Health care Lithuanian style (Public Department)

A few days ago a new baby was carried into the flat below mine. So when today at my desk I heard some crying noises from downstairs I was only a little surprised. Did not think a new baby would make enough noise to penetrate our thick walls. Also the rhythm did not seem quite right, but maybe I did not know anything about my neighbours and there was an older child. But it was not an 'I am being killed' kind of noise.

Much, much later, the noise had gone and come again, I went out, and in front of me went 'the noise' and a lot of people talking. Sounded a bit older - maybe the child was being taken to the doctors?

When I got to the bottom of the stairs I found the source of the noise. A woman of indeterminate age, 40s upwards but difficult to tell, was obviously in a lot of discomfort and had been taken out of the flat into an ambulance. Not on a stretcher, nicely wrapped up. Not on a folding chair that might go around the bends in the stairs, nicely wrapped up. On what looked like a tarpaulin with handles - presumably what they use all the time - absolutely not wrapped up, midriff showing, that kind of thing. No idea what was her problem, but imagine being on effectively a soft sack, and you have broken your hip or something. I heard people around her saying that they had waited for an hour for the ambulance (sounded longer to me, but maybe a doctor had been first). Given that the ambulance then shot off like a bat out of hell, with blue lights and sirens blaring, things obviously were not well - though at least the lady was still capable of making a noise.

But really, where we live there is no reason why an urgent ambulance can't be here within 20-30 minutes, unless there is no ambulance available. So that's how the public sector health service works?

Where are our workers?

(I know - they are in Ireland and the UK...). But really....

About a year or so ago the Post office opened a little branch just down the road from my flat. It's constantly looking for staff, though when you get a glimpse into the back of the shop, it's full of middle-aged women and piles and piles of mail. I am sure that explains why I got a letter from my Lithuanian bank, dated 19 December, only on 28 January (though generally mail arrives ok). Often the post office goes through phases of being closed for half the day, on Saturday, or for even longer, presumably because they cannot find staff.

I wouldn't say all the staff are competent, though they are certainly helpful. And if they only had the confidence to ask I would tell them that England is in the UK - but that's perhaps a Soviet hang-over, where you would be punished if you make a mistake. The pain of sending a letter by registered mail (apart from the fact that the cost of registration has increased from 2 LT to 7 LT in one go) derives from a combination of lack of keyboard skills, my handwriting, and unusual international names.

The little postwoman I have at the moment I constantly see running along the street - because they carry their mail, and they are not always that strong, I suppose they only go out with as much as they carry and then have to run back for the next lot. A trolley on wheels is not that useful - it might be nicked while they are up some stairs. The poor soul suffers a bit,what with her glasses steaming up in the wrong weather every time she enters a building. I wonder about their working hours, though - how come that when I return from a concert around 9 pm, I find my mailbox full - when it was empty three hours before?

Am I being green?

Bought an egg-boiler the other day. You may scoff - that'll be one of the things that lands at the back of the cupboard before the month's out, I hear you say. Maybe - won't be taking it to Georgia tomorrow.

Fact is that I like a boiled egg, but a lightly boiled one (but life's too short for toast soldiers). My cholesterol is perfect, should anyone be asking. Doing them on the electric cooker I never managed to get them right, and they were always hard. So I bought this thing for about 8 Euros.
I was surprised to see that it uses only about a thimble (or two) full of water, so by default it must use less electricity. Does that make it green?

How many eggs will I need to boil before the energy used in manufacture has been compensated for? (Though the pot I used before was also manufactured). If you really are that sad that you'd want to calculate that you'd need to know that the more eggs you boil at one session, the less water it needs - but I can't eat that many eggs at one go!

It would be cheaper to employ a scientist and an economist

...than to employ Blair, who's yet again got another lucrative job, this time advising Zurich Insurance on the implications of climate change. I know he knows the politics-speak about it, but what does he really KNOW about climate change? The places where flooding is more likely to hit, what kind of weather is going to arise and where.

He'd be good, though, at teaching Zurich what stories to tell if it all goes wrong.

