About Gorky

Simon Sebag comments in his book Young Stalin: " Gorky , later in life, would become the dictator's friend, shameful apologist, pathetic trophy and possibly victim." (p. 179)

Kurban Said

Kurban Said is another pseudonym of Lev Nussimbaum. He also wrote under the name of Essad Bey. He wrote "Ali and Nino" under the name of Kurban Said.

Young Stalin

Reading Young Stalin by Simon Sebag and what sticks to my head is that Koba or Soso (as he also was known as) was very enigmatic, charismatic, ambitious morose, malicious, self-conscious, "using any means if the ends justify them". (Young Stalin, 2007)

Strange Encounter

A Malayian business man asked me if we should study China together because him being Chinese he would not know China well. He were Westernized as I was, having been educated in Malaysia and England.

Blood Brothers

This was good, but not really my cup of tea, I must admit. Too much quarrelling and negative energy for me.

Zafon and Mozart

Without reading Ruiz Zafons' The Shadow of the Wind, I would never know about Mozart's The Abduction from the Seraglio :)

He said it again

He said it again by saying: " It's so easy to love you and I do..." :)

"Women are like an iron..."

Carlos Ruis Zafon in his novel The Shadow of the Wind (2004) writes: " The trouble is that man, going back to Freud [...], heats up like  a lightbulb: red hot in the twinkling of an eye and cold again in a flash. The female, on the other hand, heats up like an iron, slowly, over a low heat, like a tasty stew. But then, once she is heated up, there's no stopping her."

Columbian Olympic team leaving from Heathrow

These guys were leaving from Heathrow on Tue, 07th August 2012. I sneaked up on them like a paparazzi.....