I was at a cafe this afternoon. At the next table, two young women:
Woman 1: Do you like books?
Woman 2: No way! Books killed my dad.
Woman 1: But you're studying English, aren't you?
Woman 2: Yeah. Why else would I have Sir Gawain and the Green Knight in my bag? (she pulls it out as evidence)
Woman 1: Well, do you like that?
Woman 2: No, it's awful.

I was left wondering how her dad died? What was he reading at the time? Or did the bookshelf fall on him?

A Facebook link today directed me to a Russian online report that the Russian conductor, Valery Gergiev, interrupted a performance at Covent Garden on Saturday to make a speech. He told the audience that in support of the Russian punk girl-band Pussy Riot he was standing down from his post at the Mariinsky Theatre, and that he was not going to return to Russia so long as its system of justice was perverted by government – a government that saw itself as the dominant male in a group of primates, a government that would tolerate no expression of opposition. He broke his baton in front of the audience and said that the performance was over. If anybody wanted to return their tickets he would reimburse the theatre himself.

Wow, I thought. Good for him. Then I thought, have the Olympics so skewed our news values that this hasn't been reported at all? So I went hunting.One difficulty is that the Opera House at Covent Garden happens not to have any shows at the moment.But it also turns out that the report was a hoax; that the website is called Fognews, and is known for making up its stories. Its name sounds remarkably like another news organisation also known for making up its stories. But in the case of Fognews, in this instance at least, to a good end – in my view. 

Except, what does this achieve? Gergiev has unfortunately disowned the story and his alleged support for Pussy Riot: no surprise there, really, as he has always supported Putin. If an invented story relates what its authors wishes were the case – and we might agree – in order to publicise a particular view in a country where that view is being comprehensively squished, but the story is not true, in the long run does it help or does it hinder?

Last night I went to an evening of Russian music at the Pushkin House, in the upstairs front drawing room of this Regency Bloomsbury building, cornices on the ceiling, windows full height. A couple, he Russian, she (wife) English performed music my mother would have called (disparagingly) "troo lya-lya". He was small with a blond ponytail tied tight at the nape of his neck and eyes that disappeared when he smiled. They were invisible much of the time. Bits of opera; bits of operetta; folk songs; smaltzy carabet songs of the sort spooked arisotcrats and the better-off bourgeoisie would have wept over in Kievan restaurants while the Revolution was making its inexorable way south.

His baritone was large and rich, heavy with vibrato while he accompanied hismelf on a giant accordion, its shoulder straps a strait-jacket. She played a mean sobbing gypsy violin and also a truly tremulous balalaika. She sang too, good voice, dreaful accent. The audience sat on plastic chairs, the old ones nostalgic, the young ones - and surprisingly many WERE young - also nostalgic. There were some American accents, but most people I thought, were of Russian origin, except for the odd guest and the even odder wannabe Russian groupie.

And all the time, I was wondering: this Pushkin House is some serious real estate. Who pays for it?

I was on a bus this afternoon, just outside Finsbury Park Station (Finsbury Park being a mixed neighbourhood, where the shops look as if they have been blown across from continent to continent). An old man was sitting on a bench at a bus stop. He may have come from the set of Fiddler on the Roof. He was about 70; wore shaggy tefillin and Hassidic long black coat and black hat; his beard and mustache were long, straggling and white(ish); he was snuffling snuff and accosting (or trying to converse with) two young girls, who looked as if they were trying to find an excuse to get away. One such arrived - a bus that might, or might not have been one they wanted to take, but they took it anyway. Their place was taken by another old man: an old Muslim in the sort of cap I've seen on lots of old men in Uzbekistan. These two old men looked at one another, then with great and quiet dignity turned their shoulders away. Then my bus moved off and I have no idea what happened next.

As I've written before, I used to think the Apple logo (half eaten) implied Biblican temptation. Then I learned it was a homage to Alan Turing who died by his own hand eatne an apple laced with cyanide because he was being hounded for his then illegal homosexuality. But now what? There are new .

theories