Wu Wei

Putin's New Year Speech

2012-01-05T20:47:41+02:00

In Britain we are very conscious that an essential part of Christmas is the Queen's Speech to the Commonwealth. When I say essential, I mean it is essential to decide whether the family will watch it or not. As a child we always listened to it on the radio with my mother. I am sure my father did not hold with such royalist notions.

These days, extracts are relayed on the BBC News in any case, so you get the gist of it whether you like it or not.

At lunch today we were discussing the invasion of Russians to Vilnius over the New Year. It seems that all the hotels and restaurants were full. They came in civilised family groups and their main requirement was a plasma TV to watch Putin's New Year Speech and champagne to drink with it.

My informant could not say whether the speech was favourably received, which left me with some unanswered questions:

Was it prerecorded so without any reference to the demonstrations?
Is it too early to predict an "Annus Horribilis"* for next year's speech?
Was it acceptable to boo in front of the children, and in a foreign country?

And what did he say anyway? I seem to have slept through an important message.

*One year, the Queen complained about her Annus Horribilis (horrible year) in her Christmas message. True there had been a fire in the Castle (someone smoking in bed, the rumours were) and her children all got divorced rather publicly and crossly. Since most people were taking Diana's side, the discussion afterwards was all about how families had coped with their own Anni Horribili, and theirs had definitely been worse, without the money at her disposal.

Technophobe about earphones

2012-01-04T15:54:13+02:00

Despite having all the kit, I have never managed to get used to listening to music on earphones. So I almost never use my iPhone or iPad for listening to music on a plane. I have proper speakers with a dock at home and the sound is much better.

For the same reason I can't really ever get on with podcasts.

I didn't realise why, until a friend said he didn't like stuff in his ears, and I have to say I feel the same. I guess those big ear muffs might be better, but I don't like the idea of going round with boxing gloves on my head. Nor do I like feeling it's a bit dangerous not to hear what's going on in the background.

Am I really missing something?

New Year Resolution

2012-01-03T13:21:45+02:00

I am 64 and wondering what I am going to do next in my career. I have plenty of work and nobody thinks about my retiring, but I am a bit bored after doing more or less the same job since 1994 (17 years). Before that, the longest I ever stayed in the same job was 9 years, even though the work changed every one or two years.

Wu Wei has been my personal blog since January 2005, which has followed my home moves from Greece back to the UK to Lithuania, and my work moves from Kosovo, Bosnia, Serbia, Montenegro, Ukraine, Turkish Cyprus, and for the last 4 years to Georgia (Caucasus). Its title came from my interest in the Tao, my need for some way to understand life's buffeting as I grappled with temporary contracts in different countries and tried to keep a stable life for my growing kids.

I used to blog when I was sitting bored, either at home (doubting about my next contract) or in a hotel room in a strange country, but Georgia is no longer strange, and I have friends and a life as well. My blog seems to have a life of its own, with the popular posts remaining with large numbers of hits (it seems there are still plenty of people who want to know about Greek horta and reviews of Albanian novels about blood feuds).

My family history (the Eastern European father of known but mysterious provenance) and my own early adventures (travels, marriages, homes in various parts of the UK) are still a work in progress, but being written. Family photos are nearly all scanned but not yet forming any story.

I now communicate with blog friends by Facebook and twitter, or even in person sometimes. So the blog has been rarely updated recently.

But now I feel the urge to write stuff again. My contract in Georgia is coming to an end, I am wondering whether to go back to university for a year, my ailments are growing and my kids are independent. Life in Russia is getting more interesting to comment on. Thanks to Bee studying social anthropology and learning Arabic, my holidays are more exotic than my work these days.

So what next? I thought I would explore that on the blog. So maybe I could find encouragement and a different set of blog friends. I hope my younger blog friends will not mind the occasional (hopefully) foray into diet restrictions, illnesses and any memory lapses. Probably there will be some changes in the design of the blog to keep my IT skills up to date. Irritation and rants will be as normal (being a feature of most people's blogs) but hopefully they will not take over, indicating I am becoming a grumpy old person.

I have only one friend older than me, and while I am very fond of her, it is difficult to discuss careers and ageing with only one person available. So I decided to look for blogs on ageing, or at least blogs from older people who are still active, and willing to discuss ageing issues. So links may increasingly go to those blogs.

Best wishes for the New Year. As the Chinese curse has it, may we all live in interesting times.

The sound of one hand clapping

2011-07-09T22:56:28+03:00

The well-known Buddist koan is now solved in Belarus.

Однорукий инвалид оштрафован в Минске за аплодисменты | В мире | Лента новостей "РИА Новости"

Однорукий инвалид оштрафован в Минске за аплодисменты
Сюжет: "Молчаливые" акции протеста в Белоруссии

A one-handed invalid was fined in Minsk for clapping during the recent silent protests.

Cultural values

2011-07-08T00:00:40+03:00

Via Murad Kharaishvili
Georgian Airlines. Flight attendant:
- Уважаемые пассажиры! Наш экипаж приветсвует вас на борту нашего авиалайнера. За ваш комфорт и безопасность командир зкипажа поднимает свой первый тост ...
)))))))))
Dear passengers! The crew welcomes you on board our plane. For your comfort and safety the captain will now raise his glass for the first toast ....

