I have been waiting a whole year to find out I was wrong about the gym.

But now, after trying to go virtually every day (and managing three or four times in reality) since the beginning of this month, I find that I am not going to be disproven. My original hypothesis, which I have been propounding for as many years as I remember, seems to withstand the experimentation phase.

I do not like the gym.

So there I was at Cartier, Rue de la Paix 11, in Paris. I asked the guy to show me what he had in watches for around four million euros. He assessed me with a glance (jeans, Indian kurta shirt, sneakers) and he said, "We have none. I am going to go eat my lunch."

They were Nike sneakers by the way. Originals.

If it is nowhere to be found, conventional wisdom tells us, then it may not exist. Conventional wisdom used to tell us that if it is nowhere to be found it might be at the flea market. I think this is no longer true.

I just spent three days and nights billeted at Buvljak, the flea market next to Vero in New Belgrade, and I have come away with the following inventory:  One t-shirt, a plastic box with no apparent function, one cd of dubious and unnamable origin, a bread box, four unassorted pillows, a toilet seat, and a hub cap. None of these items, of course are on my list. And none of the items on my list are checked as being obtained.

LONDON, ROME, BELGRADE.  World Cup football (may God have mercy on our souls) has a self-contradictory role. On the one hand, here we have supreme nationalism wherein the world lines up in a sanctioned and authorized collective and protracted riot of Us against Them.

On the other Reusch-gloved hand, however, nothing unites us with our seemingly disinterested neighbors, distracted fellow Underground riders, and dyspeptic shopkeepers than being au fait on the latest World Cup babble.

I just came back from a conference on business ethics. The panel was quite distinguished and spoke very well of the need for more ethical conduct in business. The conference was organized by AmCham Serbia, presided over by the rapier tongue of Yugoslav Cosic, and included panelists from abroad, from the business community, and from the government. Many good points were made. Many heads in the audience nodded. But, sadly, we do not have these conferences because we are highly ethical beings and market participants.

We have them because we are, generally speaking, stinking liars and crooks.

SLAVONSKI BROD, CROATIA. Life makes for bad reading. Our daily stories do not have connecting plot lines, suspense and denouements, consequential trains of thought. Aristotle said stories should have beginnings, middles, and ends.

But life has only the middle.

LONDON. In England, "thank you" means excuse me. But, in case you were worried, "excuse me" also means excuse me - and, consequentially, thank you. Thank you.

In the past week, much like the dehydrated man fresh from the desert, I have been showered with politeness from people whom I do not know. There are altogether too many people smiling. As a traveler in this not-so-strange land, I feel a growing sense of paranoia. There is just something wrong about all this courtesy.

Courtesy of Messrs. Wong, Kim, Idibia, and Farmer, the long awaited New Belgrade opening of "Psi" shall be feted this evening. On the menu: Boshintang, or Korean Dog Meat Stew, or Guyoukgeng Minnan, otherwise known as "fragrant meat" of Taiwanese dogs. We await your pleasure, tails wagging.

New Belgrade is soon to join the list, including China, Korea, Nigeria, Indonesia, Japan, Poland, Germany, France, Tahiti, Switzerland, Ghana, Siberia, Alaska, Greenland, and many more countries across the globe who either openly and notoriously or clandestinely consume dog meat.

Accused as I stand of a certain streak of inflexibility, I should like to say a few words on behalf of a little known attribute of human behavior which should, when properly applied, also serve to allow us to part company with the Great Apes along the Darwinian path.

I refer to The Plan.

Deputy Prime Minister and Interior Minister Ivica Dačić is a time traveler. Few people know this.

Speaking at Takovo, celebrating the 2nd Serbian Uprising (where they actually managed a good slap at Ali Pasha, leaving the Ottoman Turks to slowly lose interest and drift home 63 years later), the Deputy Prime Minister said: