Amusing stuff from Bosnia, where me old friend Mladen Ivanic was unexpectedly sacked as foreign minister earlier in the week. He had actually tendered his resignation back in December, but it was never implemented, and everyone assumed that it had been forgotten. Then he had a row with the prime minister a few days ago, and the PM unexpectedly accepted the resignation that had been on hisdesk for almost six months. Hilarious!

And the new acting Foreign Minister (subject, I suppose, to parliamentary approval) is another old friend of mine, Ana Trisic-Babic. She worked across the road from my office when I lived in Banja Luka, and we used to gather with her colleagues and bottles of beer on Friday evenings, and tell jokes. I remember one she told us, in the days when mobile phones were not yet ubiquitous in Bosnia:

Q. What is the difference between a mobile phone and a tampon?
A. Mobile phones are for assholes.

I sometimes miss that Balkan humour.