Wu Wei

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

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

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

Non-violent protest actions about the cuts in the UK

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.

Gatwick chaos

I can understand why flights can be delayed by snow, but why is there no heating at Gatwick? 

And why does the website not update properly so you can find out what's going on?  It seems to have lost all interest in providing live flight information.

Surely Gatwick should be prepared for flight disruptions by now.  I can't believe in an excuse along the lines of "wrong sort of snow on the internet" 

Bee complaining of kettling at the airport now.  With Gatwick staff going round with handwritten placards (?).

Thank God AirBaltic send text messages otherwise she wouldn't know anything.

Royal Wedding - what a bore already

Now we can expect the sychophantic BBC to drivel for the next six months. Personally I suspect a Tory plot to distract people from the cuts.  No hope that Queenie will pop off soon.

Euronews is much better value.  They pointed out that 3 years ago she dumped him because he was taking too long to propose. 

Kathy Lette pointed out on the BBC that at least she would increase the average IQ of the royal family.  The announcer on the news said that she was the daughter of an entrepreneur as if this was a) an unknown profession, b) not exactly respectable.  I suppose they didn't want to say self-made millonaire, or nouveau riche. Then they tried to make up for it by dredging up some person dating back from the 16th century.

Update on small claims

A sudden vast  increase in traffic to my blog (no, not another war in Georgia) has been caused by someone spotting the post (here) about how we successfully sued Easyjet in the Small Claims County Court, but did it online which was very easy. Thank you lightbluetouchpaper.

It only works for suing British firms or firms with offices in England and Wales. 

However, a friend has also found there is a European version for crossborder claims.  You can find out about it here.  To get the form, you need to download the Regulation, (the form's an appendix) but it seems to explain what you have to do.

It only applies to claims up to 2000 Euros, which is not a lot,  but enough to be helpful with budget airline problems.

How's the recession treating you?

Personally, it's not treating me so bad.  But it's devastating plans for Sloph and Bee in the UK.  There are no few chances to start a proper job and a career, and temping provides only short term opportunities, which has played havoc with travel plans on a gap year.  How to survive?  Sitting it out somehow, which feels like doing nothing, seems the only answer.

I just reread the page Why Wu Wei?

I began this blog when I had a period without work in Greece at the end of my contract and didn't know what to do with myself.  I had to make decisions about where my daughter finished her education and there were no clear solutions.  The answer seemed to be to do nothing and wait to see what happened. 

Well, not exactly "do nothing":

Of course  I was still looking for work, improving my web skills, trying to improve the management of my daughter's school, making other friends now I had more time, doing more exercise with regular swimming and generally enjoying the bits of life in Athens that I did enjoy.  Both Bee and I were ready for a move to another country even if we didn't know where it would be.

Tao philosophy:

When you feel lost and life doesn't seem to be working out, it is because you have lost the Tao (the Way), the river of life, which will lead you where you need to go.  Forcing things does not help to get back to the Way.  Sometimes it is necessary to go in the opposite way to that you would expect. 

Hence the rubric on the top left of the blog.

Eventually something did turn up: a job in Kosovo.  No chance for Bee to live there with me, and only two weeks work a month, for 12 months.  So it seemed, no alternative but to bite the bullet and go back to England where Sloph was just due to start university in Oxford.  

Not our favourite idea, a bit safe and dull, but it's been a success for everyone but me.

Looking back, it was exactly the right thing to do, even for me. The kids have got their education over, or at least for Bee, university is settled for next year.  They have had 4 years of stable life with friends, and for Bee, reconnection with her English roots.

For me, after a brief period feeling depressed by property prices in Oxford and gloom at the lack of attractive property in Ljubljana, I am happily settled in a beautiful flat in Vilnius, meeting new and old friends, and able easily to commute to work in Georgia.  I'm glad I'm not locked into a mortgage on an overpriced tiny terraced house in East Oxford.

Even Georgia is coming out of the recession caused by war and global financial crisis.  Banks have started competing again.  Customers do not want to borrow at current interest rates. So banks, sitting on huge deposits (10% on deposits in hard currency if you leave it there for a year) are slashing interest rates. So there is more work to do here, even though it's been a bit boring for a while.

But it's hard for Bee and Sloph without a home to fall back on in the UK.  On top of all the uncertainty of jobs and money and somewhere  to live, they have to find solutions to where to put stuff, when there is no attic or garage at home to dump them in. No quick and easy way to come home to Mum when it is all too much. Thank God for Skype and the internet to keep in touch.

