Ljubljana | SLEEPING WITH PENGOVSKY

Sheer Incompetence

Proposed division into regions (source)

The government of Janez Janša – its Office for Local Self-Government and Regional Policy, to be more precise, has finally unveiled a plan to establish regions in Slovenia – the long awaited second level of local self-government. Yaay!

Fourteen regions: Osrednjeslovenska (Central Slovenia), Gorenjska, Goriška, Primorska, Notranjska, Posavska, Zasavska, Savinjska, Savinjsko-šaleška, Koroška, Podravska, Spodnje-podravska and Pomurska. Not a bad proposal.

There’s only one slight problem: Ljubljana – despite the fact that it is the capital – is apparently not meant to be a special administrative unit. Unlike Vienna, Brussels, London, Zagreb, Washington D.C., or any other self-respecting capital in the developed world. Thus the government seems to have returned to its original (pre-election) position on the issue – last month both PM Janez Janša and Minister for Civil Service Gregor Virant claimed that Ljubljana will become a region unto itslef.

Either someone in the government doesn’t know how to piss downwind or Ljubljanians are again being punished for not being “in the party line”. This time around, though, I’d go with the first option.

The Burden of Being A Mayor

Being the mayor of Ljubljana can really take it out on you…(photos by Pengovsky)

Although it may seem that I’m making fun of the man, I actually feel slightly sorry for mayor Zoran Janković. I mean, I know he brought it upon himself by running for office, but here you can see what four months of public service can do to a man. The pictures may not be of the highest quality and I’ll admit that his poses are different in every one of them, but I think that the burden of the office is apparent.

BTW: according to Manager magazine, Zoran Janković takes “only” 47th place among the 100 richest Slovenians.

A note on the photos: The first photo was taken a day after he anounced his candidacy, all the others were taken while je was already in office. The bottom ones were taken with a Nokia 6680 phone (2.0 megapixel), the top two were taken were taken with a Sony Cybershot (also 2.0 megapixel). All four pictures were taken under artificial light, with all but the first one taken in the same room during various press conferences.

Oh, and my ladies… Happy Women’s Day! 😀

Total Lunar Eclipse, pt. II

As I promised on Saturday, here is some footage of the total lunar eclipse as seen from Ljubljana. It is actually a piece (if you can call it that since I improvised it) for the Firm™ so it is in Slovene, but still…

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Camera: El Presidente™, music: Michael Jakcson, Thirller

OK, so it wasn’t all that spectacular 😀 But it was much more fun looking at it during the actual event. Which reminds me… I might post some footage of 1999 total solar eclipse. That was much more fun 🙂

Ljubljana SweetSwing Festival 2007

Zoot suit – gotta get me one of those! 😀

From March 16 to 18, Ljubljana will be hosting the first ever swing festival on Slovenw grounds. The festival will include 16 hours of workshops, done in two levels, three evenings of parties, live music and last but not the least – a lot of fun and dance. The festival is hosted by the SweetSwing Society and you can find more info here

Highly recommended! 😀

Prešeren IT…

The guy who went on to become Slovenia’s greatest poet has in his time written some rather stirring poems.

The romantical drunkard that he was, he had obviously suffered from a bad case of Weltschmertz, which I always somewhat resented him. Add to the fact that we basically had to idolise him in high school, and you can easlily understand why (mostly) young Slovenes have a sort of love-hate relatioship with France Prešeren

Now – every year for the past 20-or-so years Slovene Association of Teathre Performers organises a Recital of Prešeren’s poetry as their hommage to France and his work. The Firm™ covered the event for the last four years and we do so today as well. So, if you feel like enjoying some excellent performances and not your average dull reading of poetry, tune in today from noon (12.00 CET) as we will be broadcasting live – audio and video.

Audio stream link here (WMP required)

Video stream link here (RealPlayer required)

And if you have a 3G mobile phone (UMTS or EDGE enabled) you can tune in to http://mobile.radiokaos.info, as we will be broadcasting to mobile phones as well.

But just to wet your appetite, here are two performances from previous years.

Nebeška Procesija (Heavenly Procession) performed by Marko Simčič, 8 February 2005
This one is a must. When I heard it for the first time, I was stunned by the fact that one can easily apply it to the situation in present day Ljubljana.

And, of course…

Zdravljica (The Toast) performed by Polde Bibič, 8 February 2004

BTW: My all time favourite verse in all of Prešren’s poetry is from the second stanza of Zdravljica:
“Bog živi vas Slovenke, prelepe žlahtne rožice.
Ni take je mladenke, kot naše je krvi dekle.
Naj sinov zarod nov,
iz vas bo strah sovražnikov”

What’s yours?

UPDATE: There were some problems with the video connection in the last 15 minutes of the broadcast, but othetwise it went without a glich. Me very happy 😀 All in all, some 1800 people attended the performance on Prešeren square. It was quite a show – despite the occasional downpour

Give Mi Mani

Minister of civil service Gregor Virant and Ljubljana Mayor Zoran Janković

So, today (that is, yesterday) Zoki finally got to meet with JJ. Why? To get back the money the state more or less took from Ljubljana in the begining of the year. The result? 0 €. Yes. Zoki got zero. Zilch. Niente. Nothing. Nada. JJ was even cheeky enough to no attend the press conference, but sent Minsiter Gregor instead.

While Janković had hoped to develop over € 2 billion worth of projects, Janša more or less told him to go fuck himself. Now, I was always wary of Janković’s grandeur, but the thing that pains me is the fact that the tug-of-war between the state and the city will leave us – the Ljubljanians – worse off.

No matter what the government says it is more or less obvious that the overnight change in financing municipalities was passed to please the mayors of 206 smaller (and more rural) municipalities, and to hurt one (1) mayor in particular. Had the government of Janez Janša really wanted to distribute the funds evenly it would have done so in phases – not leaving Ljubljana budget gaping with a € 45 million hole.

I’m sorry if I sound biased, but this is yet another example of this government pursuing specific goals (i.e.: neutralising an unwanted mayor) by changing the legislation in general. I have my reservations about Janković, but I resent Janša for fighting this battle over the back of the citizens of a capital of the state he runs.

Ljubljana Escalator Redux (and some good music)

On Tuesday I posted some more or less random thoughts on Ljubljana Escalator which opened a day later. I also wrote that heads will roll if the thing doesn’t start making profit soon. Well now… Heads might roll, but not in the near future as the escalator is expected to return the investement in forty years!!!!!. For fuck’s sake! Even I will be either geriatric and heavily demented by then – but most likely already six feet under… Jesus… Seven million euros divided by 2,5 euros (the ticket fare) means that the poor thing will have to transport at least 2.8 million passangers (provided they all buy a return ticket) just to break even. And that’s not counting the operating costs, repairs and necesary overhauls. Sheesh!

So, if you want to see how the gala opening went, here’s the piece I did for the Firm™ (in Slovene)

The voiceover is a bit screwed up because of compression and the camera work is not all it could be, but still…

The legendary jazz musician (and City Councilor) Miha Jazbinšek performed at the soiree and here they are: Miha Jazbinšek and His Legends, doing Gershwin’s Summertime

This video wasn’t aired anywhere, so it’s kind of exclusive 😀 Note how he looks into the camera at the end of his solo 😉