Boston at night, glowing under a trace of fog.
It’s official, British Problems is my favourite thing of reddit
JUST
LOOK
AT
ALL
THE
POLITE
BRITISH
AWKWARDNESS
AHHH!
US Doughboys and Russian soldiers having a drink together in 1917-1918.
Via WW1Photographs:
It was taken in a small café of Tréveray, a small village of the Meuse département (see another post about this village here). US Doughboys were based in southern Meuse for training purpose. In the same village there were some Russian soldiers, who were working at the construction of a road close to the canal. Indeed, you must know that Russian troops had been sent to France in 1916. Because of Soviet Revolution and mutiny of these units during the 1917 summer, the Russian soldiers were given the following choices:
- fight in French Army (choice for 400 officers and NCO)
- work as military workers (choice for 10,000 men). They were sent back to Odessa in 1919.
The 1,300 men who didn’t accept these solutions were sent to Algeria for penal labour.
The men on this pic belonged to a unit of military workers. I’ve got other pics of them showing them working on the canal road and cleaning the streets. And drinking in local cafés, obviously!
One last note: did you know that French cafés are nicknamed “bistrots” (pronounced “bistro”), which is the Russian word for “quick” (быстро)? According to the legend, Russian cossaks during the occupation of Paris in 1814 thought that the service was too slow and always shouted “Bistro, bistro!”. And this would be the origin of the name of French cafés. We’ll never know if our Russian soldier knew this story.
Readers
by Frieda Hughes
"Wanting to breathe life into their own dead babies They took her dreams, collected words from one Who did their suffering for them. They fingered through her mental underwear With every piece she wrote. Wanting her naked. Wanting to know what made her. Then tried to feather up the bird again. The vulture with its bloody head Inside its own belly, Sucking up its own juice, Working out its own shape, Its own reason, Its own death. While their mothers lay in quiet graves Squared out by those green cut pebbles And flowers in a jam jar, they dug mine up. Right down to the shells I scattered on her coffin. They turned her over like meat on coals To find the secrets of her withered thighs And shrunken breasts. They scooped out her eyes to see how she saw, And bit away her tongue in tiny mouthfuls To speak with her voice. But each one tasted separate flesh, Ate a different organ, Touched other skin. Insisted on being the one Who knew best, Who had the right recipe. When she came out of the oven They had gutted, peeled And garnished her. They called her theirs. All this time I had thought She belonged to me most."
published November 8th 1997 in The Guardian
Bill Nye opens his mailbox
“BILL BILL BILL BILL BILL BILL BILL BILL BILL BILL” he shouts as he flips through his many house payments due at the end of the month
