Disinfecting quality of the sunshine - in what dose?

Yes, it is that time of the year. The time to turn off the computer and phone, draw the curtains close, get out the diary and do some reflecting on the year almost passed. I daresay it's better time spent than getting slapped in the face by shopping bags in crowds of Christmas shoppers, whose holiday sprit - at least in France - I always find surprisingly lacking.

So, what happened in 2010? It's a simple question to which the answer is far from evident. Try asking yourself or someone you know what did this year mean for them, and you'll be surprised how much of the answer has to do with banal facts of life: career changes, house renovations, and other types of more or less successful facelifts to their lives. It's all about us what happened to us, as if we were the earth and everything else rotated around us.

While the answer to this question is deeply personal for each of us, the Time qualified 2010 as the Year of the Leak. "We could not control the leaking as if we were all sneezing women who'd just had a baby and we'd just drunk a bottomless cup of coffee and that baby was sitting on our bladder". Bravo, Joel Stein, I was considering unsubscribing and this single article has got me considering sending another cheque to Time magazine.

And it's true that if we look beyond our immediate surroundings, step above our little or not so little problems, and think about what happened in the world in 2010, the past year was really a year of the leak. And one which might not be repairable in the long term. In the short term, governments may be able to dismantle Wikileaks (think US), stop Google (think China), ban Facebook (think North Korea), block any image of women bodies (think Saudi Arabia), or issue their own competing propaganda (think Russia).

And yet this leak may not be a simple physics problem with water flowing in the bathtub of a certain pre-determined size. It might just continue flowing in and out until the leak might indeed become a state of mind. But, I am getting ahead of myself. Before we jump too far into the future, I invite you to look back. Of course, there were Wikileaks, containing nearly a half a million documents, including reports from Iraq, Afghanistan and cables from US diplomatic service about just about every country in the world. Established in 2006 by Julien Assange, the audacious organisation was virtually unheard of until 2010.

Aside from this major leak, there were small leaks all over the bathtub, as if it was shot through with a machine gun. In France, arguably the only entirely independent newspaper Le Canard Enchaîné is entirely founded on gossip provided primarily by disgruntled civil servants. To his great disillusionment, Sarkozy has not yet found a way to sue the paper or its journalists. On the contrary, Le Monde, one of the oldest French papers, is currently suing the President's Office for spying. It appears that the President's Office was seeking to stop Le Monde from publishing further damaging details about the scandal associated with Eric Woerth, French Labour Minister "replaced" in November.

Leaking is not contained to France. Israeli left leaks on the Israeli right and vice versa. In Russia, Putin's and Medvedev's camps are engaged in mutual leaking. In China, the political establishment is engaged in a predictably losing game of trying to contain the real story by shutting down access to Google and Facebook. The Chinese political establishment might want to examine carefully the history of the Soviet Union for hints why such methods are bound to fail. In Italy, everyone these days seems to be leaking on Berlusconi, though sometimes I wonder why the juicy gossip appears in the press at the exact same time when Berlusconi needs to deflect attention from another impending political disaster.

That is not to deny that some leaking has been successfully contained. Only in July this year, Russia and the United States, have quietly swapped spies in a deal that reminded me one of the first swaps of political prisoners during the Cold War. Undoubtedly, much more is contained from the general public than is leaked. We have to get used to the idea that we are not jurors in the courtroom where witnesses swear to tell the whole truth and nothing by the truth. Even for stories that make it out of black boxes, I wonder if the journalistic and blogger community has the capacity to process them (cf. the 2200 page report to the Senate on the Lehman Brother's bankruptcy).

I have to admit that I have no problem with leaking per se. My guess is that unless you are employed by the US Foreign Service or CIA, reading cables unleashed into the public domain by Wikileaks have been at least entertaining, at most fascinating. It has certainly created pretext for some debates over tea, or coffee, whatever your favourite beverage might be. And there is a specific reason for this. I woud humbly propose that there is something dramatically different about these leaks than the Watergate cables, espionage during the Cold War and even the footage of treatment of Guantanamo Bay prisoners.

First is motivation. While previous leaks were motivated by a specific political agenda, a desire to expose a specific political plot, to obtain valuable information about an enemy state, Wikileaks is about none of the above. In its repertoire of scandals are Islandic bankers, the scientology church, even members of UN peacekeeping forces. Secrets closely guarded by the American political establishment were merely the next step in the ascent of the Wikileaks dominance, not its primary target.

Julien Assange does not appear as a man with a political agenda, but a man in the search of a truth - a far more dangerous substance. A man of a certain ideology can be converted, convinced or co-opted, while man in search of a truth risks becoming more stubborn in the face of obstacles. And this is exactly what appears to have happened to Assange, though only time can tell how unbending his willpower might be.

Wikileaks has clearly hit sore spots in many capitals, not only in the United States which is scambling to find grounds for criminal charges against its founder. And yet, most of the very controversial information released by Wikileaks is really no news. The misconduct of American soldiers of Iraq, the thoughts of Saudi king on Iranian political establishment are hardly grounds for newspaper headlines. These are old news dressed up in brand new outfits.

Beyond the scale of the Wikileaks, what is really different about them is that they are no longer about events, policies, countries, but about living people. They talk about what individual people, with names, faces and titles think about other individual people with those other names, faces and titles. They reveal the thoughts of the American ambassador to Italy on Berlusconi, the Saudi King on Ahmadinajad and a host of concrete allegations against specific people.

Wikileaks has made gossip people-specific. Therein lies it's biggest power and at the same time it's biggest danger. In its noble search for truth for the public's benefit, it is targeting the private. There is nothing in the leaks that is not personally offensive to specific individuals, which is exactly why they have all rushed to "dismiss allegations" of the cables. Some of the individuals which Wikileaks targeted are now seeking revenge, making it very personal to Assange.

In our world of political correctness, it seems uncomfortable truths are all the more uncomfortable, even if they are hardly news. It's been a long time politicians have generally politely agreed to disagree and any real disagreements, short of North Korea and the US, are quietly swept under the carpet, at least in the eyes of the public. There is no more rendering politicians naked in public. Perhaps our politically correct world is kinder to all. The paradox though, is that it renders even the smallest truth that much more personal and therefore damaging.

