from russia with love

2007-05-15T12:18:00.000-07:00

2007-04-27T06:17:00.000-07:00

CLINICAL LOFT ON MOSCOW

somehow landed at this birthday party among cool arty people, in a "kroutoï" building on the 23rd floor. The 100% white loft had NO walls..nope..not even there...the simplification achieved through the complete elimination of all decoration and color is too radical for me, it does even scare me to a certain degree!
I did enjoy ONE feature though, that beeing the amazing 180 degree view on the city...
enjoy too!

2007-04-27T05:53:00.000-07:00

GLOOMY START OF THE WEEK
........CLEARING IS EXPECTED....

2007-04-24T05:26:00.000-07:00

AFTER ALL, TOMORROW IS ANOTHER DAY!

I feel I'm floating in a nomansland
transtioning
I suppose it's in my head!
I'm not there and not here,
look me in the eyes and nothing happens

I left Moscow and didn't land home yet
lack of clarity and everything seems a bit fuzzy too
I can only hope to land soon -
wherever,
just to feel anchored!

2007-04-20T07:25:00.000-07:00

i-D SMILE OPENING IN ARMAZAVOD

"i- D celebrated its 21st year with an exhibition highlighting the spirit of the magazine - a blend of fashion and social documentation, it captures the innovation that has brought i-D to the forefront of contemporary fashion and culture"
me, I celebrated the waiters!

2007-04-20T07:12:00.000-07:00

FACES...and one back!

my russian colleagues wonder how I manage to get the pictures of all those people...I simply take them.
and there's nothing arrogant in this answer. My jungle russian is enough to make them listen to me, and then, well who would refuse to pose for a "photographer"?! Russians are very self conscious and meticulous about the way they look. Women could spend their evenings dancing in front of mirrors & men never miss a chance to stand out...

2007-04-18T23:37:00.000-07:00

DENIS SIMACHEV BAR & SHOP OPENING

what started out as a very boring after work party, became a great dancefloor experience! I hit the bar just when I got into the shop, and the beautiful white english starway lead me to the exclusiv shop experience (cufflinks for 12'000$) which made me run back to the bar, order another mojito and lasciviously pose with the panthera! thanks ciuin

2007-04-17T07:38:00.000-07:00

COUNTDOWN STARTING: -12 DAYS

I guess that on the Moscow to do list i can check every little box: done the kremlin, and the galleries, gone to the bania,
got tremendously drunk on vodka, went and organised house parties, went to every nightclub possible and any time possible!( long live the mix at 7am!)

So the concept for the last 12 days is to do everyday something I haven't done yet...

you'll be delivered with the final result!

2007-04-15T05:09:00.000-07:00

SAME PLACE DIFFERENT TIME
....sometimes one does stupid things when bored...but the compilation of those stupid things
put together gives a great ensemble!

2007-04-14T04:57:00.000-07:00

PIMP YOUR THURSDAYS

organizing a party can be quite funny in Russia, I spare you the details, but put all together we had a great fun!
the combination of Music and people was excellent and to be honest with you, I'd start all over again with new concepts and ideas right away!
Zach and Ja'Bagh offered their Photo studio in an industrial complex, the red bull Hummer showed the people the way in,
the blind* Dj Vinilkin pulled off to make people dance on Hip-Hop and old funk tracks (which, for those who don't know is almost unseen in Moscow!)
and the vodka and red bull sponsoring was enough to drench the thirst of almost 200 people! Blanche and myself
spinned on the dancefloor, shining happy!
Holla'
*the poor guy got temporarily blind on the slopes...he forgot to wear sunglasses!

2007-04-14T03:22:00.000-07:00

SPRING CLEANING..

beside beeing a continous building site, cranes and 24hour working people, the town is cleaning up
for the srping to come. painting benches, cleaning buildings, repairing...

2007-03-28T04:50:00.000-07:00

WORK IN PROGRESS...

Sun was shining in the past few days and I had some sleepless nights too, which gave me the occasion to grab the camera and run around town. met some curious people, admired the amazing cranes all over town and imagined myself winning at the roulette!
you can see the result below..
enjoy!

2007-03-28T04:32:00.000-07:00

LAS MOSKVA
...they say they might close them all down..
but for now, this city alone has as many casinos
as in whole europe...

