[EN] Not worth trying in the UK / [RO] Nu merită încercat în UK (12)

[EN] They couldn’t have left water as the Lord gave it; they needed to ‘improve’ it, and to make money of their invention. [RO] Nu puteau să lase apa aşa cum a dat-o Domnul, trebuia să o fi ‘îmbunătăţit’ şi să facă bani din invenţia lor.

[EN] This is how this flavoured mineral water must have appeared: a liquid looking like water, yet with an unnatural chemical taste… [RO] Aşa trebuie să fi apărut această apă minerală cu arome: un lichid care arată ca apa, dar cu un gust chimic nenatural…

[EN] …of lemon, raspberry or other fruits :-( Sweet, intereseting maybe, but I most likely unhealthy. [RO] …de lămâie, zmeură sau alte fructe :-( Dulce, interesant poate, dar cel mai probabil nesănătos.

[EN] Like similar such inventions, you end up thirstier after drinking this drink supposed to have quenched your thirst! [RO] Precum alte astfel de invenţii, sfârşeşti prin a-ţi fi mai sete după ce bei această băutură presupusă a-ţi fi potolit setea!

[For all the episodes of this series, and all the posts on this blog go to/Pentru toate episoadele din această serie şi toate postările de pe acest blog mergi la: Contents/Cuprins]

Femeile în UK (17) [Women in the UK]

Probabil că n-o fi ceva exclusiv britanic, dar eu în UK am remarcat drept bun exemplu această manieră demnă de laudă de a le aminti între eroii naţiunii şi pe femeile care au participat la victoria în conflagraţiile mondiale ale veacului trecut.

În Londra, pe Whitehall, sunt trecute în rândul eroilor acele femei care s-au trudit, din poziţii deloc predispuse la ‘poveşti glorioase’. Fără străduinţele lor, adesea rămase pe deplin anonime, nu ar fi putut avea loc bătăliile victorioase ale bărbaţilor britanici.

Şi nici amarele înfrângeri nu ar fi fost suportabile de bărbaţii mândrii ai acestei naţiuni, dacă nu ar fi avut infirmiere care să le oblojească rănile, bucătărese care să-i hrănească, şoferiţe, telegrafiste sau muncitoare la fabricile de arme şi muniţie.

Însă şi mai emoţionantă mi s-a părut fresca din sanctuarul eroilor (Scottish National War Memorial) de la Edinburgh Castle, dedicată femeilor care au contribuit la Marele Război din 1914-1918 cu “eforturile, compasiunea şi rugăciunile lor”.

Practic, dacă surorile şi logodnicele celor care putrezeau de vii în tranşeele din Franţa mai lucrau propriu-zis şi în afara caselor, la începutul veacului trecut menţiunea “rugăciunile lor” cred că se referea la… mamele lor.

La fel ca în cazul altor naţiuni, şi mamele britanice au dat naştere, de-a lungul veacurilor, la milioane de fii care nu s-au născut pentru altceva decât să moară de tineri. Şi cine altcineva decât Dumnezeu putea să le mângâie?

Ce trist trebuie să fie pentru acelea despărţite de fiii lor fără certitudinea Învierii, fără a şti că Hristos a înviat! Cum le ajută rugaciunea pe unele, şi ce greu trebuie să le fie celor care, poate neştiind de Hristos, caută vinovăţii omeneşti pentru moartea fiilor lor din Afganistan!

Cât despre cum poartă războiul de acasă femeile de astăzi, observ un alt trist adevăr despre UK – că dezbrăcarea în scop caritabil a ajuns până şi formă de susţinere a soţilor de pe front :-( Va ridica cineva, vreodată, un monument pentru aşa ceva?

[Pentru toate episoadele din această serie şi toate postările de pe acest blog mergi la/For all the episodes of this series, and all the posts on this blog go to: Contents/Cuprins]

A ‘British Obama’ and little truths that won’t change anything [Un ‘Obama britanic’ şi mici adevăruri care nu vor schimba nimic]

“Watching Germany rise from its knees after the war and become a vastly more prosperous nation has not been easy on the febrile British psyche.”

