As pioneered by :

Bold I’ve read, Italic I’ve got but haven’t read. Yet. And underlined authors means I’ve read a different book by them.

The Adventures of Augie March – Saul Bellow
All the King’s Men – Robert Penn Warren
American Pastoral – Philip Roth
An American Tragedy – Theodore Dreiser
Animal Farm – George Orwell
Appointment in Samarra – John O’Hara
Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret – Judy Blume
The Assistant – Bernard Malamud
At Swim-Two-Birds – Flann O’Brien
Atonement – Ian McEwan
Beloved – Toni Morrison
The Berlin Stories – Christopher Isherwood
The Big Sleep – Raymond Chandler
The Blind Assassin – Margaret Atwood
Blood Meridian – Cormac McCarthy
Brideshead Revisited – Evelyn Waugh
The Bridge of San Luis Rey – Thornton Wilder
Call It Sleep – Henry Roth
Catch-22 – Joseph Heller
The Catcher in the Rye – J.D. Salinger
A Clockwork Orange – Anthony Burgess
The Confessions of Nat Turner – William Styron
The Corrections – Jonathan Franzen
The Crying of Lot 49 – Thomas Pynchon
A Dance to the Music of Time – Anthony Powell
The Day of the Locust – Nathaniel West
Death Comes for the Archbishop – Willa Cather
A Death in the Family – James Agee
The Death of the Heart – Elizabeth Bowen
Deliverance – James Dickey
Dog Soldiers – Robert Stone
Falconer – John Cheever
The French Lieutenant’s Woman – John Fowles
The Golden Notebook – Doris Lessing
Go Tell it on the Mountain – James Baldwin
Gone With the Wind – Margaret Mitchell
The Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck
Gravity’s Rainbow – Thomas Pynchon
The Great Gatsby – F. Scott Fitzgerald
A Handful of Dust – Evelyn Waugh
The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter – Carson McCullers
The Heart of the Matter – Graham Greene
Herzog – Saul Bellow
Housekeeping – Marilynne Robinson
A House for Mr. Biswas – V.S. Naipaul
I, Claudius – Robert Graves
Infinite Jest – David Foster Wallace
Invisible Man – Ralph Ellison
Light in August – William Faulkner
The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe – C.S. Lewis
Lolita – Vladimir Nabokov
Lord of the Flies – William Golding
The Lord of the Rings – J.R.R. Tolkein
Loving – Henry Green
Lucky Jim – Kingsley Amis
The Man Who Loved Children – Christina Stead
Midnight’s Children – Salman Rushdie
Money – Martin Amis
The Moviegoer – Walker Percy
Mrs. Dalloway – Virginia Woolf
Naked Lunch – William Burroughs
Native Son – Richard Wright
Neuromancer – William Gibson
Never Let Me Go – Kazuo Ishiguro
1984 – George Orwell
On the Road – Jack Kerouac
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest – Ken Kesey
The Painted Bird – Jerzy Kosinski
Pale Fire – Vladimir Nabokov
A Passage to India – E.M. Forster
Play It As It Lays – Joan Didion
Portnoy’s Complaint – Philip Roth
Possession – A.S. Byatt
The Power and the Glory – Graham Greene
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie – Muriel Spark
Rabbit, Run – John Updike
Ragtime – E.L. Doctorow
The Recognitions – William Gaddis
Red Harvest – Dashiell Hammett
Revolutionary Road – Richard Yates
The Sheltering Sky – Paul Bowles
Slaughterhouse-Five – Kurt Vonnegut
Snow Crash – Neal Stephenson
The Sot-Weed Factor – John Barth
The Sound and the Fury – William Faulkner
The Sportswriter – Richard Ford
The Spy Who Came in From the Cold – John LeCarre
The Sun Also Rises – Ernest Hemingway
Their Eyes Were Watching God – Zora Neale Hurston
Things Fall Apart – Chinua Achebe
To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee
To the Lighthouse – Virginia Woolf
Tropic of Cancer – Henry Miller
Ubik – Philip K. Dick
Under the Net – Iris Murdoch
Under the Volcano – Malcolm Lowry
Watchmen – Alan Moore & Dave Gibbons
White Noise – Don DeLillo
White Teeth – Zadie Smith
Wide Sargasso Sea – Jean Rhys

In one of the more unusual instances of my diverse interests suddenly converging, someone has just emailed me to ask if I can identify an Albanian to English translator in Belfast for next weekend (Friday to Sunday). I can’t. Anyone got any suggestions?

If consistency is the hob-goblin of little minds, does than mean that inconsistency is the elf-maiden of galactic consciousnesses?

6) Accelerando, by

The complete sequence of nine stories in Charles Stross’s series about the Singularity And After originally published in Asimov’s. As a diligent reader of Hugo-nominees, I had in fact read four of these nine stories before – “Lobsters”, “Halo”, “Nightfall” and “Elector”, respectively nominated for Hugo awards in 2002, 2003, 2004 and 2005, and being stories #1, #4, #6 and #8 in the sequence. Now we have all nine together between one set of covers, mildly revised and tightened up (so the author assures us). As I’ve said in previous reviews (linked to by year of nomination), I found them so full of ideas that they were a little difficult for me to absorb. Having them all together as a unit does help.

A few things jump out at me that didn’t hit me on first reading. First of all, family is very important; the three generations of Manfred -> Amber -> Sirhan are faintly reminiscent of Abraham -> Isaac -> Jacob. Big differences too, obviously, but the “founding family” myth is there. Second, Charlie’s language at his best is reminiscent of early Zelazny at his best. I’ve recently been reading Samuel R Delany’s essay on Zelazny and Disch, and it’s sort of weird – people were saying about RZ forty years ago what they say about CS today. And finally, I have realised that, of course, the “EU politician” mentioned in “Elector” is in fact Gianni from the previous stories, not (as I had bemusedly surmised) a completely new character meant to be in some way satirical.

Anyway, good stuff, headed for a decent result in next year’s Hugo ballot I expect…

If you can see this, you are one of a number of people who I am sending my contact details to, just so as you have them. I’m doing this via Plaxo’s address management sytem, which I’ve found to be pretty reliable and satisfactory, provided you use it carefully. If you should choose to reply to the Plaxo email with your own contact details (in some cases, I’m checking that I have them right) well, that would be great.

(If you don’t receive any email from Plaxo, and you can read this anyway, then something has gone wrong with my careful selection of recipients, or else your email system has simply filed the Plaxo update request as spam. Heigh ho.)

{Edited to add: Well, having looked at this thread, there’s obviously a couple of people to take off the list…]

Thanks, everyone, for your suggestions as to which Nobel laureate in literature I should try next. I may be able to return the favour by saying a little bit about Ivo Andrić, the Yugoslav writer of Bosnian Croat origin who won the prize in 1961, since I seem to be the only person of those who I’ve seen doing the meme who has actually read him.