2007-03-28T04:28:00.000-07:00

24 HOUR PEOPLE...
fancy to buy a dvd at 3 am? forgot to bring flowers to your mum for her anniversery and you just remembered now, at 10pm! your pregnant wife has cravings for strawberrys in the middle of the night...absolutely no worries..moscow has it all, just around the corner...

2007-03-16T11:13:00.000-07:00

STREET ART IN ST PETE...
just rediscovered those pictures I had lost in some
file transfer.they were hiding between some admin excelsheets and old reports...how refreshing!
I think the series is cool!
I didn't see many nice stencils around moscow...instead, the capital has great collection of vulgar grafitti around metro stations whereas in other towns I could much easely spot witty and funny ones.

2007-03-16T03:14:00.000-07:00

SUPERMARKET VS. MARKET

2007-03-15T08:50:00.000-07:00

“It’s the rule you know”…

I was very happy when I entered the Aeroflot office the other day to buy my ticket for Geneva.
I expected the office to be overcrowded over lunch but I had the pleasant surprise to find it empty! I walked in directly to one of the desks…when suddenly a tall Vicking grabbed me and showed me a little machine I just had passed by in the entrance; he insisted I take a numbered ticket. “Why should I?” I was irritated, “the office is empty?”
He persisted so I played the game. I pulled a number, 657.
He then showed me the way in again and told me to wait pointing at a seat.
By now, the girls pretended to be very busy and energetically moved folders and typed on their keyboards. After a 5 minutes wait, the Vicking started to feel very embarrassed by my nasty looks and whispered to the girls they should finally stop pretending and push the button…
654
655
Girls stared at me, asking themselves probably why I didn’t come forward. The Vicking tried to glimpse at my number and told them to press the button again.
656
the whole situation felt so absurd but still, I couldn't do anything but play this ridiculous game
657
Finally the comedy came to an end and I could finally sit at the desk and buy my ticket.

Please, someone put me out of my misery! why oh why do they need to be so absurd?
Why does it have to be so beautifully & unnecessarely complicated!

2007-03-15T08:15:00.000-07:00

A little dictionary :

Over time my friends and I developed our own vocabulary in French, trying to invent word to describe some typical Russian phenomenon we couldn’t find any appropriate words for, in our own language…
Below listed for the record, because they’re funny and because I actually don’t want to forget them.

PHANTOM : a Russian person, speaking only Russian, with whom you don’t share any common interests but you merely « use » for a free Russian lesson over a drink or dinner. My friend with the scar scores higher than anyone else on the phantom-o-meter ! 250 phone numbers he claims … personally I abandoned very soon this strategy to learn Russian because silences where longer than the moments we actually spoke!
The worst is being treated like a phantom…my friend talking to me in Russian ! The appropriate answer, in a very offended tone would be: « Hey! I’m not your phantom! »

SEQUOIA : skinny & long legged – tanned – blond girl ; expression generally reduced to a slight smirk, pretending to listen to her girlfriends but checking the room with a trained radar…you got the picture : female population in any muscovite club is composed up to 90% by sequoias !
Now you would say sequoias grow everywhere…well, Russian have some characteristics: they have a special attraction for foreigners, especially loaded foreigners – why not Russian men? - “Oh, Russian men! Zey are all drunks”. “Zey ‘as no monnay”. “Zey ‘as no clue about ze gee spot”. And so on…
Funny enough they will refuse any invitation at first or play shy but since men hardly take no for an answer in this part of the world, the date is set! As a rule they will renew their wardrobe, visit new cities where no visa is needed (typically Istanbul, Cairo or Goa) and might ask for the covering of a new surgical operation. Next level: car and apartment. If he still shows interest he’s good to marry. Point of the downfall sets in…I don’t have the statistics in mind but marriage is a formality that doesn’t last. At the latest after the birth of the first child, sequoia files for divorce.

HOLD UP: the use of this word is purely metaphorical…and invented by my two fellows from Geneva. I suppose this expression sprang out of their imagination when facing another inexplicable phenomenon we’ve encountered many times on the muscovite streets: the bombshell holding hands with the most hideous man possible. That’s a hold up!