“All nations have a cross to bear, and none more so than Germany with its memories of Nazism. But the British cross is more insidious still.”

“A misplaced sense of superiority, sustained by delusions of grandeur and a tenacious obsession with the last war, is much harder to shake off. We need to be put back in our place.”

Wow, is this another attack on Britan from me, the ever ungrateful and shameless Chevening Fellow, as some ‘friends’ would say?!

Not that I wouldn’t agree with this diagnosis of the British psyche, but I must admit someone else put it better than I could have described it.

That someone is Nick Clegg (leader of the Liberal Democrats), a man who could – theoretically – become the UK’s next Prime Minister (or ruler of Britain’s Elected Dictatorship).

If he weren’t close enough to a historic electoral result – which doesn’t necessarily have to be an outright victory but could rather mean throwing the British political establishment into agonizing deadlock – these words would have remained unnoticed.

After all, the pro-EU, and anti-Iraq war Clegg first spit these little truths some eight years ago. Now, his enemies foolishly imagine that recalling his “attack on British pride” could supposedly tarnish his image of Britain’s Obama.

Well, I’d say it’s just an exaggeration, as I could hardly imagine that there is enough time left before the elections for any ‘Cleggmania’ to gather momentum.

He may talk about ‘hope’ and ‘change’ – just like Barack Obama had been doing for almost two years before the November 2008 Elections – yet Clegg is no more than an irreligious guy, and former playboy (if anyone can be cured of that :-)

Even if he won the elections, his party would not change anything for the better. Although he proves brave enough to tell some truths he’s from the same stock like Obama: very ambitious but rather shallow.

A charismatic character can help one win elections in the USA, and the entire world is curious if this could be done in the UK as well. As millions of Brit youngsters are brainwashed by the celebrity culture this is not altogether impossible anymore.

Neverheless, Clegg has a long way to gain the trust of the nation. Could the inherently euroreserved Britons trust a euroenthusiast (see here, here, here or here)?

Oh, old Monty – seen here (3rd pic) in a statue close to the UK’s Ministry of Defense (2nd pic) – , would you trust him if he were to tell you how to fight a war or rather not fight it? Could soldiers serving under the Union Jack (1st pic) in Afghanistan trust him?

Would anyone from Whitehall believe his promises of tax cuts when Britain is almost bankrupt? Won’t voters fear that a hung parliament could severely affect their lives?

[For all the posts on this blog go to/Pentru toate postările de pe acest blog mergi la: Contents/Cuprins]

Alcoolul ăsta, prietenul cel mai bun al românului? [This alcohol, a Romanian’s best friend?]

Am tot scris eu în serialul acesta – din ce am văzut eu însumi şi citându-i pe britanicii înşişi, că doar n-am inventat ceva! – despre ce beţivani sunt mulţi dintre britanici şi cum, chiar şi acei care n-or bea de dau prin şanturi, trag la măsea peste limite.

Evident, nu există limite, deşi bitanicii au dezvoltat conceptul de unităţi de alcool (alcohol units). Singura limită la care m-aş fi putut referi era aceea că oamenii din UK (băştinaşi sau nu, că obiceiurile rele se preiau rapid) beau mai mult decât alţii.

Iată că un nou sondaj UE (de tip Eurobarometru) vine să pună la îndoială ce răutăţi oi fi scris eu – repet, citând adesea surse din UK! Nu reiese chiar că britanicii nu beau de sting (ipoteza de lucru a serialului meu), ci că alţii sunt mai însetaţi decât ei.

Potrivit sondajului, citat de Gândul.info, cei mai mari băutorii ai Europei, nu-s locuitorii din UK, ci românii şi irlandezii!!! Ruşinea pentru britanici este completă :-), căci topul este completat de veşnicii lor rivali – germanii – urmaţi de austrieci.

