Young and old

The book fair is just an excuse to spend three days, traditionally, in the city with the most bookstores and small bakeries in the world. And let's go to the National Theater ("Fathers and Fathers") and JDP ("Bora Schneider's Developmental Path"). And let's see the godfathers Marković. And to feel the taste of chestnuts in Knez Mihajlova again. And the breath of ancient youth...

Belgrade is the world!

* * *

And the Fair is always the same – spiritual, mystical, talkative... Apart from fatigue, one feels peace and tranquility there, surrounded by books and people similar to oneself. It seems to him that there is hope and that everything will be fine in the end. The next, 67th International Book Fair will be organized in the same place, and it is uncertain where the one in 2025 will welcome publishers, books and readers. Certainly, at an even better and "older" Fairground.

A wise man said long ago: "The human mind is limited, human stupidity is not."

* * *

In the bar cinema, in comfortable seats and a pleasant atmosphere, despite the somewhat noisier "popcorners", we watched the film "Guardians of the Formula", about the nuclear accident in Vinci in 1958 and the epoch-making treatment in France, by bone marrow transplantation, of seriously ill patients.

When I left the cinema, my first thought was: if Yugoslavia had really made the atomic bomb as it secretly intended (and was well on its way), it might still be intact. And it certainly wouldn't fall apart in a bloody civil war.

* * *

It is not clear to me how we managed to hate each other so badly, we: Serbs, Croats, Bosniaks and Montenegrins, and we are the only ones in the world who speak this language of ours, whatever anyone calls it. Only us. Nobody else.

* * *

The 44th Government of Montenegro was formed. The Prime Minister turned 36 in September. And the entire Government is, on average, very young. There is not a single Baranin in it. And there was room at least for Miodrag Lekić, as Minister of Foreign Affairs. Any other country would be proud to have at the head of its diplomacy an experienced politician, an educated polyglot, with charming and refined manners.

* * *

And when it comes to the young and somewhat older...

The selector of the "B" national team of Montenegro, grandmaster Božidar Ivanović, omitted the international master Blaž Kalezić (45 years old) from the list and is leading a young team to the European Chess Championship, which will be played in Budva from November 10 to 21 ( since it is the host, Montenegro has the right to two teams, "A" and "B"). Kalezić reacted, he thinks he belongs in the "B" team, the selector thinks not, because he sees the "B" team exclusively as a young national team. Objectively, Kalezić is right, he is still stronger, probably, than all the players of the "B" team. In addition (I testify from personal experience, I was his captain in Mornar), he is well-mannered and quiet. On the other hand, the selector has full right and legitimacy to assemble the national team at his discretion, especially since there are no criteria by which it is determined.

What is problematic about everything is that the Chess Federation of Montenegro "promised" Kalezić that he would play for the "B" national team. Then why on earth did they appoint a man who is the greatest chess authority in this country as the coach? Someone else might have been able to suggest how to compile that famous list...

* * *

Actress Meryl Streep (74) divorced sculptor Don Gamer (76). After 45 years of marriage and four children (Henry 43, Mami 40, Grace 37 and Louise 32), as well as five grandchildren.

Only another (also irrelevant) divorce "impressed" me like that. The one of Bayagin.

In love, as in life, obviously, everything is possible and nothing is "forever".

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"Somewhere in the Andes, they still believe that the future is behind you. It comes suddenly and unpredictably behind your back, and the past is always in front of your eyes, what happened to you", Georgi Gospodinov, in the novel "Time Shelter".