Ra Ra Rasputin, Russia's greatest love machine......
boogied Boney M as they bopped camply along the charts to various number ones spots throughout the globe. Bursting with historical allusions the Caribbean/German sensations let us believe that this dastardly holy man of old was lover, schemer, had eyes of flaming gold, who attracted Moscow chicks, and men of higher standing wanted his head, so they shot him till he was dead....
All very lyrically interesting but scant on historical fact.
Which can hardly be applied to the nuggets of truth penned on these pages, dear bloghoppers.
For example, The first renal transplant was performed in April 1933 by Yuri Vorony (1896-1961) in the former Soviet Union.
In the procedure he transplanted a cadavic kidney into the medial thigh of a 26 year female patient who had attempted suicide by swallowing mercury, causing acute kidney failure. The grafted kidney received blood from the thigh artery and began to produce urine. However the blood types were incompatible, the patient a B and the donor 0. Rejection set in and the kidney function deteriorated and after 48 hours the patient died. Despite this, Voronoy is credited with being one of the pioneers of kidney transplantation, and his work along with many others was significant and led to the first successful procedure in 1954 in Boston with the patient living for a further 8 years.
I bet you didn't know that. If you did may I have you as my "phone a friend" on Millionaire?
As I weld these words weekly many joys are encountered. An aspect I love about blogging is collecting the stats about the readership. Blogger gives you various ways you can observe the traffic and sources that attract people into reading your blog, including referring sites and google search words. Bizarre searches that have lead them to my world includes the terms "blueberries are good", "grimly octavian" and even "clip art of women in church"???
Blogger utlises (yes spellchecker, it is with S because Im English and this is the English language) a world map which provides me with visitor stats from around the globe on recent traffic. Like an evil Bond villain I survey and take note of the territories I have added to my ever growing empire of conquests.
We have had brief flirtations with Israel, Malaysia, Egypt, Poland and Japan. And just like the UN my map view has been dominated by the permanent members of my own world, Countries whose denizens contain my family and friends and syndicated twitter and facebook contacts: the US, UK, Germany and Australia (Hello folks!).
But thrusting itself mightily onto the global stage recently, I can now welcome Russia.
Привет, Россия, я надеюсь, что вы наслаждаетесь моим своеобразным взглядом на мир.
(Of course I speak fluent Russian about as well as Minke the Burmilla, renowned for her chirpy chatter, "мяу". Alas her miaow would be as unintelligible to a cat from Kaliningrad, as it is to me.....)
However more importantly and aesthetically it adds to the peaceful karma of Andrew's World.
To be precise, because of it's vast tracts of land sweeping across the Steppes, from the Volga to Vladivostok, Murmansk to Magadan, Russia is enormous! As a result of Russia's great size my map of global visitors looks evenly balanced and gives a reassuring sense of global access.
As countries appear on the map, they are announce their prescence by becoming green, not unlike a viral
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But hark! Russia joins the hushed throng of nations, settling like a moss over the previously bleak and barren landscape of the east. It salutes me with its fresh cold mintyness..
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