N-am temei să zic că “UE minte”, mai ales că eurobarometrele au relevat multe triste adevăruri despre europeni. Totuşi, orice statistică este un diavol versatil, din care poţi să faci orice, cum vrei, depinzând de ce anume vrei a scoate în evidenţă.

Astfel, în timp ce unii (‘imparţiali’ – vezi aici şi aici) încearcă să arate că nu britanicii sunt cei mai cei, ziarele din UK nu bagă în seamă ‘performanţa’ românilor, ci tot la “ce dezastru este în UK” se referă (vezi aici şi aici!).

În faţa statisticii, tot ceea ce am scris eu despre cum stau lucurile cu alcoolul în UK par a veni să mă pună în ipostaza, presupus inconfortabilă, de “râde ruptu’ de cârpit” sau “râde ciob de oală spartă” – românii nu-s deloc mai breji ca britanicii :-(

Cutez însă să-mi exprim opinia că, fie şi dacă suntem şi noi în acelaşi rostogol pe povârnişul lui din rău în mai rău, la britanici este mai rău (vezi aici, aici sau aici). Şi am credinţa că o spun cât pot de obiectiv, fără vreun orgoliu patriotic.

[Pentru toate postările de pe acest blog mergi la/For all the posts on this blog go to: Contents/Cuprins]

God’s place in a humanist society (9) [Locul lui Dumnezeu într-o societate umanistă]

Centuries later after agreeing that ‘there is no God’ – and thus replacing the absolute truth of a theocentric world with the absolutization of their ‘everything is relative’ belief – humanists realized that the world is pretty unsafe and countless things threaten us.

The comfort of ‘I do what I please’ needs to be secured by a surveillance system, and the UK appears to be the stage of an experiment with no match anywhere in the democratic world. The Brits threw God away, but they must be wondering what to put in His place.

No matter how ‘primitive’ the idea of God may appear to these ‘wise’ humanists, they probably admit that God-centered societies had a certain cohesion, and many other good features which should be substituted.

While people’s minds should not be fenced in any way – there is no God, therefore anything is permissible! – their actions should be carefully watched. People shouldn’t be allowed to do anything harmful to others, should they?

This apparently generous ideal means that people should be controlled – but who has the right to do that? What entity could be as omniscient and impartial when pursuing its surveillance as God was supposed to be have been?

Are politicians trustworthy? Are scientists reliable? What impersonal democratic and judiciary system could be impartial enough to be granted the privilege of overseeing all citizens of a given state? On what rules should such a system be based upon?

Before having reached any definitive answers to these questions – and of course there are no absolute truths in such a relativistic world! – some wise people in the UK started setting-up a surveillance system rivaling the one in Communist China.

It’s not I, a lonely madman, who claims that, but an NGO based in… London. I am refering to Privacy International (PI), which is described as “watchdog on surveillance and privacy invasions by governments and corporations.”

The above map issued by PI says it all. I can see only five countries coloured in black, meaning that they are “endemic surveillance nations” – the (Big Brother’s) UK, the USA, (Putin’s) Russia, (Communist) China, and Malaysia.

In spite of its founder (Simon Davies) being considered a controversial character, PI’s website is certainly one I recommend. Their reports about national ID cards, biometric passports, and all types of surveillance are very interesting.

[For all the episodes of this series, and all the posts on this blog go to/Pentru toate episoadele din această serie şi toate postările de pe acest blog mergi la: Contents/Cuprins]

[EN] Worth trying in the UK / [RO] Merită încercat în UK (12)

[EN] Now that the Great Lent is over, I can make another culinary recommandation, and one of the DO NOT MISS! type, really.

[RO] Acum că Postul Mare s-a încheiat, pot să fac altă recomandare culinară şi una de tipul NU RATAŢI!, pe bune.