So, does the world need more or less truth? Would the world be a better place if human beings could, like in a sci-fi movie, read though each other's thoughts so that secrets would be impossible? I cannot pretend to have a answer, but to arrive at one I suggest you imagine a friend revealing to you all the defects they think you possess. On the one hand, it is desirable to know who you real friends are, on the other, the risk of losing some friends is real. Do we need more real friends or are we better off not knowing the truth? How much of the disinfecting quality of the sunshine do we really need?

How united are the United Arab Emirates?

Judging by the popular press, the United Arab Emirates do not exist as a collective. Instead, there is a buzz about the Dubai real estate crisis, the Louvre affiliate springing up in Abu Dhabi, and nothing at all about the other emirates, of which they are actually five more. But, who has ever head of Sharjah? Don't worry, I am not about to bore you with details on Sharjah, if not for any other reason, than because my knowledge of Sharjah is rather approximative.

Back to Dubai and Abu Dhabi - the powerhouse duo of the Emirates - both are in the midst of an economic boom, despite the ambitions of the respective Sheikhs being cut short by the financial crisis. Of course, there has been quite a bit of a debate about the Dubai World crisis and the creative maneuvering by Dubai's ruler Sheikh Mohamed to extricate the emirate of its dire situation, finally resorting - and not without swallowing its pride - to the generous help of the "federal government" (otherwise known as Sheikh Al Nahyan, the ruler of Abu Dhabi).

Not many have asked why one emirate decided to bail out the other, like a central bank would a too-big-to-fail bank, shaking a finger and and making it swear the mistakes would never be repeated. The oft-heard argument goes that the Dubai bail-out was for the broader stability of the country and even the region where defaulting on debt has some anti-Islamic connotations.

But why did Abu Dhabi have to bail out Dubai? Surely, not for the famous Burj Al Arab tower (which has possibly become the international image of the UAE) to be renamed as Burj Al Khalifa? More fundemtally, how did they manage to be so different that one spent through its credit card limit while the other put its pennies away in the piggy bank?

At first sight, Dubai seems like a developing microcosm of Abu Dhabi, with a equally glittering airport, swanky hotel chains where locals shuffle around with the air of inborn superiority among armies of Indian or Philipino staff, enormous malls meant to distract the local population of their boredom and from the fact that they cannot walk anywhere else 8 months out of the year. Dubai seems a replica of an established model, an architectural prototype of Abu Dhabi, with constructions cranes frozen in mid-air as if undecided what to do next.

Scrape beyond the spotless, glittery surface of their hotels, look beyond the personality cult of their respective rules, see though the hyperactively planted high-rise towers, and it becomes quickly obvious that though the two emirates, while only an hour away, are much further apart in their development agenda and even in their cultural approach. If asked who they want to be when they grow up, I would bet their answers would diverge quite a bit, and not only because they are in constant competition between their business and political elites, but because of the fundamentally different visions for their future.

Sure enough, the competition between Dubai and Abu Dhabi is obvious when one reads between the lines of local press, in discussion with business elites and the discourse of the local sheikhs who never actually mention the UAE in their speeches. Sometimes, it's even more obvious. Etihad - a state-owned airline which is owned by the Abu Dhabi royal family - openly claims to be the "the national airline of the UAE". If Etihad is the national airline, what does that make Dubai's Emirates? A foreign competitor?

Unlike its intimidating neighbour, Dubai is experimenting with a specific type of socio-economic liberalism uncommon in the UAE, and possibly more broadly in the Gulf. This is despite appearances given by events like Abu Dhabi film festival, which brings usually skimpily clad (basically naked by Gulf standards) stars from all over the western world. This year's film festival for example is bringing in town Adrian Brody, who is of jewish descent and who played brilliantly a Jewish pianist during the Holocaust in "The Pianist". In a magazine I picked up in Abu Dhabi, Brody says he cannot wait to water slide in the Emirates Palace.

That may be true, but for his sake, i hope he has no cravings for a bagel, for example, because bagels are banned in Abu Dhabi since they are considered as emblematic of Jews. Not so in the neighbouring Dubai. But if Brody really wants a bagel, Dubai is not too far, and besides, one can always make use of a helicopter since all the major hotels are already equipped with helipads.

But Dubai's liberal tendencies go beyond bagels. Walking around its souks, malls, restaurants, are tourists from all corners of the world: British, Russian, German, Egyptian, Lebanese. This is not to say that Abu Dhabi is not overflowing with expats (80% of UAE's residents are expats, the highest ratio in the Gulf), but it is mostly expats of the service trades, those that have to be there, not those who fly and in and out as they please.

The tourism has clearly offended some local sensibilities even in the more liberal Dubai where a British couple was sentenced for having sex on the beach. With all due respect they should have just stuck to sex and the beach cocktails while in Dubai! In the neighbouring Gulf countries, even sex and the city drinks are not so obvious to procure. And while no one has dared to have sex on the beach in Abu Dhabi, I have spotted a new phenomenon whereby some local woman wear an integral viel in hotels (not just niqab). Apparently, these are often prostitutes hiding under the integral veil for the risk of not being recognised in the niqab. I don't really see how a woman can be recognised in a niqab, but then I cannot speak from experience.

Beyond tourism Abu Dhabi is clearly also attempting to diversify from petrochemicals into other industries, but with its more traditional approach, this may be more challenging, unless the tourists are from Saudi Arabia, compare to which Abu Dhabi seems like Ibiza. And so the two emirates continue to compete, locked into a struggle, like two sumo wrestlers, weighted down by tradition, history, and now - debt.

Perhaps the most ironic thing is that their competition is premised on the same economic model, where only minor factors are variable, most others - lack of water, excess of petrol, need for expatriates, climate constraints - are as constant now as they will be in the next decades, if not millenia. Some of these factors are connected to natural limitations with which the sheikh of every one of the seven emirates will have to reckon with.

