Young Georgian Men

Here's a lovely little film made by the 18-year-old cousin of one of our interpreters. Yes, the page is in Georgian, but if you see the two darker grey words at the bottom of the frame, and click on the right-hand one, the film will download, and it has subtitles in English.

I suspect it rather accurately reflects the lives of young Georgian men, and some of the children, as well as the school... which looks oddly familiar. It's only about 15 minutes or so. Check it out!

Tbilisi Horticulture

Rustaveli Avenue, the main street in Tbilisi, has recently undergone much renovation. Raised flowerbeds have appeared on both sides off the road, though in some places the work seems to have been abandoned. Strangely, those opposite the parliament actually contain many flowers, and even some standard roses - Rose Revolution and all that....In other places they seem to have chucked turf onto the flowerbeds and left it to get on with it. Die, mainly. Some automated watering systems have now appeared, but, as a former horticulturalist, I suspect that they will not do much good to turf that is dead.

Now here (story came out in June) it tells us that Israel has donated a 400-year-old olive tree to the city. Full with symbolism, of course. My horticultural heart hangs heavy.

Apart from the sense of transplanting a tree of that age, it's not really wonderful to do so in the middle of the growing season. And olive trees are vulnerable to frost below minus 10. Last winter it reached minus 15. In a country full of war rhetoric, what will be the symbolism of a dead olive tree?

A summer of discontent?

The Mail has its knickers in a twist over strikes by council workers, calling it a 'summer of discontent'. In memory of the 'winter of discontent' of which my son is a product. Er, well, not quite the winter, but he arrived during it. It was not a happy time what with petrol shortages, cleaning at the hospital down to a minimum (imagine a maternity hospital, blood all over the place....).

The Mail suggests that rubbish will be uncollected and schools will be shut. The latter of course being quite unusual in the summer....It also says that public sector workers have enjoyed an '11-year bonanza under New Labour'. Eh? Whenever did the public sector get anything from the government? Ok, so I left it in 2001, but I can never remember getting pay rises even matching, never mind exceeding inflation.

Eeeek!

This is what I saw when I stepped into the bath first thing this morning.

No, I did not scream. Mainly because I thought it was a baby turtle (we have them here) and I felt all warm and motherly inside.

Then I noticed it's thin, hairy legs! Does the photo reflect my trembling hand?

But what can you do when you are naked? Crush the thing? There would be oodles and oodles of blood. Take it outside? Not until I'm dressed.

So I cowered and showered at one end of the bath and it clung to the wall at the other end.

But you should have heard me swear at it as I carried it outside on, very luckily, an old Guardian I had left lying around. 'You are not going to climb off this paper, so you are not!'. And it did not. And now I am safe.

But what the heck is it?

Running round Tbilisi

My usual Saturday run, a bit earlier to escape the heat....

• said 'gamarjoba' to a young orthodox priest at the end of my road. Like most such priests he wore his woolly bunnet pulled down to the eyebrows. Gives them all a slightly scary look. He replied with a gesture I could not quite work out. Did he bless me or did he tell me to pass behind his back so I would not interrupt his communion with the wee church on the hill?
• spotted a couple in matching grey t-shirts on their way to their exertions? Or on the return? Or was the walk their exertions? Not a drop of sweat to be seen.
• having run up the hill almost to the late Pataarkatsishvili's glass palace found that the set of steps I usually descend on has been removed, and only a hill of scree left. What's the point of that? They don't want pedestrians near there? So I had to run back down and find another, newly installed set of stairs. It will save the climb in the future, but also the cardiovascular stuff....
• saw a tiny puppy in the middle of a road which is rarely used (thankfully). It looked very lost and depressed. I stroked it, like you stroke a raw egg, and it did not even wag its little tail. Then again, it's not so good here for little dogs to trust people too much.
• reached the new President's palace (the palace, I mean, not the president) from the other side, and found that a set of stairs going down from that side have been closed. I could have climbed over the fence, but seeing as they were covered in rubbish and at each landing had two large open manholes, quite apart from me being unable to see their end, I gave them a miss. Instead had a chance to observe the extraordinary design on the side of the building (the other side is not finished). It's kind of a mixture of what looks like wire mesh and (wooden?) cladding, going up and down in angular waves, with a star-shaped pattern throughout it all. Really difficult to explain! What with all those security people around I did not like to take a photo. Bits of this building seem to be working already. In front of it,overlooking the town, is a modern family house, but I'm not sure if that's for the president, or if it belongs to someone else who would have been very stubborn not to sell the land for the presidential arrangements.

