So, despite certain hassles from management, I find myself for the first time since I started this job with no reports stuck on my desk.

It’s been a long old haul. I inherited two awful draft reports from my predecessor when I took over in May 2002: one on corruption in Macedonia, which I eventually got out that August, and one on pan-Albanian nationalism, which finally got out in February this year. By then I had amassed another two difficult ones, on Azerbaijan and on Moldova; Azerbaijan was published last month, and Moldova I finally pushed onto the next stage yesterday.

My biggest problem with this job is that I feel I’m not very good at – and I know I’m not very enthusiastic about – one of my main responsibilities: editing other people’s 30-50 page reports. I’ve come to realise that my preferred length for my own writing is between that of my better blog entries, say 700 words, and the 8,000 words that I can do for a major article. The more 2,000 word pieces I can do, the happier I am. And what I really enjoy is the pieces for my websites, on sf and elections.

If I were in a self-flagellating mood, I would worry about the fact that I don’t actually have any reports on my desk right now – the Bosnia one has been delayed to (I suspect) past the point where we can make a real contribution; the next Kosovo one hasn’t been started; I have a hand-waving guarantee about something on Georgia by the end of this month, and something on Armenia at the end of next; and the Macedonia one – first draft – is due in only next week.

But in fact I’m just relieved. I’m also somewhat relieved by the fact that apparently I have very few meetings scheduled for my trip to Moscow tomorrow and Friday. It will give me a chance to draw breath, catch up, etc.

But my plane takes off in two hours, and I must go and pack.

Despite the heat, and the excitement of the transit of Venus, I managed to get the Moldova paper off my desk yesterday. Yee-hah! Off to Moscow this evening.

When I did the political compass thing, I ended up a fair way down the libertarian axis, but only slightly left of centre, which bothered me a bit (I mean, that I wasn’t more left-wing). Now I’ve found an American-oriented “political spectrum” quiz, and the results are rather different:

Where do you fall on the liberal – conservative political spectrum? (United States)
brought to you by Quizilla

Whoo, didn’t take ’em long:

Ronald Reagan, Party Animal: The man who taught Republicans to be irresponsible, by Tim Noah

What Reagan Got Wrong: Liberty is not the absence of government, by William Saletan

Not Even a Hedgehog: The stupidity of Ronald Reagan, by Christopher Hitchens

The last of these is, of course, much the most entertaining:

I only saw him once up close, which happened to be when he got a question he didn’t like. Was it true that his staff in the 1980 debates had stolen President Carter’s briefing book? (They had.) The famously genial grin turned into a rictus of senile fury: I was looking at a cruel and stupid lizard. His reply was that maybe his staff had, and maybe they hadn’t, but what about the leak of the Pentagon Papers? Thus, a secret theft of presidential documents was equated with the public disclosure of needful information.

Well, I put together my massive dossier for the European Parliament job today, and sent it off to the applications centre in Luxembourg by registered mail. Apart from the application form itself, an extra 13 pages; two with my publications and earlier job history, four degree certificates, my current job contract, latest pay slip, last payslip from previous job and photocopies of both passports. We’ll see what happens.

Meantime a Moldovan on-line political science journal has very kindly put me on their advisory board, which is very nice of them, though I have to make sure it’s OK with my employers. And another small academic centre in the Balkans has offered to make me a Fellow, which I suppose will look OK on the CV for when the time comes. And a colleague has persuaded his father, who is a professor of Brecht studies in Utah, to invite me to Salt Lake City to give a lecture in the autumn. That is very cool indeed.

I had to cancel going to a conference about Moldova in the Hague today to stay in Brussels and try and finish the long-postponed Moldova report. Didn’t get as far as I would have liked, but there is light at the end of the tunnel. Basically trying to tweak the text so that it doesn’t offend liberal Russians but does offend conservatives. Not easy. I’m going to Moscow on Thrusday and Friday and will no doubt find out more there…

I have a web page analysing the influence of facial hair on the result of US Presidential elections.

I’m glad to see that someone else has done the same research for height and baldness.