I’ve read two books by Andrić, The Damned Yard, which is a collection of short stories, and Bridge on the Drina, probably his best known novel. The latter is a series of vignettes of the history of Višegrad and the bridge which links and separates the Serbs and Muslims of the town and their rulers, really great stuff once you get past the impaling in an early chapter. The former shows him at his best, in short stories; one in particular made a strong impression on me when I first read it – more on that in a moment. Also I picked up In The Days Of The Consuls, set in his native Travnik, when I was in Serbia a couple of weeks ago and it’s on my “to read” shelf.

Andrić does have the typical problem of the guy from a country background who migrated to the metropolis at an early stage and developed a condescension towards his original environment. In particular, his frequent portrayal of Bosnian Muslims as primitive “Turks” doesn’t go down well these days with the Bosniaks who fought a war to preserve their concept of a multi-ethnic state. I dunno myself; I grew up with people insisting that Northern Ireland used to be a “great wee place” before the Troubles, an earthly paradise where nothing went wrong. I heard a lot of that sort of talk when I was in Bosnia, and found Andrić a useful corrective.

The short story “Letter from 1920”, which is in the Damned Yard collection, is about Max Levenfeld, an old friend of the unnamed narrator; they bump into each other unexpectedly while changing trains in Slavonski Brod, and then Levenfeld (who is a Sarajevo Jew by origin) writes to the narrator to explain why he is leaving Bosnia for ever. The climactic passage, describing the different mental time zones of the different people of Sarajevo, reads now like a chilling prophecy of what was to come. (Someone once told me that Andrić originally intended to give the story the title “Letter from 1990”, but that sems to me too good to be true.) It should be read, of course, not as a definitive statement of the author’s own views but as a portrayal of the world-view of a fictional character.

My dear old friend,

When we ran into one another in Slavonski Brod our conversation was disjointed and difficult. And even had we had a far better occasion and more time, I don’t believe we would have understood one another and got to the bottom of everything. The unexpected meeting and abrupt departure made that quite impossible. I’m getting ready to leave Trieste where my mother is living. I’m going to Paris, where I have some relatives on my mother’s side. If they’ll allow me, as a foreigner, to practise medicine there, I’ll stay in Paris; if not, I’m truly going to South America.

I don’t believe that these few disjointed paragraphs I am writing in haste will be able to explain the matter fully, or justify in your eyes my “running away” from Bosnia. But I send them anyway, because I feel I owe you an answer, and remembering our school-days. I don’t want you to misunderstand me and see in me an ordinary Kraut and “carpetbagger” who lightly leaves the country he was born in, the moment she is beginning a free life and needs every ounce of her strength.

But let me come straight to the point. Bosnia is a wonderful country, fascinating, with nothing ordinary in the habitat or people. And just there are mineral riches under the earth in Bosnia, so undoubtedly are Bosnians rich in hidden moral values, which are more rarely found in their compatriots in other Yugoslav lands. But, you see, there’s one thing that the people of Bosnia, at least people of your kind, must realise and never lose sight of- Bosnia is a country of hatred and fear.

But leaving fear aside, which is only a correlative of hatred, the natural result of it, let us talk about hatred. Yes, about hatred. And instinctively you recoil and protest when you hear that word ( I saw it that night at the station), just as every one of you refuses to hear, grasp, and understand it. But it is precisely this that needs to be recognised, confirmed, and analysed. And the real harm lies in the fact that no one either wants or knows how to do it. For the fatal characteristic of this hatred is that the Bosnian man is unaware of the hatred that lives in him, shrinks from analysing it and – hates everyone who tries to do so. And yet it’s a fact that in Bosnia and Herzegovina there are more people ready in fits of this subconscious hatred to kill and be killed, for different reasons, and under different pretexts, then in other much bigger Slav and non-Slav lands.

I know that hatred, like anger, has its function in the development of society, because hatred gives strength, and anger provokes action. I know that there are ancient and deeply rooted injustices and abuses which only torrents of hatred and anger can uproot and wash away. And when these torrents dwindle and dry up, room for freedom remains, for the creation of a better life.

The people living at the time see the hatred and anger far better, because they are the sufferers by them, but their descendants see only the fruits of this strength and action. That I know well. But what I have seen in Bosnia – that is something different. It is hatred bat not limited just to a moment in the course of social change, or an inevitable part of the historical process; rather, it is hatred acting as an independent force, as an independent force as an end in itself. Hatred which sets man against man and casts both alike into misery and misfortune, on drives both opponents to the grave; hatred like a cancer in an organism, consuming and eating up everything around it, only to die itself at the last; because this kind of hatred, like a flame, has neither one constant form, nor a life of its own: it is simply the agent of the instinct of destruction or self destruction. It exists only in this form, and only until its task of total destruction has been completed. Yes, Bosnia is a country of hatred.

That is Bosnia. And by strange contrast, which in fact isn’t so strange, and could perhaps be easily explained by careful analysis, it can also be said that there are a few countries with such firm belief, elevated strength of character, so much tenderness and loving passion, such depth of feeling, of loyalty and unshakeable devotion, or with such a thirst for justice. But in secret depths underneath all this hide burning hatreds, entire hurricanes of tethered and compressed hatreds maturing and awaiting their hour.

The relationship between your loves and your hatred is the same as between your high mountains and the invisible geological strata underlying them, a thousand times larger and heavier. And thus you are condemned to live on deep layers of explosive which are lit from time to time by the very sparks of your loves and your fiery and violent emotion. Perhaps your greatest misfortune is precisely that you do not suspect just how mach hatred there is in your loves and passions, traditions and pieties. And just as, under the influence of atmospheric moisture and warmth, the earth on which we live passes into our bodies and gives them colour and form, determining the character and direction of our way of life and our actions – so does the strong, underground and invisible hatred on which Bosnia man lives, imperceptibly and indirectly enter into all his actions, even the best of them. Vice gives to hatred everywhere in the world, because it consumes and does not create, destroys, and does not build; but in countries like Bosnia, virtue itself often speaks and acts through hatred. With you, ascetics derive no love from their asceticism, but hatred for the voluptuary instead., abstainers hate those who drink, and drunkards feel a murderous hatred for the whole world.

Those who do believe and love feel a mortal hatred for those who don’t, or those who believe and love differently. And unhappily, the chief part of their belief and love is often consumed in this hatred. (The most evil and sinister-looking faces can be met in greatest numbers at places of worship – monasteries, and dervish tekkes.) Those who oppress and exploit the economically weaker do it with hatred into the bargain, which makes that exploitation a hundred times harder and uglier; while those who bear these injustices dream of justice and reprisal, but as some explosion of vengeance which, if it were realised according to their ideas, would perforce be so complete that it would blow to pieces the oppressed along with the hated oppressors.

