Eddieinserbia

After a long while of attempting to persuade people that I have a new blog address, I have come to the conclusion that nobody believes me. I therefore return, heart and soul, to eddieinserbia in an effort to reclaim my former readers...whoever they were. Some of my statistics showed that I had well over a thousand visitors a month. I can't imagine that. I can't imagine that more that about 900 of those were me either. So to the lost 100, welcome back, I have missed you...

Relating old news is tedious business. Yes, there have been good times, bad times, smart or diverting asides, reflections and pontifications. There have been times when I have still used those words; there have been times when the words have dried on my lips and caught on my throat. But those times have passed, with all their joys, pains and indifferences. These are new times now. There have been people who have come into my life, changed me, and left once again. There are friends that I will not see again, perhaps for many years. Perhaps not at all. The marks that are left on me will remain there, for a lifetime. A past with no escaping from it. A past from which I would not wish to escape.

 So, I sit now, in the sealed-off entrance lobby of Oslo Torp Sandefjord airport, at 2.50am. I am wearing a Cameroon football shirt, a gift from my dear friend who was an ally to me in this new place, amongst new faces. I would not part from it for anything. A few feet from me lies a very large man, who arrived about an hour ago. He muttered something incomprehensible, in a language that I have never heard before, and then lay down to sleep. He is snoring, so loudly that my other companion on this lonely night, a man who spoke no English and not much Norwegian - a man whom I just rescued from the toilet after the lights were turned out even as he tried to sleep there - has left. Yes, it's the sort of situation that I love to find myself in. If you Had read my other blog, then you would have read about my experiences at the main Oslo airport. Or of my inspiration in Budapest. As it is, I can only say that airports remain to me bamboozling. At airports I have a startling back-catalogue of memories that are to me truly incomparable. Given the choice between sleeping in an airport and sleeping in my own bed, wherever that turns out to be, I might opt for the airport more often than you would imagine, if only for the promise of something exciting being bound to happen.

 This day, God has answered my needs and provided for me as God does: He gave me everything that I needed, and then showered me with more blessings than I could have imagined. As soon as I got on the first bus today, a nice man grinned at me. "Har du lyst for is?" he said. I had very much lyst. One krone is and twenty minutes later, I was staring at another bus, disappearing in the distance. One that I had paid for. One that set off five minutes early. But then the bus driver took me by the shoulder, took me to another bus, of a different company, and asked the driver to let me onboard. "Let him go because he doesn't speak Norwegian", he said. In actual fact, I had actually not spoken at all. So how he came to that conclusion I don't know. Not even a word to betray an accent, apart from maybe "Takk". And there's not much you can really go wrong with in that word. Normally, pride might get the better of me. I understood every word of what he was saying, and might have told him so. But, given the fact that the basis of my free ride was my apparent lack of knowledge, I kept my mouth shut and my ignorance implied. So I had a free ride.

 On the bus, I sat next to a teacher. She asked me lots of questions, and I had a very nice conversation. She was impressed with my language, which was good. Many more conversations today gave me a very obvious matter to be thinking on. One with many facets. Firstly, however imperfectly, I can speak this language. To say now that I can't speak Norwegian is actually a lie. Secondly, when I am forced out into the world and away from my bubble, I experience life in new and exciting ways. I strike up deeper conversations with strangers than ever I would at home, simply out of the desire to express myself in a new way. I bare my soul to people sitting next to me on a bus, mainly because talking about life requires more adjectives and fewer difficult nouns than "You take a pin, spin round three times, and set it bang into the middle of this here map." Thirdly, a spot of independent travel goes a long way to mending several months of unsatisfactory mental fatigue that fills itself into every pore of my being and keeps me stagnant and unchanging.

 I can explain. In one afternoon, moving out and relying on God, however much I don't really think about relying on God, I come across shining examples of real life. I find people who talk, willingly and openly, in a society that supposedly doesn't encourage that sort of thing. I find guardian angels along the way. I find people buying me krone-iser. A woman who hears my tale of a night to spend at an airport, immediately pays for a taxi to take me the 2 kilometres to the terminal, with no more questions asked. I find two mad men, one of whom is lying on the floor moaning and snoring at the same time, even as I sit here, and the other who goes to sit on the toilet in order to sleep and still keeps silent even as I am in the process of rescuing him from his predicament as the lights go out about him. I find a staff worker at the airport who phones security and arranges for a section of the airport to be kept open for me, so that I don't have to wait outside in the cold. This is the life that is there, if only I stepped out and grabbed it. If only I asked for it in as many words.

 How much more can God give me, when I simply ask Him? Do I need to spend hours and days filling every thought with the money I think I need, how to get it, how to work, where to be, when to be, what to do? No, I need to ask God. Do I need to sit in endless cafes (I don't have the money anyway), with endless sparkling new notepads and inviting looking blank pages ready to scribble on, waiting for the ideas to leap up and hit me in the face like flying fishes swimming over a depth charge? No, I need to ask Him.

 Do I need to see the words of my mouth, the questions I would so love to ask, dry up on my lips because of my nation's shame? For the years of imperialism, and the guilt that the English feel for it, must the language dry in my mouth as soon as I am out of it's natural borders? Must I hold back, waiting for the spaces and long silences to come so that I can speak? Must I keep silent, because of thoughts and memories that drag me towards a paralysis that screams "Things cannot change because the way that it is is the way that it must be"? Must pride eat into the hunger of every wrong road I go down, wishing that I might just have turned back and taken the right one, but fearing to step back just one small step and correct myself? Is there a stomach in the road, filled with guilt and fear - things so easy to come upon you, but so easy to disappear underneath the mighty power of God's grace.

 No.

I have been a bit of an a*se. I'm sorry. My God has brought me back with a bump, and I have woken up, rubbing my eyes and looking into the light.

 The large man has stopped snoring. There is silence and peace. I may even get some rest before morning, but this life is just too exciting - too full and refreshing - to waste in sleep.

Seeing as nobody seems to know about my new blog, then I'd better post the address here:

 

www.edsaid-blog.blogspot.com

 

Please read :-)

I've largely forgotten about this blog now, and in 9 days I will be leaving Serbia. So in a sell-out gesture, which works as an attempt to close in a blaze of glory, I shall say "This will be the last". Except it probably won't. At the very least I'll be making a link to a new blog where I can continue my ramblings without being listed as "eddieinserbia." More anon.

For my final real entry, what can I say? Shall I describe more people, attempt a flush of Serbian sentences, delve deeply and irrelevantly into more politics? Defend somebody? Attack something? Well, that has been done before, and by people to whom it has more relevance than it does to myself. Not that "it" is necessarily irrelevant. Just that it is, well, "it." Something else, in that space between "Personal Interest" and "Satire", via "Voice of Justice." Straddling countless straddles, and landing it's furry paws (the beginning of that image wasn't worth pursuing, so there is the end) - in...nothing. The space between.

I'd like to finish by recommending a book. A book that might make you feel sick. That might make your heart race. Feel terror. Feel pain. Hit the bottom. A book I wish I had written. "There were times I had to stop reading this novel because I feared so much for the characters, or I had to re-read a phrase or a page to memorise its grace." So said Meera Syal, in the Sunday Express. Yeah right, thought I. Right, yeah, I am thinking now.

Why? I mean why would I choose to end a blog ostensibly about Serbia by writing about a (quite well known) Booker Prize winning book. An Indian novel. Irrelevant, you might think. What's he on? But this is life. Before I came to Belgrade, I was possibly going to Cameroon, Sudan, Ghana, Norway, England, or even Brazil. Possibly. I didn't. It is like this, life. Unexpected. Stranger than fiction. Throwing up uncomfortable irrelevancies served in the unique strangeness of living (soup). My playlist skips from "Oh, sister" to "Zombie - Live Version."

Really, I don't have too much to say about the book, except that it has possibly supplanted Tsitsi Dangaremba's "Nervous Conditions" as the number one hit on my hitlist. Alongside all the other number ones. It also has confirmed my unwilling, but at last fully-embracable view that all decent books in the English language now come from India (just about).

