This morning’s job involved updating timeout.com‘s page of Moscow links. All in all a pretty thankless task, as the state of the art in Russian media-websites seems to be somewhere pre-school. This is surely not a reflection of the country, but much more a reflection of the lack of money in Russian media companies.
One site that did stand out with Pravda‘s English-language website, which gives an astonishing insight into the mind-set of the people who used to live behind the Iron Curtain. Amongst stunning headlines appear a few absolute corkers, complete with astonishing introductory paragraphs:
NATO SITE ON INTERNET: A TISSUE OF LIES FROM BEGINNING TO END NATO PROVIDES DOCUMENTARY EVIDENCE FOR ITS OWN INDICTMENT
“The NATO site on the Internet is at best a shame and a disgrace and at worst the confirmation that the rest of the world is unfortunately forced to come to terms with: the benevolent air of the perpetrators of the new world order is buried beneath sham, lies, irresponsibility, racism, jingoism and basically, the worst elements of post-fascist western decadence in the last half century.”
AIDS CASES GROW IN THE UNITED KINGDOM
“Young people all over Europe seem to have the mistaken idea that by avoiding the issue of protected or unprotected sexual relations by adopting oral sexual practices is safe, but they could not be more wrong.”
My plan to do a version of The Onion based upon a stereotypical 50’s Russian Propogandist take on the news now seems rather unnecessary…