You Bosnians have, for the most part, got used to keeping all the strength of your hatred for that which is closest to you. Your holy of holiest is, as a rule, three hundred rivers and mountains away, but the objects of your repulsion and hatred are right beside you, in the same town, often on the other side of your courtyard wall. So your love remains inert, but your hatred is easily spurred into action. And you love your homeland, you passionately love it, but in three or four different ways which are mutually exclusive, often come to blows, and hate each other to death.

In some Maupassant story there is a Dionysiac description of spring which ends with the remark that on such days, there should be a warning posted on every corner: “Citizens! This is spring-beware of love!” Perhaps in Bosnia men should be warned at every step in their every thought and their every feeling, even the most elevated, to be beware of hatred – of innate, unconscious, endemic hatred. Because this poor, backward country, in which four different faiths live cheek by jowl, needs four times as much love, mutual understanding and tolerance as other countries.

But in Bosnia, on the contrary, lack of understanding, periodically spilling over into open hatred, is the general characteristic of its people. The rifts between the different faiths are so deep that hatred alone can sometimes succeed in crossing them. I know that you could argue, and with sufficient reason, that a certain amount of progress can be seen in this direction., that the ideas of the nineteenth century have done their work here too, and after liberation and unification all this will go much better and faster. I’m afraid that this is not quite so. (In these past few months I think I have had a good view of the real relationships between people of different faiths and nationalities in Sarajevo!) On every occasion you will be told, and wherever you go you will read, “Love your brother, though his religion is other”, “It’s not the cross that marks the Slav”, “Respect others’ ways and take pride in your own”, “Total national solidarity recognises no religious or ethnic differences”.

But from time immemorial in Bosnian urban life there has been plenty of counterfeit courtesy, the wise deception of oneself and others by resounding words and empty ceremonies. That conceals the hatred up to a point, but doesn’t get rid of it or thwart its growth. I’m afraid that in these circles, under the cover of all these contemporary maxims, old instincts and Cainlike plans may only be slumbering, and will live on until the foundations of material and spiritual life in Bosnia are altogether changed. And when will that time come, and who will have the strength to carry it out? it will come one day, that I do believe; but what I’ve seen in Bosnia does not indicate that things are advancing along that path at present. On the contrary.

I have thought this over and over, especially in the last few months, when I was still struggling against my decision to leave Bosnia for ever. Of course a man obsessed with such thoughts cannot sleep well, and I would lie in front of an open window in the room where I was born, while the sound of the Miljacka alternated with the rustling of the leaves in the early autumn wind.

Whoever lies awake at night in Sarajevo hears the voices of the Sarajevo night. The clock on the Catholic cathedral strikes the hour with weighty confidence: 2 AM. More than a minute passes (to be exact, seventy-five seconds – I counted) and only then with a rather weaker, but piercing sound does the Orthodox church announce the hour, and chime its own 2 AM. A moment after it the tower clock on the Beys’ mosque strikes the hour in a hoarse, faraway voice, and that strikes 11, the ghostly Turkish hour, by the strange calculation of distant and alien parts of the world. The Jews have no clock to sound their hour, so God alone knows what time it is for them by the Sephardic reckoning or the Ashkenazy.

Thus at night, while everyone is sleeping, division keeps vigil in the counting of the late, small hours, and separates these sleeping people who, awake, rejoice and mourn, feast and fast by four different and antagonistic calendars, and send all their prayers and wishes to one heaven in four different ecclesiastical languages. And this difference, sometimes visible and open, sometimes invisible and hidden, is always similar to hatred, and often completely identical with it. This uniquely Bosnian hatred should be studied and eradicated like some pernicious, deeply-rooted disease.

Foreign scholars should come to Bosnia to study hatred, were only recognised as a separate, classified subject of study, as leprosy is. I considered whether I should devote myself to the study of this hatred and, by analysing it and bringing it to the of day, make my contribution to its destruction. Perhaps I was in duty bound to try, since, although a foreigner by birth, it was in Bosnia I first “saw the light of day”, as they say. But after my first attempts and much reflection, I realised I had neither the strength nor the ability to do it. I would be required to take sides, to hate and be hated; and that I neither wanted nor was able to do. Perhaps, if it had to be, I could have consented to fall a victim to hatred; but to live in hatred and with hatred, to be a part of it- that I can not do.

And in country like present-day Bosnia, the man who does not know how to hate or, what is still better and harder, consciously does not want to hate, is always something of a foreigner and freak, often a martyr. That holds true for all you who are born in Bosnia, and even more so for a newcomer. And so on one of those autumn nights listening to the strange chimes of the various and many-voiced Sarajevo towers, I concluded that I could not stay in Bosnia, my second home land, and did not have to. I’m not so naive as to look for any town in the world that has no hatred. No, I only need a place where I shall be able to live and work. Here, I would not be able to. You may now repeat your remark about my running away from Bosnia with mockery, perhaps even with contempt. This letter of mine won’t have the power to explain and justify my action to you, but it appears that there are occasions in life when the ancient Latin maxim non est salus nisi in fuga holds true. I beg you to believe one thing only: I am not running away from my duty as a man, but only attempting to perform it more completely, without hindrance. I wish you and our Bosnia the best of luck in its independent life in the new state.

Yours, M.L.

Not so much the description of Sarajevo, but the rationalisation for emigration, made a particular impression on me because at the time I first read it I was personally wrestling with the question of whether I would return to Northern Ireland after working in Bosnia. I had invested a great deal of my own time and intellectual capital in my political work with the Alliance Party, and I do love the place in general; and, as with Andrić’s Bosnia of 1920, big political changes which would certainly open up many new possibilities were on the way (this was in 1997). But I felt increasingly that I couldn’t go back, that having dipped my toes in the river of international politics I couldn’t returned a life of fighting occasionally successful elections in Newtownabbey, leavened by the odd foreign trip; I wanted something a bit more substantial. Yet this feeling did feel like a sort of betrayal, and Andrić’s story crystallised it for me. So it was an important point in the thought processes that led me to where I am today.

Thanks to Ken MacLeod for reporting that today’s editorial in The Sun is worried about “Sunni Iran” and “oil hungry Teheran” as causes of instability in Iraq. As Ken says, “I’ll say this for The Sun, it gives you information won’t find anywhere else.”

From , and a few others by now:

Writers I’ve read (or seen a play by). Writers I haven’t read but have at least heard of.

