ulan ude - pronounced "ooh-lan ooh-day"

the train station announcement system always begins with the opening bar of "we wish you a merry christmas" but the '-mas' bit dissolves into static like the batteries have run out.

we scored a neat little soviet designed hotel with proper beds and an en-suite and everything. ulan-ude is slightly confused by our presence. we've been stared at a lot on this trip, but not so much as here. one guy - dressed as neo from the matrix - actually stopped and studied us as we passed by either side of him.

the biggest statue of a head in the world is here, in this tidy, quiet, unassuming little city. lenin's head in dark metal stares out of a square in the centre of town. and it is huge. another one of the soviet constructions that you can't help but laugh. it's a real tribute, an amazing piece of art. his dismembered head sternly casting shadows over the concrete.

i don't think you've really lived until you've heard the opening speech of the a-team in russian. we sat in a cafe with a coke watching communist cartoons from 1971 on a huge korean plasma screen. then suddenly that shot of an american helicopter flying over 'nam comes on.
"is it?" we thought.

it was. the a-team in russian. brilliant.

В 1972 блок commando отказа был послан к тюрьме военныйа трибунал для злодеяния, котор они не поручил. Эти люди проворно избеубежали от максимального stockade обеспеченностью к Los Angeles ОН нелегально. Сегодня, все еще после того как мне хотели правительством, они выдерживают как воины удачи. Если вы имеете проблему, то если no one else могут помочь, и если вы можете найти их, то возможно вы можете нанять-Komandu the a-team

the best part of it was all the voices were done by one man. he must've just sat in a studio and read a script; no emotion, no intonation, just one voice for the whole thing. we sat there for the whole episode, probably about 2 hours including the ridiculous amount of advert breaks they have here. like in the u.s. when it takes an hour to watch 40 minutes of tv.

and nothing to show the end of a part. one second you're watching mr. t shouting at murdoch then the scene cuts to a woman on a train with a bad body odour problem.

i love it when a plan comes to *margarine

i miss the bbc and the unique way it is funded...