[EN] That is… if you can afford it. As the average (3 course) menu in a French restaurant in the UK is some £ 30.

[RO] Adică… dacă vă permiteţi. Căci meniul mediu (3 feluri) într-un restaurant francez din UK este vreo £ 30.

[EN] At least as a pleasant singular experience, I believe it’s really worth it… especially since most such restaurants have French owners, chefs & sometimes even waiters.

[RO] Cel puţin ca o unică experienţă plăcută, cred că merită într-adevăr... în special pentru că cele mai multe astfel de restaurante au proprietari, bucatari şi uneori chiar chelneri francezi.

[EN] And when you think that when the Huguenots were coming to the UK in the 16th and 17th century, the Brits complained that “their food smelt terribly” :-)

[RO] Şi când te gândeşti că pe când Hughenoţii veneau în UK în secolul al 16-lea şi al 17-lea, britanicii se plângeau că “mâncarea lor miroase teribil” :-)

[For all the episodes of this series, and all the posts on this blog go to/Pentru toate episoadele din această serie şi toate postările de pe acest blog mergi la: Contents/Cuprins]

Alcoolul ăsta, prietenul cel mai bun al britanicului? (13) [This alcohol, a Brit's best friend?]

N-aş putea, Doamne-fereşte, să afirm că sălile de curs sau biblioteca duceau lipsă de muşterii la University of Sussex, dar imaginile de faţă arată care era unul dintre locurile cel mai intens frecventate în campus.

Este vorba de barul organizaţiei studenţeşti (USSU), din această întreagă clădire (Falmer House) rezervată pentru tot soiul de activităţi extracurriculare.

Şi care erau unele dintre cele mai ieftine – în jur de £ 2 pintul (568 ml) – şi căutate băuturi? Berea, dar mai ales cidrul, după cum se vede din butoaiele stivuite în spatele barului.

Amintindu-mi de acest loc, iată şi două veşti bune aduse de criza economică pe ‘frontul anti-alcool’ din UK: volumul vânzărilor de alcool a scăzut considerabil, în timp ce taxele la cidru vor creşte, cu riscul de a urca pintul cu mult dincolo de £ 3.

[Pentru toate episoadele din această serie şi toate postările de pe acest blog mergi la/For all the episodes of this series, and all the posts on this blog go to: Contents/Cuprins]

An airplane crash makes the ‘perfect crime’ [O prăbuşire de avion este ‘crima perfectă’]

No matter how impressive thanks to its state-of-the-art craftmanship (not that a Tu-154M would necessarily be so), any airplane is as vulnerable as a sparrow, up high in the sky.

As a matter of fact, the closer to the ground it flies, the more vulnerable such a piece of machinery becomes. Mistakes are unredeemable when the aircraft is only a few dozen meters above the earth than when they happen at higher altitudes.

And the closer any such mistake is made to a Russian military airbase, the sillier of an attitude would be to give the benefit of doubt to the Russians when a crash occurs.

“The Russians did it AGAIN”, millions of people in Eastern Europe surely must have said to themselves, seconds after hearing the tragic news from Smolensk. In this part of the world, Mother Russia has earned herself a rarely challenged presumption of guilt.

I personally tried to resist my inner urge to put the blame on the Russians, remembering that Lech Kaczynski had plenty of enemies in the EU, and in his beloved country as well.

In less than 24 hours, the Russians would prove once more that they may be masters of perfect crimes, yet their propagandistic tools are a bit outdated. Maybe they could still fool other parts of the ‘civilised world’, but not Eastern Europe!

The moment when high ranking military officials started spreading the idea of the ‘human error’, the likelihood of not being an error suddenly increased. They could have waited at least 24-48 hours.

After 1-2 days of (feigned) shock & confusion, with the Russians presumably trying their best to solve the mystery – as any aiplane crash remains very difficult to explain! – maybe their story would have been plausible.