2005 Harold Pinter
2004 Elfriede Jelinek
2003 J.M. Coetzee
2002 Imre Kertesz
2001 V.S. Naipaul
2000 Gao Xingjian
1999 Gunter Grass
1998 Jose Saramago
1997 Dario Fo
1996 Wislawa Szymborska
1995 Seamus Heaney
1994 Kenzaburo Oe
1993 Toni Morrison
1992 Derek Walcott
1991 Nadine Gordimer
1990 Octavio Paz
1989 Camilo Jose Cela
1988 Naguib Mahfouz
1987 Joseph Brodsky
1986 Wole Soyinka
1985 Claude Simon
1984 Jaroslav Seifert
1983 William Golding
1982 Gabriel Garcia Marquez
1981 Elias Canetti
1980 Czeslaw Milosz
1979 Odysseus Elytis
1978 Isaac Bashevis Singer
1977 Vicente Aleixandre
1976 Saul Bellow
1975 Eugenio Montale
1974 Eyvind Johnson and Harry Martinson
1973 Patrick White
1972 Heinrich Boll
1971 Pablo Neruda
1970 Alexandr Solzhenitsyn
1969 Samuel Beckett
1968 Yasunari Kawabata
1967 Miguel Angel Asturias
1966 Samuel Agnon, Nelly Sachs
1965 Mikhail Sholokhov
1964 Jean Paul Sartre
1963 Giorgios Seferis
1962 John Steinbeck
1961 Ivo Andric
1960 Saint-John Perse
1959 Salvatore Quasimodo
1958 Boris Pasternak
1957 Albert Camus
1956 Juan Ramon Jimenez
1955 Halldor Laxness
1954 Ernest Hemingway
1953 Winston S. Churchill
1952 Francois Mauriac
1951 Par Lagerkvist
1950 Bertrand Russell
1949 William Faulkner
1948 T.S. Eliot
1947 Andre Gide
1946 Hermann Hesse
1945 Gabriela Mistral
1944 Johannes V. Jensen
1939 Frans Eemil Silanpaa
1938 Pearl Buck
1937 Roger Martin du Gard
1936 Eugene O’Neill
1934 Luigi Pirandello
1933 Ivan Bunin
1932 John Galsworthy
1931 Erik Axel Karlfeldt
1930 Sinclair Lewis
1929 Thomas Mann
1928 Sigrid Undset
1927 Henri Bergson
1926 Grazia Deledda
1925 George Bernard Shaw
1924 Wladyslaw Reymont
1923 William Butler Yeats
1922 Jacinto Benavente
1921 Anatole France
1920 Knut Hamsun
1919 Carl Spitteler
1917 Karl Gjellerup and Henrik Pontoppidan
1916 Verner von Heidenstam
1915 Romain Rolland
1913 Rabindranaqth Tagore
1912 Gerhart Hauptmann
1911 Maurice Maeterlinck
1910 Paul Heyse
1909 Selma Lagerlof
1908 Rudolf Eucken
1907 Rudyard Kipling
1906 Giosue Carducci
1905 Henryk Sienkiewicz
1904 Frederic Mistral, Jose Echegaray
1903 Bjornstjerne Bjornson
1902 Theodor Mommsen
1901 Sully Prudhomme

So who should I try next?

Travel meme from , sorry, here:

You’ll need an atlas. This astrologer’s atlas is at least accurate on longitude and latitude; even Wikipedia is pretty useful.

What are the furthest points North, South, East and West you have visited?

Farthest north for me: Åre, Sweden: 63.40 degrees north
Farthest south: Jerusalem, 31.76 degrees north
Farthest east: Baku, Azerbaijan: 49.88 degrees east
Farthest west: San Francisco, California: 122.44 degrees west

These four points can be used to define a rectangle (well, in more-or-less spherical geometry they do) whose borders lie along the lines of latitude and longitude you have identified. What’s at the centre of this region? Have you been there? Where is the nearest place to the centre you have visited?

Centre of rectangle: 36.28 degrees west, 47.58 degrees north; it’s the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, the nearest land apparently being the island of Corvo in the Azores. I’ve never been there, nor have I been to Corvo island; my centre spot is about equidistant from the far west of Ireland and New Brunswick, both of which I have been to.

Actually I suspect this meme is best suited to those who have spent their lives exclusively on one continent. And anyone who’s actually gone around the world, or been further west than they have east, can’t do it at all.

Still, it gave me the excuse for a nice picture:

News from EurActiv:

Estonia is the only country in Europe where access to the internet is a constitutional right. Sixty per cent of the country’s 1.33 million inhabitants have internet-connected computers at their homes. Those who also have an electronic identity card can use it to vote via the internet in the local government council elections.

We will watch with interest…

Pictures from Robert Pirsig’s 1968 trip on which the book was based. (Hat-tip .)

http://www.antiwar.com/malic/?articleid=7601

Yet it would be wrong to think the ICG is influencing Washington and Brussels. Rather, the Group is a front for Imperialist policymakers who dominate both state apparatuses regardless of the party in power; its status in the media of a “respected think tank” allows it to air views that may be seen as extremist at the time, but through repetition and gradual adoption become mainstream.

You would think they could pay me better if that were really the case.

http://www.serbianna.com/columns/mb/041.shtml

However, a slightly streamlined position of a “conditional” independence for the Kosovo province has been circulated in the media by the newly elected Prime Minister of Albania, Sali Berisha, and in all likelihood on the insistence of the ICG whose proximity to the Brussels provides a first hand take at the sentiments of fear among European diplomats at the certainty that Kosovo will join Albania and politically probably absorb it if approved independence.

I love the concept of my being able to make the new Albanian government tremble and bow to my will! As it happens, I do vaguely know two of the ministers in Berisha’s cabinet; I emailed them both with a short note of congratulations when they were appointed last month; one of them replied, the other did not bother. I haven’t even seen their ambassador here for months, though I have a lunch date with him on Friday.

I talked to a journalist the other day; and forgot to clarify whether I was on or off the record. So my heart leapt to my mouth this morning when I realised I had been quoted, perfectly accurately, as saying that a senior UN official has a record of “infuriating friends, colleagues and allies.” A quick and grovelling phone call to the international war crimes tribunal in the Hague followed. But her political adviser told me not to worry. “First of all,” he said “We hadn’t actually picked up on this report. And secondly, I think she will be flattered rather than annoyed!”

Phew.

In Balmoral, a stage 6 Alliance (Ekin) transfer went 42% to Sinn Féin (Long) and 42% to the UUP (Birnie and Stoker); normally, one would expect the UUP to get rather more than SF. Then, in stage 7, the UUP (Birnie) was pipped by less than 1 vote by the DUP (Patterson), and in stage 9, the latter was elected.

There is no mystery here; Ekin’s surplus came from the votes transferred to him from an SDLP candidate. Of the 1673 votes in his quote, 1508 were from Alliance first preferences, 16 from an independent candidate and the rest from elected and excluded SDLP candidates. Ekin had a surplus because he got too many votes from the SDLP; it’s entirely defensible that the votes that arrived with Ekin last were also the first out. Sad for Esmond Birnie, but wntirely within the rules.

At stage 6 in West Tyrone, the UUP (Bleakley) on 918.74 and SF (Kelly) on 913.08 were competing for the last seat under a quota of 1078. An SDLP (McDonnell) surplus of 31.19 was then transferred, stage 7, and even though his total of 1109.19 included 3.29 votes from the DUP, nothing went to the UUP, pretty well everything went to SF, and just 0.44 was non-transferable. Kelly went on to 932.58 and was elected (by default), while Bleakley, still on 918.74, was unelected.

