Hey! Over here…Yeah… F-r-a-n-c-e.

Tallinn is the capital of Estonia, northern Baltic country, freed from Russian rule in the early 1990’s and now a new member of the European Union.

It is a happy, beautiful city, full of charm. It seems to have risen above the many years of oppression in a most enthusiastic way — there is much light left and it is shining through.

We just spent a few days there on our way to Saint Petersbourg. On the way into the Old City from the airport, our taxi driver happily pointed to all the big public works projects we passed by, exclaiming “Big money. Big money.” He was one happy European.

The Old City is one of the best preserved medieval cities left. I didn’t know what this meant until I stepped out of the taxi and saw for myself.

The central square is magnificent. It is ringed by well-proportioned pastel facades which are padded by perfect café terrasses. There is a stage off to one side where I watched local musicians, high school pompom girls, break dancers, karaoke professionals, and diverse uncategorizable entertainers of variable geometry appear in rapid succession.

Wandering through the dedale of narrow cobbled streets was the kind of pleasure that travellers hope for when they discover a new, potentially exotic place. The cobbles are a little big for my taste (felt like walking over watermelons), but they had the merit of being there.

We discovered a restaurant built into a 14th-century monastery. The food was so good that we wound up having 3 of our 5 significant meals there. This meant that we volontarily ignored all the fabulous restaurants in Tallinn’s old town, but hey, when you actually find a table like the Cloistri, you go there.

My principle souvenir was a 4€ slab of locally-made coal-tar soap. Resembles chocolate swirl ice cream, smells like fresh asphalt. Which is what I’ll smell like for the next few weeks.

I love Tallinn.

PS: Miscellaneous Estonia facts gleaned from recent reading:

1) According to the IMD, Estonia is the 20th most competitive economy in the world.

2) The number of Estonian millionaires, as measured in kroons, has increased by 26% in the last 2 years.

3) One million kroons = 63000 euros.

4) Most Estonian beaches have wifi installed.

5) The Best Estonian Food Awards 2006 went to:

• Rye bread yogurt
• Felix brand light borscht
• White chocolate with puffed rice and blueberry chips.

From gizmodo, the stuff that dreams are made of.

The USB shirt has two fans on the left and right sides of the back, taking in air to cleanse all the sweat off your spare tire. There’s an external switch on the USB cable to adjust the fan speed…

You can learn more, and probably regain hope in Life, here

BRUSSELS: in the early hours this morning, Monique and I make it down a leafy street that ends in a most exotic cul-de-sac - the Cuban Embassy is on the right, the Russian Consulate is on the left. Trees everywhere hide the fact that we are in the capital of Europe. I’m pretty sure I saw James Bond lurking behind a tree.

We have a plan to go to St. Petersburg in ten days, so my destination is to the left, where I join the queue of people waiting to get their visas to Russia. The consulate doors open in an hour, but there are already 25 people waiting. That doesn’t seem like such a lot, right? Or is this what a bread line looks like? Maybe the fact that the consulate only issues visas on Monday-Wednesday-Friday, from 9h30 to 12h30 has something to do with it.

The queue is outside the consulate sidewalk. Every once in awhile, the big wooden consulate door opens and a gatekeeper lets one person in. Or one person out. Sometimes both.

(Continued)

The User Interface Design Update Newsletter that just landed in my mail, reports:

“The news reported recently that a number of people wagered real
money (via the Internet) that June 6th (6-6-6) would be the end of the
world. Hmmm. If they had won that bet, one wonders how they
planned to collect.”

Good question. The punters were obviously not into game theory.

The authors add: “Human logic is a fragile thing.”

Hmm. But others have said that the lottery is a tax on human stupidity. Maybe they didn’t cast a wide enough net.

Back in 2001, when it was fully dawning on me that starting a business is France was about the stupidest way to position oneself for living in this beautiful country, I stumbled onto that pure French moment that all entrepreneurs dread, the Firing Ritual.

Four months earlier, my system administrator had had a stroke while we were in the middle of an office conversation. It took me a few moments to realize that his glazed look and low droning noises were not his typical ones and, fortunately, I had the wits to bundle him into my car and drive the four minutes to the emergency room where he was immediately taken in and cared for.

(Continued)

Yesterday was Pentacote, minor holiday in the catholic world that was also, until recently, another work holiday in France, a country where work holidays outnumber varieties of cheese.

Until recently, I say, because two years ago, Pentacôte was officially downgraded to a simple workday in France just like any other.

This downgrade was the official government response to intense public outrage two years ago following the brutal heat wave in August 2003 that left 15000 elderly dead from dehydration and other heat-related causes. An outraged French public, upon returning home from their annual month-long August holidays and finding that tante Ghislaine and oncle François were no longer with them except in spirit, demanded explanations from the government. State officials, who had spent the better part of the blistering month on the various beaches of the world themselves, had to come up with some sort of official-sounding measure that would renew frenchpersonnes’ confidence that a) of course the French govt was fully capable of controlling the weather if it had only not been on holiday itself, and b) they (frenchpersonnes) could continue to take the month of August off without having to worry whether grand-mère and grand-père, left behind in the unventilated Paris apartment, were drinking the recommended minimum daily quantity of Evian.

(Continued)

It has been cherry time here in the the sunny SW of France for a few weeks now and I am lucky enough to possess 4 venerable, fully-charged trees in my garden. In this context, Life being a big bowl of cherries comes down to lots of confitures, crumbles, clafoutis, and freezer bags that have been assiduously and unrelentlessly pitted, baked and boiled.

Ultimately the same question that pops up every year pops up now — what else can a foodie do with cherries?

Some years the responses are pretty boring (buckwheat cherry pancakes with cherry compote topping is good but will make no one’s recipe shelf). This year, though, I think I cracked it.

(Continued)

Years of observing and participating in the economic life of France has led me (in a dazzling flash of lucidity) to formulate the 7/70 Law, which hopefully will be of great aid to anyone thinking of starting a business in France.

It goes like this:

Upon starting your own business here you can expect that for at least 7 years, you will

• work 70 hours a week
• give 70% of your income to the various French administrations
• pay yourself no more than 70% of the SMIC (minimum wage)
• hopefully, pay off your debts before you reach 70

This may be why 70% of young (16-29) frenchpersonnes responding to a Le Monde poll during the recent CPE crisis, claimed their life’s priority was to become a french civil servant with a single, non-precarious job for life.