Quite a few similarities between Slovenia and Israel. One of them is the prohibition of smoking in public places and the subsequent use of gas heaters outside the bars to keep the smokers warm.
Tel Aviv
Getting ready to fly south in search of sunshine and warmth, my blood pressure was raised at the airport successfully without coffee abuse. A man stranded here en route to England due to car breakdown was trying to call home to Albania to let family know he’d be flying the rest of the way, but it turns out that on a Sunday, one cannot purchase a phone card anywhere at the Ljubljana airport and the cards are the only way of using the pay phones.
Duh?!
Golf Course at Donald Trump’s project in the Dominican Republic
(disclaimer: probably not a recipient of EU subsidies)
(photo source)
Financial Times reported on the findings of the European Court of Auditors that found EU aid for the poor had been misspent on golf clubs. Around 4 billion euros or at least 12% assigned to the European Union’s poorer regions were not properly accounted for last year, with some funds earmarked for agriculture ending up in the coffers of golf and riding clubs and railway companies.
The auditors identified unsatisfactory procedures in aid projects in England’s Merseyside, the Midi-Pyrénées region of southern France, the southern Italian region of Campania and Valencia in eastern Spain, as well as in Poland and Slovenia.
Thankfully (?), suspected fraud cases were rare with only four out of hundreds of investigated cases handed over to the anti-fraud office and only two of those being pursued further. Apparently, according to Hubert Weber, the court’s President, the usual reasons for error are due to neglect, poor knowledge of the often complex rules and… presumed attempts to defraud the EU budget.
The court said one effect of the EU’s switch from production-based subsidies to direct payments was to redistribute aid from farmers to landowners, some of whom performed no agricultural activities at all. Among the new beneficiaries are English railway companies, German and Swedish horse riding and breeding clubs, and golf clubs, leisure facilities and city councils in Denmark and England, the auditors said.
If we can secure some funds for Lipica, somebody please make sure they are spent on the horses and not the golf course? 😉
The kitchen project, which truly turned out to be one heck of a wild ride for a while there, and the area looking like a construction site for longer than I care to mention, we are nearing some sort of closure 😉
It all started out looking like this:
BEFORE
After which, the sliding glass windows in the balcony were thrown out along with the wall dividing the balcony/loggia from the kitchen area.
New, “real” windows were put in, with the middle one being sliding as well. This will come in handy later for my idea of placing a high-legged table right next to the windows to allow for relaxing breakfasts in fresh air whilst enjoying the view of the park below. A new wall with appropriate insulation was erected and shelving placed on top.
Waiting for better days to come…
Removing old tiling and top layer of concrete… Zaim in action!
Response to the first complaint regarding the windows (successfully resolved) while the plumber looks on and figures he’d better do his radiator job well…
New tiling and radiator in…
A job well done calls for celebration… Or at least a cup of good coffee for Roki, the master of tiling.
All of the above was done in a matter of five days so it seemed the impossible goal of quick completion of the project was not going to present much of a problem. However. The walls in my home have always been taken care of by a friend I’ve made during my agility days. Iztok is somewhat of an artist and an exceedingly thorough man. Unfortunately, he hurt a leg muscle while training for an agility competition and would not be able to come over for three weeks. Fine, I’d wait. Then an added, potentially fatal complication occurred: thrombosis. Not only is Iztok a friend, but also a father to three children with the fourth one on the way. Some food for thought on the meaning of life right there, but I digress. I decided to wait for Iztok to get better and some six weeks later he was able to come over and finish the walls. In the meantime, dinners were served in front of partly disposed concrete walls with candle light playfully illuminating creaks and holes the old windows had left, the draft moving the flames in an especially romantic fashion.
Thanks to more help from my loved ones, the new TV is up as well. LCD and all 😉 and has been put to use. Now all that is left is to pick out a new couch and to have the custom-made table built by Iztok’s brother the ingenious carpenter (who happens to have been involved in the Slovenian Presidential Palace remodelling this summer, ha! 😀 ). I promise to host the kitchen-warming party before that, though 
AFTER
With this project, I’ve learned so much, for example about expansion joints in the tiling between the kitchen and ex loggia, but most importantly, I’ve met wonderful people with fascinating stories to tell and am thankful to the guys who did their job so well. In the words of Zaim, the incredible contractor who found solutions to the problems thought insurmountable by others and did so seemingly effortlessly:
Victory is inevitable – if only we try hard enough.
Lipizzaner stallion glancing at the mares in Lipica
Encouraged by Michael Manske’s post at carniola.org featuring Hollywood ignorance of a particular source of Slovenian pride and joy, I thought I’d write a post about the graceful creatures of Lipica that gave them their name, though the world is most familiar with them as the equine version of ballet dancers admired at the Spanish Riding School in Vienna.