In the last twelve elections the shorter candidate has won the popular vote only twice (1972, Nixon beat McGovern; 1976, Carter beat Ford). Bush jr is shorter than Gore but of course also got fewer votes.

There have been only six bald presidents; only five were elected (Ford was not); only one (Eisenhower) was re-elected (running against similarly bald Adlai Stevenson on both occasions); three bald presidents (Adams senior and junior, and Van Buren) were kicked out after their first term, and one (Garfield) was assassinated after only a few months in the job. Of course to complete the picture we’d need to know more about the losing candidates. And wigs.

A response to ‘s post about Reagan:

Oddly enough, Lyndon Johnson’s death is one of the first political events I can remember… (his wife is still alive, though)

I’m sure the coverage will be just as great and respectful upon the deaths of Presidents Ford, Carter and Bush.

I wouldn’t bet on it. Reagan was president for almost as long as the three of them put together. He was also the only one of them to get re-elected. When the time comes for Ford and/or Carter, their presidencies will be much further in the past than Reagan’s; it will be a case of “minor 1970s historical figure is no longer alive”, along the lines that we can expect in Europe for Helmut Schmidt or Edward Heath or James Callaghan. (I suspect most people think the latter three are all dead already, if they think about it at all.)

I have my doubts about the respect that will be shown to Clinton upon his death.

A lot will depend on what he does with the rest of his life. He will have outlived a lot of his critics; he is the youngest ex-president since Theodore Roosevelt. I’ve been looking at my presidential longevity statistics. What’s striking is that most of those who became ex-Presidents at a relatively young age then didn’t live very much longer; Polk, Arthur, Coolidge, Grant, T Roosevelt all dead within ten years. Those who were long-lived often turned out to be evil mavericks like Fillmore and Tyler. But there are a few exceptions, like Taft, or indeed Cleveland who was in his day the youngest ex-president thus far, and he found himself back in office at the following election.

I did not reveal my own feelings because I felt it important to show solidarity in a foreign country.

Funny; when I was that age (which would have been at the same time as you were that age!) I never met any Americans in Europe who admitted to having voted for Reagan. But of course in Western Europe it was a different matter from the Soviet Union.

3) Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier

The first paper book I’ve read this month (the other two were electronic). This was Anne’s big find from the BBC Big Read. (I’ve read four or five other books off the list that I probably wouldn’t have read otherwise; the two unexpected pleasures so far were Holes by Louis Sachar and I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith.) About Rebecca, I wrote a year ago:

Would have been in the category of “19th century girly books I never felt like reading” except that it is a twentieth century book! But given my experience with Pride and Prejudice, I may have to try it and see.

Well, I did try and see, and I did enjoy it. I almost gave up halfway through, as the first half of the book was so relentlessly depressing, and I spotted what was going to happen at the fancy dress ball miles in advance. But then the twist almost in the next chapter took me completely by surprise, and so did the final twist at the end.

A heavily spoiler-ridden preface in my Virago edition by Sally Beauman (author of the “sequel”, Rebecca’s Tale) claims that du Maurier manages to avoid slipping into too much melodrama, a large claim that I can’t completely agree with. She also makes the inevitable comparison with Jane Eyre. Self-effacing orphan heroine tring to cope – check. Dominant husband with dark secret about his first wife – check. Embarrassing party – check. House burns down – check. Actually the nameless narrator of Rebecca is a much less interesting character than Jane Eyre, who at least stood up for herself now and then.

However; good book; enjoyed it; might look out for more of the same.

OK, the baby has finally settled to sleep, I’m going to bed.

Hah. Ronald Reagan’s died. Now, if Gerald Ford can only make it to November 2006, he’ll beat Reagan’s record (93 years, 4 months) as the oldest President ever.

If Ford survives to November 2007, he’ll beat his old boss Richard Nixon’s record as the man to have lived longest (33 years, 3 months) after being Vice-President.

And if he makes it to September 2008, he’ll pass Herbert Hoover’s record as the man to have lived longest (31 years, 8 months) after being President.