LA FEMME A BARBE (the women with a beard)… We supposed everybody had a shower in their homes and would profit from its benefits. We thought that in a world where women consume as much cosmetics as men burn gas; the women growing a beard, fairground animation in the 1900, were banished!
When “my friend with a scar” sat one evening in the tube in front of such a rare phenomenon he just couldn’t help himself but try hard to avoid her look and refrain from laughing. Pretending to type a message on his cell phone, he was trying to document his finding.
Obviously my dear friend wasn’t quiet neither discreet at it and soon a tall vicking grabbed him and kicked him out at the next stop…
La femme a barbe became for us the short word for: “we live in Russia and still a lot of things here are amazing and unexplainable”!

PATAMOUCHTAAAA: the nickname given to my Friend with the scar. He speaks very well Russian, the only problem this lover of the Russian language has, is that he hasn’t got any language feeling or musical ear at all….He speaks Russian but we can't help laughing at him for his persistent and singular accent. Patamouchta means "because" in Russian. My friends uses this word every 20 second and it sounds like the French: Pâtes de mouche (fly legs)!

2007-03-14T06:57:00.000-07:00

I keep taking pictures of the capitals underground stations...
spending more than an hour a day down there, the second city, I guess it's worth documenting it!
12 lines, 172 stations! On a normal weekday it carries 8.2 million passengers. Most of the lines were completed between 1935 and 1966 and it has some of the most admirable examples of socialist art!

Someone else did actually a much nicer work than me and reveals the real beauties those stations are.. just click on the M of the map.
http://www.beeflowers.com/Metro/-Startfiles-/index.htm

2007-03-14T06:11:00.000-07:00

I'm known for my many attempts to escape: from what? I've been always asked....me! I guess...but that's not the point
here...
if you dreamed of escaping aboard the most famous russian train, the one that takes you
for a journey of 6 days, across 9259km, across 2 continents, 14 oblasts and 8 time zones
....get a glimpse at what it would like like, thanks to this virtual simulation achieved by a friend
of mine...
http://www.rzd.ru/images/flash/

2007-03-14T06:07:00.000-07:00

After a week of stunning winter, clear blue skies and good cold weather, the beginning of the end of winter is about to start ..ending by moving to that phase in which the sun does not shine – so actually, no beginning yet !
the nation's collective mood sinks a few degrees too – do not mention my mood.
The journey beyond the front door last week was a slog through 15cm's of snow-like mud or gently defrosting dog-turds and a winter of re-emerging cigarette butts and other trash people trough away in november.

The real spring, the sunny and greenish one, is another 6 weeks away..
Unless I travel to some southern latitudes….
Geneva here I come!

2007-03-14T01:26:00.000-07:00

and the sun finally shone ....

if I tell you I lost my password and I couldn't access my blog for at least 2 weeks....I know you wouldn't believe me...and that's ok too..cos it's a very bad excuse...
Work, sleep, eat.....PARTY!
exercise after and sweat it out in the bania (sauna)
that has been my programm for the last two weeks, like almost all of you guys...

2007-02-25T09:05:00.000-08:00

Moscow by night..flight!
(I evidently didn't took this one..though I confess I had loved to)

This blog was never meant to be a diary, where I would confess my every day thoughts und meaningless adventures. I thought about it more as a Mood board where I’d publish reflections and scribble anecdotes…
I’m relieved about this choosing…now that half the office read it and made some hints about it…no naughty thoughts or suggestive casualties feeds their imagination! sorry guys !

The past three days the sun was shining, bright and sincerely in the moscovite skies…Damn! The city’s aura is radically different! Long shadows and a range of colors unseen previously, finally gave me the feeling that this city isn’t only about drastic and desperate contrasts.
There is an ambivalent charme about Moscow that emanates at the first ray of light - pleasant…
Nevertheless, I didn’t discover the hidden beauty of it (– yet !), no lovely neighborhood to run to on a depressive sunday, no harmonious old town to run for shelter !
Just a few cozy bars scattered along those endless boulevards without any personality…

Maybe it’s the nostalgia talking..

Here’s an interesting article for those who have time..
http://www.liberation.fr/transversales/grandsangles/236096.FR.php

2007-02-08T01:13:00.000-08:00

just realised I completely forgot to show you some pictures of st pete!
I was there for X-mas...on my own...(cos my "friend with the scar" was too drunk to join me...) so I kept running up and down the channels of that frozen Venice
enjoyed a classical "la Bohème" in the Mariinsky Theater and used the gum of my shoes walking up and down the impressively rich and labyrintical Ermitage museum!

