Wu Wei

Kosovo blogroll (updated)

For those lurkers and commenters following Kosovo issues, here is my blog roll:

KosovaReport which has posts on current affairs and politics in Kosovo especially about final status, but suffers a lot from Serbian spammers or just plain abuse. However some commenters try not to descend to the same level and put reasoned arguments including facts and statistics to deal with the abuse.

Kosovo Khronicles is the diary of an American major working on rebuilding infrastructure in Kosovo. His posts recount everyday stories of working in Kosovo.

There is also the South East European Times which has occasional political and economic articles on Kosovo.

As that is all I have found with regular postings on Kosovo, I set up a tag on Technorati and an RSS feed (get it here) to my Home Page. The articles are multi-lingual (German and French this week) but often only contain the phrase "Iraq and Kosovo" so it is obvious where they are going.

But some are interesting. Here is the only "useful" one this week

General to soldiers: No swimming

Updated Monday 24: Here's a Norwegian one which has just appeared.

Three Hour Power cuts explained

Not often I can blog about what I'm doing, but here's a press cutting:

Serbia reportedly obstructs Kosovo power imports posted in the blog KosovaReport.

Serbia hasn't been paying for electricity transmission through Kosovo for most of a year, making KEK even less solvent than it was, making imports more likely if they can be paid for.

Doesn't augur well for the winter. And so much for the big EU Energy Treaty signing on October 25, if Serbia is already breaking agreements.

And on KosovaReport even an article like this provoked ignorant Serbian abuse.

Calculator museum website

For all you young things, check out what calculators were like originally on this website!

OK they are Soviet calculators so they took longer to look "modern" but the path is probably the same. I can remember buying our first calculator in 1969 to save using slide rules for calculations. It certainly was bricklike and had no more functions than add/subtract/multiply/divide, plus it cost something like £150 and I went to Manchester specially to buy it. Certainly no printing for that price.

Saturday in Pristina

Here's our living room, with all mod cons: satellite tv, cd player, dvd player and internet. Unfortunately it only has two light bulbs so it is normally quite dim. If we used more, there would be less electricity for everyone, so we survive in the dim light. It gets really quite cold at night, and the city heating hasn't come on yet, so we tend to have early nights as it's warmer in bed.

The photos are courtesy of my new mobile phone. This is my first attempt. Still trying to keep fingers off the viewfinder, and the zoom is rather feeble, but its better than my last phone.

Our street, where these boys are always playing football. Now the wood is being stacked in piles on the pavement and sawn for winter.

On the way to the "hipermarket":

Most of the shops are just one room with stacks of vegetables outside. However, there are several types, including one selling honey eggs and sacks of beans, now augmented by sacks of walnuts. It's very colourful. And a typical lane down from "Sunny Hill" to the main streets of Pristina. One of the main streets is named after Mother Teresa who apparently came from here. Another is named after Bill Clinton, who didn't.

Got lost finding the shop but spotted this church, recognisable only by its cross on top.

Once again the hipermarket had nothing special but I managed to find some Turkish biscuits to take back as "souvenirs" from Pristina for tea on Saturday when I'm back.

Now at nearly seven in the evening it's too cold to type so I'm off to make some food.

Moved in!

Horrendous week, but we have moved in, without many disasters. Bee's bed still without bolts but can be fetched from Greece. Plants all survived.

House is really nice and no grumbles from kids: all rooms big enough, and no grumbles about who got which one. I can't sleep so must have put the bed in the wrong place. We can't find the feng shui book (now in one of 20 boxes of books still unpacked).

Sloph busy moving into college and has enormous room to furnish there. She grumbles that all her college mates are off to join the Tory party. Extraordinary to think that anyone could further their education and career by joining an unelectable political party! Obviously old habits die hard. Complete lack of black or other faces, but then it is a college specialising in theology so it must be full of the Tory Party at prayer.

Sunday spent in IKEA spending a fortune (on bookcases, as we threw the old ones away when we left) and wardrobes (we had fitted cupboards in the Greek house and got rid of all our old ones).
And even more having them delivered. Sloph and Bee will have to assemble them as I am off on Tuesday. Bee will get plenty of DT practice.

House is really badly draught stripped, gaps everywhere, and all windows old and single glazed. People still seem to want to pay for pine stripped wood, sash windows and "period features" and not proper showers (no real complaints here) or airtight windows. Bizarre place Britain.