The Lipizzaner breed of horse, which is among the most ancient ones in the world (the absolute record being held by the unbeatable Arabian horses) and goes back over half a millennium, is the product of sturdy local Karstic mares, refined by the introduction of “warmer-blooded” Spanish stallions and later on by an Arabian stallion as well. Horses of the Karst had a reputation for resilience and speed even back in ancient Roman times. In 1580, the first Andalusian stallions arrived to the new royal stud farm at Lipica (Southwest Slovenia), built by Archduke Charles, the third son of Ferdinand I of Habsburg. During the Napoleonic Wars, the stud farm was forced to move three times to Hungary, and sought refuge near Vienna during World War I. It took a great effort and dedication to rebuild the stud farm after WW II.
Of the founding stallions, two were brought from Kladruby in Bohemia (Favory and Maestoso), two from Naples in Italy (Conversano and Neapolitano), one from Frederiksborg royal stud farm in Denmark (Pluto) and one directly from Arabia (Siglavy). Lipizzaner mares come from 16 different families.
After careful selection through the centuries, the resulting breed is of medium size, standing at about 15 hh. The lively eyes reveal the horse’s intelligence. The well-muscled neck is set rather high and decorated with a thick, but silky soft mane. Its legs are strong, with well-developed wide joints, ending in strong, small, well-formed hooves. Correct body structure produces the characteristically impressive gate. The high, elegant, energetic, proud gates make the breed the perfect choice in parades.
Although best known as the white horse of the Karst (or of the Vienna riding school, for that matter), Lipizzaners do also come in black and bay. Some breeders specifically specialize in those colours. As is the case in other breeds, the horses that turn white are all born as black, bay or chestnut foals, changing colour later on. Thanks to selective breeding, white Lipizzaners usually turn completely white very quickly. One thing to remember here: white is not a colour, it is absence of colour. Any white horse (or cat, or dog) has a genetic code for a “real” colour, which is overrun by a gene or set of genes that suppress pigment production or cause pigment degradation.
Lipica maintains a top level breeding programme placing great emphasis both on health and performance. All the moving around that the horses were forced to endure while the world was at war decimated the herd, narrowing down its gene pool and the resulting inbreeding nearly caused the famed sturdy horse to lose its reputation for longevity. At Lipica, they are enforcing a strict 5-generation rule under which no two horses with a common relative in the first five generations of ancestors may be bred together; accordingly, the stud farm has been exchanging stallions that meet the same tough selection criteria with other breeding centres. This policy has proven to be highly successful and the white horses of Lipica can again boast excellent health and longevity.
Capriole (Source)
And long lived these horses should be, otherwise the handsome white stallions would get very little action 😀 The first selection of breeding stallions is made at three or four years of age at the time of their “elementary school” training based on how well they meet the breed standard, their temperament and athletic ability. The best ones are allowed to breed once or twice, then they go off to school. Only those stallions who’ve passed this stage and then mastered the difficult “university level” dressage elements over several years of training, preferably including the “PhD level” haute ecole “airs” such as Capriole above, and whose first offspring from their teenage years has already proven to be of high quality, are finally allowed to woo the white mares. Humm… 😈
Over the last 20 years or so, attempts have been made to modernize the Lipizzaner breed in order to make it more competitive in modern sports. Competitive dressage and show jumping calls for a different body type than would be required in an 18th Century battle horse. Thankfully, the attempts have mainly been abandoned and the value of the breed as it is has been recognized before they completely ruined it and turned it into a “ne tič ne miš”.
The only real Lipizzaners that may have the letter L branded in their cheeks are ones from the Lipica area as their bone and hoof structure is influenced by their nutrition, i.e. the lime-stone-heavy grass and hay from the Karst. Lipizzaners from Lipica (and Piber, the Austrian stud farm with whom Lipica has had the most frequent exchange of ‘genetic material’) tend to be lighter in frame and more elegant than those from stud farms in other European countries where part of the herd had been left behind in war turmoils and the horses were bred differently.
In the late nineties, several countries claimed the breed as their own resulting in a political hot potato. Italy and Austria concluded an agreement on keeping the original Lipizzaner studbook records independently of Slovenia, which at the time was not a member of the EU. Incidentally, Italy’s only claim to the breed is the fact that the country occupied south-west Slovenia for a while and took the original stud books from 1926 onwards to Rome at the time of retreat. Most of the older stud books had already been taken to Vienna prior to Italian occupation.
In early 1999, Slovenia responded to said agreement by issuing a regulation on the designation of origin and geographical indications for the name of Lipicanec (in all languages) referring to the history of the breed and its specific characteristics related to the area where it is bred. The fight over the original studbook record-keeping – as most issues tend to – comes down to not mere prestige, but money. In this case, EU agricultural funds.
Anyway – if you’re in Slovenia, you have no excuse not to make a visit to the historic site that is the true home to these beautiful white pearls of the Karst.
Information: Lipica stud farm.
Besides taking a stroll and a guided tour through the farm, you can take riding lessons at all levels, go out for a ride in the beautiful countryside, take a carriage ride, watch a classical riding school show (think Vienna here). When you’re all horsed out, you can play some golf or enjoy the casino if that happens to be where you get your kicks from (hey, I’d rather be out there on horseback myself 😀 ).