This book is called "The God of Small Things", by Arundhati Roy. It tells the story of two-egg twins nearabout Kerala that "broke the Love Laws. That lay down who should be loved. And how. And how much." Communist marches, police brutality, caste and even that old egg, "Orientalism," get into the fiery, peppery, jammy mix. (Food and the Indian novel go to gether like salt and more salt). But above all that, there is exquisitely bottled sadness (like a fly in a bottle), relevance, love, and desolation. It is told in the typically baroque, improvisatory prose that Salman Rushdie has made famous in his larger and more rambling books. But more than that. It does create its own language - a hybrid of some kind as John Updike put it. It is the most perfect novel, in my opinion, that has been written in recent times. (That I have read.) (Of course.) (Continue.) (Write properly). (What is that) (?)

I must say, anybody with a delicate constitution, or who would like to retain some optimism, or believe that perfect morality is required in order that something should be admired (nonsense, but you can think that and I won't argue too much) - just don't try it. It is something that you should be certain of, before you begin. Like you should be certain of watching "Psycho" before taking a shower.

My point? Do I need one? According to whom? Who makes the rules?

The process, rather than the product. "The God of Small Things" will really tell you nothing about Serbia. It goes against all logic. The cleverness of it all. The in-out-in-out Placeness of it all. The place where straddles are straddled and the in-between spaces are full of emptiness.

A world where the God is a God of small things.

Not my world.

Orientalism, but nothing to do with the Orient, for once. The full knowledge of how destructive, pointless, irrelevant, empty each life can be. From the innocence of seven year old twins. Through a sick encounter with the Orangedrink Lemondrink Man. Through life. Separation. Failure. Dysfunction. Return. Self-destruction. Grief. This is life. Not the life of a fiction. This is the life of the average egg, twin or no that enters this world. There is no escape from it in this world. The God of small people. Big people. You. Me. He came to our small, dysfunctional world. Our small, dysfunctional lives. He came to take us away. Makes us know the Big Things. See them with us. Wash clean our fat failures. Orientalism - what is that? "I am who I am because I am not like that. Foreigner. Heart of Darkness." We are who we are because we are not under the God of Small Things. This world is the Heart of Darkness, and to our God we are Big Things.

Arundhati Roy probably didn't mean this, but then again, this is not her blog.

Thank you for reading it. Thank you to Serbia for having me. I liked it a lot.
Ed

I realise I'm due for a Norwegian post, but I shall swap the order because I have lots to say that might be of interest to those in the world of CNN and Sky News out there.

It's been all-action here because a couple of days back Slobodan Milošević died in the Hague. Or rather, now that I really think about it, it has been all-action on TV, and mainly Western TV channels at that...in Belgrade there doesn't seem to be a particularly huge reaction to anything. Shortly after his death I headed over to the horse to see if anything interesting was happening, but there were only a few people waiting around as usual, nothing to do with Milošević. I heard later that there may or may not have been a few stragglers outside the Parliament buildings, but in general, even if there was to be any marking of his passage, it was probably quickly extinguished by the then impending rain. So, as usual, it was left to the BBC and chums to get excited...

I picked up a cross-section of views on the BBC "Your Say" section of their website. It certainly seems a popular post - I have not seen so many replies to one of these postings. Picking up other opinions going round have generally been along the lines of:

SM may have been bad, but that does not give an excuse for inacurracy and even lies in Western journalism. For example: SM did not directly bring his people to poverty. NATO did that with their bombing campaigns and sanctions, with all the customary "collateral damage" (the bombing of hospitals, the Chinese embassy and so on).

SM's death is a good thing, mainly because it means that the Serbian people cannot be convicted of "genocide", as was (allegedly) the purpose of the Hague tribunal, which sought to Satanise the Serbian people. In the Nurnberg trials, it was individuals who were tried for genocide, not "Germany". The demonisation of Serbia in the media shows the "West's" lack of sophistication in separating one act or experience from another.

SM's death has brought rhetoric dangerously into the appearance of fact: it is something that the BBC especially are good at doing. If something or someone is decided to be "evil", they will be reported as "evil" as a matter of unequivocal certainty, rather than presented dispassionately and allowing the editorials to make the judgements. The "editorial" and the "lead story" are badly confused by the BBC editors as concepts. (Ok, this is my point, rather than one I picked up).

SM's death will anyway lead to the demonisation of Serbia, and this enables NATO/UN/EU/US/UK/France to back out of their own failings and guilt in the various crises of the last 15 years. Croatia and the Bosnian Muslims are pushed into the background - the crimes committed by each are shielded by the focus of attention on Milošević. The average couch potato in the US/UK now believes Serbia alone to be the guilty party in the Balkans. Regardless of at least 8 other factions involved, including them. Thus a situation in which every party bears some guilt to some degree has been conveniently focused by the Hague onto one soft target.

These are the observations that I have made concerning reactions to the death of SM, or more specifically the manner in which Serbia is presented in the media in the light of his death. There are likely to be many, many more views than these expressed.

My ears will be open to pick up anything else as the days pass.

If anybody wants to add their own observations about this situation, please do.

About the language...I can't help thinking that Norwegian is one of those things that doesn't quite do what I want it to do. This is probably not its fault. Actually, increasingly, even English doesn't quite do what I want it to do either. Vuk Karadžić decided to reform the language of Serbia and make it into what it is today. The method of pronunciation, with each letter having its own non-negotiable sound, is actually really very logical and is a hugely effective accomplishment. Even if you don't know any Serbian, it should be possible to spell every word and say every word perfectly (give or take the odd strange sounding čćžđ sounds, or conglomeration of sounds). So if he could, why not me? Perhaps re-defining the Norwegian language in all its entirety would be a tad on the arrogant side, mainly because I didn't yet learn it properly... English, on the other hand...well it's mine to keep so watch out. Bill Gates started it all with all this electronic speak. In fact, thinking about it, Shakespeare invented some pretty ropey words (although he was a bit better at it than Bill Gates' minions). Soon Ed might have his very own language. Then where will you all be?

I would say, however, that "Please wait while the list is being populated" must go down as one of Microsoft's finer contributions to English. Please wait while I populate this blog.

I've been thinking about writing a list of things that I miss. So I did:


Playing football. Every day. Three times a day. Five times a day. Enough times to drop dead tired. I really miss it very much, especially playing "Crossbar challenge" with Benjamin on the Hald lawn. Football is not an especially interesting game to watch, but playing it is cathartic in some inexplicable way. It is like a universal language, except for Americans.

Going for walks in the clean air and the smell of the sea, and through woods. Even in town, if the town is nice and has ducks and things.

Finding new places. Knowing nooks and crannies better than the people who even live in those nooks and crannies is one of the things that I like doing.

Cycling. Or more specifically trying to take coast shortcuts and getting completely lost (so long as the sun is shining).

Revisiting my accidentally left-behind Bob Dylan collection and other unidentified but still-missed records. Most of the CDs I got from Eugene – Tortoise, DJ Shadow, Morton Subotnik, Feldman… These are the things that I need when I’m in the mood.

Having people to talk to about Ronaldinho and Messi and Eto’o. And Edmilson. Even Steed Malbranque and Nigel Quashie. I’m not sure that they are really worth talking about (apart from to their families, for example), but we need something to fill up the spaces in our heads from time to time.

Driving up on the nice E-39 to Stavanger and stopping off for an emergency coffee in one of those fine service stations.

Driving at night along open country roads.

I will watch Kagemusha, a Japanese film that nobody else I have ever known seems enthusiastic about.

Playing "21". (A basketball game with added injustice).

Those smelly sticks that have no particular name, but smell trippy and are great when accompanying Portishead and a shot of plum brandy, Serbian style. Well maybe not the Portishead bit anyway.

Drinking proper coffee. (Black and bitter, and completely as it is, out of the coffee maker. No cremes, sugars, milky froth or leftover sediment).

Admiring the art of Monty Parnesar and Andrew Flintoff. Why is nobody else in the world interested in cricket, apart from ex-UK colonies? This is not a sport, it is really an art.

Getting a job and a car. Preferably a yellow Volkswagen Beetle.

Writing more of my book and reading some ridiculous "Wind-Up Bird Chronicle"-alike, curled up by a log fire.

Playing the piano...at last...before I completely forget how to do it. For hours and hours without stopping.

Sitting in or outside an empty Church in the sticks where there is absolutely no sound to be heard from any direction. Contemplating about how good God is when the sun shines in through some small stone window (ok, I do have a specific place in mind, and no I wasn’t alone at the time).

Eating various things: toast, weetabix, fresh (as opposed to manky) bananas.

