By John Helmer, Moscow The Pelaco shirt company was a feature of my childhood for an advertising slogan that was so original, it hardly made sense. The idea was that if a native Australian, speaking pidgin English, recommended a Pelaco shirt because it fitted him so well, his recommendation would be credible to white shirt-wearers […]

by John Helmer - Monday, November 4th, 2013
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by John Helmer - Sunday, September 1st, 2013
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  On August 24, 1991, Marshal Sergei Fyodorovich Akhromeyev committed suicide. He had returned from his holiday at Sochi responding to the attempted removal of Mikhail Gorbachev from power. According to the reports of the time, he hanged himself in his Kremlin office, leaving behind a note. One version of what it said was: “I […]

by John Helmer - Thursday, August 8th, 2013
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by John Helmer - Thursday, March 7th, 2013
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By John Helmer, Moscow When it comes to laughing at satire and caricature, tastes change. Laughable drunkenness in one generation is as hilarious as the comedians Yury Nikulin, Georgiy Vitsin, and Yevgeny Morgunov were on the Soviet screen together. Nowadays the display of alcoholism is sad – take the Russian movie actor Gerard Depardieu, for […]

by John Helmer - Sunday, January 13th, 2013
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By John Helmer, Moscow “I can promise to say nothing that is untrue”, wrote Giuseppe di Lampedusa, the Sicilian prince, the Italian writer, when introducing a chapter of his brief memoirs. “But I shall not want to say all; and I reserve the right to lie by omission. Unless I change my mind.” If somebody […]

by John Helmer - Saturday, December 29th, 2012
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by John Helmer - Sunday, September 2nd, 2012
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by John Helmer - Sunday, August 26th, 2012
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by John Helmer - Tuesday, July 31st, 2012
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by John Helmer - Monday, July 23rd, 2012
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