Slovenia doesn’t have a government and it’s been an absolute delight. Our last government stepped down in a huff; the boiling point being us voters having one good laugh too many at the prime minister’s expense. This prompted early elections, the results of which created such a hot mess that there’s a strong hope that nobody will be able to come up with a viable coalition. The most votes were scooped up by the party all the other parties swore they didn’t want anything to do with because its platform is “based on division and hate” (I suspect the irony is lost on them). The election losers’ general attitude to the results is that the voters got it wrong, but they’re not entirely oblivious to the fact that the voters might get it even more wrong next time. So, if the relative winner is shunned by all the potential coalition partners who in turn patch together a motley crew of a coalition by themselves, there’s a strong hope that we won’t end up with a functioning government because there will be too many pigs fighting at the trough. Even if new elections are called it’s quite possible the same jumble will happen all over again, which is great. Because if you’re Slovenian and know what’s good for you, a functioning government is about the last thing you want. Read the rest of this entry »
I’m loving it
July 16th, 2018What happens when my man finds another man in his bed
November 8th, 2015WARNING, GRAPHIC CONTENT: Guy gets Fawked
“Who is this!?” he demanded. “Well what do you think, Guy Fawkes,” I replied.
Not sure why but that’s when things took an ugly turn. The Guy was bundled into the trunk and whisked away to a secretive gathering of Brit expats and other good folks who like to reminisce about the times when the judicial system still had teeth. The Guy was made to sit in the corner and ordered to reflect upon the error of his ways. That didn’t seem to help much as he carried on looking as smug as ever.
Sunday Report plus bonus picture of a dragon egg: The weirdest things happening in Slovenia (April 6-12)
April 15th, 2015Nothing particularly strange has happened while I’ve been busy foraging for dragon eggs. Just so that we’re clear, a whole lot of interesting stuff has been going on but most of it doesn’t qualify as weird. For example, several Slovenian state-owned companies are being privatised and the process is complete with all the mandatory drama, yet utterly devoid of unexpected phenomena. If you’re from a country where companies need privatizing, you should already be familiar with the usual mess this sort of affair entails, and if your country hasn’t gotten to this point yet, well, I wouldn’t want to spoil the surprise, save for a small forewarning: when talks of selling off anything state-owned begin, the public figures form two camps and stop at nothing to rally the ordinary folks to their cause. The first, usually the more powerful and loud camp, is headed by distinguished individuals accustomed to sucking money from state-controlled companies with a large straw. The second camp is led by hopefuls who either think they may get to profit nicely from the sale or simply want to see the first camp cut off from its source of power and wealth. The people who genuinely believe that companies need to be privately owned to achieve any semblance of efficiency and profitability do exist but they end up where those thinking about the benefit of somebody other than themselves usually do: somewhere so far in the background you can barely make out what they’re saying. We’ve been witnessing all this in Slovenia for a while now but until an assassination or at least a super juicy sex scandal occurs, I shan’t consider anything weird enough to report on. Anyway, if you’re lucky enough to be from someplace where companies are already privately-owned, you should keep counting your blessings, at least until you realise that while company stock may be private its losses might not be. Read the rest of this entry »
Sunday Report with an added bonus of a beach selfie: The weirdest things happening in Slovenia (March 30-April 05)
April 9th, 2015I’m proud to declare this report late for all the right reasons: I sneaked away on holiday, which in itself qualifies as one of the least usual events around here. It’s true. I, a full-time professional translator, escaped the confines of my office and went frolicking about in Gorenjska*, a place so spectacularly beautiful you have to see it to believe it.
Strange things have happened while I was away… I used to rely on my assortment of weird theories to keep the people around me from falling asleep. But I’ve been finding myself increasingly hard-pressed to come up with fresh ideas because my weird theories keep turning out to be true, upon which they join the ever-growing ranks of the weird realities of living in this country and lose their novelty appeal. I used to claim ownership to a theory that so many people in power ended up publicly shamed for their plagiarism simply because they had felt above writing their own graduate thesis while the chap they (under)paid to do it for them hadn’t felt above stealing somebody else’s original work. By the looks of it, this isn’t a theory anymore but rather a hard fact. Our latest Minister of Education resigned after five (5!) days in the office after she herself – here it comes – requested her alma mater to check her Master’s dissertation for plagiarism. It turns out that a significant portion of it had been purloined from another student’s paper. Read the rest of this entry »
Sunday Report: The weirdest things happening in Slovenia (March 23-29)
March 30th, 2015Ever heard that urban legend where a sexual predator pretends to be a cop so that he can pounce on unsuspecting, usually-but-not-necessarily-female lone drivers? The one which isn’t really an urban legend but a cautionary tale inspired by true events? Well, the Slovenian general population may be mostly harmless, save for our ability to whine the joy de vivre right out of you, but our criminals don’t like to stay behind their foreign role models and it was just a matter of time before somebody figured out that a similar ruse just might work. A man barely into his twenties – these types do tend to start early – had been passing himself off as a plain-clothes police officer, harassing and unlawfully searching at least five females, of whom he sexually assaulted two and raped one, a young girl under the age of fifteen at that. Luckily for him, our judiciary system is a joke and he was sentenced to 4 years and 10 months in prison. What can I say, we’re super European in our reluctance to hand out proper punishment. While a story of another fake cop who tried to make a quick buck by stopping motorists and fining them for real or imagined traffic offences is still fresh (and quite funny), it must be said that people impersonating police officers remain a rare occurrence in Slovenia. But here, and for that matter anywhere else, it just might be wise to phone the police and check if the cop you’re dealing with is a real one before things go too far. Read the rest of this entry »
Sunday Report: The weirdest things happening in Slovenia (March 9-15)
March 15th, 2015Our former Prime Minister Ms Bratušek has seen her house and several of her boltholes ransacked by armed police, allegedly over her ill-fated attempt at the position of the Vice President of the European Commission where they blackballed her faster than a herd of overfed rabbits scared shitless. Those unlucky enough to have seen her painful-to-watch confirmation hearing would have reasonably expected her to be accused of high treason over that fiasco but apparently the reasons for the house search were quite mundane. She is suspected of having nominated herself for the EC position which I understand is nothing more than a standard abuse of power that we’ve gotten used to seeing on a daily basis. Ms Bratušek herself said the police didn’t seem to know what they were looking for, which naturally makes me suspect they were hoping to at least find a cannabis factory, which would have partly explained the notable detachment from reality that the majority of our politicians have been exhibiting. Whatever, the whole thing seems intriguing and I might keep an eye on it.