Wu Wei

Off on my travels again ....

I'm back in the UK at the weekend then off to Lithuania. Not sure how much blogging I'll manage in between the doctor, the hairdresser, the retail therapy, the Cowley Rd food etc.

Update on family life

Well it's a farflung family.

Sloph is off to Moscow for three months on a language course, after finishing Oxford.  Now she has to decide what to do in life.  Our family never just decides to buckle down and get a 9-5 job.



Her  brief spot as a guest author on my blog during the war has not convinced her to start her own blog, unfortunately.

Bee spent the summer interrailing in South East Europe.  You can read all about it on her new blog Allbran here.  So far she has only got as far as Prague: Checking in - Czeching out, doing what all British young people do in Prague: drink.  Not all the details are the ones a mother wants to hear, but at least I know what she is up to from the blog.  Wait for further details on Istanbul, Tirana, Pristina.  While I was blogging on the war, she was busy visiting Castle Bran: war what war?

Of course these days when Oxford University proctors snoop on Facebook to see what pranks their students are up to, you never know what university admissions tutors use to select their students.  But who am I to tell her what to write.

Support for the Georgians in Vilnius

Of course everybody wanted to hear about the war and who I thought had started it.  Everyone understood how the Russians could be causing provocations.  The Lithuanians have had to cope with several oil pipeline stoppages, the last permanent, when Yukos's oil refinery at Mazeikiai was sold to the Poles in defiance of the Russians. But they are still dependent on Russian gas, and will become more so when the Ignalina Nuclear Power Plant finally closes in 2009. 

So it was not surprising to see the Georgian flag with a black ribbon (a common combination in other places) outside the Research Centre for Genocide and Resistance on Didzioji St, near where the Jewish ghetto had been.

The plaque outside the Town Hall might have been  comforting once to Lithuania.  On the bottom panel it says:

Anyone who would choose Lithuania as an enemy has also made an enemy of the United States of America.  George W Bush, President of the US, Vilnius City Hall, November 23rd, 2002

Will the US really go to the aid of small countries on the boundary of Russia?

Technorati tags: Lithuania, Georgia, USA

Trip to Vilnius

I had a very lazy time.  As my "niece" liked to sleep, we had a leisurely morning and then walked into town along the Antakalnis river bank road.  It's still very green in the city centre, with ducks in the river and old houses with cottage gardens, though some new blocks are appearing.  Lithuanian flags were everywhere because of the basket ball, though cars sometimes had Georgian flags as well.

 

This building near the British and Danish Embassies has been restored recently, and houses a literary museum.

The Danish Embassy was exhorting the Lithuanians to save energy. The first poster shows how much little renewable energy Lithuania uses compared with, errrr,  the Swedes, which was a bit strange. The second poster says: "by renovating our building our heating costs have reduced from 200Lt to 80Lt a month.  Over a year that is a whole 1440Lt". (420 Euros)  I must show these posters to our staff in Tbilisi.

          

After a 45 minute stroll, we were already in the city centre, so I stopped off in a cafe near my old office, opposite the Cathedral. The office, previously the Energy Efficiency Centre, was on the third floor of this newly decorated building, but now is the Ministry of Economy's Department for Bankrupt Companies.  Outside the kiosks and make-shift cafes have been smartened up, you can now sit and watch the special fountains for pigeon bathing or, as the little girl watches, an opportunity to freshen up your single rose to present to your lady friend.  All is not well however, as Literatu Svetaine, the famous Soviet era Writers' Salon, which continued its existence more recently as an excellent Scandinavian restaurant, has now turned into a bank, wasting a wonderful view of the Cathedral.  In fact, many shops are now turning into banks on Gedimino and other main streets. From every other shop being a shoe shop, now they are all banks.

   

Further up Gedimino, the main street, the municipality building has been turned into a smart shopping centre with Marks and Spencers.  However my friend pointed out that the clothes were too frumpy and expensive for the young.  The food stocks were odd too.  A lot of wine bottles and then things like organic lentils.  Why would anyone in the UK buy yellow lentils in Marks and Spencers.  In the end I bought some exotic muesli and some caramelised onion chutney which was very popular.