On the other hand, the model of heavy labour import for a range of industries from financial services down to washing toilets, is a UAE-specific choice, which in fact makes it stand out in the Gulf, where the Saudisation and Omanisation programmes imposing quota of local staff are common. It is a sort of "colonialism meets colonialism" dynamic, whereby the formerly colonised Emirates are resorting to the same dynamics as the British did in the UAE and but also in India and Pakistan, which were also under British control, and from where ironically most of the UAE workers come from.

It's a new sort of colonialism, or modern slavery, where the coloniser gets labour force advantages without having to colonise, occupy or otherwise impose itself. Its a new brand of modern capitalism, where the state controls all the resources: land (all the land belongs officially and practically to the royal family), capital (oil rents go to some unknown extent to the royal coffers), and now labour (expatriates who do not stand the chance of ever becoming citizens).

For the moment, the sheiks can steer their camels whichever way they want, so long as the overall caravan follows some stable direction and no Dubai World pops in its mist. But one day might come where the 80/20 ratio will no longer be sustainable, when the indian construction workers no longer accept the choice of 300 dollars a month or throwing themselves out of the window. And it will be then that the sheikhs will need to reflect collectively and decide the future of the United Arab Emirates as a collective. Perhaps the Dubai World crisis has already taught the sheikhs the value of "united" in the United Arab Emirates. If not, this will be the time do so.

Genoa - an undusted jewel of Europe

In Europe, there are still a few these heard of but unexplored cities which merit a visit exactly because there is no risk being trapped in herds of tourists, no need to discern between local restaurants and those with pictures on their menus, no need to stand in line to get a ticket to a museum or to book a hotel months in advance. In short, the inverse mirror image of Paris.

Genoa is one of such unique cities, an undiscovered jewel, covered with ancient dust, which the tourism industry has not yet managed to cover by its ever-expanding spider web, on which almost no city guides have been written, and where the hotel industry exists principally because of its port – rival to ancient Venice – and not because it managed to market itself with all inclusive packages for mass tourism industry.

But Genoa is far from just an industrial port city as it is commonly labelled. The city is at once local and international, coastal and inward-looking. To draw an analogy, it is like a snail, confident with itself and uninterested in exiting its shell to wonder out there and show itself to others. It knows that with time, those others will come around to visit it, and then, and only then, will it come out in all of its natural glory and deliciousness of a perfectly aged wine.

Genoa’s relatively unrecognised international status is somewhat perplexing, all the more considering that it gave birth to Christopher Columbus who wanted to discover territories in the hope of connecting his old world to a new one. But all this it not to say that the city is not international. On its narrow cobblestone streets, immigrants of various communities go about their business - Equatorian, Moroccan, Senegalese, Romanian - among Italians who generally do not like to see their country invaded by frankly unwanted immigration.

Here in Genoa, they seem to co-exist peacefully as the sign “Italian Senegalese Cuisine” of the corner restaurant would seem to suggest. But Genoa is not London or New York and the interest of this unique city is not that it is able to peacefully cook a melting pot of different ethnic groups. Its value is precisely not modernity and progressive multiculturalism but its endearing charm of an old lady who under her thick glasses probably recognises that she is slightly out of rhythm with the times, but just does not care to do anything about it. Her children will fix it when the time comes, she probably reckons.

And for the moment, the edifice remains - as it has for centuries - slightly imperfect in its delicate asymmetry, cracking on the surface but shining on the inside, surprising even those most familiar with the turns of its streets. Behind every creaking door - a palazzo, behind every unsightly trattoria -centuries of tradition, every church door - a marvel of sculpture and painting. And that is precisely how the charm of this city can be best described – unexpected. It is not catalogued in countless Lonely Planet Guides, available only as a first-hand experience an old fashioned way to those willing to open the door and try it, without expectations, assumptions or premature conclusions.

Trying it, through its famous Liguirian cuisine, through its UNESCO classified Palazzi, through its Old Port, and most of all, through its inexplicable maze of cobblestone streets, is as sinful as indulging in a gelato. Every act of routine, from buying a foccaccia to picking grapes at a street vendor to getting a plate of pasta at a neighborhood café is like taking a bite of history. At café Mangini, in business since 1876, the almond cookies are every bit as fantastic as is the owner idly sitting at the cash register reflected in the ancient gold adorned mirrors. At Il Balcone restaurant, the pasta is as sumptuous as the chef who proudly displays his carefully framed certificate from the Genovese Order of Pesto Makers.

Perhaps the best part of the experience is the lack of presumptuousness of the Genovese, be they glorified cooks, owners of historic cafes, museum guides or other inhabitants who use the word “scusa” prolifically, but without the shoving which is usually accompanied by “excuse me” in the not so far away Britain. At Zefferino, the Chef - who is given a status of a Professor in Italy – has hosted Gorbachev and provided pesto to Frank Sinatra – but gives a friendly nod to every jeans and t-shirt wearing visitor. In Paris, a much less glorified Italian chef will have no problem telling a disgruntled customer that he is done for the day.

Genoa is not only humble, it is also intimate. The buildings face each other as closely as lovers on the first day, in all their complicity. The narrow streets carry noises of conversations flights below, of raindrops hitting crooked rooftops, of plates and forks being assembled on the table, of the political discussion on the radio. From behind the window shutters noises penetrate - from below, in front, atop - binding the old buildings and their inhabitants in a chain of familiarity. Complicity reins between the old lady downstairs, the baker on the corner of the street, the occasionally passing garbage remover, the sexy neighbour who uses the excuse of the heat to walk around in his tight red underwear.

In this northern Italian city, tradition, whether in cuisine or architecture is not old-fashioned and even if it was, then no one is bothered by it. On the contrary, the Genovese are proud of their palazzi, even if they are not perfectly restored. The Doria family who was in the sixteenth century behind the building of Palazzo Principe, still lives in a part of the Palazzo which is also one of the biggest museums in the city. Every museum guard interprets his job as a museum guide, wanting to showcase their knowledge of their newfound home.

Here in Genoa, time had stopped in the seventeenth or eighteenth century, as the golden clocks of palazzos seem to indicate. But its lack of ambition to renew, renovate or reform is exactly what makes it an undusted jewel of Italy. It has the beauty of Nobokov’s Lalita, the self-awareness of Hugo’s Quasimodo, and the mentality of your great-grandmother. But then, who said that old-fashioned is cannot be endearing, charming and welcoming?