Watching films. I haven't really been deprived of this, but still miss it, sort of. Especially films like Belleville Rendez-Vous and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Enduring Love.

Visitors from far off lands. Like York and London.



It is not an exclusive list. Just some things in my head. Plus it is completely devoid of people, but that is the intention. I won't say who I'm missing, because that's probably very obvious to those who are bothered. To those who aren't, there are probably some universal human desires in that list. Especially the toast and weetabix bit. Plus I want to avoid stalkers...

Ok folkens, eg har en bloggy humør i det siste. Eg har funnet flere interessante ting om Serbia, som eg skal prøve å forklare.

Serbiske mennesker spiser sinsikte frokoster. Slobodan sa i dag at de hadde ofte "burek" (pai) eller masse kjøtt og egg. Ja vel. Hvordan man kan spise mat som det så tidlig i morgenen vet eg ikkje.

Også...

Det er en stor forskell mellom rike og fattige mennesker her. Man kan si, på Knez Milhailova, mange rike folk som går rundt og grunner og akkurat gjør veldig litt. De ser ut som det i alle fall. Det er vanskelig å tenke på kem kjøper mange ting på Knez Mihailova, akkurat, fordi de er så kjempedyrtt. For eksemple, eg prøvde å finne en klokke før eg reiste til Thailand. Det var ikkje mulig. Den billigest en var 70 Euros. Alt er som det, og ikkje bare ting som har vært importert fra resten av verden. Men folk har ikkje så mye penger ofte, så de som er kunne å kjøpe klokker er kjempemye riker enn den typisk mann. Akkurat går eg ofte på Knez Mihailova (enda kjøper eg ingenting) og har eg altså realisert at dette er ikkje "typisk Beograd" og sikkert ikkje typisk Serbia.

Beograd er IKKJE en vakker by. Men solnedgangene at man kan ser på nesten på toppen av Genex er utrolig flott eller spektakulær eller noen som det. Eg tok masse bilder i går og skal gjør det igjen i dag. Dere kan ser på dem etter i morgen, kanskje.

Over og ut (?!)

Yesterday, I went across to our neighbours' apartment bleary-eyed and in my Afternoon Sleeping Kit (which isn't exactly pyjamas, but is close), which consists of a Che Guevara t-shirt that Christina bought me and some very dusty tracksuit trousers. I wasn't expecting a meeting, which would explain it. Wearing that t-shirt in an ex-communist country drew some amused comments, which I wasn't fully able to appreciate whilst still half-asleep.

Anyway.

There was a man there who used to be a Metropolitan Policeman. He was giving a short talk, which was quite interesting. He told us about an experiment he watched when at school. A frog was put in a tank of water with a low bunsen burner flame underneath. The water heated so incredibly gradually (less than a degree in an hour) that the frog never noticed (how would he know?) that it was getting warmer. (Later I experimented with a pan of water in the kitchen and my finger, to see if I would notice. I did. It was stupid.) It got so hot eventually that the water boiled and the frog died. But because it was so gradual, the frog never made any attempt to get out or even showed any signs of distress. It just died.

I was MEANT to think "Isn't that just like people? We gradually accept the changes in society and behaviour and gradually accept all the bad things, one by one without hardly noticing until eventually all our values and morality disappear and we have been killed by sin before we even knew what was happening."

Actually, what I really thought was: "Poor frog! How could somebody do that to an animal? How would you like it?" I'm not really an animal rights person, but that is RIDICULOUS.

The man did have a point though. What I would like to know is, what was he actually practically thinking of when he said that? I began to think: it's all very well making wise and knowing generalisations, but how do you tie them to facts and experiences? Is having the odd not-so-legal DVD going to gradually turn somebody into a full-scale black market raqueteer? Is watching a film with swear words in it going to turn me into a foul-mouthed and violent SCALLYWAG?!!

Possibly. But I don't think so. I think that, whilst what he said was perfectly true, if you apply it too strictly and conservatively, you lose your humanity. Humanity is absolutely essential. It is what stops you turning up your nose at somebody or looking down at them over your glasses (if you have glasses) when they do something wrong. Instead of loving them and accepting them for who they are. That's what God wants, in my opinion.

Or else we should all become monks. But tell me, don't you think that EVERYTHING that we do eventually destroys us? Even if we do something good, how long is it before we stop and think to ourselves: "Look at me. I'm doing something GOOD. Aren't I great?" This is why we need Jesus, because we're all like that and we're all going to die too, not because we're good at being good and nearly have a heart attack if we see somebody SMOKING. SHOCK HORROR. Or even wearing a communist icon on a t-shirt in an ex-communist country. Woops.

Så framtida er alt kommet og har eg blitt forfatter allerede. Eg har skrivet romanen min så fort som mulig, og nå håper eg at det skal komme ut før eg er en gammel mann. Eg har skrivet nesten ti tusen ord. Det er sinsikt masse. Eg tenkte på livet av en forfatter litt, og realiserte eg at det ville bli for vanskelig å få penger den veien. Så skal eg skriver mens eg er kunne.

Hvorfor det? Ok...en bok, for eksemple "The God of Small Things", av Arundhati Roy (det legger ved siden av meg) koster 845 Serbisk dinar, som er likner 70 kroner eller noe. Arundhati Roy (eg har ikkje lest denne bok, så ikkje spør meg om det) skal måtte betale "Flamingo Press" kanskje 30 prosent. Så skal henne muligens måtte betale en personn, som eg tror er en agent på norsk, men eg er ikkje helt sikkert. Gang det av alle tiden som hu brukte å skrive (man må ofte holde og skrive en hel natt noen ganger) og tenker på hvordan hu var sikkert stresset ofte. Så skal du ikkje tvile at en bok er ikkje en flink vei å få penger. Det er helt fantastisk, og man føler seg kjempeglad å kunne å vise ideene sine og bare å ha noen å si om liv, kjærlighet, Gud, frukt, Serbia... Men aldri gjør det for å få penger. Tro meg.

Dette viser hvorfor har eg bestemt å skrive bloggen min på norsk fra nå av (eksept eg skal skrive flere ganger på engelsk og, så skal de serbiske og engelske menneskene kunne å skjønne det. (Akkurat, det skal muligens bli lettere for de norske folkene å skjønne det på engelsk og...hm). Man kan ofte glemme mye om livet uten språken deres. Eg har funnet det vanskelig å si så mye på norsk, fordi engelsk (eg mener som et språk) er viktig til meg. Eg studerte Engelsk på universitet, for eksemple, så kan eg ikkje glemme det, og må ikkje glemme hvordan å skrive på god engelsk. Me har en serbisk nabo som har like kommet tilbake fra England. Hu var over der siden 1999, tror eg. Hu sa at en dag kunne hu ikkje huske ordet for "shop" på serbisk og følte seg dumt. Hu var blitt født i Vojvodina! Så skal eg ikkje prøve å glemme engelsk. Det er ikkje et godt ting å kunne ikkje å huske ordene som me hadde brukt hver dag før. En bra roman skulle sikkert alltid være lett å skjønne (synes ed), men ikkje skulle det bli så lett at det sier ingenting interessert på livet. Derfor, skal eg alltid trenge gode engelske ord i bokene mine. Eller boken. Kem kan si mer en det?

Det er alt. Akkurat har eg vært lyst å bare skrive på norsk, så ikkje tenke på kva eg skrev for mye. Eg trenger å kjøpe brød og ting om dette livet, så må eg øve dette nytt språk. Eg har ikkje likt å lære så litt serbisk, fordi føler meg litt dumt om det. Men norsk, håper eg, skal bli lettere og lettere. Det er sikkert lettere enn serbisk.

Kem skal lese det vet eg ikkje, akkurat. Kanskje snakke eg med bare min selv. Hoho.

Well well...I started my book at long last and have written 6000 words already in two half-hearted evenings. Piece of cake. Can you imagine the title? Serious man that I am and all..."Mitsuo Kobe and the Lemon Suicides". It turns out to be a comedy piece, in black Serbian humour style, but with a love story somewhere in there. "Always write about love". Good advice, because we all need it.

Did you know...

Japanese aid to Serbia and Montenegro since 1998 has come with no strings attached, and has totalled over 50 million US dollars-worth of money. A fleet of yellow bendy buses "from the people of Japan" is just about the only way you would ever see it though, unless you were hunting (like I was). What a very refreshing attitude and how different to so many other headline-grabbing donors. There have been nine hospitals, four schools and several institutions for the handicapped. The Japanese have also invested in agriculture. This is fantastic.