Talking of security guards, the ones at my ministry, at ambassador's residences and elsewhere have new uniforms. A pale green shirt with dark green trousers with a pale green stripe going down the side of them. Makes them look a bit like part of a band.

Plagiarism

The, apparently 'celebrity', psychiatrist Dr Raj Persaud has been suspended from practising as a shrink for three months due to plagiarism in articles he had published in the media (it seems he appears regularly on TV, though perhaps not this summer).

Three things come to mind: Why does plagiarism affect a person's ability to deal with people with mental illness, or, for that matter, to carry out surgery or whatever? The feeling seems to be that because he has been dishonest here, he'll be dishonest to his patients. I suppose he could then tell people that these drugs are better than the others, and collect a fee or a holiday from a drugs company. But he would be far from the only one now, wouldn't he? I would have thought that he might never be able to publish certainly a learned article, and maybe even any books he writes might be looked at more critically than normal, but the impact on patient care? It would be good to have a survey of people with mental health problems, eg his patients, to see what they think about this.

The other thought is that he 'gets done' for three months for plagiarism, how long should someone get who leaves a scalpel in a patient, cuts off the wrong leg, or interferes with a patient?

And finally, I wonder how much training people get in medical schools on writing essays and articles? Do they do any research as students, and are they told about plagiarism? A friend of mine had to retake some of his MA exam following an accusation of plagiarism - that's after two years of study, when he had failed to transfer references into the summary he had written of a paper. My own university (the Open University) is extremely hot on plagiarism, and certainly at Masters level, if not earlier, you learn very quickly a) to quote like crazy, and b) to label every reference, whether it is a direct quote or whether you say 'as Mr X argues'. It's a pain in the neck to do, but it does really cover the student against any accusation that they stole someone else's laurels. In this case I wonder if it was intentional (though much mention has been made of a whole sentence, by a different author, in which one word was changed; I mean, really!), or whether Dr Persaud was just slapdash.

Will he ever get anything scientific publish again? If you were a journal editor, would you take his work?

What to do about incompetence?

In the consulting world we usually work on contracts, some are short, some are middling, some a long (I like the long ones which go with intermittent work). We have lots of beneficiaries in different countries, and lots of clients who employ us. Some of these clients have a separate contract for every bit of work - I have four with one company for whom I worked for a total of 5 weeks. So for new clients it can be difficult to know what someone's quality is like. The EU requires a document for every bit of consultancy showing that the person actually worked there, or at least had the contract. Does not ask for a quality certificate - a copy of the contract is sufficient. I must have nearly 30 of them - what a paperchase! Imagine, say, 8 bids being submitted, each with three experts, and each has 30 documents = that's 720 documents the EU needs to check; and they do check them! (There are other consultancy secrets but I won't go into them).

So then it happens that people are sacked from projects or leave them under a cloud. I know at least 3, two of whom was sacked and another 'was' resigned. Two of these I know have been appointed to other projects as 'the expert' as part of the project bid. When I know that before the bid goes in, but the person is already firmly engaged, what can I do? Hope and pray?

Safety in Tbilisi

Personally I think Tbilisi is perfectly safe for a person to walk around alone. I've been on the underground, in taxis, in buses, never a problem. I'm kind of conscious of safety, and if I feel that someone is following me, I just stop and let them pass. (Maybe one day that will backfire....).