Moscow’s eagerness to prove that Kaczynski was as impulsive as Mikheil Saakashvili, and that it’s all the dead mens’ (president + pilot) fault blows up it’s alibi.

The Russians took advantage of Kaczynski’s (typically Polish maybe?!) stubborness to reach Katyn on time, in his terms (let’s not forget that he invited himself!), and of another huge mistake of his (cramming so many top officials in an airplane).

This is how a conspiracy theory could sound, yet none of the above actually ‘incriminates’ Russia. There’s no hard evidence to that, and there will probably never be.

The prime suspects started incriminating themselves when they claimed that the pilot spoke poor Russian. In reality, he was a very good speaker of both Russian & English; moreover, he was familiar with the airfield where he had landed three days before.

Like these images (taken after take-off from Gatwick & while landing at Edinburgh airport) show, any flight is but a fairy tale full of mystery. It’s not human technology & skill that keeps a plane in the air.

It’s entirely God’s will, and He can make technology either work or fail. Yet He never does anything arbitrarily. Mistakes rarely occur out of the blue. They are more often forced by the malevolent will people.

When people interfere with the Lord’s will – like the Perfidious Albion did with Wladyslaw Sikorski’s destiny in 1943 – only He decides to what extent they are allowed to do so.

He respects our free will, and none of us can run away from the consequences of our deeds; if we happen to ‘skip some payments’, our descendants will certainly pay the full cost (and due interest) of everything we did wrong in life.

Kaczynski exposed himself as easy prey for Moscow, so the Poles are now paying a dear price for their exuberant recklessness, as they have done for so many times throughout their history.

Some may be desperate that justice is never being done in this part of Europe, but I am sure there will be a reckoning day for Putin’s Russia as well. As for what’s left of Orthodox Russia, I can only hope it will be saved through fire.

God always brings the truth to light. So was the case with the Katyn massacre of 1940, as well as with the Perfidious Albion’s cover up.

It’s never too late for us to learn some bitter truths. The tragic past of Eastern Europe cannot be ‘mended’, but we should have learned our lesson by now – never to count on the presumption of innocence of any great power.

[For all the posts on this blog go to/Pentru toate postările de pe acest blog mergi la: Contents/Cuprins]

Din raidurile mele prin inima Scoţiei (13) [From my forays into Scotland's heartland]

Recunosc că, înainte de a călca prin Scoţia aveam şi eu impresia – uitându-mă pe hartă – că trebuie să fie un ţinut destul de friguros. Nu unul, al... florilor!

Un tărâm unde să te duci o dată în viaţă, să-l ‘bifezi’ între călătoriile efectuate, dar nu mai mult. Nici nu-mi închipuiam că voi ajunge de trei ori... ba chiar să mai vreau!

În clişeele din filme întipărite în mintea mea, nu apăreau decât dealuri bătute de vânturi, cu iarbă verde sau uscată, dar fără mulţimea de flori pe care am întâlnit-o.

În fiecare aprilie, valurile de narcise şi alte flori urcă de la Canalul Mânecii (sau englezesc), până la Edinburgh (foto 1 + 2), respectiv Inverness, în Scottish Highlands.

Cică narcisele ar fi de cultură, nu sălbatice (şi de aceea unii le detestă!), însă eu tot cred că sunt suficient de frumoase, încât să merite cel puţin o postare pe blog.

[Pentru toate episoadele din această serie şi toate postările de pe acest blog mergi la/For all the episodes of this series, and all the posts on this blog go to: Contents/Cuprins]

“Bless My Enemies, O Lord!” [“Binecuvântează-mi vrăjmaşii, Doamne!”]

Unless our death doesn’t find us loving our enemies (following our Lord Jesus Christ at least to a 0.000...0001% degree), our life will have been utterly meaningless.

It’s very unlikely – if not altogether impossible – for us to find salvation as long as we don’t understand this commandment, because loving one’s enemies is not optional for a Christian.

St. Nikolai Velimirovich clearly understood it before his death, maybe even before he studied in the UK.