This really is a completely inadequate description of what happened. Barry McElduff (SF) had a surplus of 393 (quota was 1078, he had 1471 first preferences and so was elected on the first count). His surplus was distributed on the second count. There were 1427 ballot papers with a first preference for McElduff and a valid next preference. They were therefore each transferred with a value of 0.27 (since 393/1427 = 0.275402943). 170 of these papers went to McDonnell at a value of 45.90; he already had 1060 first preferences and had picked up 3.29 votes (7 papers at 0.47) from a DUP first count surplus, so it was enough to put McDonnell over the quota by 31.19.

When it finally came time for McDonnell’s surplus to be distributed, the 170 votes that put him over the quote were the ones from which the surplus was taken. There were 123 of them, so they were transferred at a value of 0.25 (since 31.19/123 = 0.253577236). Not at all surprising that since they came from SF they went back to SF, since the only other remaining candidate was a Unionist.

To say that “just 0.44 was non-transferable” is simply wrong. In point of fact, 47 of the transferred votes in the package of 170 were non-transferable. The 0.44 added to the “Non-transferable” tally is a book-keeping factor, with only an indirect relation to the pieces of paper.

But even if we took the position that the 3.29 votes from the DUP should have counted in the 31.19 surplus, each of the seven ballot papers in question would have had its value rounded down to 0.01; it would not have done much for Bleakley.

Other anomalies, if not errors, occurred. In Abbey, for example, with two other DUP candidates and one UUP already elected and with 3 other candidates eliminated, a stage 8 surplus from the DUP apparently involved no non-transferables at all!

Nothing at all incredible here. The surplus was 8.96; 32 votes happened to be transferable; so each of them went at a rate of 0.28, with nothing left over.

In Moyle, a stage 2 transfer showed a non-transferable total of 0.22 which equates with an impossibility: just half a voter!

No idea where this “half a voter” comes from. This count is such a simple one that I may as well put the entire thing here (slightly rearranged for clarity):

David McAllister	DUP	481	-198.00	283.00
George Hartin	DUP	470	–	470.00
William Graham	UUP	326	–	326.00
Price McConaghy	Ind	222	59.74	281.74
Robert McIlroy	UUP	172	123.54	295.54
Thomas Palmer	Ind	23	14.50	37.50

It’s fairly straightforward to calculate that 341 of McAllister’s 481 votes were transferable, at a rate of 0.58 (since 198/341 = 0.580645161); and 213 went to McIlroy, 103 to McConaghy and 25 to Palmer. That leaves a remaider of 0.22.

Well, as guessed, the mysterious pronunciation of “divisive” by Tom Daschle was, in fact, di-VISS-ive /dəˈvɪsɪv/ – so far of 76 people who’ve taken my poll, precisely one shares that pronunciation; and she is Swedish. It’s seven each for di-VIZZ-ive /dəˈvɪzɪv/ and di-VIZE-ive /dəˈvaɪzɪv/, with a certain Belfast/Baltic bias for the first, and a slight Scottish preference for the second, but nothing too systematic. I’m with the 80% who say di-VICE-ive /dəˈvaɪsɪv/. So perhaps we have established a distinct Stockholm/South Dakota pronunciation of the word.

For the other variant, the “trap/bath” split, basically the question being do “crass” and “class” rhyme for you, we who think they do rhyme outnumber youse who think they don’t rhyme by two to one. There’s a fairly obvious southern England grouping who pronounce the two vowels differently, joined by the odd Australian, and a few dissident Americans, Scots, and Irish (including, er, my brother). There’s an interesting Wikipedia article about this here.

I’m asking because I heard an interview with Tom Daschle this morning and was really surprised by his pronunciation; wondering if it’s just a South Dakota thing, or if it’s more widespread?

(The mysterious symbols between slashes are the international phonetic alphabet renderings of the sounds, to try and make it clearer what I mean – probably unsuccessfully!)

…Unicef actually did it for Belgian TV here (3 MB .wmv file) – the Smurfs bit starts 39 seconds into the clip.

It should be added that there is a Serious Message here as well, and that Unicef deserve our support.

The race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favor to men of skill; but time and chance happen to them all. (Ecclesiastes, 9:11)

It may be that the race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong – but that’s the way to bet. (Damon Runyon)

1. Name someone with the same birthday as you:
   I actually have a web page about this. Unfortunately none of them is particularly famous. It’s a bit out of date now, in that I have discovered two celebrities, wrestler Glenn Jacobs and musician/actress Marianne Jean-Baptiste, who were born on precisely the same date as me. I see Warren Clarke (1947) should also be on the list.
2. Where was your first kiss?
   At a sixth form disco; it never came to anything (she just snogged me randomly, at least partly to annoy her boyfriend).
3. Have you ever seriously vandalized someone else’s property?
   No.
4. Have you ever hit someone of the opposite sex?
   No.
5. Have you ever sung in front of a large number of people?
   Apart from the odd office party, not much since my school days.
6. What’s the first thing you notice about the preferred sex?
   Curves.
7. What really turns you on?
   Curves.
8. What do you order at Starbucks?
   Frappucino.
9. What is your biggest mistake?
   Not getting out of studying science sooner.
10. Have you ever hurt yourself on purpose?
    No.
11. Say something totally random about yourself:
    I like factorising large numbers.
12. Has anyone ever said you looked like a celebrity?
    Not since Joe Ninety ended.
13. Do you still watch kiddy movies or tv shows?
    I sometimes get little choice!
14. Did you have braces?
    No.
15. Are you comfortable with your height?
    Yes.
16. What is the most romantic thing someone of the preferred sex has done for you?
    I’ll take the fifth.
17. When do you know it’s love?
    You just do.
18. Do you speak any other languages?
    Dutch, French, German, a little Serbian/Croatian/Bosnia and a bit less Macedonian, Russian and Italian.
19. Have you ever been to a tanning salon?
    Never.
20. What magazines do you read?
    The Economist; Interzone; sometimes the US sf magazines; my subscription to Fortnight (Northern Ireland current affairs monthly, despite the title) has just lapsed; I pick up E-Sharp and The Sprout (both EU politics) when I see them.
21. Have you ever ridden in a limo?
    No. Ambassadorial cars, yes.
22. Has anyone you were really close to passed away?
    Yes.
23. Do you watch MTV?
    Not systematically. Will occasionally pause while channel-surfing.
24. What’s something that really annoys you?
    Bigotry.
25. What’s something you really like?
    Lying in bed reading a good book.
26. Do you like Michael Jackson?
    No.
27. Can you dance?
    I do dance when it’s called for. I don’t think I’m especially good at it though.
28. What’s the latest you have ever stayed up?
    I have pulled plenty of all-nighters in my time, but could never go all the way through the next day – sleep inevitably kicks in arouond breakfast time.
29. Have you ever been rushed by an ambulance into the emergency room?
    No. Have driven my wife to hospital three times to have babies.
30. Do you actually read these when other people fill them out?
    Yes. Do you?

