the slovak for boris is boris

why i really love wikipedia today. worried your letter will go astray? unsure what's the slovak for sweden? ding! brilliant. took me a minute though - lesson learned: wikipedia first, always.

in other news, new mayor for "a city whose energy conquered the world". his name day is october 14. convincing win. awful speech. bleugh. it's nice, though strangely unfulfilling, being somewhere i feel no responsibility for the state of politics.

punk + tincture = puncture

I give a wrong time, stop a traffic line...

6.40 Wake up; snooze
6.45 X calls from Budapest, having missed the bus to Bratislava for the flight to Rome. Y in flurry of internet action
7.00 Z gets up; breakfast consists of coffee, X's notorious unreliability and a piece of grandma's cherry cake. High point.
7.10 Plan finalised for X's journey, train to Mosonmagyarovar, Y to pick up by car
7.26 Y and Z begin driving to the train station, for my journey to teach these kids English
7.28 Puncture highly evident, car pulled over
7.31 Taxi called to take Z to the station. Jack and handle removed from boot of Renault
7.32 Cousin Y phoned in request for help; Y's foot holds jack while Z jacks
7.34 Jack handle tool/Z's strength woefully inadequate for removing lug nuts
7.37 Heels being kicked, humming
7.40 Taxi arrives too late to be worth it
7.43 Decision that taxi not needed; driver demands waiting fee, Z shouts at driver, Y pays half fee; Y and Z's chances of ever getting home at 3am again reduced by 35%
7.45 Z asks deaf man in parked van for an alternative to his crappy tool. Jesus to the rescue, dressed thus
7.47 Wheel off; at station, train leaves
7.49 Spare tyre on; helpful man's friend arrives, Jesus tool returned in nick of time
7.50 Tory leader David Cameron wants to prove to people that the Tories can make the changes they want to see
7.51 Cousin arrives in vulgar giant BMW with unknown companion in passenger seat
7.53 Cousin departs; punctured tyre back in boot, wits gathered

and all before I am usually even up. Yikes.

step out of the rush

I think some people are not sure whether to get bigly chilled this year.

For the love of all that is good,

Fat Freddy's Drop

Big Chill, chickens, where's the room for doubt?

chladnicka

We have a new fridge. The old one was fine - had indeed recently been cleaned. I can only guess that as a fairly new EU member, Slovakia has got round to contributing to the union's fridge mountain. Moreover, the new fridge doesn't close as well as the old one, which will lead to electricity wastage when people don't shut it properly.

While I'm on the subject, several taps at the UN building get left running because they need a wrench to turn off (I have brought this to the attention of the homo sapiens in charge of such matters... "Taps are complicated and expensive").

When I was 35% younger I used to spend a lot of time on the www.fadetoblack.com message board, where fridgemagnet was one of my favourite posters.

Postscript: searching for 'black hole europe' led me to read of CERN being taken to court in Hawaii for possibly creating a black hole in the Large Hadron Collider, thereby eating the world. It sounds like an excellent solution to the problem of existence; I imagine that dying in a black hole would be very quick, and therefore acceptably painless. (And who knows if we would actually die? Maybe we would be spat out reformulated in another dimension new galaxy, intergalactic planetary...)

Beat corruption - and live in Bratislava!

I want to urge you to advertise this job far and wide, and encourage you to apply if it looks good.

Policy Analyst (Human Rights and Justice)

It will be an interesting post and requires remarkably little experience, only two years'. Let me know if you're interested (although that is not a condition for applying!).

possiblz the most imnportant thing ever

none of us is convinced, in this skeptical day and age, of the importance of important things. but one thing is not relative, explicable or faddish. and that one thing is plural.

apples for everyone are playing a very important gig which i won't be at, and i hope beyond reason that some of you will go. not just dave hat, as he is in the band and that doesn't count.

the gig is

• at surface unsigned festival, tufnell park tube, boston music rooms 178 Junction Road, London, N19 5QQ
• this wednesday night at nine
• obviously going to be great. obvious at least to those who have seen an apples gig before.

sam - rally some troops. contact dave for a cheap ticket.

A beer by the path by the wood by the river

Anyone else sunburned yet this year? My shoulders, knees and elbows, got caught sunbathing by the reservoir, with water all the way to Samorin, just near the excellent Danubiana art gallery. At least I assume it's a reservoir, its banks are concrete. Samorin looks from that distance like a moonbase, with big white buildings (standard sixties population-influx housing) and a water tower or something looking all sci-fi.

The gallery and the view are on the cycle path toward Gabcikovo, where I and I went for a fine bike ride-picnic-gallery visit yesterday. The head of the Hungarian coalition party was there with half his daughters, and most other people were German (Austrian), it seemed. But it's a wicked gallery, very spacious and nice light (especially on a sun-only day like yesterday). The exhibition at the moment has excellent paintings and makings by the excellent Kemeny-Szereme couple. Never heard of them, but they seem quite famous and I have the feeling my grandparents will be able to tell me things about them.

I can give some photos, but of ZK's work, there are a few good photos here, and of MKS's here. I liked her paintings in particular, (for me) people too busy having mundane lives to worry about it. Although it's sad, like walking around Lewisham shopping centre thinking that without some kind of inspiration, this is where all our global development efforts are leading. (Except they aren't because the (human/natural)world won't allow (structurally/environmentally) the spread of Lewisham's living standards to the whole world.)

I've been forgetting to listen to the radio for weeks, but I'm back on NPR now, specifically on All Songs Considered. It reminds me of some recurrent habit of making long lists of music to obtain after such listenings. It started with Invicta FM, sadly with long gaps. Of note from today: Madvillain, Television, and Gnarls Barkley. And memories of the Magnetic Fields. There was also an awkward interview-guest DJ spot with Thom Yorke; I liked his habit of skipping through the tracks to find what he wanted.

And since I like the idea of being paid to go up mountains, you can give money to Rachel to do that here.