Perhaps this joke is only funny if you are in Georgia and have come home from a huge dinner and lots of toasts.

Shakespeare Hotel, Vilnius

2011-07-02T12:07:53+03:00

Yet again, the best service no matter what the request.

I was home for the weekend and on Sunday needed to print a 30 page report for editing, but suddenly no ink left in the cartridge. What to do?

I consulted the oracle, Vilnius in Your Pocket, (now available on the iPhone) and found the nearest internet cafe. In fact practically the only internet cafe in the centre, since Vilnius is maybe 10 years past the stage where teenage boys have nowhere to go and nothing to do but sit in internet cafes all day (unlike Pristina and Lefkosia). Lack of business custom meant it was closed on Sunday even in the tourist season.

Again what to do?

Needing lunch (it was 3 pm), I decided to try my luck at the Shakespeare, since I could guarantee a good lunch at least and maybe they would help. Aurimas the receptionist instantly offered to print, and when we had difficulty printing from my USB, lent me a laptop to get at the file another way. After 15 minutes, the problem was solved, I had ordered lunch and was busy proof reading over a glass of wine.

I did feel a bit cheeky, using a smart hotel as an internet cafe, when I wasn't even staying there. But it wasn't a problem for them, as usual they were happy to help. Their computer even listed which rooms I had stayed in, in the past, which we found, when they made me an invoice.

After all that help, I was amazed to be offered a big discount for lunch because it was Sunday.

Better value I doubt if you can find anywhere. Highly recommended as always.

Reasons why I can't go back to living in England no 1 (a series)

2011-04-12T18:06:06+03:00

Branwen and I decided we needed breakfast in the sun before I caught the plane back home. So we headed for Covent Garden and a cafe, but most places were in the shade. Thinking that the Market itself would have more sun we found a cafe with seats there and sat down in the sun.

The manager came up and said we could not sit there, even though they were putting out more tables in that corner. When we asked why, he said "Because of health and safety". Sun stroke at 9.00 in the morning in April? Inconvenience for the waiter to move three feet across from one table to another? When we expressed some incredulity, he repeated his mantra, with a take it or leave it expression. We left it.

Anywhere else in Europe knows that customers want to sit in the sun early in the morning.

Unexpected fallout from troubles in Libya

2011-03-05T18:44:05+02:00

The Director of LSE (now known as the Libyan School of Economics) has had to resign over accepting funding from Libya. Not just funding for the school, but personal funding. What was he thinking of?

No details yet about how Said Gaddafi got his PhD.

Rumours are that he will be replaced by Tony Blair.

Downhill all the way

Khachapuri Index

2011-02-21T18:05:39+02:00

Bear with me while I make a long explanation of why I am writing this.

Our only attempt to make khachapuri (Georgian cheese pizza) at Christmas Eve 2009 went badly wrong. This was partly because for some reason Bee bought brown flour and had to go back and get some white and start again. There is no way khachapuri could pretend to be healthy food so brown flour is out of the question. The repeat was better but not really authentic. But that didn't matter as we had the other eleven dishes of the Lithuanian Christmas Eve to get through.

Since then we have been looking for a better recipe. One was finally provided by one of my work colleagues on her friend's food blog here, so I whizzed it off to Bee to try. This time she seems to have been successful in making the simplest type of khachapuri, according to her new blog.

In order to identify the ones she shows there, I went to my own blog only to find that I have hardly blogged at all about Georgian food. So I was forced to resort to Wikipedia which managed to identify 8 types of Khachapuri, of which I have only met 4. My favourite is the khachapuri rolled round a skewer and cooked on the barbecue, which is really delicious.

While on Wikipedia I was reminded of the Khachapuri Index, invented by the Intenational School of Economics at Tbilisi State University. Unlike the Economist's Big Mac Index, which compares the price of a Big Mac in different countries as a measure of purchasing power to see whether the exchange rate to the dollar is over- or undervalued, the KI measures the local inflation rate. Over the last six months the khachapuri I usually buy from the bakery opposite my office has gone up from 1.30 GEL to 1.50 GEL a rise of 15%.

As the university says:

Because khachapuri is so popular in Georgia, changes in its price would provide a good picture of inflation in the country. We have, therefore, created the "Khachapuri index" for tracking inflation in Georgia and, in the longer run, exploring the differences in the costs of living in its cities and regions. As opposed to other indices used for calculating inflation, our "basket" includes only those ingredients that are needed to cook one Imeretian khachapuri - flour, cheese, yeast, eggs, and butter. It also includes energy costs - gas and electricity.

Here you can see the index, bang up to date with Jan 2011 figures:

It seems that the price is so volatile. Also it seems the price drops in fasting seasons: Lent, before Whitsun, before Christmas.

Non-violent protest actions about the cuts in the UK

2011-02-20T15:55:16+02:00

Check out the new non-violent direct action forms of protest against cuts in the UK:

Bail in: after the banks had their bail outs and didn't pay much tax, the result is going to be huge cuts in local services and nurseries. So the UK Uncut campaign is holding "bail in" sit-ins in local banks, taking them over to set up libraries and childcare facilities on Saturdays see report here by Channel 4 News.