?

Aside from this. About The Battle of Kosovo, 1389. This has been one of the most celebrated battles in Serbian history (probably The most). It lies at the heart of Serbian claims to Kosovo. The centre of the Serbian culture is located in connection with this battle (actually a battle that resulted in defeat to the Turks - which further illustrates my point that Serbs are British in disguise...D-day, Norman invasion, Tim Henman at Wimbledon...nobody is better at celebrating heroic defeat...) The Battle of Kosovo unfortunately turns the province into a European Jerusalem - with both religious focal points located on the same site, and so there is a no-win situation. Serbs claim that they were there first, and that emigration coupled with Albanian population explosion led to them being in the minority, and this should not affect discussions about the self-determination of Kosovo. Albanians though, claim Illyrian ancestory and point out that there were Illyrian tribes in the area in the 6th century. It all points towards a complication. Albanians may be over 90% of the population, but the conflicting histories of the two groups make it somehow difficult to resolve. Hence the Jerusalem of Europe situation. I hope this is a fair assessment of the dilemma. With so many histories going around it is difficult to work out what each one is dispassionately, and unfortunately I would imagine equally impossible to state any truth.

My question, the first of many awkward ones that I plan to ask this week...

What should happen to Kosovo? Is there any hope for a fair peace and government for everyone?

Well that's something the bigwigs in Europe are also trying to work out, but for my own interest, could somebody provide an answer? Nobody ever seems to answer this in as many words.

One good thing about living 28 floors above the ground in Belgrade's "West Gate", as it is formally known, is that you get to see loads of sunsets. Not just little slices of sun peeping out from behind taller buildings, and sickly yellow glows filtered through car exhaust fumes. I mean real, bright red-orange, plate-sized monster-sunsets. The sort of sunsets that make you annoyed because your family, friends, Uncle Emily and Aunty John are not there to appreciate it with you. The sort of sunsets that Should be Shared with a capital 'S', especially with Scandinavians who don't see any sun half the year and with Africans, who would miss a sunset if they sneezed because it goes so quickly. Or with girlfriends, fiancees, husbands, wives, samboers, dogs, and the like.

The thing about sun is that it transforms people from the cold hearted, insular, depressed, suspicious and unhealthy inner-infestations of the big city into warm, laughing, loving, hugging and car-horn-honking flowers of the spring time. The spectacular happiness that comes from experiencing two and a half days of +17degree heat (ok, I might prefer 34degrees in Bangkok, but at least this is a nice surprise out of the blue) - it is unique. People drone on and on about cold Scandinavians, soggy-headed Brits and the warm loveable people of the "hot climate cultures" (please...) - so much so that they don't actually stop to think about the unfairness of their accusations. Maybe Norwegians are cold. But you try living without heat and light for 6 months in Tromø or something. I feel like I need to campaign for the rights of the oppressed cold people - leave us alone! if the sun shone up here we'd be just as cheerful as you!

Belgrade is often described as two cities. Or maybe three, but I haven't worked the logic of that one through yet. In the summer months (the months when I'll be gone) it is a bright, friendly, sociable place. In the winter months (my complete experience) then it is a dark, dank, depressing place where people are re-generating, hibernating and re-evaluating. If you scratch the surface in the dark times, there is life and fire in the city too, where it is warmest somewhere near the Earth's core at the bottom of some turbo-folked basement. In the meantime, we'll just have to wait for another taste of summer and be kind to each other.

The best things nearly always happen in the summer. This year, I have Plans, God willing. Think about it, you who know me: I'll get married to someone more than a bit nice, go to Madagascar, see two more friends get married in England, get a job, a car (looking for yellow VW Beetles out there), I'll perfect (what a summery, optimistic idea) my language skills, see my best friends again for the first time in a year, learn to ice-skate (ok maybe that's not the best thing to try in the summer), play the piano again and finally get my book up and running. Not to mention all the barbeques, sail-boat trips, fishing trips, mountain walks, endless football games, basket-ball, seaside runs (I don't mean the unpleasant kind). There's much more - I'll even hopefully get a house towards the end of September or earlier, and there's an exciting thing - but the point is exactly that. The best things ALWAYS happen in the summer. Always with no exceptions. Bastille Day. Andy Murray will win Wimbledon. England will lose the world cup (sorry, but that will be a victory for humility and sportsmanship) and the cricketers (yes, I betray my roots) will hammer whoever it is that they are playing this time and Freddie Flintoff will be knighted and carried around London on some red bus. You see, it is just the way things go.

My solution to life's problems: find the sun. Wherever it is, hunt it down. If you can't see it, dream of it. Wrap yourself in a rug and stare through a 60Watt lightbulb. Your life will be better, I promise.

'For, as long as a man is in his own society and normal circumstances, such facts from his curriculum vitae signify, even for him, the important stages and major turning points of his life. But as soon as chance, his work or sickness remove and isolate him, these facts begin to fade, to wither and disintegrate unbelievably fast, like a lifeless mask of paper and lacquer he had once used. And beneath them our other life begins to emerge, a life known only to us, the 'true' history of our spirit and body, not recorded anywhere, and quite unsuspected. It has very little connection with our social successes, but for us and our ultimate good or ill, it is the only one that is important and "real".' Ivo Andrić, The Days of the Consuls, trans. Celia Hawksworth, Belgrade: Dereta, 2000, p.17.

How wisely Andrić puts it. French consul Daville is not alone. As the nonsense on the back of the book puts it, 'Andrić uses his native Bosnia as a microcosm of human society' (it says that on the back of all his books on Dereta, just about). For the exile, such as myself, it is very easy to see how this '"true" history of...spirit and body' is forced to emerge, when anything that is familiar and has given direction and forward movement in my life up to this point is stripped away. What is a man when he becomes powerless to define himself in a new society? How can he remain self-respecting when he can't even buy insulation tape because he doesn't know where to find it or even if it exists in the new location? These are the questions that I am contending with, and they are some of the most difficult that I have ever had to face. Should I overcome them, I will have learnt to "be", rather than to "have done" and to be at ease with my own presence in God's purpose, independent of my own ambitions, which are forced to become nothing. Pride cannot exist in this new space, but the dividing lines between pride and self-assurity and between the potential to become anything or nothing are blurred beyond recognition. Expression of some kind is important, but even the tools of that expression are no longer the ones that I could have used before. Language does not have the same meaning or purpose. I dreamt that I lost a tooth biting open a box. I have thought of the significance of this dream. Often, consumption represents knowledge, and the teeth are the tools by which that knowledge is consumed. Living abroad means that I lose my teeth: that I cease to know anything.

The conclusion? 1 Corinthians 1:27 (New International Version) 'But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong.' It is a very hard lesson, but once learnt forces someone to rely not on themselves but God. I am still learning.

I spent the last hours of my stay in Thailand teaching English to one of the kitchen staff of the small patio restaurant in our hotel. It was a most unusual, unexpected, but interesting exercise, and made me remember how much I enjoy teaching people, from my not-so-extensive experience. It also presented me with a narrow escape from a hamburger as payment. More anon.

Thailand is a wonderful country. It is hot, sunny, with beautiful food and generally friendly people. It has its irritations, which are most often connected with the tourists. I could quite happily live in Bangkok for a while, despite it being a big city. I have much more to observe, but this is supposed to be about Serbia, so I shall not digress...

I read today that Oslo is the world's most expensive city, surpassing Tokyo now. I then read a few messages from people complaining about it. The price of beer and burgers were consistently brought up. This is irritating: burgers for one are one of the world's greater evils in terms of what they are, what they represent, whoever is trampled on in order to make them and in the simple fact that they are part of the corporate machine. I don't want to eat an ideology if I am eating a meal. So a £9 burger is about right. Expensive enough never to be tempted to stuff its greasy, carcenogenic, genetically modified, empire capitalist death-meat into my mouth. And beer is disgusting too, so I'm glad that Oslo prices out the burger and beer generation. Mind you, to be fair, I bet fine spirits are quite expensive too. But it is possible to live without alcohol. Norway does require a change of mindset for the cafe-culture European: things are not generally done that way in this country. So it may well be that those complaining about prices should instead look to live as Norwegians do in Norway - you know, "in Rome..." - before spouting.

