Eastern Europe

This week I am mainly running into references to the former Eastern Bloc.
First there has been a lot of stuff going on to commemorate the 20 years anniversary of the Siege of Sarajevo. I t has always amazed me that while one side of Europe was squabbling about farm subsidies and fishing quotes, the other half was tearing it self to pieces.  I will also never understand how people can live as neighbours for 50 years and then one day start killing each other. Although the Scots hatred of the English that you sometime see up here; or Rangers supporters sending bullets to the Celtic manager, is perhaps an interesting insight into the strength of some peoples misguided ethnic identity and the hatred that it can produce.

Anyway back to the movies. The first was shot by a friend of Katharine's who was an NBC cameraman in Bosnia in the early 90's. Its very moving stuff.

And on a lighter note, it was only a matter of time before someone combined slack-lining and BASE and its no surprise that its those wacky Frenchies (whoops - bit of ethnic pigeon-holing there!)

Oh yes the other reference to the Eastern Block - I have been reading "the Freedom Climbers" by Bernadette MacDonald, the story of Polish high altitude mountaineering in the 1990's - its amazing