EDIT: Not only would I prefer to enjoy Lipica from horseback or horse carriage, but I really hope that these aspects along with the haute ecole shows remain the focal point in Lipica. The powers that be seem to have lost their bearings and forget what the stud farm is all about. Concerned citizens opposing extension of golf courses on the pasture lands of the white equine ballet dancers have their website at Ohranimo Lipico (Let us preserve Lipica).
(Thanks for the link, Jean
Dr. Fil with a Lipizzaner stallion at Lipica
Global warming, my throat!
I am stuck at home with a cold due to a bad case of summer-nostalgia (i.e. not dressing warmly enough).
On the other hand, I do remember always having to wear heavy winter coats on All Saints’ Day when accompanying my Grandfather to Urh hill where annual commemorations were held for the hundreds of people tortured and executed by the collaborationist “Home Guard” during WWII, among them his classmate who’d been dragged to Urh straight from the classroom at the University.
Snowflakes were usually landing on fur coats while we were lighting candles and listening to the choir singing. Cannon fire added to the cold as far as I was concerned. Afterwards, we’d always take a walk on the frozen paths to see the trees still struggling to finally hide away the tell-tale bits of iron by swallowing them quietly into their trunks. Then, we’d visit the exhibition of extensive photographic material on the events taking place at Urh. Incidentally, since the ownership of the Church of St. Urh, the place of conception of the “white guard” armed forces and their military stronghold where the atrocities were being committed has been restored to the Roman Catholic Church, the exhibition has been hidden away in Ljubljana City Museum‘s basement.
Well I guess my line of thought stranded just a tiny bit 😉 I’ll blame Michael who posted some photos of snowed-in Rogla today. Hey, it’s a good thing that Slovenians cite Alpine skiing as our national sport. Do you suppose the mild winters promoting soccer instead of skiing may have changed the national character a bit? Humm..
So much for today’s rambling. Must get back to work. Albeit from home 😉
Speaking of work… Congratulations to Fetalij on his first full-time “regular employment” job! If you read Pengovsky’s explanation of how Slovenian employers (ok, and students) are abusing the incentive system, oh and actually his today’s post as well, you’ll realize that securing a regular job must have been no small feat! 🙂
Ljubljana market.
EDIT: I still need to figure out this mobile blogging thing. It started snowing at the market while I was there around noon and I wanted to post this entry… Had to cut way back on the text and it still wouldn’t go through. Then it went through a couple of hours later. The photo is so much nicer and larger than the one from the castle… strange. Anyway, will figure it out somehow.
I kid you not.
If you drop by at Mala Galerija, Slovenska cesta 35 in Ljubljana, or at Gallery NOEMA between 15 October and 15 November 2007, you will have the chance to wonder at an exhibition featuring records of the following brave expedition:
“This year on 6 August, atop Mount Triglav, three artists – intermedia artist Janez Janša, director and performer Janez Janša, and visual artist Janez Janša – realized the action Mount Triglav on Mount Triglav.”
Sure sounds like team work!
(Click here for the presentation in Slovenian.)
The project is supported by the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Slovenia, the Municipality of Ljubljana and the European Cultural Foundation.
Go Team!
EDIT: I suppose I might do well to mention that a Janez Janša happens to be Slovenia’s current prime minister and that Mount Triglav (literally: mt. three-heads or the triple-headed mountain) is the highest mountain in the country as well as one of its most prominent symbols, e.g. featured in the coat of arms, which also happens to be included in the national flag.
Several of us have been trying to figure out how to define the meaning of “anal retentive”. Now granted, we could have always looked it up in Wikipedia, but why bother when debating the issue can clear up so much (whoops).
I think I’ve just cracked it, though (whoops no. 2). Thanks to David, I learned that that an Austrian baker actually made his staff pay for the time they spent in the toilet.
The owner of the bakery in Eisenstadt, capital of Burgenland province, recorded toilet visits on a computer and took the value of the bathroom time off their annual holiday bonus. No either this guy is anal retentive or he wants his employees to be such… or both.
No doubt, Sarkozy’s alleged pending divorce will be all over the media in the days to come so why not mention it here. The guy does sometimes seem to fit the bill as far as this post’s title goes, right?
Speaking of retention, ahem… Financial Times reports that banks’ debts threaten growth. Big US commercial banks have seen $280bn of new debt come on to their balance sheets since the credit squeeze, threatening to undermine economic growth by inhibiting their ability to make new loans. Large bank capital – represented by net assets – had reportedly declined by $40bn since the beginning of August. European banks are said to be facing similar pressures with many observers expressing concern at the ability of some smaller lenders to handle the potential strain on their balance sheets. Perhaps time to re-read Pengovsky’s two cents’ worth on the subprime-lending-induced crisis?
Hank Paulson, the US Treasury Secretary, warned yesterday that the downturn in the nation’s mortgage market would burden the economy “for some time” as several big banks, the largest homebuilder and a major construction equipment maker all highlighted the growing impact of the housing decline. (Source)
Cheer up, though. If not by other means, then by checking out the Cartoon Quiz
Cheers from Tweety!
(Humm, I think I saw a Pussy Cat!)