In order to stop this being a digression, I might well say that there is much that I could get worried about in Belgrade if I were to adopt this "let's go and explore the world from one McDonalds to another" attitude. What exactly is the point if you don't try to at least observe, if not take part in, local customs? The world is a place where people live according to the dictates of the societies local to them, not an expensive playground for the burger generation.

At least Pljeskavica has nothing to do with Ronald McDonald, but then Belgrade is at 107 in the list of expensive places, so I guess that won't deter the tourists. What tourists? Oh, that's ok then. This country is sometimes most refreshing.

I will again try to provide some reflections on my limited experience of Thailand, and Bangkok especially. I have come to the conclusion that writing after being ill for a little while is a quite effective balm against Tourist Fever, or the unjust "your country made me sick" corollary that springs up inevitably during any bout amongst 17 vomitting sessions in the space of 9 hours.

Objectively, therefore. Bangkok seems to be designed to please the visitor, in a variety of good and bad ways. Terrible orchestrated versions of Beatles' songs "entertain" in entrance lobbies, over-enthusiastic air conditioning is enough to actually freeze you, and even in elevators, whoever it is whose job it is to think of such things has decided that a looped recording of birdsong will put the passengers at ease. The grubby underside of Bangkok is unfortunately no less visible, meaning that, in reality, it is not really an underside at all. Furtive looking men thrust leaflets of Thai girls into your face at the least opportunity, whilst, hanging around in every carpark seem to be crowds of men outbidding each other for the services of the various "ladies" who shout out to every passing male of their availability. Even the "ladyboys" of Hua Hin get in on the act. It is not only disturbing, but there is, even on the surface, such an obvious impression of exploitation and abuse that whatever goes on beneath hardly bears thinking about. If you were to sit in a cafe observing the passing white men, there does seem to be something distinctly "seedy" about almost every one. The pony-tailed, ex-rocker tattooed men mix with the sweaty suited ones, and the fact that, just this afternoon I spotted the same man walking with a different Thai "lady" on his arm to the one that had been there before is enough to confirm my suspicions that, indeed, there are people here with intent to abuse their position. This is the singular bad side to Bangkok, and very bad it is too.

On a more positive note, Thailand is a hot place, adorned with various beautiful beaches and superbly preserved heritage, cultural and religious sights. The Grand Palace in Bangkok is one of the few places in the world where gold must be so common-place that after a while it starts to look dull and quesy. The gigantic reclining Buddha is a case in point. I would like to point out, as usual, that the slum areas of Bangkok are in terrible contrast, but it seems that this is a lesson that nobody in the world ever seems to remember for very long. The beggars outside Novi Sad's magnificent Orthodox churches being an obvious comparison. The grand architecture of religious buildings is one thing that has always made me a little uncomfortable. But, despite the hypocricy and excess that could easily be condemned, one must consider as an example the Parthenon in Athens. On the roof, impossible to be seen by anyone below, were beautiful carved sculptures. What could their purpose have been other than to please God and nobody else? It is worth thinking about, but then so is the old man lying on the dusty floor of a Bangkok shanty-town house with not a piece of furniture inside.

I met Andreas Svensen in a fly-filled beach cafe in Thailand. I was sitting and sipping lukewarm coffee and scribbling endless beginnings of fantastic adventures inside rich universes filled also with unfortunately trite cliches such as the room full of mirrors that is truly a mirror to the self or perhaps worse the spiritual wanderer finding his inner peace in harmony with nature. Karma man. The problem was, I knew even before writing that they would come to nothing. I found myself lifting metaphorical weights. First, I powdered my palms with images, then I strained two or three times with some Matrix-esque 'all is not as it seems' philosophy that was impossible to lift onto my shoulders because I did not actually believe it was there. Like any weightlifter, I had first to believe that it was worth lifting the weights. Those small rubbery Greek men, who look more like action figurines than humans, contort the body time and time again, putting every muscle - including the heart - under immense strain and ultimately tending towards premature death. But it was not simply that I had no faith in the interchangeable philosophies - even absences are richly evocative wells of the kind that Haruki Murakami favours, to explore existential terror at an indefinable postmodern crises of identity, forming the cross-roads of fact and fiction. And as Aristotle put it, slightly more cleverly, pity and fear are the most exciting ingredients for any story.

That said, a small puppy dashed in between my table's legs and began playing with my sand-buried feet, yelping and rolling on its back when it realised that they belonged to me. I wrote about that, attempting to affix absolutely no meaning to it whatsoever. But it was impossible. Soon I began to question if anybody could retrieve true innocence of mind, and I used the puppy as a central motif, with my buried foot being the symbol of fallen man or something like that. There was no point drawing it to a conclusion. I decided instead to do just the sort of seemingly realistic but practically unlikely things that many postmodern literary characters do: open a wise and weary conversation with a complete stranger in a cafe. That is where Andreas Svensen came into things.

Of course, it all went a bit wrong when I had to admit to myself that Andreas Svensen did not exist. The only people opposite me were a group of Thai ice-cream sellers taking a break to rest from the swarm of swim-suited Scandinavian tourists, among whom Andreas Svensen could have been, sunning himself in the early evening sunshine, had he existed.

At this point of my experiment, half-way between dream and reality, I came across these simple and compelling conclusions. Too simple to inspire a bestseller and pay off some of my debt, but no less compelling because they were real:

1) Thais very rarely sun themselves on beaches - even those that work there take great care to cover themselves. Andreas Svensen was excellent with his Thai greeting and appropriate behaviour in temples. But when being culturally sensitive impinged on his own private beach space, he conveniently put cultural issues to the back of his mind. Fortunately, there were enough Andreas Svensens around to convince himself of the impression that it was the Thai ice-cream sellers who were the out-of-place ones.

2) Fiction is useful. When you want to make a point and need facts there are two usual predicaments. Either: you find a person who makes a great point, but you have no point of your own to frame it in. Or: you have a great point to make, but nobody to provide you with the 'fact' of experience. Fiction solves both dilemmas.

I too enjoy being Andreas Svensen when the sea is warm. The fact is that it is UNCOMFORTABLE sometimes to behave completely consistently. You can pull out the tourist excuse when it suits, and the responsible and respectful visitor approach equally when it suits. There tends to be a degree of selfishness, which we are all guilty of from time to time.

I am now in Bankok. I could have much to say about that, but it is only fair to pay tribute to the people that got me here, Air France, before anything else. I mean, if they hadn't done a job, parts of me could be dropping in on Osama. As it was, they did enough not only to get me safely across the Caspian Sea - a nice sounding sea if ever there was one - but also to serve pickled feta for breakfast, salmon with white sauce for lunch, and a surprisingly un-rubbery apple pie for desert. Beyond the call of duty, I would say, especially with the natty entertainment screen and gallons of coffee.

HOWEVER...

Air France, along with BA two years ago, have ruined the plot of one of my ideas for a good story. I was imagining a doomed airline: doomed mainly because it sought to terrify its customers with screenings of air crash films and scenes from Cast Away...or...Corpse Bride, a French film about dare-devil jet fighter pilots who shoot at each other against orders, Anger Management (complete with air-rage opening)...such like. Except that has been the choice on my only 2 long-haul flights. Frustrating.

Still, Corpse Bride is a most excellent, twisted, dark and sophisticated offering from Tim Burton. Probably not what you want to see when 33000 feet in the air above Afghanistan, however.

I will say more of Bankok and Hua Hin at a later date. Suffice to say that I just avoided an elephant in the street and stepped across a wooden plank bridge that very nearly collapsed in the middle. Bankok is certainly not Belgrade.

Tomorrow I'm going to Thailand. Which rather challenges the concept of an "Eddieinserbia" blog. Nevertheless, I would imagine there are some things that are quite different. I mean, you know.

You probably don't.

Over the last couple of weeks I have been contemplating putting an end to my wandering and remaining in my room for just a few hours each day. Looking out of the window brings to mind the set of Alfred Hitchcock's "Rear Window". It is actually uncanny.

In Belgrade, the month of celebrations for the sake of celebrations is here. There are many slavas (as usual), in addition to Orthodox Christmas, two New Year celebrations (one of which being this evening) and as it seems a lot of spontaneous parties just for the sake of getting rid of the vast quantity of fire crackers that echo through every apartment block stairwell.