On the weekend I was warned about walking around alone, by a young man and his mother. The lad had walked up to the TV tower, as described here, and was mugged on the way, being caught from behind with something around his neck. He describes himself proudly as of 'Army fitness' (after I had said that 'oh, but I'm a tough strong person and I can defend myself'...). Hmmmm. But then young men are more often the victim of crime than older persons. Now these people will be putting this story about. Did not share with them the many times I go running alone in obscure corners of Tbilisi!

Funny then, that the only time I was, a little bit, attacked, as described here, it was one of the rare occasions when I was not walking around alone, but distracted by having someone in my company.

Foreigners, especially Murricans, Tbilisi is perfectly safe. Though if you flash what you have then you might be more vulnerable, as you would be anywhere....

Racism in Vilnius (2)

I thought I'd publish the comment, by most probably a Lithuanian (name, knowledge of English), on the previous post on racism in Vilnius to let you see that I am not just imagining things.

Care in the community, Georgian style?

Near the Health Ministry today I was crossing the road with a colleague, when suddenly I felt a sharp nip in the elbow. I turned round, and saw some guy. Some people seemed to be telling him off. Strange.

We went along the road for quite a while, and finally my colleague found a shop she was looking for. She went in, I waited outside. Spotted the guy walking along the road in my general direction. Contemplated going into the shop for cover, but thought, sod it, I can defend myself.

The strangest thing happened. He came near me, and was really afraid of me (for good enough reason, perhaps, though I don't thump people all that often...). You know how dogs are when they are afraid of someone - they sidle around them, keeping an eye on the person, and then belt off into the distance. That's exactly what this guy did! I was under a tree, he went so close, sideways, along the building that I thought he'd break a window, and then shot off. I know we all have our identity issues, some of us more so than others, but I wondered if he thought he was a dog? I also wonder if he nipped me because I had accidentally invaded his personal space.

More to the point, wasn't it lucky he didn't have a knife? I wonder who takes care of him.

Number of children in poverty rises

....again in the UK, says the Guardian here. Actually, I'd heard about it yesterday, so the Grauniad, which should have its finger on the pulse, is a wee bitty late. The UK government is now well off its target of reducing child poverty by half (from 33%!!!) by 2010. In addition the number of pensioners living in poverty in the UK has risen by 300,000 to 2.5 million pensioners (and 2.9 million children, plus their parents presumably). Adults in poverty are stated to be 5.3 million, which presumably includes pensioners. So the total, of 8.3 million people in poverty, represents about 14% of a population of 60 million. That's without housing costs; if these are included, the figures may well be more.

The UK is the fifth richest country in the world. It has a 'socialist' government.

There are data, and data, and data showing the negative impact on childhood poverty on the lives of children, and their children, and their children. Does anyone pay attention to these?

The good news....

....is that the path up to Tbilisi TV tower, past the Mamadaviti (St David's Church) has been renovated. It is vastly, but vastly better, with handrails, cobbled paths, steps....I'd hate to think of the poor folk who had to carry the cobbles up there.

The bad news is that just at St David's Church there's a gap, currently being worked on, and essentially you have to walk up a storm drain, with a very scary little set of steps to get you out of it. I thought that only the most athletic people would attempt this, and I would not want to run the hash up here, what with some of the folk not far off the three-score and ten. Then I spotted a lot of young folk on the path above this gap, and you know what young Tbilisi women are like - all high heels and glitter. And they had done it! (I watched some of them going back down). So, no excuses for anyone!

Once you've bridged the gap, and have got to the top, it would appear that there is a further, nicely put together path which takes you all around a valley and back into town. Quite a long walk, I would think, but most of it downhill. And there are picnic spots and exercise areas. Lovely idea. Hope they stay unvandalised and tidy for a while.

At the top, behind the TV tower, there's now a fenced-in leisure park. (The photo does not entirely capture the tastelessness of it. And why are the welcome flags in all languages but Georgian?) I have a feeling it might belong to the late Mr Paatarkatsishvili, and of course there's trouble with his will. So the park is locked up and totally deserted. Mind you, so is most of that area. I walked for four hours, from my flat, up past the TV tower, to a fancy new housing development way out in the countryside, up to a ridge, near which I found the start of another large building in the middle of no-where (see photo) and back down again. After 3.5 hours I met another walker.....but boy, it was soo cold up there! And this is June, in Tbilisi!