 

Also on Gedimino is the Lithuanian fur designer Nijole's shop.  On the left are the summer fur designs on offer and on the right (one day later) we had already moved onto the winter designs. And a tree seems to have appeared.  Can there be two shop windows? Everything else looks the same.

St Casimir's Church seems finally to have had a coat of paint. The new trolley buses are named after composers.  I spotted "Bachas"and  "Brahmsas" as well as the "Haidnas" pictured here.

  

Our final destination was to meet on the new balcony at the Shakespeare Hotel in the heart of the Old Town.   The Shakespeare is a favourite with everybody as the service is exceptional.  We had a 4 o'clock lunch here, pretending it was our own balcony (it's really small).

 

One of the reasons I don't like England is that it would be impossible to have a 4 o'clock lunch in most places.  Lunch is strictly 12-2pm. 

Then we met Dad (who still has to work unfortunately) and after some more cafes we drove home.    Lithuanian social security now provides maternity pay at 100% for the first year and 75% for the second, with the job held open, so not so many problems for mums, these days.

Technorati tags: Vilnius, Lithuania, maternity pay, trolley buses

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Suing budget airlines in the county court for compensation

Update here

In February school holidays Bee planned a trip to Italy with a friend on Easyjet. But Easyjet cancelled the flight meaning that they had to stay another day. After some haggling Easyjet agreed on the phone to pay for the extra night, so Bee booked the hotel.

Afterwards she tried to get the money off them but with the usual battle going through the call centres. After God knows how many angry phone calls, they even agreed to refund the flight. Eventually they even put it in an email saying they would pay within 5 days. More angry phone calls and more emails and no money.

Eventually I decided that Bee needed the advanced course in complaining, as she has already passed the beginners (of course you have a right to complain) and the intermediate (it's OK to get angry and make a scene, but sometimes it's better to negotiate afterwards). The advanced course involves giving up the telephone and proceeding with the letter or fax to the legal department, giving them 7 days to pay up or we'll see them in the (named) County Court. This usually produces the money, even if not within the seven days.

Occasionally you do actually have to go to court which costs £25 but you can claim it back. The procedure is very simple and provided you have lots of documents and proof it's quite interesting.

Bee discovered that you can now do Small Claims in the County Court online, (here) which made it even easier to do from Georgia. So I filled in the form online. Bee isn't 18 so I had to sue, and the tickets had been paid for by her friend, so by the time I had explained all that, there wasn't very much room to explain what the claim was for. Nevertheless I made the claim, registered it and waited for it to be served to Easyjet. After a fortnight the website showed they hadn't answered, so I asked for a judgement against them, which was granted.

Nothing happened. More emails from Easyjet offering to pay in 5 days but no money and no response to the court case.

Bee was devastated to find that the court has no power to actually make Easyjet pay. Of course we could have paid another £55 to send the bailiffs round, but for £270 it didn't seem worth it. I couldn't see the bailiffs impounding a plane, to pay back £270. So faith in the British justice system descended to an all time low.

Finally at the beginning of July when we had completely given up, a grovelling letter arrived from Easyjet Legal Department, with a cheque and an apology. Since then my bank has managed to lose the cheque but I assume we will eventually get the money.

The rules for compensation for flight cancellations etc within the EU are rather fixed by law and rather generous (on another occasion I expected to get 50 Euros but actually got 250 Euros). You can see the rates here.

Apparently if they don't pay up within 7 days, airlines face fines of up to £5,000 a passenger for failing to comply with the regulations. If they do not you have a right of appeal to the Air Transport Users' Council.

But it seems easier rather than battle with another organisation to just go straight to the county court on line and get it settled quickly.

I recommend that suing in the County Court for small claims should be part of citizenship lessons for teenagers.