Back on Planet Ed, there are adventures waiting. I really don't know what I'm talking about. I have jetlag I think and I'm not even there yet. Excuse this particular post.

I have spent recent days across the New Year in Budapest. It is one of my favourite haunts: it is worth the trip for the fine array of hot baths - all the more inviting when it is minus something - and the quaint and attractive Vorosmarty Square, serving good hot wine at tourist prices. My particular attraction to the Douwe Egberts cafe near Ferenciek Tere, on account of its having been the site of a quite miraculous recovery from the worst part of some kind of unidentified illness I have had for a couple of years, is my own. I have nothing more to say about Hungary from what I experienced last week: it was cold, busy, full of drunk Brits at New Year and allegedly jampacked with aliens (Hungarians, apparently). I saw little evidence for the last charge. They seemed a people attracted to sausages, distinctive cake and each other (publicly displayed affection amongst Hungarians is famous). It was all quite nice - a word I was warned once against using at all costs, but it fits Budapest quite well. It is nice. Honestly.

After waiting for hours in the wrong place for my bus driver, the surreal experience of drinking Turkish coffee in his bedsit and then sleeping in a room full of what appeared to be purpose-built beds was quite a release from waiting in the airport for the previous 12 hours, and having previously not slept for more hours than I had courage to count. I began to go quietly mad from tiredness and generally from my inability to escape from an airport that has, in total, taken more than 35 hours of my life over the last 2 years. My yearning to wander has been something that I have discovered to be an essential part of my make-up recently. I set out, to the bemusement of my flatmates, in all weathers to wander through Belgrade. It is somehow cathartic. I am glad to say that my fiancee understands my quirks. In actually fact, come to think of it, huddling out of the cold round the back of a cash machine in an underground station stands as my favourite memory of Budapest. With this in mind, I think Belgrade is ideal for me. It doesn't have buildings, but it has plenty of nooks and crannies to hide in. The idea of taking a whole day trip to Novi Sad tomorrow rather bemuses me. Being guided for an entire day will rather cut my ability to go about and potter. If I ever write a book, as I have been quite keen to do recently, I might call it The Wanderer.

On the subject of books: I have been thinking. I've read through some from cover to cover in recent days, and have discovered that some are Entirely pointless. Reading descriptions of scenery does not improve my life. But then, reading about the lives of others takes only a day or two, whereas living them would take, well, a lifetime. Consequently, an impressive motivation for the novelist is to allow a reader to take in a life so that they don't have to waste time living it. Reading a book can be like meeting somebody new and stepping over their mistakes. I would not like to be any of Murakami's characters, for example, but at least I can do the whole student rebellion with sadness business over a nice cup of coffee in the kitchen. There's that 'nice' again, but its true. So my notebook will come out tomorrow. My question is, what kind of life would you like to experience in a book? Who, how and where? I might be obliging...

After slipping further back into a general lethargy, I have been re-awoken by a set of encounters with the Serbian language that have re-trained my consciousness. When faced, for example, with a Macedonian angry woman at a bus stop, "Ne znam srpski" really does not cut the mustard. The strangest collection of words come to mind in the strangest of contexts when put under pressure to hold a dialogue with somebody who is not in the mood to believe you are a foreigner, struggling with the world's second most difficult language to learn (after Chinese, and according to consistent reports). Even before I say it; even as I am saying it, I am aware that a literally translated sentence such as "I to speak no small Serbians" does not sound altogether complimentary. But in the absence of correct grammar, which is a persistent problem with a language that could fill an entire textbook with usages of possessive pronouns alone, the kamikaze-stupid-foreigner approach is the only one available. Take ordering four potatoes in a grocery store, for example, and mix a couple of odd-sounding mixtures of of 'c's, 'z's and 'r's and you will end up with somebody asking to where they should be delivered on Thursday. Tell somebody you are "Dobro" and you are well; tell them you are "dobar" and you are morally upstanding, which is not necessarily one and the same thing. The problem is compounded for me, as I have a most unique special brand of Anglo-Norsk Franco-Serbian that could only come from a ridiculous selection of languages three of which I never learnt properly and the other seems to be the second-language of everywhere I have been thus far. It makes little sense. Nevertheless, if linguistically inept people (ie the English) were never to go anywhere for fear of stumbling over their syntax, then our over-crowded little island would probably sink under its own weight. Sometimes you have to get up and go. Leaving England has secured for it an eternally affectionate spot in my heart, which is about the best compliment I could pay it. Where else is it legal to shoot at a Scotsman with a bow and arrow, providing it is not on a Sunday?. Answers on a postcard, but don't get trigger happy because that's only if you spend your weekdays in York.

 

Anybody who has seen the BBC's "Grumpy Old Men", in which various world-weary critics grumble about life with barely suppressed grins, will know exactly what it is to be in a good-humourdly bad mood. It is the sort of mood during which, despite being ready to blame everything from electric ovens to George W. for having a go at you, you remain almost at the point of laughing aloud at your own fake annoyance. It is not possible to take yourself seriously at this point, but it is still quite agreeable to consider yourself as one man against the whole, silly world. But it remains that: a silly world, rather than the vessel carrying real evil to your door. Sure there is evil in the world, but this is not the time to think about it. It is a mood that is very easily fostered in Serbia - rebel nation, lifting a spirited but rarely too aggressive two-fingers at the world, like the Serbs in 'Bridge on the Drina' (sorry), who "accidentally" white-washed the numbers that the Austro-Hungarians demanded were placed on their houses. It is easy to imagine why plum brandy continued to be drunk in vast quantities during the bombing. Not often out of existential despair, but warm, defiant humour.

I have spent the last days writing about Serbian literature and the collapse of the 'Yugoslavia' ideal. One of the most interesting novels of the last few years has been Milorad Pavić's "Dictionary of the Khazars". It is designed in three parts, "The Red Book," "The Green Book", and "The Yellow Book" - Christian, Muslim and Jewish accounts of the conversion of an obscure tribe living above the Black Sea in the 11th Century. The subject is not so important as the process of investigation, which is Pavić's point - the reader can trace the characters and stories of each entry in any order and in each book, but whatever the order, the story remains the same. Each faith believed the Khazars to have converted to their religion and provide facts to support their case. No overall answer is given. There can be no universal truth, and 'no agreement or mutual understanding could be reached among peoples who begin from different starting points'*. The effect is to frighteningly imply the destruction of any possible harmony in the former Yugoslavia.

Interesting point number two. Despite enjoying "The Bridge on the Drina" no end, it is worth observing (not for the first time) that the use of the word "Turk" to describe the Bosnian Muslims is potentially problematic. It is a term that could well have been left behind for good in the old epic poems, but in the twentieth century, to imply that the Muslims are ethnically not Serbian or Bosnian, but instead are actually Turkish...from what I have worked out this is simply untrue. However, I stand ready to be corrected and do not claim to be an expert, having only arrived here two months ago.

I conclude with notice of another excellent week in Belgrade, and leave ready to research diplomacy and tact in life, love and the Balkans.



*Andrew Watchel, 'Postmodernism as nightmare: Milorad Pavić's Literary Demolition of Yugoslavia,' in The Slavic and East European Journal, Vol. 41, No. 4. (Winter, 1997), p.635.

Over the last week, I have passed through over 12 border crossing points and encountered an unfortunate problem with re-entry into Serbia. It was certainly an interesting introduction to the relations between some countries that remain strained. Passing first into Montenegro, we encountered a completely different geography. Driving through a torrential rainstorm, which brought boulders quite alarmingly close by at various points along the mountain roads, we came to encounter a country that is obsessed with monastries and relics. One particular example, at Cetinje, claims to have one of John the Baptist's hands in a jar. Unfortunately we missed it, but I am not especially worried, as I think he very probably had many hundreds of hands scattered about the globe, and I fully expect to encounter another one at some point. You never know though...

Bosnia and Republika Srpska in particular were first on our travels. A mountainous, barren landscape, punctuated with various ruined or abandoned houses and a large concentration of border police. From the relative ease of this crossing however, two Danes, two Norwegians and myself then attempted to cross into Croatia, from Bosnia, in a Serbian car with a bootload of Serbian books, left there from a conference the previous week for no particular reason, but perhaps not too sensibly. It is at this point that knowing no Serbian (or Croatian - I would not want to have made the mistake of saying "Ne znam srpski" in Dubrovnik) - is actually an advantage. People tend to give up after a while and let you be. A little history of the recent conflict was told to us at that point, and our car, when we did eventually roll on into this tourist hotspot, was parked in a secure place. It was the first stage in an interesting week of adventures with the authorities.