Ministry of Ridiculous Affairs

My taxi driver, marinating in sweat, visibly exhausted from moving with a speed of a handicapped snail, honking at everyone and everything stationary, and even cursing in his nasal Arabic, put on the handbreak and closed his eyes. Technically he didn't even close his eyes, they just closed, as if he had allergic reaction to everything surrounding him. I understood virtually nothing from what he has been mumbling since this painful journey started, but feel reassured by a running counter - a phenomenon much more rare in this country than donkeys jumping in front of taxis on the highway, as I discovered a day earlier.

The odours of local taxis - let's just call them uninviting - despite the air conditioner blasting something that smells like molded carpet, I would rather this trip end. But no such thing. The driver insistently repeats Mubarak and if I didn't know the name I would think he is talking about his wife who he just surprised with his neighbour in bed. The tenderness is just not there. And then, as all the men in the cars surrounding us had an opportunity to examine me from every angle, we slowly creep up past the Shoura council or the equivalent of the Parliament in Egypt.

In the Middle East, parliamentary bodies if they can be so considered, always bear interesting names. I found the Shoura council already more dignified than the Diwans found in the Gulf countries, which literally translates into "sofa" for the sofa on which the Ministers (tribal chiefs) debate their future of their oil fiefdoms. Parliaments aside, I finally put the Mubarak and the Shoura council together and a little light bulb goes off in my head: all roads were closed because Mubarak is travelling to the Parliament meeting. I have to admit I did not see him in person from my behind the trucks, donkeys and military cars, and yet I have a sentiment that I almost have since his smiling photo in rather stylish black shades is plastered everywhere. Like Madonna's videos from fifteen years ago, the only way you could ever know his photo is as ancient as the pyramids is that the sunglasses are slightly out of style by now.

Suddenly, my driver opens his eyes and the car makes a little leap forward - the physical effect seems as abrupt as if we were on a donkey. I have to admit that this I am imaging, since riding donkeys is not exactly the prevalent means of transport in Paris. And as the car finally moves towards my hotel, I wake up as well and start peering out of my window - this is my revenge to all locals tacking x-ray looks at me when we were stuck in traffic. At least we are even at the end. The ironic thing is that in the bizarre and incredible history of this city, it is difficult for the eye to know where to stop: is it on the bread salesman yelling something, on the mosque towering with its imposing minarets, on the man smoking shisha, on the homeless cat or on the equally homeless kid maneuvering through the traffic to sell water bottles?

My eye stopped on a building, once probably white, now brown with dust, whose title proudly said something along the lines of Women and Family Affairs. Perhaps that translates more elegantly in Arabic, but it got me thinking about the ridiculousness of this title. Imagine an institution called the Ministry of Men and Sexual Affairs? Or better even, the Ministry of Male Activities and Unemployment? At least the latter would more correctly correspond to the local realities. And for those who think that government bodies focusing on "woman issues" are not a waste likely to accuse me of cynicism right about now, I think officially this Ministry no longer exists, the local authorities probably just forgot to adjust the name tag. In any case, if you ask me, a good part of " woman affairs" in Egypt could be aptly addressed by the Ministry of Education, seeing as 60% of woman are still illiterate.

To be fair, it is not only Egypt or other Middle Eastern countries that have Ministries of Ridiculous Affairs. Upon my return from Cairo, I did some googling and it turns out this is worth a good comedy piece. The list is long, so I will refrain from providing any colourful commentary. Saudi Arabia has a Ministry of Pilgrimage (but no Ministry of Woman Affairs - at least the priorities are clear). On the other hand, both Chile and New Zealand turn out to have a Minister of Woman Affairs. In the case of the latter, the site of the Ministry notes that it is the smallest government Ministry in the country, employing only 40 staff. Conclusion: either they have no "woman issues" in New Zealand or these people must be terribly efficient.

Another country with a newly established Ministry dedicated to women - how thoughtful!- is the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan. Its website features photos that no words can describe so I suggest you see for yourself. Working against the Taliban is not one of its stated objectives, I guess the Ministry of Defence is working on that already. Last but not least, last year Venezuela's Chavez announced that he is going to establish a woman's affairs ministry and - get this - give it a budget. I've never heard of budgetless ministries, but then I guess I've never been to Venezuela.

And the list of Ministries of Ridiculous Affairs does not stop at women. Liechtenstein has a Minister of Foreign, Affairs, Culture and Justice. If I didn't know better, I would imagine Liechtenstein was particularly touched by the financial crisis and decided to amalgamate all its ministeries into a Superpower Ministry. It is more understandable in the case of Greece which has the posts of the Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs are combined. Slovenia has a state secretary for Education and Sport as if the two had anything in common. It's almost as if the message is that if one has no education, well, then there are always sports. I don't think this equation would work in reverse direction. India has a number of Ministries with less than predictable names such as Ministry of Fertilisers.

The interesting fact - and a rather unpredictable one - is that India with all its complexity, cast, linguistic and otherwise of its over one billion strong population has a less cumbersome government structure than France with just 60 million. France beats India outright with 7 more Ministries for a fraction of its population. If I didn't know any better, I would think that the Indian civil service is remarkably efficient or that France is that much difficult to govern! Surprising at it may be, here in France, we have over 40 Ministers, Cabinet and otherwise.

To give him credit, Sarkozy has recently announced that in an effort to trim its fat government, French Cabinet Ministers will be limited to 20 councilors each and not one more. It goes without saying that Sarkozy himself will not be making any staff cuts at the Elysee. The message is clear: Elysee does not need to be trimmed. It seems that it has not occurred to our dear President to examine the long list of French Ministries and instead of sacking the councilors, to actually merge the Ministries! One idea, which appears rather evident, would be to merge the Ministry of Health and Sport and Ministry of Youth and Sport.