He’ll still have two otherwise unremarkable ex-Vice-Presidents to outlive at that point, one of whom almost made it to his 99th birthday. Though Ford, who despite his reputation for clumsiness was probably the most athletic President ever, may well make it that far as well.

Many many years ago, about 1992, I happened to drop by the Mansion House in Dublin at the tail end of a book fair. I spotted a battered-looking pair of books on a stall, looked at them long enough to realise that it as an 18th century edition of Suetonius’ The Twelve Caesars, bargained the price down from £70 to £50 (those were pre-euro days), and have been carting them around with me from house to house ever since.

So I was rather surprised when I tried pricing it on ADDALL and discovered that a Swedish vendor is selling the same 1736 edition for 7,500 kronor, or just over $1000.

Very exciting, until I realised that their copy is in almost mint condition (covers are “Contemporary full vellum with gilt spine and yellow labels, boards with gilt monograms, marbled edges”) and has clearly been well looked after in the last 270 years. Alas, the condition that my copy is in (covers battered, not gilt, not monogrammed, and in fact detached, though still present) probably means I got a fair price at best. AbeBooks doesn’t seem to have my particular edition, but does have three older ones for less than £60, all of which sound like they are in much better shape (if less heavily annotated) than mine.

So I think I’ll hang onto it for now. I’ve used it only once, for my note on the assassination of the emperor Domitian

Discovered that there is a site where you can predict the results of the European elections in England + Scotland + Wales:

http://anthonywells.typepad.com/anthony_wells/2004/05/european_electi.html

Goes well with my Northern Ireland contest and Ciaran Quinn’s for the Republic.

2) Down and Out In The Magic Kingdom by Cory Doctorow

Another book that I read electronically, thanks to the author’s policy of making it freely available via a Creative Commons Licence. Actually this led to the single most irritating thing about the book, as I had to waste time and precious battery power on my Palm Pilot scrolling past the pages of literati endorsements and even more past the terms of the licence itself.

After that, I found this a really readable book. Julius, our narrator, lives in the Bitchun Society, a not-too-distant future where everyone has everything they physically need, and everyone periodically backs up their personalities for reloading into clones in case of accidental death. There is however an economy in “Whuffie”, or respect, given to you by others when you do something they like. And everyone (at least everyone in the book) is producing stuff of cultural value in an effort to gain Whuffie.

The Magic Kingdom of the title is Disney World, and the plot revolves around the attempts of Julius and his friends to preserve their beloved Haunted Mansion from the evil Debra, who wants to remake it as she has already fiendishly remade the Hall of the Presidents. Described like that, one’s immediate reaction is, “Why care?” But Doctorow does manage to communicate his intense passion for Disney World in such a way that it doesn’t in the end seem silly (in a society where entertainment and culture are the most tradable commodities) and in fact you do care. The plot is satisfying, there aren’t too many info-dump rants about how great it is now compared with the Twentieth Century, and all is resolved, though not necessarily happily for everyone.

But I did end up wondering what was happening in the rest of the world all the time. Stuff seems to be happening in China and in space, but I’d be very interested to see the effects of such a society on the less well organised part of our world. (One character is Chinese; another may be of Indian origin, but the rest sound just American or Canadian.) The Magic Kingdom is a special place, but it doesn’t tell us much about what is going on elsewhere.

I’m well aware that this particular administrative procedure – which you, by the way, inflicted on us – is a real pain in the ass; so why did you tell one of my staff two weeks ago that I wasn’t doing it properly, and not tell me? And when you arranged to come to Brussels next week to sort it out, why didn’t you make sure that it was on a day when I actually planned to be here too?

Very much based on EU issues, compares your answers with the seven European political groupings:

http://www.votematch.net/index.htm

For me it came out at ELDR (the liberals) first, then EPP (christian democrats) then PES (social democrats) then Greens. Then I got negative ratings for the GUE (far left) UEN (right) and EDD (Eurosceptics).

I also did the same thing for the Flemish parties, voting on Flemish issues, at De Standaard’s website, and it gave me quite different results – recommending I should vote for the Socialist/Spirit coalition.