Noticed that the cows wear bells made from piston-heads, and very tuneful they were, too. There's a use for everything.

Don't call it Night

Actually, this book by Amos Oz is already 12 years old, first published in 1996. I just came across it somewhere, whilst looking for family birthday presents (she says, rapidly wracking (sp?) her brain, is there anyone she's forgotten recently?).

It's a leisurely kind of book, set in one long summer in a town in Israel, claimed back from the desert - and perhaps the desert will reclaim it in the future. Nothing much goes on in the town, except that a teenager died of drugs, his father, living abroad wants to start a residential rehabilitation centre.

The book is narrated by a couple, with him, Theo, aged around 60, and her, aged around 45; they narrate it directly, first person singular, or it is told through their eyes. But it always takes a while to work out in each chapter who is telling the story. In passing it looks back at their lives, and the lives of others. There are many, many dramatis personae (listed in more than two pages at the end of the book), though the drama itself flows along in a very low-key approach. Things happen, resistances are met, interest is lost, the summer goes on, the school holidays start, but it all seems very calm underneath. Occasionally peripheral characters suddenly get a great role, and spurt out their life stories in a way that reminds of Beckett's Lucky in 'Waiting for Godot'. In some ways it reminds me of Zeruya Shalev's books, using the same narrative style. It's quite different from Oz's other books, though it does also have humour, again in a very low-key way.

It's a nice read, and lovely in the way it describes small-town life in Israel. I just don't think as 'out-of-town' being desert. Also a slim volume and very recommendable for reading on the plane or in a hospital bed.....

Sometimes I'm really embarrassed....

about the country I live in. Lithuania, anti-semitic? No, not a country that in its spring carnival has people dressing up as Jews (and Roma people), and where in some towns anti-semitism is almost encouraged (Siauliai)....

It seems now that one or two elderly Jews might be prosecuted for war crimes. I say 'might' because the story is from the Jewish Chronicle and it does not actually say a prosecution is pending. It 'just' says that the Lietuvos Aidas newspaper has called for Fania Branstovski to be put on trial for war crimes, on account that as an anti-Nazi partisan she committed crimes against Lithuanians (but what if those Lithuanians were Nazis? It's not unheard of in Lithuania, not even today.). Lietuvos Aidas is a bit of a funny newspaper, I think. Has an extremely basic website, and I could have sworn that one of its journalists, Sigitas Geda, has collaborated with the Jewish composer Anatolijus Senderovas over one or two pieces, quite some time ago.

Not sure how much of this is smoke without fire. The embassy in London has said that Ms Branstovsky may be invited as a witness in a case involving Soviet partisans alleged to have carried out a massacre in the village Kaniukai. Two other people, both of whom live abroad and may well have done so for many decades, are in fear of being prosecuted. One of these is the former chairman of Yad Vashem. Apparently he is reluctant now to return to his home town. But, given that many of his relatives may have been killed in this home town, what actual feeling would he have for it anyway.

I think I've met Ms Branstovsky. If anyone were to prosecute her I suspect it might cause quite a few political waves...Then again, the massacre....we don't let off concentration camp guards just because of age. I don't know - it's really difficult.

You cannot quite imagine this sort of thing happening in Germany, can you?

Tone's back....

Some lovely articles on Tony Blair's return to Westminster here, and here, and here.

If you are into equality for women

you might wish to consider signing this petition for a female leader for the EU. Thanks to Wu Wei for finding it.

Then again, is there the talent? The wonderful Grybauskaite from Lithuania should be president of Lithuania, not the EU....

Taking care of Her Majesty's Subjects

Bit surprised to get an email from a colleague, forwarded from a friend of hers, of Foreign Office travel advice in Georgia. It's something to do with demos at the opening of Parliament on 10 June. We've survived the demos since last November, so we'll be ok.....Last time they phoned us the day after the teargas.

But why this means of message transmission? Enquiry to the Embassy reveals that they have a system of 'wardens' who then pass the message on to their 'parish'. On FCO advice, apparently.