Others, at least judging by their titles, are so irrelevant that if the no longer existed, I doubt that even my neighbours dog would notice. Several examples jump to mind here: Ministry of War Veterans (how many of them are still alive?), Ministry of Equal Opportunities (that's just an oxymoron in this country), Ministry of Parliament Relations (clearly a uniquely French invention), and last but not least Ministry of Economic Stimulus (seems like the Ministry of Economy and Finance would be entirely apt to providing economic stimulus where needed).

"Princes, brokers, and bureaucrats" a book recently published by a friend on the political economy of Saudi Arabia argues that some Ministries were set up just to address rivalries between princes and to make sure that everyone had a little fiefdom to preside over. I cannot help but wonder how France might be different. Whether in developing or developed countries, the Ministries of Ridiculous Affairs are flourishing. At least in Saudi Arabia where there are no income taxes, I guess no one can complain about waste of public finances. In France, where the results of the work of Ministry of Equal Opportunities cannot be found even under a microscope and where the big plans of the Ministry of Economic Stimulus still leave the average salary at a pathetic 1200 euros, I can - for once - understand my grumpy compatriots.

Full disclosure

Accounting regulators are buzzing around with new rules about book vs market financial accounting for banks, but for those of you who are not accountants, and who are already getting bored reading this, I have good news for you: this post is not going to be about anything to to with accounting. It is going to be a sort of a personal disclosure statement , accumulated after being tested in different geographical, cultural, and political circumstances.

This is more of a five year, rather than annual report. Management discussion of key findings and forecast for the years to come follows. Note that these are no in particular order, so if your last year's gift for my birthday does not appear first, don't go into cardiac arrest. In any case, unless you are in Paris, I will likely not be able to do much for you in this case.

I guess I'll start with all the little... let's call them Parisian paradoxes. The woman in front of my window who takes a shower in the fountain located midway from my window and a restaurant, who screams on the people on the terrace of the restaurant to stop staring at her. The neighbour, happily deaf in her ripe post retirement age who listens to great jazz at one in the morning and complains the next day if she hears as much as sneeze in the afternoon. And of course, the entire population replacement which happens in August as every Parisien or Parisienne flees Paris at the same time as tourists from every corner of the world congregate here for the ultimate tourist congress.

Other things that I heart for in Paris, again in no particular order.

Driving on the Quay - or better even, being driven on the Quay de la Seine. After almost five years in Paris, I still love to abstract from the frustrated bikers, drivers and the like and watch the buildings go by: diverse, perched on top of the other, surviving all the remodelling the city has endured and adapted to over the years. They are like old neighbours who know each other well enough not to bother with banalities but giddy with all the glamour of their new liposuction.

readings at Village Voice bookshop - a little explanation: the Village Voice bookshop is a petite bijoux hidden in the narrow streets of Marché Saint Germain which is owned by a fiery French woman more passionate about English literature that any professor of literature. On the minusculous chairs hosed up on second floor of her tiny bookshop she hosts readings which gather a crowd as colourful as the authors she invites (Daniel Mendehlson, Michal Chabon, etc.)

anything between boulevard Saint Germain and la Seine - I don't care about the now centuries old rivalry between Cafe Flore and Cafe Les Deux Magots. Getting lost in the galleries and the brasseries of Saint Germain des Pres is a dream. The ideal living location is the hotel particuliere on rue Bonaparte in front of the Ladurée. I have to admit I find it entirely unfair that some editing house has the privilege of squatting in my perfect home. Editing house beware I am coming to get you!

my balcony - or, more precisely, installing myself in the little black chair that measures exactly the width of my balcony and putting a glass of white wine on the little table which fits to the millimeter in the restricted area in front of the little black chair. Who ever said paradise has to be the size of a hippodrome? My paradise measures exactly the size of my behind, between the rail of the balcony and the door.

stumbling onto expos - walking into an unknown expo, unplanned, unprepared, with no preconceptions of what you'll see is, more than the greatest Charlie Chaplin movie, being transported in time and space. The Bettina Rheims exposition at the Biblioteque Richelieu was just one such little, unexpected and inspiring miracle.

speaking English outside - and pretending no can understand me. Of course, my putting up a wall between me and everyone else in English is a total illusion. But, after all, aren't illusions what makes us go on? In my illusionary world, I am having a totally private conversation in a totally public space.

court yards - Parisian courtyards, in all their diversity have so much character that they simply evade description. They are a place of gossip, of undried laundry of pots of disarranged flowers on random balconies, or crooked doors which have seen more than they are willing to let on. Parisians don't like courtyards because there is no view, but in a way there are more view than people care to notice or admit.

reading and writing in cafes - first, I have to disspel the myth, unfounded as they usually are, of Parisians sipping wine at lunch on a daily basis, installed comfortably in their neighbourhood cafe. The reality is that there are two types of cafes in Paris, those whose rotating front door welcomes new visitors every day and those whose used but faithful chairs welcome "les gens du cartier" with the warmth of their own apartment. Whichever it might be, observing in cafes has got to be one of my favourite things to do. After all, in a different era, Hemingway, who lived just around the corner from me, did the same.

And here, I am afraid, comes the unpleasant part of the management discussion. But then, things have to be true to their form. First comes...drum roll please...rather predictably, the customer service. I still haven't frankly figured out what the translation for this bizarre concept might be in French. "Service clientele" seems somehow wrong, and in any case, it is so illusory, it might as well be a fiction of my imagination.

Customer service - or really, the lack of it. Customer service, where are you? the answer is: checked out permanently. This, as I realised, is not just some sort of a forgetful or unintentional omission in France. Its entirely voluntary and requires a strategic response from the client. Some fellow expatriates have suggested playing a victim which apparently incites the person on the other side of the counter or phone to feel pity and therefore "soften up". My advice is to marry a French lawyer or have someone of that profession available.

Air conditioning - or lack of it. It seems to me that I am blessed with a particular talent to go places where the airconditioning, on that particular day, has gone out of order. The other day, a pal at the entrance of what I heard was a chic gym proudly told me that of course (god forbid!) they do not have air conditioning. Why would they have such a terrible thing that leads to such grave respiratory illnesses or the like? Riiiight.

