This is an actual photo (which you can judge from its poor quality) taken last Friday in a café in Novi Sad.

It would make perfect sense to me if he turned out to be a cop.

Over the past days, all I am reading about is a supposed vigilante who haunts Bulevar Revolucije and metes out justice against the Parking Offenders along that Belgrade thoroughfare. According to various blogs, internet forums, and RTS television reporters, he cruises down the street in a Vengeance Mobile (this is my name for it) and spray-paints the rows of double parked cars and those brilliant drivers who park in the middle of the street.

When someone speeds down the middle of Brankov Most, weaving and swerving at 130 kph, he might throw you a polite wave. As if to say, "Sorry to have caused you a near-death experience."

When a driver struggles and attempts to parallel park five times on a busy Belgrade street, he may also wave to the accumulated traffic. As if to say, "Thanks for being patient and not killing me."

Last July I forgot something.

Nearly exactly a year ago, at the tipping point between early- and mid-December, I forgot to go Christmas shopping. There must have been something good on TV.

Every year, faced with the prospect of engaging in pitched battle with my fellow shoppers throughout the month of December, I seem to make the resolution to do all the shopping in July, thus freeing myself from active duty and sparing myself more bloodshed.

I have been interested in trying this experiment for several weeks. [Kosovo] The fact is that I would like to write about a number of things this afternoon. I have about 36 topics sitting in the in-tray waiting to bespatter with my curmudgeonly opinions and complaints. [Kosovo]

Of those topics, four are about the traffic on the highways which has become a nightmare IN ANTICIPATION of the much hyped road works. [Kosovo] Seven of the topics relate to government – but how boring is that?  [Kosovo] Our new government has not triggered the much anticipated scandal-mongering spree from our glorious Yellow Press yet, and far be it for me to change the diapers of that particular tar baby. [Kosovo]

Recently I find myself telling people how long I have been here. It is also a recent phenomenon that people begin to compliment my Serbian. I always say thank you. But I know the truth...

The ugly truth is that I have been here for nearly a decade and communicate like a Balinese coconut-picker landed suddenly in the middle of a Parisian dinner party. In the court of Louis XVI.

Of a Tuesday afternoon.

When something happens to change the world, we do not really know about it until the world changes.

Ten years ago, on 9/11, I was in Paris. I was sorting out lots of sportswear overstock and trying to place it enticingly in front of my client's eyes. My client's eyes, however, were glued to the television. I was annoyed. I had just arrived from Rome (he from Belgrade) the night before, we had one day to make this deal, and he was watching TV. I grumbled.

"Something happened in New York," he said.

It is my last cigarette. It smokes now beside me. It is the last one. Ever.

Ever, however, is way too long. There are not any evers in life. Ever belongs to the church, to mythology, to fairy tales. Our world, the real and tangible and smokable world, is about increments of time. Time since my last cigarette. Time before my last cigarette. Time it takes to smoke a cigarette. Time I need to suck on my electronic cigarette to make up for the time it took to smoke my last cigarette.

Elvis lives there. He is 76 years old. Jim Morrison too. And now Osama Bin Laden.

For reasons of confidentiality, I am unable to reveal the whereabouts of The Home. Suffice to say that it is a rather large and stately affair ensconced in a semi-rural area, detached from the rest of the world, where the residents live out normal lives far from the prying eyes and fingers of fans, paparazzi, and prosecutorial investigators.

And it has a very nice sound system, too. Oldies mostly.

The way I used to calculate it, at Christmas we usually got ONE day off. At New Year's we would also get ONE day to recover. Then it was immediately back to work, back to the office, back to normal.

Not so in Serbia.