Well, it’s a European election. Plus I know one of the candidates on the Flemish liberal list. So even though they are far more economically right wing than me, they’re sound enough on the European issues which the election is supposedly about, so I’ll vote for the VLD.

But I’ll try and cast my personal vote for a candidate who is running for the European parliament only. Last time I voted for someone who become a minister rather than take up her seat. This time the prime minister is the lead candidate on the VLD list, and there’s no chance of him resigning to become a mere MEP (though he may get better offers than that). So I’ll do a bit more research…

Entertaining:

http://www.livejournal.com/users/ginmar/271447.html

Remember the NATO job that I heard about, pondered, and eventually applied for? My friend who was also applying for it just called to tell me that he’d made the shortlist (unlike me) but crashed and burned at the interview stage, and someone else has been appointed. Since I’d gone off the idea anyway I’m not too devastated. In the meantime something else has come up. And in any case I still have Plan A.

My last post about Brian May provoked unprecedented levels of discussion (ie 6 posts in reply, none of them by me) and raised many questions which I have investigated using the power of Google. The truth appears to be:

1) Brian May got a BSc (not PhD) in maths and physics from Imperial College; I can’t track down the year but it must have been 1970 or 1971 (he started in 1967).

2) Queen were more a London college band than an Imperial College band. Roger Taylor graduated in biology from the then Polytechnic of North London, John Deacon in electronics from the Chelsea College of Art & Design, and Freddie Mercury in Graphic Art & Design from Ealing College of Art.

3) One website claims that Brain May “wrote up” his PhD in infra red astronomy in 1974 but never submitted it.

4) His honorary Doctorate in Science from the University of Hertfordshire was awarded in November 2002 “in recognition of his life-long contribution to music”.

5) Freddie Mercury was a Zoroastrian. (See earlier note on Baku.)

6) Brian May’s quote about astronomy is one I can personally relate to:

“Astronomy’s much more fun when you’re not an astronomer. Most of the time while I was studying was spent either making equipment, setting it up of else typing away at computers trying to analyse the results. The amount of time actually looking at the stars is minimal. So now in my spare time, I love to peer through telescopes.”

http://www.mcsweeneys.net/2004/5/26moe.html

Two of my colleagues have been expelled from Indonesia.

The same thing happened to our head of office in Serbia last year. After a day or two the Serbs backed down. I hope the same happens this time.

…but it’s perfectly true:

Croatia’s Euro 2004 squad warned against “acrobatic sex”

Brian May, guitarist with Queen, dropped out of an astronomy Ph D to become a full-time musician.

It will be interesting to see the performance of independent candidate John Gilliland in the Northern Ireland Euro-election – apparently he’s doing well on the posters front anyway!

Bridget’s school had an exhibition of artwork by all the pupils this weekend at one of the many cultural centres that dot our landscape. They had on display a rather smeary red and yellow work by her with the caption:

Bridget

Kort, hevig en intens
Zo werk ik
Zo schilder ik

Briefly and intensely [hevig and intens are synonyms]
That’s how I work
That’s how I paint

We all went to look at it, though Bridget herself lost interest fairly rapidly and I took her outside. Ursula has now fallen asleep and we will now go to bed.

14) The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon

I picked up a couple of instalments of this late at night on the World Service a month or so ago when children were keeping me awake, and read it in one sitting this evening; now I have seventeen-month-old U on my lap and am trying to persuade her to fall asleep to the rhythm of the keys as I type this up.

Of course because of the narrator being a child with Asperger’s Syndrome (at the very least) it’s of particular interest to our family. My wife and her mother both read it and felt it was rather unrealistic in some respects. Well, to a certain extent. But good stories are often told about unlikely events. The only bit that I found really challenged my suspension of disbelief was where the narrator successfully bought a train ticket and got on the train. But it was necessary for the plot, so I thought forgiveable. Otherwise a gripping and moving book.

U’s eyes are drooping, but I’ll have to type a bit more before she falls asleep.