The taxi deficit - semi-permanent and especially accentuated on Friday and Saturday nights, i.e. go get them when you most need them! Walking in the middle of the winter from the Louvre all the way to my flat in the sixth at four in the morning, despite all my futile attempts at charming every cabbie going by, I realised that a driver is not a luxury, but a necessity in Paris.

Real estate agents - an especially despicable category of humans, who deviate slightly from the general homo sapiens model with an extra bullshit chromosome. Beware particular characteristics include: publishing especially attractive ads for apartments which would not qualify for a walk in closet. And I am not talking about Carry Bradshaw's walking closet.

Romantic walks on Pont des Arts - more specifically, this applies when I am wearing my favourite Gaspard Yurenkevich shoes. Sorry, I am not the type of gal who will wip off her shoes and walk barefooted or better even shove them in some oversize bag overflowing with makeup. And the terrifying image of being stuck between two planks of wood, immobile in disgrace, is just too unsexy to contemplate seriously.

Restaurant chefs - particularly those who refuse to understand that salads are on the menu for those either trying to loose weight or vegetarians. In any case, ham is not the essential ingredient, really. Not to mention that there are these funny people calls muslims and jews that don't eat it.

Being mistaken for a tourist - my ultimate favourite is when people ask me when I am leaving. Hmm...leaving where? Well, back home, of course - they reply increasingly hesitantly to me. Well, right after I am done here, I live around the corner. Blank look.

lines - in airports, shops, post offices, grocery stores, brunch places. Being put on some sort of a list does not usually help calm my anxiety at the sight of frustrated people waiting for something they should normally be getting without wasting their time. But the French have a particular affinity with lines and love to discuss the order of everyone in line and complain how long it takes. Well, my advice is, next time they guy at the front of the line tells you it's been two hours he's waiting, turn your heels around and click "buy" on this new great thing called the Internet.

Well, dear friends (and others), as you can see, I wrote this as a kind of stram of concsiousness. However, as I was about to publish this post, it occurred to me that except for driving on the Quay to the office, all the other little insignificant things that I love to do in this city have taken a back seat to all the other routine things that need to get done in a sort of a check-list tradition. Line ups take away from my reading time, dealing with customer service chops into my cafe pauses. So I guess with that my 30 year resolution, if there is such a thing, is to shrink my check list and enlarge my reading list.

An obituary to the middle class

Obituaries appear on the last page of mostly local newspapers and only for individuals, written with sadness at the predictably eventual end of someone dear or with regret at the untimely end of someone whose days passed by in overdrive much faster than was expected. Rare objects, no longer found or produced, are placed in museums, under protective glass and a watchful view of cameras, intended to assure their permanent afterlife. But what if the subject of the discussion was not a single human life or a physical object, nor a national phenomenon of interest only to a local newspaper but a global phenomenon, such as the decline of the middle class? You might be tempted to shake off the argument as needlessly alarmist, see it as another “clash of civilisations” thesis destined to go up in smoke.

Maybe, but since you have already started reading, I ask that you bear with me just a few paragraphs longer. In communist or socialist countries, the middle class was theoretically omnipresent but practically absent by the general state of poverty – financial and emotional - of the said nations. The former USSR and China of 1980s spring to mind as the perfect examples. In many capitalist countries, the middle class seemed to rise throughout the industrialisation period only to slowly disappear in the smoke of “yes we can!”, where a few lucky were able to climb to the top and many others - most others I should say - faced a great delusion. In the great big United States for example, it is reported that the top 1 percent of wealthy control more money than all of the bottom 95 percent combined.

The great families, the Wallenbergs, the Rothchilds, the Fords were able to – with some luck and some persistence - build their wealth on sweat and blood of their servants, much like the Egyptians were able to erect the great pyramids which the global tourism industry unloads busloads to worship. David Landes wrote in "Dynasties: Fortunes and Misfortunes of the World's Greatest Family Businesses" about the rise of industrial families, explaining why some like Rothchilds, succeeded over generations, while others like Fords, trinkled away their hard earned cash, amortising it over years until one unlucky descendant would discover the honey pot empty.

Other wealth came into the hands of oligarchs, sheikhs and other enterprising men and women much later and mostly by sheer luck. When the pendulum struck midnight, they found themselves standing like a certain Cinderella near a pumpkin, except the transformation worked in the opposite direction and instead of a pumpkin, they found themselves in a gold carriage. Reverse Cinderallas started popping up in quite unexpected places from Eastern Europe to the far away Arabia.

The Arab sheikhs literally woke up overnight realising they have been sleeping on black gold, with a new dream to turn the black gold into real gold, while the Russian oligarchs also awoke from their daily routine dictated by five year plans and discovered – much to their own surprise - that stealing on a mass scale was not only possible, but almost encouraged. “That’s what capitalism is all about!”, a few entrepreneur types said to themselves, mentally equalling privatisation and official theft or assets at the acquiescence of the state. And hereby the former republics of the USSR, formerly united by the symbolism five year plans and never ending lines for never-appearing goods, discovered their own version of the Washington consensus - privatisation as a way of asset transfer from the state to the individuals. Very few individuals, like very few sheikhs, royal descent obliging.

Unlike the old wealth, this newly discovered money was not going to be saved for the rainy day, in case competition would eventually show up and require some re-investment. It was going to be spent - and immediately so - on things that its owners could not previously have, because they were too expensive, not imported into their countries or simply did not exist. From Los Angeles to New York to Cannes, the new money found its way and seems to have squeezed out both the old money and the lingering middle class - those who previously worked for the old money, who made the American or the Swiss or the English dream come true, that made London the European financial center, the Swiss its worthy competitor and the French just grumpy that they did not manage to be one or the other. Until the last financial crisis that is, of course.

The difference between the old wealth and the lucky newcomers to the scene is that they latter had no habit of managing the newfound dollars, pounds, dirhams and roubles except for plough ahead, screaming “faster, glitzier, louder!” They flood the boutiques of the very symbolic place Vendome buying scores of Cartier watches and Boucheron rings with swags of euros that are now very much exchangeable from and to the Chinese yuan. They scout every boutique in Cannes to the point that the most spoken language in this charming and one might say – formerly French city – is Russian. They emerge out of their armoured Mercedes on Avenue Montaigne, covered in black niqabs - only to purchase the most exquisite and expensive dresses the world’s fashion capital has to offer. Whether the cooking French anti-burqa legislation will kill the trend is doubtful.

