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Turkije: Turcija
Griekenland: Grcija

Well, this link HERE will take you to my podcasts in Macedonian.

Technorati Profile Let's see how does this work.

I am stupid to embed the radio interface here, but this link will take you to my radio to enjoy the music

Eve vi ubava prilika! Ova e link za mojata nova serija podkasti na kolokvijalen makedonski jazik! Ne mu ja mislite. Sega mu e momentot. Ednostavno kliknite ovde - i tamu ste! Ve molam ostavite komentar! There will be a special English podcast library there too. Have you listened yet to my very first podcast in English? Now is the best time. Click here - comment there! This is a piece of fine music. :

"Russia is constantly being thought democracy and the people who try to teach it don't want to learn it themselves" " - Vladimir Putin * * * "The shepherd always tries to persuade the sheep?that their interests and his own are the same." - Stendahl [Marie-Henri Beyle] (1783-1842) French writer (here, left) used over 200 nom de plume * * * "Politicians are the same all over. They promise to build a bridge even where there is no river." - Nikita Khrushchev (1894-1971) Premier of the Soviet Union * * * "Whenever you find you are on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect." - Mark Twain [Samuel Langhornne Clemens] (1835-1910) * * * "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." - Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) US Founding Father * * * "During the Cold war the peace was scary, fragile but reliable. Now it is less reliable. - Vladimir Putin

Well, this is just the beginning of an idea, pretty entangled right now. It is about my feelings arising from a visual contact with public figures by proxy. I mean, these are reflections triggered by published pictures of various people without or definitely before reading a word about their characters. So far these accounts are ready: Giovanni Accongiagioco Elkann, of the Agnelli family; Howard Stern, the King of All Media in America; Barack Obama, possibly the next President of USA; Toshihiko Fukui, the governor of the Bank of Japan; Patricia Joan Remak, former Dutch MP, now a convict; Peter Hartz, VW + Germany's master crook; Chad Hurley, co-establisher of YouTube; Nobuyoki Oneida, CFO of Sony Corporation I'll read your portraits too, if you send the pic! TRY ME So, all you need to do is Click here to go there. Those portraits are interesting pics.

One may be confused with the people of the South. They are so pationate. Begin from its West or East coast - all the same. Fiery. Promiscuous. Volatile. Irrational. And now comes the sober Financial Times with this interpretation about the Greek women whoring at such a grand scale. You might be interested to read my review of a book FOR THE LOVE OF WOMEN written by Elizabeth Kirtsoglou a professor at the University of Wales. She describes the life of a lesbian community in a town near Athens.

I think Turkey deserves every possible argument supporting its impressive drive to full EU membership. This link takes you to a selection of my articles on Turkey and related issues. There are numerous posts entered that qualify under the term Macedonia . Some of them retain their intrinsic value, others are reminders of once acute issues. This link takes you to a full list of the entries related to Macedonia and its people. Neque porro quisquam est qui dolorem ipsum quia dolor sit amet, consectetur, adipisci velit Neque porro quisquam est qui dolorem ipsum quia dolor sit amet, consectetur, adipisci velit

A FAST MOUTH HURTS MORE THAN A BIG ONE? There was this big boss coming back from a successfull business trip so he thought he could have a break and told his driver to stop at the first seaside restaurant for a late lunch. When the driver parked the limousine, the capable secretary fixed a table by the shore and when he came from the restroom the appetizers were served and it was all spotless. During the middle of the lunch a golden fish sprung out of the water and somehow landed on the table. The Queen of magic fish said: -I am the one who fulfills those legendary three wishes. You are three, thus one for each of you. The secretary jumped elated and said: -I'd like to enjoy my life with my darling in beatiful villa someplace in the Carribean. -Piece of cake,-said the golden fish, flapped with the tail and the secretary was gone. Then the driver, almost stuttering, said: -I wish to pass my days with my wife and kids on Hawaii, in a mension and two chaufers for two big cars. The golden fish flapped with the tail and the driver was gone. After some time, the fish turned towards the boss and said: -What do you wait, it is your turn! -Cant't you see I am eating? When the boss finished eating, he said: -Bring those two smart-asses back, the lunch-break is over. MORALE OF THE STORY Do not speak ahead of your boss or you may be in for some nasty surprises. SOLUTION OF A MID-LIFE CRISIS When I was married for 25 years, I took a look at my wife one day and said, "honey, 25 years ago, we had a cheap apartment, a cheap car, slept on a sofa bed and watched a 10-inch black and white TV, but I got to sleep every night with a hot 25-year-old blonde. "Now, we have a nice house, nice car, big bed and plasma screen TV, but I'm sleeping with a 50-year-old woman. It seems to me that you are not holding up your side of things." My wife is a very reasonable woman. She told me to go out and find a hot 25-year-old blonde, and she would make sure that I would once again be living in a cheap apartment, driving a cheap car, sleeping on a sofa bed and watching a 10-inch black and white TV. Aren't older women great? They really know how to solve your mid-life crises!!