Hard to believe it will come right in the end.  But for me it always has, so far. 

Is election fever worse than swine flu?

It seems the politicians in Ukraine are using swine flu as just another issue for electioneering. 

Yushchenko seems to have caught it particularly badly see here and here and here he is even suggesting Ukraine has its own hybrid version of swine flu. 

Levko is pointing out that the Brits seem to have about the right level of calmness about the fact that most cases are occuring in Britain, but those who are dying are vulnerable from something else as well.

You should know that doctors in the UK now advise only to take Tamiflu if you have bad flu. People who took it said that the side effects (nightmares and vomiting) are worse than ordinary flu.  Of course this could just be a plot by the NHS to save money. 

Makes you wonder what happened to the years of testing drugs before they are safe for humans.  I don't suppose they tested Tamiflu on swine first did they?  

It's actually quite hard to get hold of Tamiflu, because the doctors tell you to stay at home and you have to use the internet or telephone to obtain permission both to register for Tamiflu and to collect it from a central polnt.  Or to get someone else to do it for you. 

When I rang from Georgia to find out what to do for my daughter, who had read the website and was convinced she had got swine flu,  our doctor's receptionist replied (in a rather Soviet way), "that's nothing to do with us here".  "And this is a butcher's, not a doctor's?" I was tempted to reply.

Faced with reports from one of her friends about the side effects, Bee recovered rather quickly.

Hearing Henry V in Tbilisi*

*with apologies to "Reading Lolita in Teheran"

We found there was a group from the OUDS (Oxford University Dramatic Society**) was visiting Tbilisi, playing Henry V for 3 nights so a party was organised.

The place was packed, not a mobile rang (very unusual), nearly everyone came back after the interval. Full marks to the audience because  conditions were not good.  There was no airconditioning so it was like a Turkish bath inside.  The acoustics were awful, the hall being rectangular (ie shaped for music not speech), and there seemed to be no programme. That made it really difficult to hear many of the actors, and unless you know a play really well, it helps to hear the words.

The Georgian audience had subtitles overhead (too far overhead to watch the stage and read) but there was a translation voiceover on earphones, which occasionally hissed and crackled so loud we could hear it too.

I realised I had never seen the Branagh film, or even seen the play, so I mugged up on the plot on the internet 5 minutes before I left.  That didn't help much, as it was rather a cut down play, with a cast of about 10, alternately playing English and French, which must have dictated a few limitations.

Still we all cheered (inwardly) when we heard

Once more into the breach, dear friends, once more...

Cry "God for Harry! England and St George!"

Though perhaps it was a different St George for the audience, since St George is also the patron saint of Georgia and England and Georgia share the flag of red cross on white background.

By then it was clear that this was a play about war, about battles lost and won.  A clever choice to bring to Tbilisi.  But no parallels between Prince Hal and Saakashvili.

I was struck by the line 

"no King of England was not King of France", 

which carries no force today but at the time must have been a rousing cry in itself.

We all remarked that Putin should have been in the audience when King Harry gives no sympathy for Bardolph (an old friend) who is about to be executed for pillage, and  explains how to treat the citizens of France:

We would have all such offenders so cut off: and we give express charge that in our marches through the country there be nothing compelled from the villages, nothing taken but paid for, none of the French upbraided or abused in disdainful language; for when lenity and cruelty play for a kingdom, the gentler gamester is the soonest winner.

But the end of the play showed the futility of war. Henry dies and his young wife is left with a baby. All lands in France are lost.  

A lesson for both Putin and Saakashvili.

** the OUDS was the starting point for the career of many famous British actors

Life's changing (1): Farewell to Oxford

Finally made it out yesterday, leaving Bee to sell the final furniture.  She's off on hols to Albania (don't ask, she has been there once already).  I'm in Georgia for a week, while my worldly goods get to Vilnius, then I finally move into my new apartment, finished or not.  Mostly not.  It's hard to concentrate on more than one home at a time.

So this is really the end of family  living in the same place. After Moscow, Sloph is in Edinburgh interning for as long as she can, and Bee's having a gap year before LSE (fingers crossed for exam results on August 20).  Not that we exactly spent a lot of time in the same home, since I wasn't home much in the last couple of years. 

But now we predict we might not meet again till Christmas (in my new home) so we really are dispersed.

Not sure I will really miss Oxford.  Despite what you might think, most of the people I met were rather narrowminded and not interested in very much life outside Oxford. Consequently I shall miss the Cowley Road with its cosmopolitan life, shops, cafes, restaurants and general eccentricity, more than anything else.