It is difficult to comment on so particular and legal an issue, but it is at least obvious to observe that freedom of movement is considerably easier in the EU/EEC, which remains one blessing to think on. It is very easy to become impatient, but the difficulties are in reality no more than a reminder of history and an imprint of suffering - in that respect they should not be looked on as unecessary and obtrusive, but rather the symptoms of a difficult past from which I hope it will be possible to one day move on completely. One thing that is possible to observe, however, is that the whole "age old conflicts and ethnic tensions" banner, which is normally applied quite liberally by those who can't be bothered to research things more thoroughly, is in actual fact, an anomaly. Considering the diverse range of beliefs and experiences that have existence in the Balkans for centuries and the head-on meeting between the Islamic and Christian worlds - I use those terms predominately as wide, general and insufficient cultural markers, rather than religious and personal ones - people have lived in relative harmony for centuries. The recent conflicts in the region have been something of a twentieth century phenomenon. There are many theories as to why - popularly and superfically, the intellectual re-awakening of nationalist tendencies, also popular in Germany and amongst the Romantic movements of the late nineteenth century and epitomised by Vuk Karadzic's poetry, idealising the Serbian national identity, have been put forward as the period of conception. Andric's observations about the irrational, inexplicable transition from neighbour to enemy is another, deep-rooted in human history as a consistent and almost universal tendency. Politics and power frequently come into consideration as well. The conclusions that can be arrived at are most often wrong, and at best only partially illuminating. As with history from the dawn of time, the reasons and motivations are most likely to be mixed, specific and varied across time and space. There can be no singular answer, just as there will be no singular solution. The situation - that in itself is almost impossible to define - is a complex and distressing one. Given this history, a few extra minutes at a checkpoint and a few more rules to abide by, are not big sacrifices to make when set aside the privilige that it is to spend a portion of life welcomed and accepted, so far as is needed, into a new country.

At the cross-roads between Knez Miloša and Nemanjija, I came across a sight that might resemble a monument. Two ruined buildings, perfectly symmetrical in style so that they form clearly part of the same purpose, lie facing each other across the street. To come upon them, walking up Nemanjija from the railway station is to witness something as incredible and sickening as it is possible to see in Belgrade. As they are, you could liken them to the giant feet of some ruined statue, whose invisible bent torso pointed to the ground as if ready to dive purposefully into the mud of the reconstructed street, headfirst like the forever self-defeating pointlessness that can only be associated with human conflict. The site is the same as that at which, on September 30th 1999, violent clashes erupted between the police and protestors organised to show their opposition to Slobodan Milošević. The transition from one grey, unobtrusive-looking office block to the ruin next door is something like a representation of the inexplicable, subtle transferral of one peaceful state to one of war and destruction. What is more affecting about the visual transition is that it occurs frequently as a gradual dawning of disbelief, compounded by the fact that, at first, one has to work out whether the building really has been destroyed by American and UK bombs, or whether it is simply in a state of disrepair. Ivo Andrić provides a sensitive description of the transition from peace to cruelty - that most shameful and consistent event when those living in peace as neighbours become hostile to the limits of human depravity. 'The Bridge on the Drina' deals with the coming of the First World War and the surfacing disparity between the cold hostilities of the present and the good natured co-operation between disparate religious or ethnic groups during the time of a debilitating flood earlier in Andrić's chronicle:

 The wild beast, which lives in man and does not dare to show itself until the barriers of law and custom have been removed, was now set free. The signal was given, the barriers were down. As has so often happened in the history of man, permission was tacitly granted for acts of violence and plunder, even for murder, if they were carried out in the name of higher interests, according to established rules, and against a limited number of men of a particular type and belief. A man who saw clearly and with open eyes and was then living could see how this miracle took place and how the whole of a society could, in a single day, be transformed. (Trans.  Lovett F. Edwards, Belgrade: Dereta, 2000, p.282-3).

For Višegrad, read Rwanda, the Congo, Northern Uganda; Europe during the coming five or six years; the US at the time of the North/South conflict. Nobody can escape this subtle movement from peace, sophistication, "humanity" and reason to the blood, anger, "barbarism" and irrationality that are an inevitable part of human history.

I have long needed to answer the question: what is it actually like to be in Belgrade? It is difficult to say; the experience that I have here may be so different from the experience of somebody else in the same place that it could as well be two different cities. My experience has been one of growing affection, rather than of spectacular reaction. When wandering through from one grey apartment block to another, it is quite easy to, in moments lost in other thoughts, forget that I am in another country at all. Many places here look, physically, very similar to the high-rise blocks of Sheffield, and are supported by a climate that, for the moment, is quite similar as well, which is cold and grey. Belgrade really comes into it's own during misty days. Exploring new areas of the city becomes an unusual pleasure when buildings appear in front of you almost out of the blue (or rather grey), and in so doing hold the ability to surprise, which they would not have had on a clear winter's day. Many people have marvelled at the bombed buildings that are still a part of the Belgrade horizon. In actual fact, they are often difficult to distinguish from those that have simply fallen into disrepair. Only on one or two factories can be seen unequivocal entry points as bombs have fallen from above, where they are not so visible from ground level. There are unconfirmed rumours that there is, in reality, no reason for any of the buildings to remain at all, but that they are kept as monuments for the world outside and, more cynically, a tourist magnet. To generalise horrifically, Belgrade is a tired and worn place, but all the colour and vitality is found in the vast range of stories that are told by everyone and everybody. It is a redefined method of conversation; people sit and trade stories, invariably understated and relying on facts more than anything. The city is like a giant book. Since we have come, we have had several Serbian film evenings. These are not in the least bit ropey, as I had at first expected. Instead they are based on a phenomenally high, stripped down standard of storytelling. If it is possible to define a city's spirit, the Belgrade spirit would be that of the storyteller - everybody is a sort of Bob Dylan-in-the-making. I mean I would challenge anybody to find a higher density of mouth accordion players anywhere in the world.

I had the misfortune to read a terrible play recently as part of my attempt to see into the soul of the Serbian canon. It is called "Oxygen", by Miodrag Djukic, a former Minister of Culture. It is, unfortunately, one of those attempts at comedy that descends into a generally bad-tempered rant about everything and everybody. Like many other attempts to be clever, it requires so much mental effort to understand that the purpose, if it has one, disappears underneath. What is possible to make out can be seen from the title alone - Belgrade is a place that lacks air, and as a result becomes frequently suffocating. It's never quite certain whether a cloud of mist is water vapour or car exhaust. When walking by the river, it is possible to work out just what we are missing: clean, fresh atmosphere. The thing about the physical is that it extends outwards and begins to take on more significance in the collective consciousness, if there can be something like that. Belgrade is intoxicating - the food, unfiltered pitch that passes for coffee, smoke (Serbia is one of the smokiest places in the world, statistically), traffic - all in all the lifestyle reflects the atmosphere created by something that in essence is always found in big cities. Whether it can stretch as far as Djukic stretches it is unclear, but I would suspect that there is some truth in it: desperate writer Mladen claims "My novel is the quintessence of positive mental states, and social orientations. I'm fighting for air!" Some of the local community projects reflect this implicit need to "get out" of the suffocation - painting playgrounds in bright colours may not seem like a great humanitarian work, but for one of the workers here, it is a fundamental priority, and I can see why. It seems that at this moment Serbia is trying to confer some colour on itself following a recent history that has drowned it in grey, both from within and without. The presence of war is constant here, and reminders come up in just about every conversation we have had to any depth - unsurprising considering that Serbs often believe that people outside Serbia associate it with war and nothing else, which is in reality fairly true. Having internalised black and white film and TV images of First and Second World Wars, the whole association of war is a grey one in my mind, and coming to an area that has been drained by over a decade of conflict, the association has not really disappeared. In that way Belgrade does struggle for air and colour: the almost aggressive drive in the commercial sector to cover everything in trashy slogans seems almost as if it is for some purpose other than simply profit-making, deep-down. The overwhelming presence of the English language on billboards and in shop windows does sit quite unnaturally next to the Cyrillic script, almost as if the city is uncomfortable and unused to the brashness of it all. And above all, too tired.