Just spent a half hour listening to last week’s BBC Radio documentary about Arthur C Clarke. Summary here, Real Audio recording here. Fascinating stuff; Heather Couper goes to Sri Lanka to interview him on the occasion of the 60th anniversary of his Wireless World paper, “Extraterrestrial “Relays”, which paved the way for communications satellites. Contributions also from Clarke’s brother Fred and sf author Stephen Baxter, and extracts from his books. Most memorable bits for me were Clarke’s own modesty in admitting he failed to foresee the silicon chip (though I think he came pretty close, in Imperial Earth) and the banter between Clarke and Asimov at a 1974 public meeting in London:

Clarke: Ladies, gentlemen, and, in case there are any robots or extraterrestrials present, gentlebeings: I’m not going to waste any time introducing Isaac Asimov. That would be as pointless as introducing the Equator, which indeed he is coming to resemble more and more closely.
The rumour that there is a certain rivalry between us should have been put to rest once and for all in my recent book, Report on Planet Three. For those of you foolish enough not to have obtained that small masterpiece, the dedication reads as follows:
In accordance with the terms of the Clarke-Asimov Treaty, the second-best science writer dedicates this book to the second-best science fiction writer.

Asimov: …from here on in, I won’t mention him at all. Let us instead talk about science fiction, which after all is what we both do – I because I am a great writer, and Arthur because he is a stubborn writer.

I’ve just done a moderate update of my list of sf and fantasy set in Ireland.

Added the following – in many cases I don’t know much about them, so if you think they don’t belong on the list – and also if you know of other books that should be on it – please let me know in comments or by email.

Novels
(Anonymous) The Dawn of the Twentieth Century: A Novel, Social and Political, 1882
Mary Arrigan, Searching for the Green (thanks, )
Paul Brandon, The Wild Reel, 2002
Lisa Carey, The Mermaids Singing (2002)
George Green, Hound (2003)
Patricia MacDowell, Daughter of the Boyne (1992); Sorrows of Tara (1995) (thanks, )
Marsha Mehran, Pomegranate Soup (2005)
Caiseal Mór, the Wellspring trilogy: The Well Of Yearning (2004), The Well of the Goddess (2005), The Well of Many Blessings (2005)
T.P. O’Mahoney, The Lynch Years: A Political Fantasy (1986)
Selina Rosen, Adventures of the Irish Ninja (1998)
Melissa Tantaquidgeon Zobel, Oracles: A Novel (2004)

Novels featuring Ireland in the background
David Graham, Down to a Sunless Sea
Howard Waldrop, The Texas-Israeli War, 1999 (1974)

Short stories

• Richard Cowper, “Piper at the Gates of Dawn” (F&SF March 1976)
• Gil Fitzgerald, “The Vengeance of Nora O’Donnell” (F&SF, April 1983)
• Robert E. Howard, “The Dark Man” (Weird Tales, December 1931)
• Peadar Ó Guilín, “The Mourning Trees” (Black Gate, issue 5, Spring 2003); “The Bag” (Reckless Abandon, ed. David Sparks and Bob Strauss, 2002); “Fairy Fort” (Walk On the Darkside, ed. John Pelan, 2004); “Hair”; all horror short stories.
• Joel Richards (Joel Richard Fruchtman), “In the Prison of His Days” (Alternate Generals II, ed. Harry Turtledove & Martin H. Greenberg, 2002)
• Gene Wolfe, “How the Bishop Sailed to Inniskeen” (Asimov’s Dec 1989)

As always, grateful for more material, including also anyone who can identify these stories that people have asked me about:

1) a brilliant short story possibly called “Ringsend”: it was set in Dublin after a cataclysm in which everyone died. It becomes a very funny and absurd account of the protagonist’s discomfiture when one day he meets the only other survivor – a girl he had fancied and was rebuffed years before.

2) A story by Lucius Shepard set in Ireland

3) A novel set in an Ireland rapidly modernised by aliens, and isolated from the world by stringent security? points out that this must be Fred Hoyle’s Ossian’s Ride.

4) A novel where Ireland developed the technology to produce a birth control pill, and was the only country in the world with this knowledge (written in the 50s or so 😉 The pill was made from turf and was made in one factory in the midlands. The protagonist of the book was a British secret agent, sent to infiltrate the factory.

5) Better to Have Loved: The Life of Judith Merril, by Judith Merril and Emily Pohl-Weary

Then some of my (male) friends and compeers began publishing politely laundered autobiographies of their successes and I was snowblinded by the detergent. Here were lists of stories sold, banquets attended, speeches given, editors lunched, even wives married and divorced, with never a shriek of tear or tremor or orgasm, and hardly a belly laugh anywhere… Somebody, I thought, should tell it like it was.

Well, she certainly did. I remember as a teenager reading with fascination Fred Pohl’s memoir, The Way the Future Was, and thinking that at last I had a real insight into the life of a real science fiction writer. I now know that he wasn’t telling us the half of it; he, Walter M. Miller, Theodore Sturgeon and Fritz Leiber, as well as being giants in the field, had something more intimate in common too.

But this is not a kiss and tell book; it’s a passionate account of a passionate woman, pulled together from drafts and essays by her granddaughter, several years after her death. I’m afraid I skipped some bits – the correspondence between writers about writing and the weather and how much they liked each other, whether from the 1940s or the 1990s, didn’t really grab me, and I also didn’t appreciate the format of shifting typefaces.

There were three chapters though that really came alive: her account of her intense but platonic friendship with Cyril Kornbluth, which coincided with her affair with Leiber (while she was still just about married to Pohl) was a gripping piece of introspective writing; a bit later on, the dramatic account of the shotgun confrontation during a custody dispute between Pohl and Miller, which apparently she could only bring herself to talk about on the record a few days before her death; and, more positively, her account of settling in to Toronto on the wings of resistance to the Vietnam War, which made the city sound recognisably like the one described in ‘s livejournal, if at a rawer stage of its development.

I also really wish I knew more about her mini-documentaries which filled in the rest of the half-hour for CBC’s broadcasts of Doctor Who. The dates aren’t given, but it must have been in the mid-1970s glory days of the series, either late Pertwee or early Tom Baker. I wonder if they will ever be seen again?

4) Macedonia: The Bradt Travel Guide, by Thammy Evans

It’s always a pleasure when someone you like writes a book you like about a subject you like. I’ve only known Thammy for a couple of years, but her husband is one of the two or three people still involved in the Balkans who I got to know when I first went out there in 1997. Her book is perhaps the first guide book ever written about Macedonia; I’m sure it won’t be the last. She rightly concentrates on the capital Skopje, its immediate surroundings, and the resort town of Ohrid on the lake of the same name; but she also devotes time to the rest of the country (broadly, the rest of the south-west, the rest of the north-west, the north-east and the south-east).