I see that A Feast for Crows is at 124th place on Amazon’s best-seller list, and won’t even be published until 24 June. Buoyed no doubt by the mass of pre-orders – including mine, put in over a year ago.

Coraline, by Neil Gaiman

Following ‘s example:

Depth

Being out of your depth – a phrase that always bothered me. Losing your footing while swimming in deep water; but also the sense of having got deeply into a situation where you had lost your bearings, and the initial guidelines you had turned out to be no good at all.

Thansk to Oneword.

Yet another instant psychology quiz. My results and comments as follows:

Your Existing Situation

Sensuous. Inclined to luxuriate in things which give gratification to the senses, but rejects anything tasteless, vulgar, or coarse.

Hmm, dunno about that; I can cope perfectly well with the vulgar or coarse. Sounds like the kind of thing a dodgy psychologist would say to someone to make them feel good about themselves.

Your Stress Sources

Wishes to be independent, unhampered, and free from any limitation or restriction, other than those which he imposes of himself or by his own choice and decision.

So who out there wishes to be dependent, hampered, and having limitations or restrictions imposed on them by others? A hopeless generalisation.

Your Restrained Characteristics

Willing to participate and to allow himself to become involved, but tries to fend off conflict and disturbance in order to reduce tension.

Believes that he is not receiving his share–that he is neither properly understood nor adequately appreciated. Feels that he is being compelled to conform, and close relationships leave him without any sense of emotional involvement.

Hmm. Not really. I do try and fend off conflict, but who doesn’t try and put off the difficult tasks? I actually rather like conforming, being one of the crowd (though I also like being a noticeable member of the crowd); and the bit about relationships is completely wrong.

Your Desired Objective

His need to feel more causative and to have a wider sphere of influence makes him restless and he is driven by his desires and hopes. May try to spread his activities over too wide a field.

OK, that bit is fairly accurate.

Your Actual Problem

Feels restricted and prevented from progressing; seeking a solution which will remove these limitations.

Again, this is probably true of most people, and certainly of most people who take this sort of personality quiz!

Someone asked me the other day what interrailing is. Yet another icon of my youth has bitten the dust, I thought to myself. When I were a lad, if you were under 26 you could pay £120 and buy this ticket that gave you free rail travel for a month all over Europe (which in those days excluded Eastern Europe). Most people I knew did it at least once; I did it two and a half times. First in the summer of 1986 with my then girlfriend, just before we both started at college, taking in Germany, France, Italy, Switzerland, Belgium; then a half-ticket (where you could only travel on ten of the days within the month) in 1990 to go to Finland with my sister, though I took a detour down to Austria to touch base with my (relatively recently acquired) girlfriend; and finally, just before I got too old for it, with same girlfriend (subsequently my wife) in spring of 1992, this time striking as far east as newly reunified Berlin and as far west as Portugal. Living in Belfast the trick was to buy it in Dublin, as it only got you a 50% discount in the country you bought it but free travel everywhere else.

Well, turns out interrailing hasn’t completely bitten the dust, though it has become a lot more costly. According to the ropy English of the official website, Europe (now expanded to everywhere except the former Soviet Union, Serbia or Albania, but including Morocco) is split into eight zones; you can get a 16-day ticket for one zone for €210, a 22-day ticket for two zones for €289, or a month-long ticket for all eight zones for €399 – that’s if you’re under 26; we old folks pay 40% more. Strikes me as rather expensive, when you can have a week in the Canaries for a third of that. The two-zone ticket seems like the best value though.

For Americans there are various alternative options including the Eurail pass which is staggeringly expensive, even with the cheap dollar of today, and doesn’t even cover Eastern Europe – or the UK. No wonder it’s got less popular.

I do a certain amount of train travel even now – often by Thalys to Paris (and once to Cologne), sometimes by Eurostar to London, and last year overnight to Berlin and back. It always brings me back to those days of juggling the potential discomfort of yet another night on the train versus the cost of a night in a youth hostel. And of course the thrill of travelling with your girlfriend – “Did the train move for you, dear?” as we used to joke. But enough of that.