Snippets from South Africa

Watching an Arte programme on water projects in South African villages:

Comment: 'Yah, it'll be great to have water. But you know we have had so many projects and so many promises. I'll only be happy when I see the water'. Oh, the story of aid projects and promises - someone should do statistics on ...promises not met by international projects. It would be frightening!

Scene: In someone's house. A health worker gives education about health and hygiene. 'See this picture here - what is the man doing?' 'He is going to the toilet'. 'What is the chicken doing?' 'It is following him'. 'What is the woman doing?' 'She is giving her child a drink of water'. 'Where is the chicken?' 'On the edge of the water bucket'. ..... 'You must from now on pen in your chickens so they do not spread disease everywhere'. In the background, by the open door, a trio of chickens is scratching, listening aghast, no doubt.

Comment a bit later: 'Parents these days, they do not like it if someone scolds their children. Only they themselves are allowed to scold their children'. Globalisation of stroppy parents?

Definitely not a good buy!

Bit unfortunate that this restaurant in Vokieciu 24 is called 'Zemaiciu smukle', 'zemas' meaning 'low' in Lithuanian.

It used to be great for food and atmosphere. Never one great on access for the disabled, or speed of service, but the food and their home-brewed beer were great.

Alas, no longer. Friends and I, who always meet at Sue's Indian Raja, fancied a change (I fancied a change) and so we went to Zemaiciu where years ago we had had many pleasant evenings.

We had a small problem - my friends were a bit late, I did not have a watch and thought they were very late indeed, or in the wrong place, and so I had ordered. Which meant that my food arrived before their's - though they might have waited with my main course....

My starter was ok; kind of a herring thing with dinky little mushrooms and nice potatoes - but what can go wrong with boiled potatoes? Can't remember what starters my friends had. The main courses - disaster. One friend had something in a skillet, involving croquette potatoes (clearly frozen), some vegetables and some meat. I would have thought that it would have been cooked in a metal skillet. But no, the skillet was cold and so was the food - looked pretty, though. My other friend had a steak requested to be very well done; but he did not seem to mind the slightly pink bit in the middle. His plate was cold, and his food mildly warmer. My turkey (stew?) on a bed of potato and celery mash, apart from being cool, lacked the celery, and the turkey was very far from being a stew - not a drop of liquid near it. Instead there were lots of hard little cubes of turkey ham covered in something - you could have used them as pebbles.

They did a nice cappucino, though. Speed of service was better but not so thoughtful. The prices were high compared to Sue's, and even higher compared to the quality of their offerings. Shame!

Compulsory cooking

The English government is introducing compulsory cooking lessons for all teenagers from 2011, as another step to combat obesity. Headteachers are grumbling because only 6 months ago the government said that they would have a more hands-off approach as far as curriculum was concerned.

I'm wondering, though, about the organisation of these in multicultural schools, which most are these days....
some children eat meat
some don't
some eat eggs and milk products
some don't
some eat pork
some don't
some eat beef
some don't
some eat kosher, separating milk products and meat products
some don't

and quite a few of these may not wish to use utensils, or be in the room at the same time, as the foods they find offensive. Will we get sick notes for cookery classes?

Now find recipes pleasing all these groups, for a two year cookery course! The market for TVP might explode.....

Trusting the punters

The Lithuanian supermarket chain 'iki' (short for 'iki pasimatymo' = 'until we meet again') is introducing self-checkouts. While quite common out west, in the FSU this is a huge step in the question of trusting their customers.

In Lithuania we have had supermarkets for a long time, and people are used to them. The large ones always have a security guard by the entrance, but that's ok. In countries like Georgia and Tajikistan however the concept of people helping themselves seems to be quite scary stuff. While some supermarkets, such as Goodwill and Populi in Georgia are ok with this (though they are really quite expensive), in the smaller ones which are not part of a chain, you often feel like a conjoined twin when you enter. A staff member attaches themselves very closely to you and watches everything you do. As one who values her personal space (and acres of it) this really gives me the creeps. Sometimes I have to grin and bear it. I am told that maybe they are trying to be helpful - I'm not so sure. I wonder, though, whether any losses through theft might not be deducted from the employees' wages - in which case I suppose it might be understandable.

