Funfare for the Common Man

We’ve made it to the end: Part 10 (of 10) of my August 2020 Challenge.  Where do we go from here? If you’ve missed any of the previous 9 parts, a recap: Part 1: A decade in quotations: Part 1 (of 10) of the August 2020 Challenge Part 2: My readers ask, I answer: Reader Mailbag, part 1 Part 3: We live in a haunted house Part 4: The Joy of Getting Away From It All Part 5: Looking for truth in all the wrong places Part 6: From the wilds of Western Ukraine to the wild 1970s Soviet Union: Yaremche v Tiraspol Part 7: My wife tried to kill me: [mis]adventures in the Carpathians Part 8: Why my language skills suck: Part 1 Part 9: Why I speak such lousy Ukrainian – even after 10 years in Kyiv So what comes next? First, a quick English lesson: the past simple versus the present perfect. This should be easy for most of you. Compare: This pandemic period was difficult. This pandemic period has been difficult. Are they both correct? No. In the first example, the use of the past simple – was ...

This is part 5 (of 10) of my August 2020 Challenge. We’re at the halfway point. I am trying to fit all of my posts into the context of a broader narrative. In other words, that is an unnecessarily pretentious way of saying I hope they all link together, in a way.  Yesterday was Part 1: Embracing the wilderness. For some context, you may to read that post if you haven’t already. There is a very tenuous link to this post. Very . Part 2: Tolerance in a post-truth society: where do we draw the line? Natalia said that she ‘wanted to ask [me] to write smth on the issue of tolerance in the context of post-truth society (where do we draw the line and stuff)’ and I thought this was a great opportunity to make a tenuous link between this and being out in the wild. (why not?) This is a fascinating yet troubling area to grapple with, one that is often on my mind. In fact, it was on my mind a lot last week. When you’re out in nature wandering (and wondering), your mind also tends to wander (an...

And part 2 (of 10) of my August 2020 challenge If you missed part 1, go here: A decade of quotations I received a handful of good questions, and I don’t think I can properly tackle them all in one post. Well, I could, but when have I ever been able to keep things brief and to the point? Some of them may merit their very own post. And if you know me well, you’ll know that I may present my own unique ‘spin’ on these questions and go off on all sorts of tangents. The topics cover: * further reflections on fatherhood * coffee preferences * movie reviews & recommendations * reconciling religion and humanity’s impact on the environment * existentialist doom (again?!) and one’s hatred of humanity (tying in nicely with the theme above) * why I speak such lousy Ukrainian and Russian after all my years living in Ukraine * things I’m surprised people don’t know * an update on consumer boycotts * a pet hates summary * toilet reading material I’ll cover just a few in brief and then save the res...