBRATION! Blog just passed quareter of a million page views!!!

Thank you all - glad some people appreciate the importance of correct usage in English.

Ian Mitchell
5 October 2018

An interesting and unconventional turn of phrase from a Ukrainian lady

"Willingly lured into an extra-marital affair with Russian oligarch and living cliché Akbar Gromov, she is thrust deeper into the world of the super-rich: private jets, designer clothes and exclusive parties."

This is the intriguing second paragraph of a friend of mine's  new novel, "Snow Job: the Great Game". The author is Ukrainian and used to live in Moscow. I recommend her blend of fun, finance, and femininity....

There are two words, used together, in the quoted sentence that say an awful lot: can you spot them? I have often said, and repeat here, that the way Russian speakers misuse the English language can be illuminating and attractive. Same even more so, when they use it correctly but in a striking illustration of a basically different thought pattern. 

So don't be ashamed; don't try to imitate; and always be clear, concise and conscious of the person you are talking to (i.e. writing for). And check out Ms Ferchenko's previous book on Amazon, "Confessions of a Female Banker".

See: http://jenniferchenko.com/ 

Useful tips about the "нуансы" of English - number 23

Read this carefully. It is correct, well=-expressed and important if you want to sound natural speaking English:

BBC language mistakes No. 37

This headline implies that North Korean missiles travel about about 200 miles a day, which is about
the speed of the Cutty Sark, a tea-clipper from the 1870s (before steam-ships speeded things up).

If you assume "months" is 2 months (it cannot be less if it is plural), and that North Korea is about 12,000 miles from Britain, then by simple arithmetic, you will get 200 miles a day. That is about 18 miles an hour.

I've heard of "slow food", "slow living" and "slow communities". But not of "slow missiles" before. Another first for Kim Who-Un.

Book reviews - latest RECOMMENDATIONS !

Justice Factory: click here for link to Amazon

I have not been posting much recently as I have been too busy working on my books, Russia and the Rule of Law and The Justice Factory (see right - subtitle: "Show me the Judge and I'll Tell you the Law").

The first is still not quite complete (volume 1), but the second is about to go into a second edition, with an extended Afterword on the threats to the rule of law in Scotland today (bigger than you might imagine, and part of a global trend).

What I have been doing is writing brief, user-friendly reviews of books I have been reading, but only those which I would RECOMMEND to others.

You can see all of them to date on this website:  https://www.moffatrussianconferences.com/ian-mitchell-s-russia 

Other websites are starting to carry some of them too, for example: http://www.russiaknowledge.com/ (see "Books" tab)

Anyone else with a site which might like to utilise this content, please mail me with details.

In the meantime, here is one just to show you how they look. It is about the new book "Trotsky in New York". Enjoy!

Brilliant Russian way of describing the consequences of allowing too many Chinese to buy shares in your birthright

The sad fact is that most of the younger residents of modern England
will not know what a goat is, much less
how voraciously they eat, or how indiscriminately.
So the Russian insight is lost on them.
Luckily English is now a world language, not a local one,
so we can ignore the limitations of all those sad cases
 glued to their smartphones,  consuming e-crap 
as indiscriminately as the hungriest goat in the herd. 

Today's Financial Times (see "China land grab on lake Baikal raises Russian ire") about the number of Chinese buying land around Lake Baikal includes a sentence which ought to go into the English stock of expressions for describing something that is not exactly "an elephant in the room", nor a "Trojan horse", nor a "guest who overstays his welcome" - but is a part of all three, and something more.

Commenting on the consequences of allowing the Chinese to buy property in Siberia, one Yulia Ivanets from Angarsk wrote on Vkontyakte: "We have let the goat into the garden."

Brilliant! Nothing describes the situation better. And I can think of a hundred other situations to which that saying would apply. This should become the English language's first new popular expression of 2018. Well done Angarsk!

A brilliant collection of silly modern business cliches, explained by the man from the Financial Times (in today's paper)

Embrace failure and shoot for the moon — tech cliché bingo

A good conference always contains a good goosebump moment

JOHN THORNHILL

This year I have been lucky enough to attend several tech events. Lucky because I love nothing more than to hear improbable tales of plucky individuals defying the odds, fulfilling their dreams and launching successful businesses. A conference is not a conference unless it contains a good goosebump moment.

But, it has to be said, tech events seem to generate a disproportionate amount of thoughtless guff. During such lulls, I have taken to playing tech cliché bingo.

Here are some of my favourites:

So . . .

Apparently, it is obligatory to start every tech talk with this superfluous verbal tic. I blame Mark Zuckerberg.

We are the Uber for . . .

It is often helpful to give the audience a snapshot of what you do. But it is probably not so helpful to associate yourself with a massively lossmaking, ethically warped, and reputationally challenged business.

We are the Airbnb for . . .

One step better in terms of reputation, but not much better in terms of originality.

We celebrate failure.

This phrase is only ever said by highly successful people little acquainted with the true meaning of the word. It should be obvious to everyone: failure sucks. It kills relationships, drains money, and destroys lives. The alternative is always preferable.

We champion diversity.

Invariably said by one of four white men sitting on a panel (or manel).

We are going to disrupt industry x, y, z.

Disrupting an industry is good for the disrupter and may be good for consumers. Then again it may not. Disruption can result in the erosion of employee rights and mass job losses, one of the causes of populist outrage. Not many people want to live in a disrupted society. Probably not such a good meme for 2018.

We don’t want to boil the ocean.

It is surprising how many people who use this phrase then go on to outline business models that aim to do precisely that.

We believe in a sharing economy.

This one is often said by companies proposing to rip data out of unsuspecting users and exploit them for blatant profit extraction.

This is a moon shot project.

This really means: we don’t know what we’re doing and our technology doesn’t work. What’s more, this phrase is often used by extreme libertarian types seemingly unfamiliar with history. For the record, a much-derided public sector organisation — Nasa — was the first to achieve a real moon shot.

We aim to become a unicorn.

A unicorn is a mythical creature. The financial success of many of the companies who use this term may also remain mythical.

One other common feature of tech events is the opportunity it gives for big company bosses to come onstage to tell the audience how much they love millennials. But these corporate types have their fair share of clichés too:

We believe in open innovation . . .

Our company has run out of ideas. Does anyone else have any — please?

As Bill Gates said, “We tend to overestimate the effect of a technology in the short run and underestimate the effect in the long run.”

Great quote but almost always misattributed. One minute on Google shows that this quotation came from Roy Amara, a former president of The Institute for the Future. That’s why it’s known as Amara’s Law.

Here’s to the misfits.

This one is sometimes uttered by a chief executive whose suit costs more than the money raised in a start-up’s “friends and family” financing round. They are to hip what the former Microsoft boss Steve Ballmer is to dancing (check it out on YouTube).

All that said, it’s time for a small confession. I have moderated a few sessions at tech events this year and may — perhaps — have used one of or two of these clichés myself.

Bingo!

Editing today: spot the wrong word!

Editing today and came across this unconsciously amusing sentence. Can you spot the wrongly used word?

"...in the Doing Business ranking of the World Bank, which assesses the regulations that enhance business activity and those that constrain it, Russia has been steadily climbing upstairs and was placed in 2017 the 35th among 190 countries...."