Bureaucracy's Contribution to Economic Growth

Neo-liberals will scream 'bureaucracy contributes to economic growth? Now we've heard it all.'

Actually, I'm a passionate bureaucrat; a good bureaucratic system is fair and usually good at administering government policy. It's far from the only contributor to economic growth if you consider the growth rates of eg Georgia (8.8% in 2006) and Germany (2.7% in 2006). It needs to be adequately funded, though, partly to reduce the risk of corruption and also to make sure that bureaucrats are not overloaded with work (here I hear hollow laughs) - governments have a habit of adding to their workload without considering the consequences.....

An article in 'Sociology' (June 2007) by Henderson, Hulme, Jalilian and Phillips suggests that bureaucracy can contribute to poverty reduction, for a variety of reasons, eg through fair redistribution of resources, or enabling people to participate in society without having to pay bribes. For this to work, however, bureaucracies need to have Weberian (Max Weber) characteristics. These they summarise as:

'public administrative organisations characterised by meritocratic recruitment and predictable, long-term career rewards, which will be more effective at facilitating capitalist growth than other forms of state organisation'.

Let's unpack the characteristics in the case, thinking of the countries I have worked in recently, eg Tajikistan, Georgia, Ukraine.

Meritocratic recruitment .....hmmmm. In at least one of these (and they will all remain nameless) you pay a bribe to the person above you, so you are taken on. In one finance ministry the sum required was reported to have five figures, in USD. This even happened in Lithuania five years ago or so, when the head of a firestation was found to taking a share from his subordinates' wages. Often when a minister changes, many employees change, too - those who come in, are the minister's friends.

Leading to the next point of 'predictable, long-term career rewards'. Hm, hmm, hmmmm. In none of these countries would I want to put money on having a long-term job in the public sector. Partly due to minister changes, above, and partly because some politicians play with ministries like little children. One ministry I know has been restructured at least twice last year, including recruitments and dismissals, and there is talk of more of the same.

Under these circumstances what hope is there of building up a cadre of experienced public servants who can be secure in the knowledge that their decisions, made on a legal basis (if they are) will not work against them at some later stage?

I wonder what the economic growth might be like if there was an experienced cadre, no corruption and good tax compliance in these countries? It should be gynormous - and even the poorest would be able to participate adequately in economic growth, rather than waiting for crumbs to fall off the rich man's table.

Whither Georgian social policy?

An article in 'Social Policy and Society' (October 2007) on the connection between Turkey's EU ambitions and its social policy developments makes me wonder where Georgia's social policy thinks it is heading?

The article by Nick Manning, of the School of Sociology and Social Policy at the University of Nottingham, uses fairly old data to make his points - eg in the case of Eastern Europe he uses GDP data up to 2000, or he quotes from papers which see the 2004 accession as still in the future. Things move too fast out East to use such old data credibly.

But anyway. We lucky European citizens have, under EU law, entitlement to education, healthcare and insurance against life-time risks, mostly free (in the case of pre-university education) or covered by insurances one way or another (health care and lifetime risks like old age, unemployment etc), more or less generously. Countries like Spain have used the accession to the EU to push through increasingly generous welfare entitlements (though it has had to rein back its expenditure a little). In Eastern Europe where welfare entitlements were good under the Soviets, the pressure of the World Bank, who got at them first, lead to a severe dismantling of the welfare state, though the countries are now recovering (I'm told that in Lithuania women giving birth now get their full salary for the first year of the baby's life, and 80% for the second year). In Turkey such systems did not exist.

Manning quotes from another paper by Öniç that suggests that while within Turkey there is half-hearted support by the elite for EU membership, this applies less to the European elite outside Turkey nor to the mass society either within or outside Turkey. This fractional support then clearly makes it hard for anyone to push through changes relating to social protection, or other EU required changes. Since the article was researched I think that social protection has developed in leaps and bounds in Turkey, judging by what I have read in the media.