2007-02-07T07:38:00.000-08:00

if up to now I used to make use of the word "ABSURD" in a very thoughtless and inconsiderate way. three months in Russia cured my inaccuracy....
I spare you my long philosophical meditations...and deliver to you the essence:

a long dialogue ( again, I had the delicate attention to cut it shorter) between myself and a guardsman at the entrance of a restaurant I fancy...

- Hi
- .....
me trying to get in
- Do you have a reservation?
- No
- No reservation, no entry!
- I understand, but I'm a member!
- your card?
- well, I did it before Christmas, but never picked it up so it's inside...
- no reservation..non entry
- ok. but can I pick up my card and then I'll get in?
- where's your card?
- Inside!
- No card huh? ...well you don't get in...plus we're booked out!
- my friend and I, we come every week, you know me! plus it's wednesday... let me in please!
- no reservation, no entry
- You know it's not booked out..I can eat at the bar, I dont mind..please!
- NO!
- com'on! I'm a member ...just let me in and....
- member card pick ups on tuesday from 17 to 19

you can imagine my face, staring at him and trying to make him understand how wrong he was
(good luck!!) and how absurd it was (forget about it..)

Eventually I got in..with my friend...'cos he's got his member card ..
stamped on the forhead!
....in form of a scar; since he fell on the restaurant stairs when he was drunk once...
so the scar confers him the most wanted "all access"!

2007-02-06T02:35:00.000-08:00

I think i twas Chiurchill who described Russia as a « riddle wrapped in a mistery inside an enigma »

Today I asked my colleague at work how was his birthday party ...
-"the first three days were ok, afterwards, I don't remember"
that should give you a rough idea...

2007-02-06T00:49:00.000-08:00

As times goes by, I get very sloppy with the updating of my blog
mails and sms prevails in a world of instant communication...
is anyone reading anyway?

just came back from Kiev, where I had to exile myself for a few days
just to extend my russian visa since I became an unofficial resident in Moscow
(please don't laugh about security, police and bureaucatic matters
it has to be taken very seriously here!!)

Every city after Moscow, feels good, laid back and tranquil...people
relaxed and easy going....streets deserted....

Ukraine's capital is beautiful. It's narrow paved streets, multicoloured, reasonably high buildings gave me a very homely feeling! the famous Dniepr runs through the center, makes the view out of my window very scenic! (see pitures..even though I know my pictures don't give you the least clue about how it looks over there...sorry!)
almost frozen...
One say it's beautiful in the springtime, when the chestnut trees blossom...I'll give it a thought
and might return there...

In the meantime I'm back to work...and, it might sound completely aberrant to you,
but I'm glad to be back in this vampire babylone...

soon,
I promise!

2007-01-16T06:52:00.000-08:00

2007-01-15T11:49:00.000-08:00

Mid January might be a bit late to wish you all a happy New Year...
After a two weeks GVA break, I'm back in Moscow.
Everybody here is waiting for the winter to come, for the snow to fall, for the ice to invade the streets...any excuse is good enough when it comes to drinking!
As for me and my resolutions...work work work
new exciting projects..like how to position Pampers on the russian market...joking! ...hmmm...not really...

2006-12-12T06:37:00.000-08:00

For those who are still following my updates

well, I got news! Great news...to be cynical..

I got fired!

No shit! well, I guess I had to experience that strange feeling once

so why not in Russia! quite unexpected!

I got two weeks to find something otherwise I'm going back home!

Miss Network is doing her best to write impressive coverletters

or should I do as shown above...the good old announcement

I'll keep you posted on the result...

2006-12-07T05:31:00.000-08:00

What a fight!

Struggling against the wind on your way to the Subway Station with the cold biting through all the layers of your clothing including your beloved coat – the only one you took! God bless Woolrich!
You hardly look at people, ‘cos your eyes are crying from the cold but yet, you still see them, all these ladies, (running with there high heels on the ice covering the sidewalks - while you’re trying to stay alive with your timberlands), shaggy as a bear, florid faces from the cold, but obviously warm in there long fur coats.

