Issue 18

Being a saint, as we all know, is hard. Saint Patrick's career certainly had its ups and downs. Born in Roman Britain in the 5th Century, he was kidnapped as a teenager and sold into slavery in Ireland. He spent six years working as a herdsman before making his escape. In his writings he describes how later he had a vision in which he heard the Irish calling him, so he went back to convert them to Christianity. This was no easy task as he had to defy the authority of local chieftains and to face the power of the old druidic religion.

A HARD START

Like fish out of water – that's how Bulgarians felt in 1878 when they found themselves citizens of two new countries: the Principality of Bulgaria which included the Sofia plains and territory north of the Balkan Mountains, and Eastern Rumelia which comprised the land south of the same range.

Bulgarian humour can be tough, cynical, vulgar, sexist, anti-Semitic, anti-everybody – and all too often coprophilic. Have you heard the one about the man who went to city hall and wanted to change his name? The clerk refused: “Sorry, no name changes allowed.” But the poor guy insisted, “Look, I can't go on living with this name, I have to change it!” Finally, the clerk gave in and asked, “OK, what's your name?” “Ivan Shitsky,” answered the man. “Oh, in that case,” said the clerk, “I understand. What would you like your new name to be? “ “Petar Shitsky,” the man replied.

When Irish fans come to Sofia in June 2009 for the World Cup qualifier between Bulgaria and the Republic of Ireland, they may be reminded of a little known piece of distant sporting history. For it was against Bulgaria, in 1924, that newly independent Ireland played its first ever international football match. In 1922, after years of conflict between the British Empire and Irish rebels demanding an independent Irish republic, the Anglo-Irish peace treaty was signed. This divided the island into the independent Irish Free State and the smaller Northern Ireland.

You are in probably the only EU country where architecture can be deadly – literally and figuratively. In Varna a concrete canopy collapsed, killing a girl; a tumbling building also crushed another couple of girls in central Sofia. The sandy beaches on the southern Black Sea coast are all but gone, replaced by hotels where pseudo-Egyptian statues are outnumbered only by pseudo-turrets and pseudo-balustrades. Most of them have crooked walls.

While playing football with his fellow writers on one of his frequent trips around Europe to poetry festivals, workshops and meetings, writer Georgi Gospodinov broke his leg. The cast didn't slow him down, however. Gospodinov limped through Vienna, Graz and Klagenfurt on crutches and won a writing stipend in Berlin, previously held by Mario Vargas Llosa, Mircea Cartarescu and Susan Sontag.

What (if any) are the guidelines on this? I have been told that the electricity companies are now supposed to offer “domestic” tariffs to UK owners. Could you please help to clarify the legality of this. Also, my December bill seems excessive to me – what can I do, if anything, about it?