This time it was a snowman who got caught. Firstly, he is a man (for us this is a snow woman, but for normal Anglo-Saxons it’s the other way around), but what’s even worse is that he’s always white! British researcher Tricia Kusak, who carefully studied the history of the snowman, came to the conclusion that it represents a symbol of male dominance.

Books for the week from December 27 Lisa Novikova Publication date: December 27, 2000 Graham Swift. Latest orders / Per. from English V. Babkova. - M.: Publishing House Nezavisimaya Gazeta, 2000. The “last orders” of the outgoing twentieth century came to us from abroad. This is the title of the Man Booker Prize-winning novel written in 1949 by the English writer Graham Swift.

Fear of the word Elena Vigdorova Publication date: December 27, 2000 I love reading bad essays . They, bad essays, like unhappy families, are different. Hippocrates said that a patient’s delirium can be both cheerful and sad. Cheerful delirium promotes recovery, but sad delirium leaves no hope. The sad nonsense in children's writings is when from the introduction I learn that Pushkin is a great Russian poet, and " Eugene Onegin " is his brilliant work.

The recently I had the idea that the first and lively example of the game in the "E2-E8" was the persecution of jokes is born. The process of this very "bullying" is a completely unconscious construction of intertextual chains from one ridiculous story to another; This is the only way to explain the half-hour transition from Vovochka to Natasha Rostova and further to Putin through a militzer and Winnie the Pooh ... Okay, this is a saying, a fairy tale ahead. ...

Thirty-sixth approach Publications about literature in paper and online media Adelaide Metelkina Publication date: December 27, 2000 Bonus This is the long list for the Apollo Grigoriev Prize 2000, about which Alexander Ageev wrote yesterday in Russian Journal: “I would hide this specific list, like a partisan, out of a false, perhaps, sense of corporate solidarity.” The list of nominees was published in today's Izvestia - in its paper version, but not online - with lively comments from Arkhip

Ten films for January 1-14 For the Moscow premiere of the film "The Cage" It's a more amusing than alarming trend: Americans feel that they started repeating themselves in every film ten years ago, and are trying to compensate for the triviality of the story with stylistic experimentation. The exercise, by the way, is not useless, because style is a sign of taste, and bad taste has been and remains the main disadvantage of Hollywood cinema.

Tim Berners-Lee, writing in the Wall Street Journal , worries about the wholesale commercialization of the Web , which could lead to a conceptually vague model that won't fit within the technology framework in another decade. In addition, he reports that (history does not know the subjunctive mood, heh) he would change little in the WWW, except that he would exclude the double slash from URLs, which takes a long time to pronounce when dictating the address.

Ukraine and Russia: in the exclusion zone. Roman Mannequin Publication date: December 27, 2000 Ukraine's participation in the GUUAM bloc , the agreement with NATO "on partnership for peace" , the "de-Russification" of the eastern and southern regions of the country, the unclear position on the "Yugoslav question" - these and a number of other facts clearly indicate that today's Ukraine - a state unfriendly to Russia.

For an inexperienced reader, all this resembles some kind of letter vinaigrette - a chaotic alternation of uppercase and lowercase letters, sometimes turned backwards or even upside down. But for solving enthusiasts and mysterious cipher crackers, this meaningless set of icons is nothing less than the greatest mystery that has not been solved for 159 years.

Commonwealth for Putin Vitaly Portnikov Publication date: December 27, 2000 Did the new Russian president manage to revive the CIS structure, which had fallen into complete disrepair? Most observers will answer this question in the affirmative: meetings of the leaders of the CIS countries began to take place according to a much more rigid and verified scenario, Russia began to insist that its interests should be taken into account both at the level of regional and bilateral cooperation.

Nasty journalists did not try for the sake of my anniversary review. They say the truth, for them a scandal, that Rahat-Lukum . Today, however, there is one topic that united many publications. But so, a trifle. Or, as the heading says in the Vedomes, "nothing special." The presentation of the latest prizes of the millennium - theatrical "Seagull" (founders - TV -6 TV channel) - causes little emotions even in the most poisonous feathers.

Russian diaspora in Ukraine: what next Reply to R. Manekin. Andrey Grinev Publication date: December 27, 2000 The author of the article “Ukraine and Russia: in the exclusion zone,” Mr. R. Manekin, gives a complete and convincing overview of the social, political and economic situation in modern Ukraine.

Masonic order A.L. Nikitin. Mystics, Rosicrucians and Templars in Soviet Russia: Research and materials. - M.: Agraf, 2000 O.F. Soloviev. Freemasonry: Dictionary-reference book. - M.: Agraf, 2001 Alexander Lyusy Publication date: December 27, 2000 And of all the political movements, the phenomena that became the subject of research in both books turned out to be most closely related to anarchism.