This is a worksite where an exhaustive collection of pictures-cum-comment posts pile up and will one nice day form a maze of memories I like visiting and re-visiting. They, the posts, will allow the visitor to add, correct, renege or comment in one decent way the entries. Eventually, people and places may be enlightened by fresh opinion and be a source for biographers and historians. Ambitious, eh? Thus Memorabilia you will have entered one very personal domain, my views of events, people and places which still compose my life. Be polite, not courteous, and if you leave a trace behind you, it will live for as long as this blog lives.

It happens that I am so very often pissed off by my insecurity, by long stretches of time spent on balancing "pro et contra" before taking a decision on anything. Thus, despite my advancing age I tend to rash past he pole of no return and dive into a project although I know it was not properly investigated. Now I am approaching the moment of an actual beginning of a new book and I, kind of, lean towards picking the less researched project, a title that may bring me into unfamiliar or poorly known situations I will have to describe as guidance for other people practical needs. That drives me mad. That is why I bring out, here, useless elements of what one day will be the new title. So, here you will have bits and odds about available properties around the world, Nothing really practical, more daydreaming than anything. Say, everybody subscribed to IEX daily letter will have noticed that the French Investment Project. These people are my neighbors in Amstelveen but have offices in Carcassonne, a beautiful place we love visiting for a day or two, too. They offer a possibility for investment in a Villas Les Clos, near St. Tropez, 800 metres from the Med, for only €12,500. I do not know how exactly does this scheme work, but I know that in time-share and stuff one needs every precaution before diving in. Well, if you decide to go down there and inspect the property in situ, you may decide to drive via Limoges where somebody else had just brought out to the market a real castle. It can be yours for €20,4 million. (top pic) That is a bit on the upper side of €12,000 but you might be interested to have a look. It is called Chateau Lionhearts and offers 17 bedrooms plus forests and lakes, stables, roof terrace, a cinema. Historic, built after the Crusades, tastefully restored to the highest standards, lots of modern technical details but still managing to maintain its original character and charm. If that is on the steep side - there is this splendid 18th century chateau, (here left) in the Loire valley with 3 wine cellars, fully furnished, it has 16 bedrooms, Outbuildings include villa, chapel, staff accomodation and stables, All in 10 hectares of landscaped park, for only €3,3 million.

My very first real book is just out from the presses. It is lavishly revied peace of work in which I did my best to present Turkey and the Turks, Asia Minor, as acurately as possible. The reviewers (ethnic Turks and Macedonian) kind of insist that the 368 pages are written with lots of affection dor the people and the land, that it insists on dispersing the mists of prejudices and that it can be read as a novel. I also like the title. You can buy it from E-Bay (the Dutch branch)at € 12. This is the first book ever written and published in Macedonian about the people and the land which governed Macedonia and the Macedonians for nearly a half of the past millenium. I claim that we, the Macedonians, would have been incomparably better if the Ottoman Empire did not crumble about 100 years ago. The book in mirrored on the web-site WWW.TURCIJA.NET. My printers are expected to be ready with setting the book on GREECE (also in Macedonian, with plenty of detail, geography, history, arts, myths) which should be on sale for the main tourist season.

Reading Times Literary Supplement Is one of my great pleasures. Sometimes I use the paper sometimes the on-line edition. The topics are carefully selected and absolutely first class. The enrages me often and I write letters to the Editor (Tom Stothard, he bloggs) who acknowledges the receipt but throws them in the bin, though I'd prefer the other way round. He will send you a sample copy for free so that you can check if I am right or no.

This guy Paul Taylor writes probably the most in-depth, very clear, useful and most entertaining reviews over technological novelties and gadgets.

Some of you may be interested in my impressions from travels around the world. Just begun developing that site. A bit early for promoting it, but that is how I tick. This is your link if you wish to visit. The trips have taken me over to Africa, Asia, North and South America, Australia and very much around Europe. The software of that facility counts as "one country" Lichtenstein with poor Vaduz and the USA with some 30 states (including Hawaii) as "one country" again. By such a count I have covered paltry 17% of the globe. See for yourselves if you like!