Forgive me if this reminds me of 'Dad's Army' - what was the name of that ARP warden? And how do they know that all Brits are reached? I don't know who is my warden, or in which parish I am. Doing things on the cheap again, and getting other people to do their work.

But really, is it rocket science to set up a British resident's mailing list on the computer which includes everyone who has email (most people must do, surely). Someone registers at the Embassy, you pop their name into the mailing list. End of story. Setting it up in the first place might take half a day once....they don't have time for this?

Glad I'm not paying their salaries.

Fleamarket Chic

Dinner last night at the cafe Pur Pur,in Gudiashvili Square, somewhere to the back of Tbilisi Town Hall.It's a beautiful little square, with trees in the middle of it, and this building beside it. In which the restaurant is not. Sharp-eyed viewers will notice that the building is surrounded by a construction fence. Well-informed Tbilisi residents will realise that this will be another charming old building about to bite the dust (one day soon I will blog about capitalism and building preservation).

The restaurant is on another side of
the square. Don't ask me which side, I did not look at where the sun
was when I entered it. It's in an old building, with a pale brown
door, and in the summer the windows are open. Seeing as it does not
have a sign, this is the best I can do for you.

Inside it is fleamarket chic. The
stairs, ancient and unrenovated, are covered by a carpet, the tables
and chairs are a jumble, and the tables are thus positioned that they
are in front of the walls and not of the windows. Which is a shame if
you want to see what's happening outside (which I like). They are
also rather crammed in. But it's quite charming and characterful. Though the tables
for two are so narrow that loving couples can pick each others' noses
without leaning over the table. A nice table for 4 was defended by
the waiting staff with their lives against groups of 2 people, with
the result it remained empty all evening. I managed to wrestle out of them a table for three to seat the two of us, but it was with some difficulty. The proportions of tables
and chairs in relation to each other are such, at least in our case,
that if you are a woman wearing a low-cut outfit, the table preserves
your modesty. Or maybe my friend is just small. The music is of the
'Je ne regrette rien' cafe-music style.

You don't always want to see what's
happening outside, though. While I was waiting for my friend,
suddenly I heard a dog screaming and screaming and screaming. Turned
out that the dog police was taking it away. Now I did not see the dog
they had, but suspect strongly it was the very decrepit-looking dog I
saw on entering the restaurant, who, to be fair, would probably not
have been looking forward to much enjoyment in his life. So it
probably was a kindness. But the screaming will stay with me for a
while. I suppose shooting it in the street, while kinder to the dog,
might not be entirely acceptable. The way the restaurant staff
reacted made me wonder if they had called the dog police?

It was nice that the clientele was all
Georgian, apart from us – I'm not that hot on expat places. Given
that the waiting staff responded in Russian to English requests it
makes sense really. Not intended for the expat market, maybe. Though I do rather like bog-standard Georgian food which this place did not really supply.

People had raved about the food –
especially the soups and the salads, so I tried a soup, a salad and a
main course. The soup, a cold yoghurty cucumber and radish soup, was
all right. Far from a large portion, served in a very large bowl, and
perhaps more chunky than was strictly necessary. If the yoghurt had
been a bit diluted it would not have been a catastrophe. Not sure I
spotted the mint that it was also supposed to contain.

The salad, green leaves with cucumber
and tomato, was ordinary. The dressing was nice, and there were loads
of green leaves, well washed, so we got our chlorophyll for the
evening. But nothing special.

Our main courses – my friend had the
trout, I had the salmon. The poor wee trout...its mum must have not
taken good care of it, so it swam away, and before it knew it, it had
been caught. Much like the dog. Except Master Trout was caught in his
infancy. Or maybe mum had made love to a sardine. With an
accompaniment of something green and shredded carrot it was the
perfect Atkins' meal, though perhaps a bit thin on protein.

My salmon, on spinach came with 4
beautiful new potatoes (n Georgia at the moment we have the most
beautiful new potatoes I have ever seen). So I could afford to pass
two on to my starving friend. The salmon – I'm not convinced it
was salmon, more like sea trout – arrived in two small pieces, smothered in
something rich and white.