And whatever legislation is passed no longer really matters, because the evolution of capitalism in most capitals of the world has resulted in the death of the middle class, such that one can shop either at Hermes or at Zara, eat either at the bagel shop or at a five star restaurant, live either in the center of in the periphery. Perhaps the biggest irony of all is that the few rich do not need to work as if their situation was rightfully inherited and permanent, based on some ideological right of passage for the sheikhs or the permanent state of corruption for the oligarchs. Without going to Ayn Rand’s often denounced as extremist critique of capitalism, perhaps it’s worthwhile think about this facet of globalisation and the consequences it carries. After all, it is a global system where the Chinese workers manufacture (for pennies) Chanel sandals bought by Russians in French boutiques (for 500 euros) to where on the swimming pool of their Swiss villa (valued at unestimable and undisclosed amount), while the French shop at Zara for clothes made in the same China (also for pennies) so that those at the helm of those Chinese factories can come to Paris and buy Cartier watches without even counting them.

On the roads of Paris and social justice

I proudly got my driving licence at the first possibility, which in Canada is at sweet sixteen. For about ten years after, I was bracing Canadian roads and highways, which as any local driver knows are of variable quality, repeatedly abused by all that snow and ice and the omnipresent trucks. And yet, for all those unwieldily roads, the thought of not driving in Toronto never occurred to me. What's an odd pothole or a some ice flying in the windshield compared to the four-wheel liberty? A spot on a otherwise spotless window - I looked past it, as would anyone else.

Almost five years after moving to France, I am ashamed to say I have never sat at the steering wheel. At first, I told myself it's because the subway system is so efficient. Then, I told myself it's because all cars are standard and I didn't feel like nervously shifting around in Parisian traffic. And then, we bought a BMW - an automatic BMW of all - taking away all reason from my little self-excuses and rationalisations. A year after taking possession of the keys of the sleek black beauty, I have still never made contact with the car, except in the capacity of a passenger.

I thought it might be time for that moment of reckoning. Sitting in the passenger seat of my little BMW, which was struggling to make it's way amongst a myriad of motos, velos, buses and small trucks, I realised that I have no desire to ever drive in Paris. It is not that I have any other preferred method of transport - aside from having a designated driver of course! It's more that I find the sight of the co-existence of all the modes of transport in this city slightly unsettling. I should probably admit having witnessed a few velo and moto accidents involving unusual and I would say, by the looks of them, unintended, pirouettes of their drivers in the air.

But then, the voice in my head which was asking persistently "but what about that BMW patiently waiting in the garage?" had a little victory. I decided to seriously consider what lied between me and that little BMW. And is then that I realised: in Paris, the roads are certainly better then in Canada, despite being oh-so-narrow, winding and inevitably one-way (with no logical means to return to the point of original departure). The issue, as it occurred to me, is not with the roads per se, it's more with the road attitude and with the social norms of driving in Paris, the latter courtesy of our Mayor Delanoe.

First, on the road attitude since it's easy to summarise in a few words - jungle where survival of the fittest is the natural organisational premise. Think Italy minus the "mamma mia!" In practical terms, this translates to having to close one's eyes while accelerating as fast as possible to cut off any possibility of being cut off yourself, especially by motos which appear to operate according entirely different rules of the game. All in all, egoistic driving on one lane roads make for an interesting experience, but that even that does not explain all my reluctance to drive in Paris.

I think the real issue is that I realise that driving a BMW in Paris I would be at the bottom of the social food chain. I should probably explain that in Paris, a car driver is seen as a nuisance by socialist velos proudly cutting them at the first opportunity precisely because they can. The velo drivers know full well that if so much as a hair were to fall of their socialist head, the mean car driver would be indisputably at fault (that polluting asshole!). Motos generally have the same attitude, but given their slightly bigger vrumph, they generally consider themselves to be outside of the rules. Buses now have their dedicated lanes, the logic of which I have to admit is difficult to undersand, but which velos use, along with pedestrian walkways. Only taxis are allowed to share bus lanes.

It seems that unless you own a decent car, rules of the game are quite flexible indeed. On the other hand, if you are fortunate enough to be able to afford a car, you'll be the unfortunate creature of permanent abuse on Parisian streets. Velos will force you to drive behind them at twenty per hour as their owners run out of their last breath. Taxis will treat you as as an asylum seeker in the land where they already have permanent residence. Delivery trucks - which have the wonderful habit of stopping exactly in the middle of those one way streets - will not see you as an eventual customer of whatever it is they are delivering, but as an annoying asshole honking behind.

But wait for the best part. And that is that cops, who don't really care for infringements by all of the above, love to stop people in cars which they themselves cannot afford - if anything out of pure spite. Giving out tickets to cars is also a matter of social justice - re-distributing finances from those polluting assholes to the poor velo driver type, even if the latter plows though all red lights of the city. Also, giving a ticket to a BMW driving lawyer or economist makes the statistics go up- since those are the types that tend to actually pay their tickets! Bingo.

Alas, we might not be living in a communist state as many Americans like to think, but that does not mean that those with big powers (the mayor) or little ones (the cops) would not use them to make their version of social justice. The slogan of their party goes something like this: ride the public transport, or be ridden on by public servants. And that about summarises all my fears of french roads.

While in some measure they may be related to the tense co-existence of all commuters, they are perhaps in a larger measure related to my inferior status in the jungle of riders. And so after all this reflection, I decided that in the absence of any more re-assuring methods of transport, I will adopt a pure Carie Bradshaw attitude, continuing to prance around the cobblestone roads of Paris with my nose high up, knowing that on the sidewalk, I am not at the bottom of the social hierarchy.

The new Russia: old habits die hard?