I’ve done less travel in Macedonia than she has, tending to yo-yo between Skopje and Ohrid; but on my first visit in 1997, I did a long tour taking in Štip, Strumica, Bitola, Gostivar and Tetovo, and during a lull in the 2001 fighting I participated in what in retrospect was a very bizarre trip down the western side of the country, through Tetovo, the Sveti Jovan Bigorski monatery, Debar and Struga, ending up with a prudent detour home through Prilep as the fighting intensified on the other road. (I also visited the Bektashi Shrine in Tetovo a few weeks ago.) Part of the thrill of a book like this is to plan for things I must go and see next time I am fortunate enough to be in the country; the stone age observatory near Kumanovo sounds particularly intriguing, and I want to get a better idea of what my grandfather was up to in the Lake Doiran campaigns of the first world war. Even around Skopje, which I thought I knew pretty well, there’s more stuff to discover – I’ve seen the sarcophagus of Goce Delčev in the courtyard of Sveti Spas on several occasions, but somehow never discovered the next-door exhibition about his life; nor was I aware of the grisly detail that the revolutionary hero’s head was lost shortly after his execution.

In her chapter on Lake Ohrid, she rightly extols the virtues of the special trout found only there. Alas, as she and I discovered over dinner in Skopje last time I saw her, you can’t get the Ohrid trout any more; they are under environmental protection, and simply not being sold in restaurants. At least, not in the restaurants I know of.

Slightly surprised that Gostivar is not one of the towns described in detail; it’s no less interesting than many of those that are. Also if I’d been on the editorial team I’d have used the more usual English names of some of the historical figures – Emperor Basil II, for instance, rather than Vasilie/Vasilius/Basilius, and Bohemund of Tarentum rather than Boemund of Tarent. Lazar Koliševski’s name is misspelt on one of the two occasions it is used. Few readers need be bothered by this kind of thing. Anybody fortunate enough to be going to Macedonia should buy the book.

Edited to add, May 2007: The second edition is now out, with an extra 80 pages and most of the points I note above addressed (including especially Gostivar). Even more strongly recommended.

3) The Clan Corporate, by

Gosh. The best of the “Merchant Princes” series so far. Miriam Beckstein attempts to play the game by her own rules, but there are plenty of her relatives who have been playing it better for much longer… We see more of Miriam the former investigative journalist rather than the startup manager this time, and her ex-boyfriend turns up. Ends on a great cliff-hanger (unlike the first book). No economics lectures (unlike the second book). Can’t wait until it comes out.

Am at studio pre-recording interview for ‘The World Tonight’ on Radio 4 this evening at 10 pm British time. Let me know if they use it!

From today’s Financial Times:

Orange dawn in Brussels
Published: October 7 2005 03:00

Is there an unwritten directive requiring the European Commission to support the Dutch royal family? Perhaps it is Brussels’ recompense for throwing the Oranges out of Belgium in 1830.

Neelie “no pussycat” Kroes, the competition commissioner, has just taken on Jaime Bourbon de Parme, nephew of Queen Beatrix, as her personal assistant.

Beatrix’s son, Constantijn van Oranje, worked for ex-Dutch commissioner Hans van den Broek in the 1990s. He now runs a consultancy in Brussels.

Bourbon is a career diplomat (perhaps even a born one given the family history) who was, Observer understands, on a shortlist of one provided by The Hague to Kroes to replace Hans Kribbe, who has joined lobbyists G-Plus. Conveniently, his dad Carlos Bourbon de Parme, who briefly claimed the Spanish throne in the 1960s, lives in Brussels.

“He has been posted here by the Dutch foreign ministry,” says Observer’s man at court, though Kroes’s aides say she chose him.

Ben Smulders, her chief of staff, says Bourbon brings vital diplomatic experience. He has spent time in Iraq and Afghanistan, so he should be handy at fending off attacks in the bureaucratic jungle, particularly from Günter Verheugen, the über-competitive competitiveness commissioner, who likes to blunt Neelie’s claws.

It is usual for a Dutch royal to work for a living. “From what I hear, he is very down-to-earth and unpretentious, like most of them,” says Observer’s palace flunkey.

He might find life at the court of Queen Neelie a bit different, then.

The fact that Queen Beatrix’s nephew and her son have got (admittedly similar) Brussels jobs eleven years apart is hardly a growing trend! Anyway while Jaime de Bourbon Parma’s mother is the sister of Queen Beatrix, she gave up her rights to the throne in 1963; and while his father did have aspirations to the throne of Spain, that is a dead issue now. I met him a few years ago and he seemed a perfectly normal, if perhaps brighter than average, Dutch diplomat; he was not at last year’s wedding. His twin sister Margarita appears to be a different matter.

Koningshuis: Oranje Europeanen

Jaime de Bourbon de Parme gaat naar Brussel. Die stad werkt als een magneet op de Oranjes. Ze werken er anoniem. ‘De Oranjes zijn goede Europeanen.’

Europees commissaris Neelie Kroes (63) zocht een persoonlijk assistent met strategisch denkvermogen en vond deze in Jaime de Bourbon de Parme (32). ‘Ik heb hem zelf gevraagd. Er was een vacature in mijn kabinet en ik had behoefte aan –iemand met internationale kennis en scherpe intelligentie. Met zijn ervaring op Buitenlandse Zaken paste Jaime precies in dat profiel,’ zegt de voormalige VVD-minister.

Met haar nieuwe assistent, een zoon van prinses Irene, haalde Kroes het zesde lid van de koninklijke familie naar Brussel. De Belgische hoofdstad werkt kennelijk als een magneet op de Oranjes. Koningin Beatrix leidde als kroonprinses al een Europese werkgroep. Of zoals oud-Europees commissaris Hans van den Broek (CDA) het zegt: ‘De Oranjes zijn goede Europeanen.’

Commissaris Kroes (Mededinging) bezweert dat haar keuze voor de prins niets van doen heeft met diens afkomst. ‘Voor mij telt inhoudelijkheid en anders niets.’ Maar ze kende de Oranjetelg wel. ‘Ja, u kunt me beter vragen wie ik in Nederland niet ken.’

Het kabinet van een Europees commissaris telt lieden uit verschillende lidstaten van de –Europese Unie. Kroes, wier werkzaam–heden zich uitstrekken over de hele wereld, zegt te beschikken over een ‘uitstekend team’ –bestaande uit onder meer juristen en economen. Haar nieuwste medewerker studeerde internationale betrekkingen, werkte bij ABN Amro in Argentinië en Brazilië, de Wereldbank in Washington en als diplomaat in Rwanda, op de Balkan, in Irak en in –Afghanistan.