The bread was fairly ordinary white and
slightly brown bread, not a lavash in sight (though there was some on
the menu accompanying a different salad). And the service, I hate to
say it, but we waited for our cappuccinos so long that I had
fantasies of someone rushing to Brazil to pick the coffee beans. The
wine was exceptionally cheap. Then again....it reminded me of the
wine I sometimes buy loose.....

The place reminds me of the Art Bridge
in Abovian Street in Yerevan, belonging to an expat Armenian woman.
The atmosphere is similar, sort of slightly Bohemian, full of expats,
Armenian Bohemians and young go-getting things. The Art Bridge did
not change its menu in the three years I was in Armenia, with the
menus becoming more and more stained. It was good for teas and cakes
(oh, the carrot cake!) but less good for main courses. PurPur place
also has potential for a lot of atmosphere, but last night it seemed
rather subdued, with people huddled quietly in little corners
everywhere. Not sure that is entirely characteristically Georgian....

It was nice that at least part of the
menu was seasonal. Let's hope they keep going for fresh produce, and
that the cooking may become a little more inspired.

Drugs Problems

It would appear that members of the
Georgian parliament get drug tested before they are admitted to it
(following the recent election), Rustavi2 reports. Bit unfortunate that a leader of an
opposition part was found to have traces of opium in his blood. He
blames it on a codeine-based medicine he had taken the day before. I
don’t know anything about pharmacology, so who knows if codeine
isn’t really opium. Funny thing is, though, that codeine-based
medicines, like Sudafed, are illegal in Georgia. Personally, had I
been the politician, I would have kicked up a fuss and blamed the
government for planting it on me. This is Georgia!

Budget airline

So, off I tootled to Tbilisi, on the
new direct flight from Vilnius, run by flylal (Lithuanian airways of
whom I may still be an owner, as a Lithuanian taxpayer).

Could do better, I think. It only takes
about 3 hours to fly to Tbilisi, much the same time as it would take
to fly from Vienna to Tbilisi. I don’t understand geography, really
I don’t…..Though I have to admit now (and I'm surprised) that a ticket from Vienna to Tbilisi in July is double the price of the Vilnius to Tbilisi flight. I guess I've seen what I don't pay for in Lithuanian, like....

....the service quality. In
Vilnius airport only a newsagent’s was open when I arrived at 9.30
pm; there are coffee machines, but the chocolate I asked for came
without chocolate. The lady at information had obviously been trained
by the Soviets and shouted at me, so no joy or compensation there.

The face of the passport control was
tripping her up, and she caused some of the Georgians endless delays.
Then we sat around and waited – near a bar, which was closed. And
waited.

Eventually we were let on the plane, a
Boeing 737 (very old model). In my row (7d-f), the seats would not
recline and my joy at being alone and able to stretch out was soon
overcome by the realisation that the arm rests moved sideways, but
not upwards. Missing bits of plastic had been replaced by sticky
tape. Naturally, there was no in-flight entertainment – it really
must be a very old plane. There was not even anything to read in the
seat pocket apart from the safety instruction card.

Then I was horrified that once again we
had to pay for food. Lithuanian has gone through phases – 7 years
ago there was a meal (not sure if it was ever hot), then we had to
pay, then we got a bun, now we have to pay again. For what is
available on the menu – but, in true Soviet style, not everything
is available. And frankly, the quality...

Well, I never

Never realised until just now that Puerto Rico is 'a selfgoverning commonwealth in association with the United States, with the chief of state being the President of the USA'. But thanks to Mrs Clinton, I now know. They are run by a governor and, like the US, a house of representatives and a Senate. The US has responsibility over what in mainland US are federal matters, and the Island bodies look after the rest.

They have no representation in the US government (and some tax exemptions - but it sounds awfully like 'taxation without representation'?).

Which makes me think about 'West Side Story'....'I love to be in America', sung by Puerto Ricans in New York....

A fate that may befall Cuba in time. God help it.