Technorati Tags: budget airlines, compensation, cancellation, county court

Happy endings

Busy at our seaside office this week but happy endings on the scare story and BUPA. More when I get back to Tbilisi.

Beach bums in North Cyprus

After working hard all year Sloph and I thought we deserved a beach holiday so we managed to slope off for a few days to the Dipkarpaz peninsula.  This is in keeping with our idea of holidays in so-called conflict zones: Kosovo (not really a holiday resort), North Cyprus, watch this space for further developments.

Following a recommendation from a colleague, we hired a Suzuki jeep (rather cheap) and drove off.  I last drove a Suzuki jeep when Sloph was a baby and it was considered her buggy, as we lived a kilometre off a road in rural Wales. 

We drove for three hours taking in Girne (Kyrenia) on the way. Not so impressed by the picturesque harbour, which was just like any other picturesque harbour.  After that we drove along the coast watching the prices of the holiday homes advertised drop, the further away we got.  At one point a new picturesque harbour was in the making.

    

Final offer - last two villas at only £50,000.  All notices in English so it's clear who the clientele were.  Eventually the road surface disappeared and so did the holiday homes. 

As we crossed from the north coast to the south coast, settlements became less and the beaches golden and deserted.  Some beaches had beach huts on stilts.  Wild donkeys galloped in the fields.

     

Finally we arrived at Hassan's Turtle Beach and found our beach hut.  Pretty basic but all you need as a beach bum.

  

The sand was red hot, I thought I would die before I reached the sun bed in the distance, over the dunes you can see here. 

But the water was fabulous, shallow for quite a long way out (I'm not a good swimmer out of my depth) and with just the right amount of waves.  We shared the beach with about ten families, including some fully clothed Moslem women.  A young couple, man in bathing shorts, woman in full clinging Moslem dress and headscarf, doing the sort of things that young couples do in the water together was interesting. 

Later we had an excellent dinner in the cafe overlooking the beach, cooked by Hassan.  Unfortunately we didn't see any turtles as they are now in short supply according to Hassan, who is actually a marine biologist, monitoring them and their environment.  Sounds like a good job.

We didn't have time to explore the rest of the region, but noticed that it was still very Greek, with Orthodox churches well preserved unlike the areas around Nicosia.  But as you can see, not much of a conflict zone. 

Technorati tags: Dipkarpaz, Hassan's Turtle Beach

 

 

Beachwear for dyevushkas

Whilst reading on the beach in North Cyprus, I noticed I was accompanied by several Russian speakers, despite the remoteness of the beach and the lack of comforts.

As a result I pose the following question for dyevushka watchers: what does the well-dressed dyevushka wear on the beach? Or perhaps it should be the well-undressed dyevushka. Either way I expect Carpetblogger will have the answer, but all contributions to this topic are welcome.

Technorati Tags: dyevushka

Cyprus to allow EU aid to Turkish Cypriots

The Greek Cypriot government has announced it will drop legal action against EU aid to Turkish Cypriots in the north of the divided island, in a boost to chances for settling the long-term dispute between the two communities and between Europe and Turkey.

The decision unveiled by Nicosia on Tuesday (3 June) involves eight European Commission tenders "relating to services and projects for the economic development of the Turkish Cypriot community," a government spokesperson said, according to AFP.

So announces the EUObserver here.

Can you imagine anything so silly as Cyprus suing the EU? It's because the EU decided to reward the Turkish Cypriot vote in favour of the UN solution for a united Cyprus. Don't they deserve some help after all this time? And why not let the EU pay for the help rather than having to fund it yourself after reunification? Look what happened to West Germany.

Isn't this a bit off-topic for my blog you may ask? Well yes and no. I don't normally blog much about work, but you may have noticed that I disappear off to North Cyprus every now and then.

I've been advising on one of these tenders "relating to projects", and I'm just off there again in a couple of weeks.

Whilst in North Cyprus we learn to use a new set of vocabulary. We may not talk about North Cyprus but only the Turkish Cypriot community (who presumably have no territory and have to have a small "c"). The territory of North Cyprus is referred to as

the areas of the Republic of Cyprus in which the government of the Republic of Cyprus does not exercise effective control.