Where's my woolly hat?

I have been soaking myself in films of late, and have been slightly bewildered by the effect that they have had on me. First there was the dog film, which I have to say, I overrated abysmally, having being starved of good films for quite some time. A couple of days ago I took a friend to see 'Hotel Rwanda'. Our conversations had previously revolved around war and injustice in the world, and I realised that talking to somebody who had lived through conflict does bring a new set of challenges, but a film like this can do much more to express a point than stuttering and over-emotional arguments.

The whole network of conceptions connected with universal understanding and 'cultural awareness' take on a practically less binary form when set against a background of real experiences. I'm coming to the conclusion that, as life goes on and I grow older, it grows harder and less desirable to hold onto any philosophical or practical absolutes. Life becomes a complex set of compromises and hard work. Forging relationships is totally dependent on ceding territory and learning to keep not only the mouth shut, but also shutting away the desire to confront except where there is a true cause. It is a balance. I remember my Dad once becoming angry with me, and it made such a huge impression on me that I was shamed into doing as he wished - he had this effect because he is so often a calm and peaceful man who never gets angry with anyone. To me, on reflection, that is an inspiration for diplomacy in general. Tolerate, keep silent, endure the frustrations of a million little irritations until there comes a time when it really matters - then, never hide from the truth or take the easy path. The problem is that the biggest injustices in the world are so often left without communication. I tend to talk less than most people, but when it comes to situations that drive me crazy with the injustice - I simply do not have the words then to express the extent of my feelings, and often resort to demonstration, or, when I fail most, silence and inertia. Physical pain cannot be expressed - that is why it makes one feel so lonely. A sufferer can describe what the feeling is 'like', but cannot harness the real essence of the sensation. The sufferer is always faced with the doubts of those who only listen.

I'm talking primarily of world issues here, rather than of arguing with neighbours about loud music. 'Hotel Rwanda' really is a superb piece of social artistry. I do get the impression that people look on the creative arts as something that is a luxury and something connected with the higher classes, or a philosophical removal from the world, or else plain aesthetics. If it is, then it is a failure. To my mind, the arts should destroy higher classes, bring philosophers back to earth with a bruising bump and strip away all luxury so that something hidden a necessary can be revealed and changed. This is exactly what 'Hotel Rwanda' did to me on Sunday night, despite having seen it something approaching double figures. A stage full of dancing ballerinas is a failure.

"You're dirt", the UN commander told Paul Rusesabagina. And one million Tutsis are lying in it because we thought that. If we didn't think it about Rwanda specifically, maybe we did about Palestine, Congo, Sierra Leone, the former Yugoslavia, Burundi - and countless other places that are just a bit too far off or different to care about for most people. Social evolutionism is a popular philosophy - "they are savages; it couldn't happen to refined people." There comes a time when language does fail, so forgive me: that is a pile of pants. Plenty Nazis were good at reading Goethe. General Pervez Musharraf remarked that the relief effort after the recent earthquake in Pakistan was pathetic because Westerners were not involved, unlike during the Tsunami in Thailand. "The world has changed" since September 11th, apparently. Yet worse atrocities are happening right now in North Uganda, but 'You're dirt' to the Westerners, so the world will not change for you until you get a different stamp in your passport, if you have one. Responsibility is not left totally with people like George W, but with those of us who say ' "Oh my God, that's horrible." And then they carry on eating their dinners.'

I just got back from watching an unexpectedly enjoyable film called "Must Like Dogs". Actually, it was not much about dogs, but it was a typically formulaic rom com about a woman who does nothing with her life but look for a man, and a man who does nothing with his except get misinterpreted and make boats. (It is most disconcerting to think of the percentage of boat-making men in romantic comedies when compared with the number of boat-making men in life in general - something does not add up. Perhaps if you want a girlfriend you should make a boat. There's my tip of the day.) This film really did get me thinking about what we do with our lives and I realised I was a bit hasty to say that the two leads actually did nothing. Thinking about it, what do we actually do with our lives? There are a surprisingly finite number of things that it is common for a human to do: eat, drink, sleep, read, watch films, go to cafes and talk about other people, do sports or high adrenaline activities, procreate, work, and have hobbies (such as boat-making). Occasionally, some people will do something else, like commit a crime. Some people do especially worthwhile things: doctors and teachers, for example. But even they only keep people alive so that they can eat more, drink more, sleep more, read more, watch more films and so on, or else give them enough knowledge about life to do these activities more effectively and with more variety. That, on the surface, is what it is to be alive, give or take cultural varities that replace one activity with another, and subject to extraneous circumstances (such as poverty or illness). It strikes me that this is a little one dimensional. "Exciting" people are ones who can do each of the activities to particular excess, or with particular ability or eccentricity. Then I came upon another thought: all these things involve humans as human doings, rather than human beings, to use the old adage. What is it "to be"? What is it to exist in a way that is more than going through the same rituals that everybody else does, in some form or another, pretty much everywhere?

This evening, we held a Bible study in our apartment for students from EUS. We were looking at John 1, all about the Word of God, and how Jesus became man. It was an interesting study, which went well. One or two things sprang to mind as I was doing the study - the first was an excellent story that Fausto told in some version at Hald. It goes something like this:

The Sun and the Moon were one day having an argument. Moon was convinced that he was beautiful and that the Sun was of no use to him. He told Sun to leave him alone. After much discussion, Sun agreed, and told Moon that he would not shine at all for the next day. Moon was pleased, and came out to show himself to Earth. But it was very dark, and Earth could not see him. He tried and tried, but no matter how hard he strained, Earth simply did not know that he was there. In desperation, he called out to Sun: "Come back. How can I shine without your light? Nobody can see me." But Sun told him "You wanted me to go away, why do you now want me back?" Moon thought for a while. "Because I don't have any light - you are the light and when you shine and I reflect your light, I become beautiful and everybody sees me." And Sun agreed to come back and shine, and Moon was delighted to receive his light.

After that, a thought came back to me about the whole concept of being born again. It is a disturbing thought to those who do not remember a conversion experience on a particular day or even year, but instead have a vague and general - even contradictory - set of memories surrounding their commitment to Christ. I am one of those people, forever looking back to pinpoint moments of revelation, and never really finding them. It doesn't seem like much when set alongside dramatic stories of the murderer-turned-born-again-believer, or the more appealing biographies of Steven Masood, Jason Robinson, the apostle Paul, Alice Cooper and countless others. The result can be a tendency towards apathy and a susceptability to existential philosophy when there are no blinding lights to fix in the background of memory. One image has followed me like a shadow through my doubts, and I have no idea when it came to me, except that it is to me an answer to prayer. Thinking back to my physical birth, I remember nothing. I can't remember the first or second years of my life, and even when my very first memories begin to surface - sitting on the edge of the bed waiting for a bath to run - they are hazy and follow no linear chronology. I remember sitting in a buggy in Buxton with a small helium balloon and a bag full of very floury buns, and receiving a teddy bear on my third birthday. From then on, I remember my first day at school, meeting Viz about twenty minutes later and telling my parents about him. I remember being criticised for reading too many books by my teacher, and seeing a mini-project flung across a room because of a mis-spelling by an angry man. I remember going to a birthday party and hunting for sweets in the bushes. I remember playing Beatles songs in my first piano lesson, and playing football with a new Chelsea shirt and a great deal of pride when I was six. I remember jumping in leaves and clearing the garden with my brother. I remember first thinking at nine that I was not going to live for ever, and remember the indescribable terror of a conception of an eternity of nothingness - such a terror that I remember staring at the wall for what seemed like forever, far more terrified about the emptiness than of demons with forks. I remember reading a pocket book about the paralysed man lowered through the roof of a building and feeling thankful about Jesus' love. I have no memories of engaging with Jesus for many years to come. But there is the thing. It is not just the first one or two years that pass without memory. Vast stretches of my consciousness are no longer recorded, or have passed through many layers into a misty distance. Yet I am here, alive and breathing - that alone bears testimony to the fact that I was once born. So it is with a spiritual rebirth for many who dwell on a simple absence that threatens the whole fabric of faith. Slipping in between reality and memory, birth is a material fact that penetrates that twilight zone where all of us doubt our security and all of us more often than we will ever admit.