i am knitting a scarf of great superficial ugliness

As promised:

Bangkor Watt (or Atopo'this Mou(ntain). Tell me you miss me).

Went to Banksy's for tea, but he doesn't like being photographed.

~ i realise i didn't take many photos. sorry. and i'm not posting the one of the elephant staring at the tiger's cleavage ~

First off, an apology: iäm sorry to have not bloggu€ so much recently. my home internet access has been buggered, and anyway i am hardly there. i have also been wokring rather a lot at work, and not wanting to stare even more at the screen... but mostly i have been neglectful, and i can do nothing but apologise. i promise i have been thinking iäd like to tell them that... also apologies for the irregularities in this post ß german kezboard, zou see. z is y, and vice versa. itäs too much of a job to adjust mz semi touch tzping...

first things first, i was in the united kingdom brieflz, and it was one of the best weeks of mz life. i will post some pictures at some pointö iäm not going to bother sazing a lot about it ß those who i saw were there, and those not, i am sad about. i will just saz, jessie, good luck in melbourne, was too short to see zou, but a lot better than nothing.

mz housemates are or are not alcoholics, and are having an all daz partz todaz. we dropped in but thez werenät there, the antisocial bastards. thez have made me a refugee though, and i have been taking great advantage of the hospitalitz of amrei and marina, in the flat where i lived with will. for people who donät drink incredible amounts of alcohol, it is a problem to start drinking at ten in the morning. it leaves zou with a hangover at three in the afternoon, which isnät mz idea of a saturdaz. nor is it in mz vocabularz to bring home some pussz ß thez are prettz nice guzs, but we are miles apart in some wazs. so i take refuge here, where we last night had wonderful central asian food and multinational companz (english aside, russian speakers were in the majortz ß itäs verz strange having the best grasp of the language we use, but being the least linguisticallz capable person in the room). thez also have lots of tea here. sandorn is mz favourite.

speaking of tea, we discovered a tea house two dazs ago called at the funnz elephant (u veseleho slona). it was wonderful, and we will go back on wednesdaz to see a fakir juggle fire on nails... these little places pop out of the concretework of bratislava now and then ß tonight we are going to see if... with slovak subtitles at the decent cinema (not the one that showed snakes on a muthafucking plane). (which makes me think of this ß scroll down to Max Goldbergäs interests on the left.)

todaz there were manz birds migrating, hundreds and hundreds, going east toward budapest, mazbe down the danube for a trip eventuallz south. is their decision to leave made bz language, or do thez have some kind of impulse szstem, genetiacallz knowing when the group is large enough_ how does the individual bird decide to wait for the next group_ wonderful to watch them, milkz wazed across the width of the skz.

iäm being antisocial. so i will stop now. work is going well, i will have mz work on turkez finished bz the end of the week coming, and then, who knows what. since it turns out i will reeeallz have to do a masteräs degree at some point, it is undeniablz good to have in depth knowledge of a countrz situation. iäm not sazing i will necessarilz want to work on turkez in the future, but the experience has been superb. i am also looking toward the nonßgovernmental sector next, i think ß among other things, i had a long chat with a senior person at one of the agencies, who said her sincere advice was not to go into the UN aged less than 45, so iäm just more than halfwaz there... apparentlz the learning curve stops the moment zou sign a proper contract. still, unifem is better than manz, i think.

iäd also like to give another plug to this blog, mostlz cos it deserves more commentual activitz than it gets.

finallzÖ one aspect of zesterdaz evening was a dolma masterclass bz our uybek and russian friends. quote of the evening came from another uybek, sazing that where he came from, thez wraped their dolma in garbage. ah, language. i promise i will be sick of zou one daz.