Fur Babies

Conversation on Saturday night:
Her: "So we have to send our two cats to live with a friend in Vienna regularly so that they get enough stamps in their passports"
Me: "Your cats have passports?"
Her: "Yeah, we had to get them Austrian citizenship"
Me: "And you fly them to Vienna regularly?"
Her: "Yeah, we book those special half-seats at the front row on Austrian flights that they use for kids"
Her: "It was so hard to get the cats to sit with a straight face for the passport photo"

They really love their rescued cats here in expat-land.
Apparently, there are such a thing as EU Pet Passports that make it easier for pets to travel with lesser quarantine restrictions.
It also apparently makes it much easier to then have them 'migrate' to places with strict rules, such as Australia. Which is where these guys already have a few cats that live in their beachside apartment with cat-sitters they employ while they work overseas.

Is this taking the "fur baby" thing too far?

Eurovision Controversy!

It has been claimed that the winning song at Eurovision was, at least partly, a copy of an Albanian song.
"A striking similarity exists between "Molitva" sang by Marija Serifovic in Eurovision 2007 and an albanian song "Ndarja" performed by Soni Malaj in Top Fest 3 in 2006, Albania" esctoday.com

It would be controversial enough just to claim they copied the song, but for it to be Albanian raises the stakes so much higher given the tensions in the region.

So much for Eurovision changing the world and bringing peace to the region!

P.S. Seems we weren't the only ones thinking about possible conspiracies regarding the political influence of winning the contest...

"Probably the most outrageous story concerning the singer appeared on May 9, in the Serbian tabloid Press. It claimed that the Western powers fixed the Eurovision contest in order to ensure Serifovic's victory. "Lulled by a triumph in Helsinki, Serbs are expected to calmly swallow the imminent secession of Kosovo," the paper claimed." time.com

Perhaps Eurovision really can change the world?!

The Eurovision Song Contest, that cheesy, bizarre and addictive event where European countries (plus a few hangers on) compete for musical glory (or infamy) was held on Saturday.

Out of all the bubble-gum pop, dramatic rock, folk-punk and cross-dressing madness, the winner was a love/religious ballad from Serbia called 'Molitva' sung by Marija Serifovic.

As the BBC said this morning, International success is something Serbia has not experienced in some time. Serbia will now be the host of the finals next year, a boon to the country and the region. You cannot begin to understand how exciting and important this is around here.

Our first thoughts of course went to the possibility of Kosovo being a semi-independant state by then, and of the huge desire of locals for Kosovo to have an entry in the contest. I wrote a while back that it would be one of the more important measures of independance for Kosovans - who needs membership in international organisations, as long as you've got a song in Eurovision?! Imagining a Kosovan entry into the Serbian-hosted Eurovision event was almost too freaky to contemplate. But could it be the ultimate reconciliation?

This morning there was news of the nationalist, hardline, speaker of Serbia's parliament, Tomislav Nikolic, stepping down from the job after only 5 days and it somehow felt like Eurovision may have played a part in the decision.

"opposition MP Nenad Canak said Mr Nikolic's nationalist and anti-European stand no longer had a place - especially as Serbia had just won the Eurovision song contest. Mr Canak said Serbia's neighbours had all awarded his country maximum points in the contest. But Russia, described by Mr Nikolic as Serbia's only friend, had only awarded his country five points." bbc.com

Block-voting aside, this victory was pretty astonishing and has the potential to influence far and wide. We asked ourselves at one point if there was some kind of underlying conspiracy leading to the high votes for this song?

Can Eurovision change the world? It certainly has the hearts and minds of millions in its grasp... and therefore great potential to influence.

Back to the old school

After years of sticking with my trusty SLR film camera, last October I went and purchased a snazzy compact digital camera. Up to a few weeks ago it served me very well, as my flickr site can attest.
Helpfully, this camera decided to stop working on the first day of my holiday. Before the holiday even started really - at the airport! Arrghhh.
Luckily John had a brand spanking new one to bring on the trip, and once again I reverted to the old school film camera. I look forward to the delayed satisfaction of seeing my photos developed and printed.