During the darkest of the winter one would hardly pack up and roam Turkey. Even its deepest south, right there by Alexandreta and Hatay, although covered with lush citrus gardens in full harvest - is not exactly warm. There are at least 20 events on the programe for the Turkey Now Festival and one of the highlights is a jazz concert that you can sample here: the well known Ayse Tutuncu Trio but other stuff as well. You will enjoy the rhythm and the temperament of Turkey here in Amsterdam right for St. Valentine day! Click for the full program in Dutch and Turkish. Pure Music and Art - good for the soul!

Mark Mazower: THESSALONIKI, The City of Ghosts, Contact, 558 pp, 2005, When it becomes obvious that counting sheep will not help me sleep and when I have 10 mg Lexilium pill next to the glass of water (this text goes to my nerves) then I take this book. It is an ementaler-like history of Salonica. If Mazower carried on back-packing around - he might have produced a travelogue but I would not trust him with a thing he writes. Poorly read reviewers shamelessly say his text was exciting. Further to being greatly false - it is dull and so lopsided that I need to write a review. Do not throw away your money on this piece of crap. Bas Soetenhorst en Michiel Zonneveld: AFREKENEN MET PEPER, Van Gennep, 235 pp, 2001 een spannende en onthullende reconstructie van de affaire. Met bijdragen van Leo Huberts en Hans van der Heuvel, Uri Rosenthal en Ruud Veenstra; Probably one of the most illustrative documents about the Dutch political zoo and its exotic exemplars. I have be re-reading this now and again. It is an effervescing spring of incredible twists of logic Only curiosity made me buy, on the outbound flight to Turkey, Orhan Pamuk's Istanbul, Memoirs and the City. Of what I made myself read, this is one of those impressively misconceived and then miscarried products under the authors loom. It is more a sadly borring collection of family album images by an ambitious high-school brat than anything remotely similar to literature. If Mr. Pamuk did not decide to extend his superfluous views over the Armenian question - it is most improbable that the worthless text would have been reviewed at all. If you have €30 to spare you may consider rewarding yourself and three friends for a Burger King meal on Schiphol instead. There is always something far more interesting going on and you will have eventually created an event more memorable than this book by Orhan Pamuk.

Please note this: "There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest."?Elie Wiesel, (1928- ) Writer, Nobel Peace Prize winner 1986 + + + MY SELECTION This gay guy, Hans Glaubitz till now our ambassadorial laughing stock in Tallinn, Estonia, found the people in that EU member-country impossible to bear with. What happens elsewhere? Compare Estonia and Macedonia. Minister Bernard Bot sends him, degraded, as our consul-general to Montreal. That is bad. Glaubitz should be send with his Cuban pitch-black boyfriend to Washington D.C. on the - same ambassadorial level. Let us teach President Bush and Secretary Rice a lesson about principles, equality of sexes, of sexual preferences and everything. (Pic: TV-Star Vesna "Baby" Petrusevska: What does the vagina smell like?) + + + Why film actress Labina Mitevska thinks that the Macedonians are a nation of losers and how come every nitwit becomes an expert in tourism overnight? With this kind of patriots the poor country betwer give up its diaspora. + + + A friend of mine is leaving for Spain next weekend and I expect him to bring me the tripple authored (Ferran Adria, Juli Soler, Albert Adria) most impressive catalogue ELBULLI 2003-2004 probably the most "with-it" gastronomy book around. It is 656 pages, weighs 4,500g, costs €140 and is accompanied with MAC/Windows iinteractive disc. Will be superb surprise if he tells me: You need not pay, this is a souvenier for guiding me to El Bulli, but I strongly doubt that...

Well, there is no need beating about the bush. After a year of fun and play we, the bloggers, though this may sound like we the people it is not anything like that famous declaration, must have realized that there is a lot of time, effort and skill poured into the VK. By both our generous hosts and by our modest selves. I believe that GJB and us could chat a bit about a new, commercial, twist to the individual pages. Since we are a sort of one big family and we have all grown up in a year, maybe we should see whether and how we could contribute to the costs of this facility, gather money for improving it and, doing so, earn a decent buck individually. The proposal is simple. GJB supplies those who are interested the price-list for a 300x300 pix slot on this column, agrees to pay us commission (which he anyways pays to others) and we contract sponsors who pay directly to VK upon which VK shells out our part. We as authors do not promote those sponsors in our posts. There are parties which do not even know about the VK but may be interested to advertise here for any reason, especially sponsoring an acquaintance's or friend's hobby or whatever. To secure that the big-time advertising wizards are not affected, we, the small fry, would be allowed to bring adds at lest 600 pixels under the ad at the top for which VK gets money. So, that is it. Simple like Senate Beans Soup. All we need do is agree on the percentage of the commission!

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