Блин: a pancake; an expletive; a symbol of health, warmth, well-being and rebirth

Блины! I like everything about bliny, the traditional Russian pancakes that are eaten during the week of Масленица (the week of before Lent, called Butter or Pancake Week). I like making them, eating them and making other people eat them by the dozen. In or out of the kitchen, блин is the key word in some of my favorite folk expressions. And, to top it all off, блин is my expletive of choice during times of great stress, anger or frustration. All in all, it's one great little pancake.

Блин is a cradle-to-grave pancake. For the record -- a terrible bilingual pun, since the round and flat блин was once a slang term for a record album -- блины were ritually served to women right after birth, eaten at weddings, and are traditionally consumed at graveside immediately after a funeral.

Poets and anthropologists speculate that блин is symbolic of the sun and rebirth. One poet wrote: Блин -- символ солнца, красных дней, хороших урожаев, ладных браков и здоровых детей. (Bliny are the symbol of the sun, beautiful days, good harvests, happy marriages and healthy children.)

Today блин appears metaphorically in the political arena, usually in the expression первый блин комом. This literally means "the first pancake was all balled up," but figuratively expresses the philosophical acceptance that things rarely go well right from the start. At a recent meeting of G8 finance ministers, Russia's representative summed up the results: "Это первый блин, который, несмотря на пословицу, не вышел комом, а стал настоящим, хорошо испечённым блином." (Contrary to the folk saying, this first pancake of a meeting didn't come out messy -- it was a truly nicely fried pancake.) In other words: Wow -- we didn't expect it to go this well!

Other handy блин expressions refer to the speed and ease with which a cook prepares them. Он написал безумное количество стихов! Он пёк их, как блины. (He wrote an astonishing number of poems -- he churned them out like hotcakes.) Писать стихи -- это не блин испечь! (Writing poems is not like flipping a batch of pancakes!)

If you want to describe someone's fawning behavior, you can say, Блином масляным в рот лезет! (literally "he's slipping into your mouth like a buttered pancake"). Or if someone rushes over to tell you the latest gossip, which is already old news, you can say: Тот же блин, да подмазан! (literally "it's the same old pancake, only buttered"). This can sometimes mean "the same old thing in a new form." Да, читал его стихи. Тот же блин, да подмазан! (Yes, I've read his poetry. It's old hat.)

Блины also lend themselves to metaphorical usage. In the criminal world блины are counterfeit bills; in the computer world блины can mean CD discs, although this expression is rather dated.

Best of all, блин is a good word to use when you want to say something quite obscene (that starts with the same two letters), but are too well-bred to do so. Блин! Я забыла ключи! (Darn! I forgot my keys!) Or you can use it as a general intensifier and stick in a sentence as many times as you want. Ты, блин, понял, что он, блин, сказал?! (Did you bloody get what he bloody said?!)

When you are particularly frustrated or furious, you can stretch out the word until it sounds something like бааалллиииин! I have yet to do research on this, but it seems that the length of the word correlates with the level of ire.

So you see: a pancake is a pancake, except when it's a блин.

ONE OF MY PETS HATES

When I heard the terrible story of the family attacked by a nine-foot python in a hotel room in San Diego, California, my initial reaction was to blame the hotel management – who increasingly cut costs by hurrying chambermaids through their duties. But even allowing for such carelessness, it would take a very casual cleaner to overlook a two-stone [metric] serpent; for constricting snakes will not blend in with shower curtains, bidets, pile carpet and trouser-press.

So, I was relieved to discover that the unfortunate victims of the reptile had actually brought it with them; Brad Carter and his pregnant wife, Mary-Ann, and their toddlers, Joshua and Ashley, were sharing one room with their pet python, Selena. Early in the morning, the usually docile serpent obviously tired of its usual diet of liveguinea pigs, plunged its fangs into the ample backside of the sleeping mother. One can only speculate what species of animal it thought it was eating, and how it thought it was going to swallow its prey.

Unsurprisingly, the bite woke Mary-Ann, who describes how she was simultaneously ‘frozen with horror’ and ‘screaming hysterically’. So, the python decided it had better constrict her quickly. Brad then woke up, sized up the situation pretty quickly (‘my wife is being eaten by a snake’) and started belabouring Selena with a penknife. Eventually, a passing paramedic, Ron Hawkins, decapitated the reptile with a Swiss army knife, that had been bought for his birthday only a fortnight earlier – a happy accident indeed.

Apparently, Brad had purchased Selena from a ‘street trader’ for $100. She was a happy snake, who liked to lick his face after her guinea pig. ‘Like a slippery puppy dog’, he said ruefully. But today he is a wiser man, for he knows that it is very rare for a chap to go on holiday, and find his wife being throttled to death by a family puppy dog.

Obvious you might think. But don’t be too smug; Brad has his counterparts in Britain, and plenty of them. Every year, more exotic pets are sold. One company, Pet City, has made a fortune selling (among other things) giant boas and pythons (500 last year) chipmunks (350), scorpions (300), and, of course, tarantulas (600).

And, like the many other exotic species you can buy all these pets are ‘harmless’, ‘friendly’ even. Take this statement, for example: ‘tarantulas are not particularly aggressive,’ says the honorary secretary of the Tarantula Society, Ann Webb (yes, that is her name). Of course, they aren’t Ann; they don’t have to be. They only need to turn up on your pillow and the instant heart attach will do the rest. There is only one point to owning such an animal, and that is to scare the life out of family and friends.

Yet Pet City will do a ‘Tarantula Starter Kit’ complete with baby spider, warming pad (for those freezing winters) and ‘tunnelling material’ for just £3300. Let’s face it. The rest of us will just have to live in fear, simply so that the Brad Carters of this world will be able to boast about the exotic pets they keep in their houses, and take away on holiday with them.