Someone just emailed me from Russia, her and her boyfriend are travelling the Trans-Siberian. I called it the Trans-Siberian Express to my Siberian colleague once and she laughed at me. An 'Express' doesn't take the best part of two weeks to get somewhere, she said. It does in this country, I said. Anyway, my friends are apparently going to Irkutsk. You know it, if you played Risk. Next to Kamchatka, I think. She tells me that it is known as the Paris of the North. Eh!?!? For one, it's more east than north. Two, in what way can it possibly be like Paris? This whole trend of calling somewhere the 'something of the north etc' has got to stop. Edinburgh, 'Athens of the North'. No it isn't!! Palmers Green, maybe. There are several 'Venices of the north', presumably because of their canals, including St.Petersburg, Stockholm and Bruges (but not Amsterdam, interestingly), but someone once said Birmingham was the Venice of the north. PER-LEASE!!! Birmingham? Are you absolutely out of your mind? (Maybe it's because of Spaghetti Junction) What next, though? The Arctic - the South Pole of the North? Derby, the Leicester of the North? Irkutsk is near Lake Baikal, you know. I always wanted to go there.It's the Loch Ness of the east.
Du Nord
8.5.05 14:27
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