Georgia, a Christian country (I don't think that matters, but other people do), has huge ambitions to join the EU, with an EU flag outside every public building. This ambition was a bit shaken up by the events of November 7 last year, though now it seems to be motoring in the right direction, maybe? (Though my friend Wu Wei's report links to a paper that suggests that all was not well with the election process, despite what OSCE may have said publicly. And if you think that Saakashvili did not win in the large cities - which perhaps were more accessible to observers, but won in the snowbound and partly inaccessible countryside .....).

The problem with Georgia is that all those young blades who are in Government these days studied in the US. Hence they have the US approach to social policy, whereby everyone should take care of their own health and wealth. Hospitals are being privatised, they are talking of deregulating doctors...ok, they have promised to increase pensions, but that's due to the election. Social solidarity probably exists with the older people, but no-one has time to do something about this because they are all scrambling to survive.

Now, call me picky, but I don't think Georgia (republic of) could become the 51st state, especially if the others already contain a state called Georgia. But joining Europe, with this social policy outlook? It's time the EU put the boot in!

I was not that far wrong.....

Here a few days ago I jokingly suggested that Blair might somehow wangle himself to become President of the US.

Seems I was not far wrong - today's Observer suggests that he is starting a campaign to become first President of the EU.

I'm speechless.

The guy needs to be stopped before he destroys all that is good about the European Union, like the guaranteed social protection that people can live on (in most countries outside the UK).

What has he achieved in the UK? Lead it into an unnecessary war, dismantled further the welfare state, created full employment (?? that was already happening when he came into power), increased vastly the supervision of the population, destroyed public services with targets, more targets and further targets - throwing huge amounts of money at the services ...for counting beans.

We need to start a campaign now!

Aaaaaah - Lithuanian Hospitals!

I can't really compare hospital care between Germany (34 years ago), the UK (29 years ago, during the winter of discontent with the porter and auxiliary strike and petrol shortages) and Lithuania (this week), when the last one was a private hospital, too, but it might be nice to take the frighteners off medicine in Eastern Europe.

Needs to be said, though, that I'm also insured through the state health system in Lithuania. Not sure how the cooperation between state sector and private sector works in Germany, except that private patients go to the normal state hospitals. In the UK people go to the private sector and pay for everything, or sometimes, when the state sector is in Big Trouble trying to meet its multifarious targets, the state pays for them to go private (or abroad, though usually like a state patient of the foreign country).

In Lithuania, for about the last year or so, the state health insurance had drawn up agreements with certain private health care providers whereby the state pays a share of the costs (maybe what it would normally pay in its own system for the treatments that the state system provides?). This is kind of cool, and keeps the private costs quite low for those of us who pay the state, too. It's a bit bizarre, too. In Lithuania people are still quite happy to pay the doctor, nurses etc a considerable 'bonus' 'under the table' for their treatment, the so-called 'informal payments'. Apparently you ask the doctor how much you should pay, and some tell you the sum, others let you guess. I remember a friend paying 200 informal Euros to a doctor in for a nose operation in the state sector (how complex can that be) - this week I paid less than this, formally, for a small abdominal operation, including hospital stay of one night. The Health Ministry, or at least the last Minister before he disgraced himself over a car, was firmly against the system of informal payments, but in a discussion after his speech, the potential payments thought that the doctors deserved these payments. If you are a Lithuanian needing fairly predictable and plannable hospital treatment, I would want to compare the costs of private treatment (in a hospital with an agreement with the state) with the costs of state treatment plus under-the-table bonuses. Probably if you live in the deep countryside you don't have that choice.

One of the problems of private treatment, though, is the fact that many of the highly specialist doctors have 'day-jobs' in the state hospitals. It's kind of high-prestige-low(?)-income in the state hospitals, and almost the other way around in the private hospitals. As a doctor, you probably get the more interesting cases in the state hospital. Their day jobs have to be completed first, so they come round to the private hospitals in the afternoon/early evening. I wonder if they have an 80/20 arrangement like doctors used to have in the UK NHS? If you have to wait for your specialist for assessment prior to discharge then it'll be early evening. I wonder what would happen if you had a sudden catastrophe in the morning? There are permanent staff grade doctors around, but what would they do? Perhaps the most complex cases which need most supervision by the specialist might not be done in a private hospital?

