the emmys

having read other blogs and reports on the programme i didn't watch because i was on the other channel supporting my yankees, my favourite quote so far is from ken levine:

"Has Helen Mirren ever NOT won? If there’s a nuclear attack I want to be under Helen Mirren."

i'm not sure i understand it but i'm terribly drawn to it.

ilyena mironov and her ancestors

helen and kate mirren visit family graves in russia
ok so i was looking for what i thought would be the picture of the evening, i.e., david beckham tumbling over steve sidwell's trailing foot, which was how i ended up looking at the daily mail. there i found this story about genealogy that i enjoyed reading and thought other helen-appreciators may also enjoy.

"We drive to Kuryanovo, two hours from Moscow but two centuries back in time. "Oh my God, I just didn't think any of this would be here any more," Helen says, exploring the simple sand track that runs through the village where the serfs of her family's estate once lived, and where local peasants still pull water from the well. "I'm simply amazed," she adds. "I thought this would have been destroyed in Soviet times, ruined by the building of ugly factories. But it is exactly as I imagined it in my dreams. "It's so beautiful - small, brightly painted wooden houses with their vegetable gardens. It's very Russian, but looking like an English village might have done in Jane Austen's time. "To say I feel as if I've come home is not strictly true. I would find it difficult to live like this. But I do find it incredibly beautiful, perhaps because it's in my DNA. I feel very happy here. I know my father and grandfather would be utterly astounded if they could see us here, that we had managed to find it.""

i hope one day that i can travel to nowy sacz, the area where i think my hoschander relatives originated. i won't have the daily mail laying on translators, but i think i could live with that :-)