You finally got to the Subway Station, but now you sweat: quick! Unbutton! Unzip! whatever you can, just to catch your breath but here comes the train…strategically run to the front wagons - sweat even more!, you might catch a seat … even though – depending on the time of the day - chances are low! To the contrary, chances you’ll get squeezed in quite violently, facing some soviet compatriot who’s breath is unbearable, are quite big! You can’t really move, so you stay put, looking at your shoes! No way you can take out your small vocabulary booklet now, and use the time to learn some words. With the crowd moving in and out you might make it under his arm, which is not a better situation. Everybody puts on his METROFACE (that means, no expression what so ever, or pretend to sleep). Your luck depends on where you work…As for me...i got to hold it for 25 min! Quite a challenge, believe me!

The speaker announces your station, Fight your way out – because everybody has the tendency to bloc the entry - Button up, scarf on, gloves… quick!…to fight your way through the cold again….up to your overheated office!

2006-12-07T05:24:00.000-08:00

back to French Upates

Au bout d’un mois, la ville prend forme, on la connaît aussi bien dans les méandres des couloirs creusés par le metro qu’à la surface, sur les grands boulevards qui renvoient une image encore très sérieuse, du passé..de la grande histoire!

Les relations prennent forme aussi, au fil des rencontres, on se découvre affinités..mais dans mon cercle, pas de russes! Trop ou pas assez, qqch…j ai encore beaucoup de peine…ou peut être eux avec moi? (je reviendrai la dessus)
Au bout d un mois, les habitudes s installent, elles aussi! de facon sournoise! Mais je ne me relancerai plus dans un essai sur les habitudes et le besoin d’en avoir…

Je découvre encore bars et boîtes, je filtre l’afisha, le journal culturel, à l’affût du concert, de la soirée..je le lis attentivement pour ne pas que le cyrillique me trompe…l’offre est bonne même si je ne suis ni à Londres ni à N.Y! ..j’avoue avoir frémis tout de même plus d’une fois à l’écoute de certains mélodies bien placés par dj moscovite bien renseignés…
peu d endroits sont payants – à part les concerts – mais on y pratique un très aléatoire “facecontrol” (encore plus convaincant en cyrillique). A ceux qui pensaient que se faire refouler de la SIP à minuit, bien qu’accompagné, était une aberration purement genevoise…vous auriez de quoi vous énervez ici aussi. Surtout après avoir traverse la ville en taxi, quoi que… la plupart du temps,les hommes peuvent rentrer, les filles aussi…mais à la maison!

La nuit moscovite est multiple et il est bon même recommandé d’abuser…certains endroits exclusivement recommandés pour se mettre en jambe et d autres, mythiques, pour les fins de soirées décomposées où je me suis surprise en train de me déchaîner sur des tubes russes…. Les taxis “sauvages” vous emmènent pour trois fois rien d’un bout à l’autre de la nuit! a nouveau, quelques lignes de plus pour plus de perspicacité dans l'argument..promis, bientôt

Les habitudes consommatrices dévorantes des moscovites nouvellement riches justifient le 24h/24h… 7/7, bien évidement! Concept américain largement adopté ici: shopping jusqu’à 22h, courses le dimanches, resto a 3h du mat..
Alors quoi de plus normal que de finir son week-end, dans un dinner (à l’américaine) serveuse blonde en jupette et reebook montantes vous demandant en un parfait anglais si la viande de votre burger, vous la voulez: “well done”, “medium” ou “medium rare”!!

2006-11-28T03:09:00.000-08:00

Commonplaces...

1- a bit of a cliché, but definitely has to figure at no 1: when drinking many Russians really just don't get the concept of stopping at your limits and will try to get you as leathered as they are. (I m speaking as an experienced person since I had my first bad, very bad experience with vodka last Thursday)

2- ladies, shaggy as a bear with florid faces from the cold, but obviously warm in there coat are wearing fur. All of them wear fur! If not a coat then hats, trim on garments and boots. Mink, fox, sable, seal… you name it. I don’t think that wearing fur is of any cultural statement anymore

I will come back later to this Commonplaces column
With fresh ideas

2006-11-28T02:42:00.000-08:00

For a very short moment yesterday, about 15 minutes not more, I saw the sky: blue followed by the sun...and maybe, for I wasn t sparkling with happiness Mother nature decided to treat me with a rainbow...imagine me running wild in my appartment to admire that rare beauty under all its possible angles, with all my cameras and filters ready to fix it...