In the case of the clinic I used everything was included in the price; it was not xx lt for a blood test, or yy lt for a pill for something unexpected. That was really great. The quality of care was wonderful with the nurses doing everything they possibly could for me, extremely kindly. The one thing that surprised me a little, having worked in a British hospital over 30 years ago, When They Were Still Clean, was that while I was not allowed out of bed for 24 hours no-one came to wash me or change my bed (I know how to change a bed with the patient in it). By the time I realised I had missed this I was almost able to get up again. Maybe that is what people say of Lithuanian state hospitals - that the relatives have to provide the care. But overall, the care was fine for me, and I especially like the plates of fruit that appeared mid-morning and mid-afternoon. No cups of tea, though.

If you are a foreigner and thinking of getting private treatment (with or without state support) in Lithuania, though, get a Lithuanian-speaking friend to look at the Lithuanian version of the clinic's website. Often this has very different information from the English website - the Lithuanian version often includes a price list, too. That's really useful to have. Also useful is a list of the doctors which you can then check out in the internet for publications, research interests, their day jobs etc.

The cat that stole the cream

This smile (from the Guardian) belongs to the chap who's just got a GBP 500,000 (1 million/2 million, depending on which paper you believe most) part-time job as an adviser to JP Morgan Chase, an international investment bank, in addition to his half-time job as the EU, US, Russian and UN envoy to the Middle East. His job is 'advising them on how they approach the huge political and economic changes that globalisation brings'.

It's Blair's, of course, who's now in the money after years of lagging behind his QC wife in the salary stakes. Comments have been scathing from every side, about making a lot of money, and mixing politics and money. What will he do? Will he say - don't worry about that, I'll just give my mate George W a quick ring.

Blair was so good at dealing with the political and economic changes brought by globalisation. Childhood poverty in the UK is still the highest in Europe, the social protection system is poor, the government's fear of terrorism is high, the population is the most spied-on in Europe, the country is involved in an unnecessary war which has cost the loss of approximately 150,000 Iraqi lives. In other words, the ideal person for the job.

Now here's a terrifying thought. Imagine, that after working for a US company, he and the good Mrs Blair, with Leo, might relocate to the US in time, after a while becoming US citizens ....and then he might run for ....President?

Getting to know the world's prisons

Mr Okruashvili, the 'disgraced' former Georgian Defense minister, who one minute was making accusations of murder and mayhem against the re-elected president, was then thrown into prison for corruption, discharged on bail of about 6 million USD, left Georgia for medical treatment in Germany, was thrown into prison there following an extradition request from Georgia, now finds himself in prison in France. It could be worse, I suppose.

The extradition request came about when he failed to turn up for his court hearing around 10 November, partly because he was in Germany and partly because his lawyers said they had not had enough time to prepare. Seems a perfectly reasonable extradition request to me. Given that the accusations against him are also against German law (corruption etc) Germany had to act on the request. He's now been sent to France because he wants to apply for political asylum; apparently his passport contained a French visa (but not a German one, when he went there for 'treatment'? I don't believe it!). It seems that asylum requests have to be dealt with before extradition requests.

Mr Okruashvili claims he cannot return to Georgia while Saakashvili is President because he would not get a fair hearing. Who knows? I wonder who put up the 6 million USD of bail money - they'll be pining for their cash. And he put it up himself, a little minister from a small country - that would answer a lot of questions, no?

Georgian Elections?

Have the Georgian elections gone well? Too early to say, I suppose. Not all results are in yet; some small localities could not vote due to excessive snow, but the voting and the counting and early announcing of partial results went ahead. Not sure that that is quite total democracy. Foreign observers seem, at first sight, to be content with the voting process itself, though the opposition say that exit polls have been falsified - but then, folks, exit polls are totally irrelevant - people can tell you what they like; it all depends on the crosses on the pieces of paper.