Van den Broek nam destijds prins Constantijn in zijn kabinet op. De jurist en jongste zoon van koningin Beatrix was eerst stagiair en later lid van Van den Broeks kabinet. Als hij geen prins was geweest, zou hij graag politicus zijn geworden. Van den Broek: ‘Hij onderhield de relaties met het parlement en ging ook vaak met me mee naar Straatsburg.’

Brussel trekt veel ambitieuze jongelui. Met een goed cv op zak en hard werken voor weinig geld doen ze ervaring op bij internationale instellingen. Daarna hopen ze er een goedbetaalde baan te vinden in het circuit van belangenbehartigers die tegen die instellingen aanschurken. Zo ging het eind jaren tachtig ook met prins Carlos (35), Jaime’s oudere broer. Hij liep stage bij het directoraat generaal voorlichting (nu persvoorlichting) van de Europese Commissie en belandde daarna bij European Policy Advisors. Nu kent hij als ondernemer de weg in Brussel perfect.

Een stageplek veroveren is voor een mens van koninklijke bloede makkelijker dan voor een gewone sterveling. Vooral in de tijd van Carlos was het geen probleem om via-via in Brussel aan de slag te komen. Hij had zelfs onderdak bij een Brusselse topambtenaar.

Prinses Laurentien kreeg ‘Europa’ van huis uit mee. Als meisje vergezelde ze haar vader, D66-minister Laurens Jan Brinkhorst, al naar de Europese Beweging. Na even bij CNN en de Haagsche Courant te hebben gewerkt, vestigde ze zich in Brussel. Werkte bij een denktank, behartigde de belangen van tabaksfabrikant Philip Morris en was vice-president bij een internationaal pr-bureau.

Prins Constantijn zat in hetzelfde circuit. Op een dag verscheen hij bij een borrel van commissaris Van den Broek met Laurentien. Daarna waren ze onafscheidelijk in het Brusselse circuit. Laurentien introduceerde later directeur Mabel Wisse Smit van het Open Society Institute bij Constantijns oudere broer Friso. Netwerken is de helft van het werk in Brussel.

Dat blijkt wel uit het gezelschap dat een paar jaar daarvoor gezamenlijk lunchte: Van den Broek, Constantijn, de europarlementariërs Arie Oostlander (CDA) en Willem Jan Bertens (D66) plus Mabel en haar toenmalige vriend, de Bosnische VN-ambassadeur Mohammed Sacirbey. In 2004 trouwde Mabel met Friso. Eveneens in dat jaar financierde haar organisatie samen met de British Council een rapport dat door onder meer Hans van den Broek werd geschreven ten gunste van de toetreding van Turkije tot de Europese Unie. Een kleine wereld.

Voordat Constantijn bij de Commissie kwam werken, was er vanuit Nederland een missive gekomen om de nieuweling met ‘prins’ aan te spreken. Maar die zat daar zelf niet op te wachten. Hij ontpopte zich als een gewone medewerker, die ’s avonds graag mee ging om een steak te eten bij Frère Istas, een simpel maar goed restaurant waar sinds jaar en dag dezelfde rondborstige dames bedienen. Constantijn trapte ook graag een balletje in het Jubelpark.

In Brussel kan de jongste zoon van de Koningin dat makkelijker doen dan in Nederland. De anonimiteit daar biedt een kans om redelijk normaal te leven. Ze komen er graag van jongs af aan. Zelfs prinses Máxima heeft iets met Brussel: ze woonde en werkte er in 2000 een blauwe maandag, maar dat was vooral om te kunnen wennen aan Europa en dichter bij – toen nog vriend – kroonprins Willem-Alexander te zijn.

Het Brusselse circuit is een prettig milieu om sociaal in te bewegen. Niet voor niets wonen Constantijn en Laurentien, inmiddels 35 en 39 jaar en ouders van twee kinderen, nog altijd in Brussel, waar zij communicatieadviseur is en hij beleidsonderzoeker bij de non-profitorganisatie Rand Europe, bijvoorbeeld op het terrein van innovatie en de informatiemaatschappij. Ook adviseert Constantijn staatssecretaris Atzo Nicolaï (Europese Zaken) over strategieën om de kennis over Europa te vergroten, bijvoorbeeld in het onderwijs. Zo gaf hij vorig jaar nog een uiteenzetting voor diplomaten.

Een gewone medewerker, maar toch ook niet helemaal. De bijna aangeboren terughoudendheid laat een Oranje nooit varen. Zelfs niet in Brussel, al zijn ze daar wel wat gewend met een ‘monsieur le president’ als Giscard d’Estaing in het Europees Parlement en markiezen en graven, zoals destijds de Duitser Otto Graf von Habsburg.

De Brusselse correspondenten interesseerden zich in zijn tijd bij de Commissie amper voor Constantijn. Maar de roddelpers repte over een relatie met collega Lousewies van der Laan, ook lid van het kabinet-Van den Broek, later europarlementariër en nu Tweede-Kamerlid (D66). Hoe het ook zij, Van der Laan foeterde over de canard, maar werd voortaan geassocieerd met het koningshuis. Wat voor een ambitieus burgermeisje op zichzelf niet nadelig is.

Ook in Brussel koesteren genoeg mensen zich graag in koninklijk gezelschap. Zoals een voormalige Brusselse ambtenaar zegt: ‘Face to face met een prins, voor een boel mensen is dat toch wel wat.’ Ook binnen de Europese Commissie valt de aanwezigheid van koninklijke stagiairs of medewerkers altijd goed. ‘Het toucheert de ijdelheid,’ zegt diezelfde ambtenaar. ‘Vooral buitenlanders vinden dat wel wat hebben. La famille Royale. Ze voelen zichzelf ook in achting stijgen. Ach, het is een onschuldige vorm van ijdelheid.’

Alle geraadpleegde bronnen zijn enthousiast over de Brusselse Oranje-prinsen. Aardige kerels die zich nergens op laten voorstaan en gedegen werken. Jaime kan trouwens ook nog altijd met zijn vader, Carlos Hugo, eten, want die woont beurtelings in Wenen en Brussel. De hoofdstad van Europa: een ideale dependance voor een Oranje.

Kader bij artikel:

WANNEER NAAR BRUSSEL?

1989 Prins Carlos, stage bij directoraat-generaal voorlichting; later public affairs consultant European Public Policy Advisors

1992 Laurentien Brinkhorst, bij het Belmont European Policy Centre, een denktank; nu nog actief in Brussel als communicatieadviseur

1995 Prins Constantijn, stagiaire en later lid van kabinet Hans van den Broek; nu in dienst bij non-profitorganisatie Rand Europe

1997 Mabel Wisse Smit, directeur West-Europese vestiging van Open Society Institute

2000 Máxima, Deutsche Bank

2005 Prins Jaime, persoonlijk assistent eurocommissaris Neelie Kroes