The Republic of Cyprus does not allow the European Commission to operate in North Cyprus (who's the boss here then, on a territory with no effective control?). So the EC officials lurk in the offices of a German quango and when there's not enough room to work we take over the top floor of a local hotel.

Then we learn to refer to all Turkish structures in North Cyprus with quotation marks. So I have been engaged in helping the Turkish "Council of Ministers" (there is no "Ministry of Energy") how to restructure "Kibtek" the power "company". I have to write "company" as it seems to be a relic of the British occupation, and is a type of legal entity last seen in Britain in the 70s. We also have been discussing a draft "law". Our reports say things like this:

Even if “adopted”, the status of this “law” will not be clear as to its context within the legal framework of the Republic of Cyprus. However, the value of such “law” can in any case be appreciated as a step towards harmonising with the regulatory practice of the EU, instead of continued observance of an outdated electrical code of colonial times.

Not quite sure why we need this "law", since there is a perfectly good law in the Republic of Cyprus just waiting to be applied in the area "where the Republic does not exercise effective control", thus enabling some more steps towards "effective control". I'm sure that with the use of some creative "Newspeak" and quotation marks, the Republic of Cyprus law could be applied rather easily.

In the end there will be one law and another "law" to be harmonised. No doubt this will mean more work for people like me.

The guy I work with was a bit miffed when he found he was being sued (not personally) for what the EU was doing. The Republic decided to do this just before its presidential election, so I was quite pleased when the more conciliatory Communist won instead of the isolationist old-timer.

Hopefully my next trip will help getting some of this EU assistance to North Cyprus (even though probably the first effect will be to increase their electricity bills).



Technorati Tags: Cyprus, North Cyprus, frozen conflicts

A friend in Istanbul Airport

Last Thursday I arrived here at 6.30 in the morning and found I had no cash. Never at my best after an early start, this made me even worst. Normally I have an envelope of leftover cash for each country I go to, so I just assumed there was some. Istanbul airport doesn't have ATMs on the air side and the change point doesn't accept cards. Luckily everyone else does, or else I would have had a very boring time on the 1 dollar I found in my wallet.

The nicest cafe in the airport (the one with wifi, power points, no smoking signs AND comfy sofas) isn't open at that hour, as I found to my cost last time. I went for a mediocre coffee and a foul muffin in the overpriced Starbucks and vowed never again, especially as the nice cafe opened soon after 7am.

This time I decided just to sit on one of the sofas and wait until they opened. I was not alone, though I did not treat the sofas like a park bench as one or two did. Suddenly at 10 to 7, along came a waiter who told us that they were closed and we should all go next door to the cafe which was open. I refused to move,unlike the others. I could see they were going to open soon and I didn't want to sit in a dark bar type atmosphere full of smokers, which was where he was sending us all.

A lot of shouting took place, but I held my ground. It seemed even I might be forceably moved. But I decided that if I looked old enough that young people gave up their seat on buses for me, he was unlikely to try. I asked what time they were opening. 7.30 came the answer. It was now 7.00am. I felt vindicated when after 10 mins they did open, though it was another waiter who took my order. Then I spent the next 4 hours there, working on my computer.

So today when I arrived for another 4 hour wait, I sat down as usual. The waiter came up, and we both looked at each other. It was the rude one. He jumped in surprise, and a wry grim showed he recognised me. This time he offered me a sofa as well as my drink. It was 7pm in the evening, and no sign of closing. Perhaps we both are not at our best in the mornings.

Update: Before I left, this waiter came and asked me to fill in one of those service questionnaires, even with his name on it. This took me back a bit. Maybe he didn't remember shouting at me in the morning. There wasn't room to complain so I just put a remark about it being a shame they didn't open earlier. I noticed on the menu that officially they didn't open till 8am, so I suppose I should be grateful.

Technorati Tags: Istanbul airport, wifi, comfy sofas,