[Dollar is currently worth 26.8 roubles. Pound about double that.]

The exciting thing about the fSU is watching the changes. It’s like what happened in the west from the 50s on, all happening within one decade here, with Russian differences, of course.

Take housing. The long, ten story housing block here is a different thing to the poor areas of London - security doors, domophone, heating in the stairwells, two lifts, double glazing, two foot thick concrete walls [I just measured them now].

Inside each flat it’s what you want to make it. Mine has lacquered parquet floor giving a golden hue in the morning sun and then the modula furniture is entirely what one wishes. Furniture shops abound and we just priced a new kitchen - 8000 roubles [or $320] for the cupboards and shelves.

This is more the local variety of girl where I live - better in the flesh than in photos

My flat is regarded as a “one room” although it is a half “L” shape, twenty feet long and twelve feet wide.

It has the bed/cupboards at one end, the living area at the other near the balcony and half way, on the convex side is the computer station and behind me the door through to the short corridor.

To the left is the kitchen, regarded as large by Russian standards and then the bathroom and separate toilet coming off the corridor to the right. The kitchen is a living area over here, with padded seats in an “L” and a large, all-purpose table.

The price hikes are the downside and an indictment of the bankers and it’s this which really started my train of thought I’ve inflicted on you in many posts. In 1996, this flat was worth about $8000 and by year 2000 - about $12000.

Then, from 2001 through to 2007, the prices went through the roof and you couldn’t get this place now for under $80000 if you were lucky because it’s well positioned.

In that time, my official salary at the university [barely covering the service costs of the flat and nothing else] went from $70 for the month to about $180 now.

Small shopping for basic necessities - fruit, meat, milk, bread, costs about $30 a pop, lasting about three days - so about $300 a month. The general wisdom here in this city is that one cannot survive below an income of about 12000 roubles or about $450 a month.

So there’s a severe shortfall in income and rocketing inflation. What to do?

You have to make it up somehow and this turns every Russian into a “businessman”, let us say. By definition, the cash must come in. Must. No one in his right mind uses the state medical services so that’s a cost on top of it all.

This is the sort of young lady I’ll be forced to work with again from September.

Into this scenario comes credit. Now bear in mind that the post-Soviet Russian is essentially a child, with a handout mentality, a pay later mindset and so credit sits very nicely in that mindset. Sign up for anything, on any terms and say all the right things with a winning smile.

It’s credit which has forced the steep hikes and put three times the number of cars on the road in three years, to say nothing of the pollution levels in the atmosphere - almost everyone, including me, has some sort of bronchial problem.

On the other hand and a testament to the genuine popularity of Putin, we’re sticking it to the west and refuse to be dictated to by their cabals - we have our own here.

Thus there is still quite a deal of freedom left, that precious commodity, not through any altruism on the part of the government but because they haven’t got round to restricting it yet. People are too busy making ends meet to get political.

Don’t be fooled by the vocal spokespeople much touted in the west - the average person is far more involved in making money and as change is impossible to effect anyway, a certain depoliticization is in place.

Like you, the scramble is for a better lifestyle [they utilize the English word and call it kom'fort] and any political move which supports that ideal gets huge support over here.

Not unlike you over there.

Can you see him 47th row from the front, to the right, with the pink hat?

Iain Dale’s Diary: Government to Monitor Blogs

Iain Dale is covering a plan by the UK Government to formally monitor blogs as part of their strategy of responding to issues covered in blogs. Many are concerned that it is a waste of money and the first step to control and regulation. Look out Big Chip Dale?

My question is how do I get one of those jobs?

Welshcakes from Sicily here, with a post that has nothing to do with Sicily whatsoever:

Lady Macleod here from North Africa. Here are a couple of vignettes from life in Fez, Morocco.

I was getting nothing done in my room, I think I have the “I finished four stories and sent them in to the contest and I am having a bit of a let down, and empty emotionally” thing, like you do. So I decided to eat cereal.

I walked into the dining room and ‘cute girl from downstairs just moved in haven’t met her yet’ was at the table. Tilley, who is so sweet we may box her and sell her in the confections aisle, was rummaging in the cupboard. Kristof was just inside the doorway to the kitchen, leaning on the frame eating cereal.

As I opened the refrigerator I heard Tilley’s voice but not what she was saying. Kristof said, “Lady Mac,” and motioned with his head that Tilley was speaking to me.

“What’s that then?” I asked.

“Do you know whose nuts are roasting in the oven?” she asked in her upper crust British accent. I swear to you, straight face, as sincere as if she had been asking after my health.

I stood, looked at her sweet face, then turned to Kristof. I put my hand against his cheek in a gesture of affection and said, “Kristof, darlin’, should she not be making this inquiry of you?”

As his face turned an impressive shade of scarlet and he choked a little on his cereal, Tilley realized what she had said.

“Tilley I have no idea whose nuts are in the oven,” I said with great conviction, “but no matter what you have heard from those Marines, I didn’t do it.” I turned and marched with great dignity back to my apartment with the sound of joyful laughter following me.

Shortly after this incident Q returned from class. She walked in the door with that look of someone who has just had the creme from the cat’s dish (if you are not British, that is “smug”).
“Whatever have you been up to?” I ask. Being her mother, I know that look when I see it.

“W-e-el-l, I felt a bit bitchy during class so I wrote dirty sentences. I made myself write them in grammatically correct Arabic, so it came out: “Fatima would you like to penetrate my dog?”, and “Dear Karim would you like to surrender to me?”

“The funny part,” she said, “was that my Moroccan teacher just assumed no one would be proficient enough to make up the sentences on purpose; so he thought I had made a mistake. It was great.”

Parental advice from Fez: rear your children so that when they are grown they will amuse you.