Funfare for the Common Man

Many, many years ago when I was merely a wee nipper, I never expected that just a few months shy of my 35 th birthday, I’d be working in Ukraine, getting paid decent money to try and corral 13 little monsters every day for 4 weeks and force them to put on a performance in a theatre, all the while attempting to maintain my sanity and refrain from questioning how my life came to this. My acting exploits over the last 9 or so months have already been documented. I’ve also dabbled in various directorial roles with children over the years, though I’m not sure if it’s ever been by choice. When I decided to become an English teacher, I never expected that I would be Shanghaied into trying to mold little hooligans into actors. My first foray into directing came whilst teaching in Spain, where I worked with 12 little girls in a play called ‘The Day of the Robots’. Probably not the most logical and appealing play for a group of girls, but the guy who ran the theatre club at the school had ...

‘It is terrible to desire and not possess, and terrible to possess and not desire.’ (Yeats) For a brief synopsis on what I’m about to go into more depth on here, I strongly suggest re-visiting my recent brief outline of the stereotypical Ukrainian relationship (scroll down past the ‘Malk’ video to the orange text). That will help set the scene for what I’m about to tell. Don’t worry, it’s short, and to the point(ish). As a disclaimer, let me say this: this is all far from complete, but this is good as I can give right now. There are holes in it, my argument is inchoate in places, there could be more, but it will have to suffice as is. First, the stories. Then, the analysis. Starting with the foreign man element When I talk about typical local relationships, I mean between two Ukrainians. But it’s worth a cursory look at some other fairly normal scenes I’ve witnessed in recent weeks. At a fashionable place called BarBQ, which seems to cater to ex-pats, the place was filled w...

My first Funfare post back in February talked a little about my forays into the stock market. Amongst many equities I could have recommended, I chose just two. An excerpt from that post: okay, here are just two of my safer, less risky favourite picks for 2011: National Bank of Greece – NBG – which I bought at $1.60 a month ago and is hovering just over $2 and is nowhere near as risky as you may think; and Mindspeed Technologies - MSPD – which I got in early January at $6.30 and is now over $8; my more ‘speculative’ punts involve highly risky biopharmaceuticals that can either double on good news or plummet 70% on bad. Right…unless you’ve been living in la-la land or trying desperately hard to avoid the news, you’ll no doubt be aware that Greece is on teetering on the brink of a default. Splendid news in light of my analysis of NBG being ‘nowhere as risky as you may think’. Uh…oops. So where do we stand now? It’s currently at $1.19, mere cents off its all-time low, which sees me dow...

I’d say that this post is fairly long overdue. Since I started blogging in February 2009, this is the longest I’ve gone between posts, and the first time I’ve missed an entire month altogether. I’ll try not to let it happen again. I’m going for a wide-encompassing bits and pieces, rambling about this, that and the other style for this one. In defence of complaining Or, more specifically, an attack on one of my biggest pet hates (it hits high in my top 10): those who confuse complaints with mere observations, reflections or general commentary. At the risk of offending some people, I’ll go right out and say it: people who accuse others of complaining when in actual fact they are not, are trying so desperately hard to maintain a positive outlook on every facet of life since their own disposition is so fragile, that anything that comes remotely close to upsetting their delicate balance is automatically misconstrued as a complaint. They’re almost projecting their insecurities onto ot...