While my memory is not the sharpest or the best in the world, I think I can manage to remember where I am. Most of the time anyway.

Still, it never ceases to amaze me at how many times, in the course of a normal month, week, day, and (on bad days) hour, people will invoke this sentence as a definitive argument and statement of fact.

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.

As a child, I got my hands slapped quite often.

I would forget to say please (slap). I would omit to say thank you (slap again).I would sometimes burst into a room whose door was closed without knocking (slap-slap). And thus I was taught what everyone in America of the late sixties and seventies, my formative years one might say, called "good manners" and "being polite." 

Is it really a coincidence?

Only two days after a shocking report on the banking crash in Iceland, wherein many senior members of the Icelandic government were indicted, accused, and the Iceland central bank chairman, the former prime minister, and others sundry were formally charged with "mistakes or negligence" by the Truth Commission - is it really a coincidence that Eyjafjallajokull chose this moment to spit up fire and lava?

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.

If I stopped eating for two days, most people would call it a DIET.

Toma Nikolic, after what seems to be 48 hours of hunger striking (although I cannot be sure of the accuracy of media reports) in an attempt to bring about early elections in Serbia, has been hospitalized. Even Dr. Atkins says that you need at least three days before the body starts feeling the effects of hunger.

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.

 

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.

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: