. We were too. You can read the full article via their own blog, http://tribrodyagi.blogspot.com/. Tribrodjagi is Russian for three vagabonds or wanderers, though the trio look more like a group of polytechnic lecturers on an away day than vagabonds to me.Returning to the Journal article, our trio are referred to as "Tyneside poets" - which caused the Teeside member to faint. The article also says that their "vodka fueled exploits" are the "talk of the poetry world". Well, you'd have to drink one hell of a lot of vodka to keep up with some poets I know. The book is claimed as having sixty Pushkin sonnets, hmm, not really. Jerome K Jerome (an inspiration for the book) is marked as being popular from his visits to Russia, though he didn't go there. And the book is a big hit in Albania. We hope the book is selling well in downtown Tirana, but doubt it as Albania broke with Russia in 1960 and Moscow is not exactly a hot topic there. But it is a great piece otherwise.
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Oops. I think I must be responsible for several of those errors. I may, for instance, in the banya-like heat of the interview scenario, have got Jerome mixed up with Ransome -- who certainly did visit the nascent Soviet Union.
And the vodka-drinking remark probably came out of an anecdote about a session Paul and I and two Muscovites wearing Hawaiian shirts and Bermuda shorts had in the Hotel Sibir, Novosibirsk. I think they actually existed. It was certainly the first cranberry-flavoured hangover I'd ever had.
And, while I'm excavating my guilt centres, it was on a literary trip to Albania, whilst wine-tasting in the shadow of Mount Tomorr, that I discovered that the Moscow poets attending the Durres Festival had indeed heard about the project.
I suppose it's possible that someone who was actually Albanian overheard this exchange...
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