Arrival at Moscow Sheremetevo international airport. My colleague tells me the international wing of the airport has been renovated but I desperately fail to see where. The only thing that I cannot fail but notice, since it is peering at me from every corner is the huge advertisement for Sberbank - the largest bank in Russia, incidentally state owned and incidentally inheriting its name from its predecessor in the former Soviet Union. For me who happened to spend some time in the former USSR, Sberbank brings forth memories of cement bunkers (ie. bank brunches), in front of which we, obedient Soviet citizens, lined up one one day the ruble was devalued such that my grandmother who managed to save even during Stalin's brutal rule saw her savings reduced to not even a good quality chapka. Well, maybe a chapka, but not more. So it is with some degree of surprise and might I say, scepticism, that I look at the smiling lady on the ad of Sberbank (which in Russian somewhat ironically means "savings bank") and register some words about what is allegedly Russia's leading bank.

Wondering through the airport, my feet on the soil of the former Soviet Union for the first time in over fifteen years, there is naturally a part of me that is curious - what's it like now? How much has it changed? are these obnoxious "new russians" which pop up in their three sizes too tight pants just an exceptional export of this country? How much has changed since we took a shaky Airflot flight from Kiev to Toronto? The realisation had started to dawn on me already at the airport, at the sight of Sberbank lady, people shoving their way though to get in front of us, the nationalistic looking border control guy examining my passport (so seriously as if there was any chance that a Canadian citizen would want to stay in Russia!), but it got confirmed over the days I spent in Moscow.

Everything has changed, but nothing has really moved from its original position. It's as if the pendulum has come back 360 degrees - of course, it has travelled in the meantime, but predictably, it arrived at its original equilibrium position. The Kremlin, all repainted stands in marked contrast with its depressing muddy coloured predecessor, but at its helm shines the exact same communist red star. The babushkas, at least in Moscow, are no longer dressed in Soviet garb - those "dresses" that resemble an old fashioned pyjamas - but they the walk the streets of Moscow with the same heavy step and probably equally heavy hearts. As in the old days, no one smiles or even looks ahead when they are walking on the street, and partly it's not surprising given that the roads have turned into black ice in minus twenty. But something tells me it's not just a question of ice. With a 200-300 dollar average pension, there is indeed nothing to smile about, as I realised when I was delivered twelve euro coffee to my hotel room. For the sake of precision, I'd like to note that it had the taste of the same ice, only melted.

Moscow proves its reputation as the most expensive city in the world, by-passing Paris, New York, and even Tokyo. Moscow's only difference from this trio is that like in the old Soviet days, the service remains generally noticeable by its very absence, while the prices remain noticeable - on the contrary - by the unashamed number of zeros which raised my eyebrows to the point where there were probably somewhere near my hairline. One evening when I almost ventured the courage to wonder out there at the risk of turning into an icicle, I was warned that Pushkin Cafe, the place which was branded to me as the trendy place in town (in my mind, all that meant was no borsh and mayonnaise salad), would set me back about five hundred bucks, apparently because the waiters are all black and the lights are dim. I wondered what Pushkin would have thought about it, but in the end decided to satisfy myself with hotel faire instead (not cheap either).

You might think by now: so what, all of the world's greatest cities have their rags and riches?However, the parallels between USSR's shady past and Russia's bright future, spoken of by Russian Prime Minister, who shoots random bears, forces oligarchs to Siberia like Stalin would have undoubtedly done, and changes the constitution like socks, does not end there. It can be seen in the small symbolisms like the building of the former KGB occupied by the Ministry of Interior or the omnipresent police controlling every intersection and indeed, as I found it upon my arrival to the hotel, not only the intersections. In fact, every "foreigner" - and don't be mistaken - there is still very much an "us" and "them" mentality in Russia - is controlled and monitored by the Russian police. People leaving passports at the hotel for registration receive a curious insert in Russian alleging that the hotel management shall notify the local authorities as to the whereabouts of a given intruder within 24 hours. I suppose I should have felt protected, but somehow I felt the objective of the little white insert was not to save myself from local punks and neo-nazi gangs, which Russia has become famous for.

And indeed, in my brief encounters with the Russian police (miliziya), I did not feel the love. The first time I came in face-to-face contact with the Russian police, is when my driver decided to ask them for directions and was promptly told to get out of the car and surrender his driving licence. After some back and forth and desperate pleas, he temporarily disappeared in the police car nearby to negotiate the settlement. In all my pity for the man, I almost piped up but the idea of this boar subjecting me to the same treatment kept my mouth shut, pretty much with fear. The second incident with the Russian police was at the gates of the British embassy, and served to wipe out any doubts about things having changed. There, after going through all the security ordeals, just as I was ready to sneak in the building, I got intercepted - for the lack of a better word - by the local police which appeared out of nowhere. He promptly disappeared behind the black box where I strongly suspect he took copies of our passports, and as he gave them back to us, even my frozen brain could not help but be shocked by the realisation that all the embassies in Russia are controlled, just as in the good old days.

Twenty years can be nothing or everything. They can change everything on surface: resurrect churches, dismantle communism, introduce goods on selves of stores, spring up restaurants, make the wear of jeans legal, but in a way all these changes are like cosmetic surgery trying to mask a larger disease. That disease has multifaceted symtoms - the unwillingness to give up on the idea of great Russia, the nostalgia for Stalin years when everyone was supposedly "equal", the blind belief in any nationalistic propaganda that Putin and the likes serve on a silver platter, the centralisation of power in the hands of few state organs, who from the offices in central Moscow, operate this theatre called new Russia like a puppet show, lifting hands and feet of the local population and those few foreign souls brave enough to brace the new Russia.

And even that, in and of itself, would not be so strange - after all, there is the great China where Facebook and even Google are controlled and monitored. The paradox of the new Russia is not that is entirely controlled or entirely free, it is that it stands like a bear on skates, uncomfortable at its own sight, straddling from one side to another, between the inconsistencies of new flashy residences and the realities of old communal flats, between a modern Ministry of Interior and KGB, between a soviet style cafeteria and Pushkin Cafe, between a justice system and what the president terms as "negal nihilism". Grosso modo, it looks like Russia today is somewhere between being a part of a global village and a big bear standing outside the global village, wondering what to do next. Insofar as in new Russia, old habits seem to die hard, the step into the global village seems a little off the agenda.