Funfare for the Common Man

 Chornobyl Museum, Kyiv Remembrances, fate, tragedy, and selfishness: lest we forget 25 years ago today, at precisely 1.23am on 26 April, 1986… ‘…one of the four nuclear reactors exploded after a round of tests, sending plumes of radioactive waste – 100 times more powerful than the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki – into the air. The fallout drifted in various directions, with the bulk of it going north over Belarus and up into Scandinavia, where it was detected by Swedish scientists days two days later. At least thirty people died in the immediate aftermath of the accident due to radiation exposure, with thousands more affected in subsequent years. Cancer rates – especially with the thyroid – have spiraled in the years since.   At first, the authorities kept quiet about the disaster, telling citizens that there was nothing to worry about. Traditional May Day celebrations went ahead in Kyiv, despite the radioactive ash cloud enveloping...

Dynamo Kyiv v Manchester City, 10 March 2011 (2:0) You’ll have to forgive the lengthy delay between posts. I can attribute this to two things. One, spare time has been in short supply. I’ve been keeping myself busy and have had little time for literary pursuits. Two, my artistic energies have been taken up by a small side project, which I won’t discuss right now. I will, however, elaborate more on this later, and at some point in the not too distant future, I will share exactly what it is I’ve been working on. I don’t want to jinx anything, but at the moment, it’s too early to tell whether it well bear any fruit. And not to sound too cryptic or anything, but it is something purely professional and it is connected to the written word. In the meantime, let’s go for a brief recap of various bits and bobs that have been consuming me as of late. Not as bad as Blair, I hope (look here to see what I mean) I’ve recounted (cue the broken record) on countless occasions some of the various...