What went on during the election campaign is a different matter of course; unfortunately that is not observed by influential foreign bodies (not sure that any foreign body, unless it is inside his body, can influence Mr Saakashvili...).

The result so far, just over 50% for Saakashvili, is at least not indecently high as it might have been in some other countries. Still, it might be (have been?) good for him not to win an outright majority at the first attempt, just to put him in his place a bit.

The Irish Ambassador's Residence

It should be said that the current Irish ambassador, if he is still the same one who started up the embassy, is actually a very good guy - he goes to lots of concerts and supports the arts greatly. He also shows great taste in his dress sense and the make of his glasses.

I wonder, then, what he thinks of the architectural merit of his residence, located in a very rural-seeming neighbourhood with low-rise, often wooden individual houses. What would Prince Charles say? (Then again, what does he know about modern architecture?). This building sticks out like the proverbial sore thumb. It screams 'nouveau riche' - which I suppose Ireland is, nowadays on the backs of many Lithuanian workers. The Irish coat of arms above the door, which unfortunately has a strong resemblance to a Guiness advert, does not improve the tone of the place either. Thankfully the guard at the gate should resolve any misunderstandings.

We have good architects in Lithuania, who can design some very interesting, sometimes daring buildings (not sure about the one in Filaretu gatve that has the shape of a grand piano). But this? It's Russian Baroque meets the 21rst century in a fishtank.

Lithuania is cleaning up....

Environmental consciousness is slowly arriving in Vilnius. On glass bottles you now have to pay a deposit, and there is talk of increasing the price of plastic shopping bags (though we always paid for them anyway).

Across the street from my house three new domed containers have appeared, in the play school style of design - a blue one with a rectangular slot for paper, a little green one with a round hole for glass of any colour, and a yellow one with a round hole for plastic. Not sure if these gadgets were made for Lithuania, or for a warmer country. It's easy to insert hard bottles into the bottle one; with the paper one where I insert cardboard as well it's not too difficult, but see the one that eats the plastic? The rubber around the hole is so hard (due to the cold?), and the plastic is usually so soft that you risk losing your hand in the process! (Minds dirtier than mine can insert their own comments here...).

Having lived in dirty countries all my adult life where you just chuck stuff in a bin, and watched with fascinated awe the way people in Germany sort their rubbish, I'm now also faced with making decisions when I chuck stuff away. Jayzus, now nothing in life comes without a management decision!

So there are the plastic milk-bags - easy. Is tetrapak plastic or paper? What about the plastic-lined paper that some of the bread comes in? I suppose I should start washing the yoghurt cartons the way Germans do, and folding juice cartons.....

But now the problem of storage arises - where do I store all this stuff? Already with every piece of paper, eg a teabag packet, I run to the waste paper basket under my desk.... In Germany I noticed that if you are a one-person household eating lots of vegetables, that leads to a lot of vegetable waste. In a heated kitchen. But far from enough to empty the bin daily or even every two days. In a heated kitchen. What happens to vegetable waste? In a heated kitchen? It composts all by itself. In a heated kitchen. Actually, it does not compost. In a heated kitchen. It rots. In a heated kitchen. It stinks!

So you need to take it out more often. What is the best way of taking out wet smelly rubbish? In a plastic bag.

Er, what was that about saving the environment?

Gooooood Luck, Georgia!

Tomorrow (today, as it is already in Georgia, 5 January) the presidential elections will take place, called at short notice, after a week of uproar and a week of a state of emergency, in November last year.

Here it says that Saakashvili, the former president, ex-democrat turned...autocrat...?, had 50% more airtime for his campaign adverts than his nearest rival, Levan Gachechiladze. I think Europe has Rules About This Sort Of Thing, but I don't what these depend on - I can't imagine that the Scottish National Party would get the same amount of airtime for the Westminster Parliament as, say, New Labour. But the hierarchy of airtime must depend on something transparent - or is it just the ability to pay for airtime? Mr Patarkatsishvili, the billionaire candidate with the stories of potential assassinations, got about a sixth of the paid airtime of the president (and he could have bought much more), but probably quite a lot of unpaid airtime due to notoriety.