He went there to learn anything he could have learned from a secular society, wounded by nine centuries of heresy, but his faith was not ‘contaminated’ with dead-end humanist values.

Far be it from me to give the impression that there could be any resemblance between me and this Saint of the 20th century! Unlike me, he really practiced what he preached, and lived to the full his life of true follower of Christ.

But just like in St. Nikolai’s case, the more I got to know how Britons are, and found things worth of admiration (from a contemporary wisdom’s perspective), the more I realized how far away from Christ this so-called ‘Christian’ nation is.

Precisely because I love Britain, I can’t help telling the truth about it – the sheer inconvenient truth that many Brits bear witness to. One such secret of Polichinelle is that Christianity is the target of political correctness craziness in today’s UK.

I’m pretty sure that many won’t get the essence of St. Nikolai’s prayer , but Christ’s message will always be nothing more than insanity to any proud mind. And this is my ‘Pascha gift’ shared with my readers this year.

May the Lord bless anyone who reads this blog post, and may He open all those hearts of ours which are still ‘locked’ by pride, and unable to understand Him in the only correct (Orthodox) way as St. Nikolai did!

May we all get at least a glimpse of the seamless love for mankind that Christ showed while being crucified! May we all forgive our enemies, so that we could full-heartedly say to each other: Christ is risen!

--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---

“Bless My Enemies, O Lord!”
(from Prayers by the Lake) – Bishop Nikolai Velimirovich

Enemies have driven me into your embrace more than friends have.

Friends have bound me to earth, enemies have loosed me from earth and have demolished all my aspirations in the world.

Enemies have made me a stranger in worldly realms and an extraneous inhabitant of the world. Just as a hunted animal finds safer shelter than an unhunted animal does, so have I, persecuted by enemies, found the safest sanctuary, having ensconced myself beneath your tabernacle, where neither friends nor enemies can slay my soul.

Bless my enemies, O Lord! Even I bless them and do not curse them.

They, rather than I, have confessed my sins before the world.
They have punished me, whenever I have hesitated to punish myself.
They have tormented me, whenever I have tried to flee torments.
They have scolded me, whenever I have flattered myself.
They have spat upon me, whenever I have filled myself with arrogance.

Bless my enemies, O Lord! Even I bless them and do not curse them.

Whenever I have made myself wise, they have called me foolish.
Whenever I have made myself mighty, they have mocked me as though I were a dwarf.
Whenever I have wanted to lead people, they have shoved me into the background.
Whenever I have rushed to enrich myself, they have prevented me with an iron hand.
Whenever I thought that I would sleep peacefully, they have wakened me from sleep.
Whenever I have tried to build a home for a long and tranquil life, they have demolished it and driven me out.

Truly, enemies have cut me loose from the world and have stretched out my hands to the hem of your garment. Bless my enemies, O Lord!

Even I bless them and do not curse them. Bless them and multiply them; multiply them and make them even more bitterly against me:
so that my fleeing to You may have no return;
so that all hope in men may be scattered like cobwebs;
so that absolute serenity may begin to reign in my soul;
so that my heart may become the grave of my two evil twins, arrogance and anger;
so that I might amass all my treasure in heaven;
ah, so that I may for once be freed from self-deception, which has entangled me in the dreadful web of illusory life.

Enemies have taught me to know what hardly anyone knows, that a person has no enemies in the world except himself.

One hates his enemies only when he fails to realize that they are not enemies, but cruel friends.

It is truly difficult for me to say who has done me more good and who has done me more evil in the world: friends or enemies. Therefore bless, O Lord, both my friends and enemies!

A slave curses enemies, for he does not understand. But a son blesses them, for he understands.

For a son knows that his enemies cannot touch his life. Therefore he freely steps among them and prays to God for them.

[For all the posts on this blog go to/Pentru toate postările de pe acest blog mergi la: Contents/Cuprins]