I have been asked to write about the relationship between men and women. In order to do so, I am forced to call upon my many years experience as a male and attempt to relate the relative truths and gleanings from this experience into a form which will elucidate and provide the invaluable insight which this topic requires and deserves. The effort has been extreme, but I finally believe that I might impart this wisdom - the sum total of my understanding of the relationship between women and men.

Ah! Ok, it's the Easter season after all. Easter being all about resurrection, I was not overly surprised to see him (Him?) walking by the window of the café where I had established myself on this Tuesday morning. In fact he was not walking at all. It was a portrait.

One day, about two million years ago, a caveman discovered that lying with a cavewoman could lead to cavelings, while lying with other cavemen never did. This was a Discovery!

He began to speak to other cavemen about his discovery. He began to extol the virtues of making as many cavelings as possible with as many cave women as could be found. And he also began to warn everyone against lying with their fellow cavemen. He told them it was Wrong. He told them it was Unnatural. He said it would affect their ability to hunt mammoths and make fire.

My routine had all the usual morning hiccups associated with my as yet decaffeinated state: I dropped the spoon while making my coffee; I found a dark thread on my white bathrobe, which it seemed I had inadvertently put on inside out; the butter knife slipped from my hand mid-toast; reaching for it, I hit the bread and overturned it; I took a new piece of bread (and new knife) and re-booted. Thus reconfigured, I proceeded to my breakfast.

When shopping for toys (toys!), I experienced a kind of outrage that very rarely befalls me. My curmudgeonly nature causes me to grumble and complain a lot and often, but very rarely does something, some behavior, drive me to the edge of tolerance. 

The Resolution

Not everyone makes a New Year’s resolution – except maybe as a joke. The Resolution is a promise made to yourself, the universe, and anyone standing near enough to hear and bored enough to listen, about something you would like to do differently in the year to come.

There was a time, though, when the White City on the Danube woke up at midnight. It was perfectly normal for people to make arrangements to meet at and around midnight when the movable feast of clubbing and cafes and bars and even restaurants would bestir itself, singing and playing into the wee small hours of the morning.

On sale in Aisle 7.

The mystery is that I no longer know where I am when I go to the supermarket in Belgrade. Today, for example, I started out list-in-handed on a journey to IDEA in New Belgrade. I had received in the post a special Happy Birthday coupon for a 10% discount (on almost everything except what I wanted to buy I found in the fine print).

It is a fact of our linear time-space continuum that the life in the world is a one way street. 2011 cannot be followed by 2010 (nor by 1526 as far as that goes) or anything other than 2012. Tonight we celebrate that passage in our odd and somewhat superfluous tradition marking the passage of time. Even as I write this, we could be celebrating the passage of 11.59 into 12.00...