I've blogged extensively (mostly) here about events preceding the election, but now I am not in Georgia. Observers from many countries are, however, as well as my friend Helene. Lithuania has sent over 100, including MPs and young activists, and even Tajikistan has sent young observers - given the patterns of Tajik presidential elections I'm not totally convinced who is supposed to benefit from that....

Let's pray that these elections go smoothly and calmly, and that the events currently going on in Kenya and Pakistan do not repeat themselves in Georgia. Let's pray further that the President the country gets will work hard to ensure that the whole population shares in the increasing prosperity in the country.

But not all is well out West either.....

specifically Germany where it ain't easy to be different.

1) On New Year's Eve an Afghan family in Berlin was attacked with baseball bats by a bunch of 'Rechts-radikale' (neo-nazis).

2) A multicultural community centre in (former) East Berlin, hence a proud member of post-Sovietistan, is regularly attacked by the NPD (the neo-nazi party), who as their most recent effort left a (cooked and half-eaten) pig's head outside it. The leader of the institution is a Turkish woman.... The centre works with migrants from various corners of the world, who often have come to Germany as refugees or as those Germans from the FSU who Germany (in a probably much regretted moment of generosity) allowed to migrate to Germany in the late 1980s and 1990s. This experience should be enough for Germany to reconsider seriously the silly rule about nationality being in the blood forever, over many generations, rather than in the soil of the country someone lives in. (Remind me to blog about refugees and IDPs.)

3) Musafira, who blogs here, is a Muslima (a muslim woman) of ethnic German descent (see above, there are not that many Germans who don't look, well, pink), married to a chap of Kuwaiti descent. Recently married. So, as is young married couple's wont, off they went for a honeymoon, to an idyllic little cottage which they rented in some rural area in Germany. All was well, until one evening they heard a knock on the door. When they opened, the police stormed into the cottage, up the stairs, into the living room, four armed police officers were in the garden.....what had happened? The inhabitants of the 200-soul village Harnwiede ('soul'? - they don't deserve the term) had given the police a list of reasons why they were worried about the tenants of the cottage:

• they were of 'southern' appearance
• the wife spoke very good German (what about all those integrated Turks who also speak excellent German)
• they arrived late in the evening by taxi
• they are supposed to have recently married but appeared distant to each other
• the house is at some distance from the village, and near a motorway service station
• they paid the rental in cash
• the curtains were closed constantly

All very very serious crimes, obviously. OMG, my tenants also keep the curtains closed all the time, and the husband looks southern (he's Italian). These were obviously enough reasons to make the police think this was a serious terrorist risk. The case is now subject to court action; it has now, two months after the event, finally hit the press. Musafira, whose first name is Kathrin, in her blog makes it quite clear how fed up she is dealing with people's pre-conceptions about who she is: 'Wow, she rides a bike?' People photograph her when she does, in muslim dress. I can relate a little to how she feels - the one thing I hate when I go to the UK is when people tell me what is my nationality, which is not the nationality in my passport and of my choice. But for me there's little danger of being mistaken for a terrorist - I'm too old, for starters.

4) But of course in the UK we have our own problems with people who are different, though nowadays, who is different at all? Just when Musafira's event happened, the Guardian reported an engineer on holiday in Northern Ireland being detained because he was black. He ended up spending two nights in a high security prison. I suppose Northern Ireland is like rural Northern Germany, both rather provincial and not used to different people (though in Norn Iron, I mean, come on....). The Northern Ireland Equality Commission took on his case and got him 7,500 GPB compensation.

5) Coming back to Eastern Europe.... in Lithuania last week, while walking past some skinheads with a dark young man, one of the skinheads was heard to utter 'monkey'. Luckily it was day time, he was smiling (about what?) and we know what Lithuania is like in this respect - totally unreconstructed!

The Russian Bear Roars Again

The Guardian reports that Russia is more than doubling its gas price to Lithuania compared to a year ago, to 833 Lt (or 354USD) per 1000 cubic metres. This is with the aim of bringing all former Soviet states in line with European gas prices. Lietuvos Dujos, our gas company, is absorbing some of the increase and has fixed this year's increase to consumers at 'only' 71%.

One might hope that once this increase is through, the spook might be over and we might get more moderate increases in the future. Then again, Lithuania is totally dependent on Russian gas, and relationships with Russia are not happy (slightly a blind spot with our diplomatic Mr Adamkus, but we've also had bad experiences with rich Russians living in Lithuania, who have attempted to buy either elections [Mr Uspaskich] or a president [Mr Borisovas who bought Mr Paksas]). But of course for consumers, given the absorption of this year's rise, it'll continue for another year or two.

It'll do wonders for inflation.....how can pensioners continue to live in the sometimes large flats that they have lived in all their lives? Though perhaps on another front the tide is turning, and while for a long time pensioners supported their unemployed adult children, now the children are often working and can support their parents?

The ownership of Lietuvos Dujos is interesting - it's owned 38.9 per cent by E.On Ruhrgas (German) and 37.1% by Gazprom. So Gazprom (Russia, with the delightful Mr Schroeder, ex-German Chancellor as advisor) is causing Gazprom (Lithuania) a considerable drop in profits while it absorbs price increases - I'm not sure that worries me a great deal. Then again, it seems the Lithuanian state owns the remaining 24%, so that's another impact on the budget. Would competition in this tiny market help, if there were more suppliers - but we can only get gas from Russia? If I were Lithuanian, I would not let Russian big business own anything in the country. Then again, if Gazprom did not own part of the business, would that make it even easier for Russia to play silly beggars with Lithuanian prices?

It's a pain, being totally dependent on someone!

Eastern European Winter

Every winter there is one day when it is so slippery that you can't actually leave the house. The last time before this that I remember was on the opening day of the Heifetz violin competition in February 2005 when the place was full of foreign violinists and their fragile instruments and hands. (I've missed large chunks of winter since then.)

This winter it happened last Friday. Lunchtime, to be precise.

In the morning I had been running - there was a slight dusting of snow, but generally it was ok. It was trying to snow, but not quite succeeding. Later that day we walked round Vilnius, popped into the contemporary arts centre for half an hour, where amongst others we saw an exhibition about an arts movement called 'Fluxus' which our Mr Landsbergis had been involved in, and which, much more to the point, appears to have been started by (amongst others) the Lithuanian-American artist George Maciunas, included the German artist Di[e]ter Rot[h] (of whose work my mother has fond memories), and which demonstrated against the 'elitist' music of Stockhausen and was involved in happenings....

I'm kind of finding it hard here to keep my art and my daily events apart.

Anyway, when we popped out again, it had rained ice. That's the only way to describe it! It still seemed to be raining ice, and the pavements were covered, even after this short period, on a fine, but oh so effective, film of ice. Everyone was walking about in that stumbling, buttock clenching walk that you do and that so holds you up.

The morning after(Saturday) the ice had settled down nicely - with very flat areas covered in a layer, no more than half an inch thick, but it was enough. And it was very hard, and not many people seemed to be engaged in Doing Something About It. It messed up all your shortcuts - not many other people used them, so they were totally icy. By Sunday at least some ice-free, sanded paths had formed.

Finally on Monday it snowed hard - out I went for a run; after all, the snow would cover up the ice and everything would be ok.

Unfortunately the snow was still very light, not compacted (all the better for safe running, I thought), and also not shovelled away. It's amazing, when fresh snow is on top of a sheet of ice, how quickly it slides away - as I found, sliding on my back along a pavement. After that, I developed a hierarchy of running:
Best - a street that is sometimes used and clear of snow and ice
then - a street that is more often used, but you end up getting covered in slush if you make the cars move over out of your way
then - a forest where you run on greenery under the snow (but you can't see the snow)
then - test the pavement that you are planning to run on
after that - don't go for a run!

Why are pavements not cleared well this winter? We no longer have the many unemployed who used to do this. In fact, businessmen (and -women) are complaining that they cannot get the quality of staff any more - they are scraping the bottom of the pool for applicants. All the good workers are abroad....