Then, well... Business as usual
greyish fluffy clouds covered the sky again
dusk and fog
always

2006-11-22T02:30:00.000-08:00

Brazilian funk, mellow and pleasurable album (best cure for lack of light and warmth)
; outstanding mastery of samba jazz tracks that ooze class & imbued with style. It is a mix
for your mind, body, and, most importantly, SOUL

same formula
mixed and brewed by the Magnificent himself..sit back, relax
and enjoy yourselves....

2006-11-20T07:09:00.000-08:00

Like a clock, our lives come in a full circle back to the point were we started. So you might believe that my daily life in Moscow is very different...but I cant stop noticing how much I’m repeating myself…there is something about repetition in life… ( Rhythmically repeated movements were a presupposition for the origin of our life – sorry for being a smartass – let’s say I’m just giving you a little insight in my thoughts, sometimes very different from my very superficial considerations on street fashion…So I guess that the repetition of everyday rituals sets our daily course.

All this as an introduction to my original thought that was about
"Breaking habits" – or how fast human beings need to create habits to feel reassured, I guess!

So here I am, with quite a few newly created moscovite habits which my
Sense of decency wont let me list here! One of them, though, – you can “admire” above – is to take the same picture of my neighbourhood each morning when I wake up and each evening before going to bed…
Another habit, that I miss a great deal is listening and searching to some new tunes. The ones among you, who know me and my musical taste please do not hesitate to provide me with your fresh and updated playlists… I will be very thankful for it…

2006-11-16T08:23:00.000-08:00

this is it..yes!
by minus 5C
everybody telling me that this is only the beginning
five times worst in a month.

I wont lie..it's not easy to live in this big city and
the cold, the people and the language do not make
it easyier...it just takes a lot of energy...so for the moment
I'm still adapting...

2006-11-13T09:39:00.000-08:00

Moscow's girls..

Everybody I know always admired London girls for travellin’ light - to put it in a nice way or in other words - to brave the cold and unfriendly weather in London with their extreme high heels, no tights and their short, scary short skirts.
Well, I got news for you. Girls in Moscow not only run half naked under their fur coats across snowy and already icy November sidewalks wearing high heels with alarming dexterity but they also barely perspire in their fur coats on the metro.
Guys, the general consensus holds that Moscow’s metro scores higher on the babe-o-meter than any other metro in the world…

2006-11-10T09:51:00.000-08:00

Welcome to the land of the Petrodollars profits!...
Where a fair is organized for the millionaires…

The statistics present it this way: "officially"3 new millionaires a week in Russia. Allow me to express it in another way: in the national currency a million is worth a very modest 37,000 USD. Hopefully, the organizers targeted some of Moscow’s (dollar) billionaires. After all, with 25 of them in the 2006 Forbes list, Moscow comes second in the world only to New York, with 40!
I read somewhere it would be a very low key event..but I don’t believe in discrete sophistication “à la russe” neither in understated elegance as I wrote earlier.
so I guess the famous concept LESS IS MORE doesn’t really match with the Russian society
mmh..

2006-11-10T09:28:00.000-08:00

Photos de rue

2006-11-09T07:21:00.000-08:00

too many people...really! i allways thought london and paris were exhausting after 2 days..but Moscow is on a complete other level!
12 mio inhabitants, plus 10 other mio from outside coming in every day...everyone, please enjoy your small little towns and your 10 min walk to the office while I get squeezed in the subway!!

2006-11-07T06:36:00.000-08:00

first impressions after 48 hours..

Ice cold temperatures and snowflakes!
the kind of cold that bites your face…
I’m all covered up like an Eskimo going fishing, and I must admit it, I like it!

-------------------

If Europe, and I mean here, the Occident…is all about low fat-low carb, no smoking, no cholesterol, no sugar… you would love to be here,in Moscow, where excess is tolerated, what do I say, celebrated!

--------------------

and If fashion around the European capitals is deceptively simple – long live the Russian opulence and show off! A real feast for my hungry eyes.

--------------------

Welcome the land of the extremes…guys, girls, please take a good look at a Russian map…
And you’ll get it instantly. I’m not gonna bore you with a geographical class here but bear in mind that European Russia is bigger than any other country in Europe...so is there ego too..

------------------

Everybody here is "manager", or doing "bizniss" or if worst comes to worst...they are into marketing....but don't ask them to explain...