Tuesday, May 03, 2005

Comb Over Over

It's a big news week in Romania. Half of the Western part of the country apears to be underwater in the worst floods in 50 years. Three Romanian journalists remain hostages in Iraq, and the chances of them living seem to erode minute by minute. Last week, Romania finally signed the treaty that will see they and Bulgaria admitted to the EU on January 1st, 2007 (barring major problems). What, then, was the first item on the news last night? The fact that President Traian Basescu has cut off his ridiculous combover. Now, don't get me wrong, this is a good step to have taken - last week for example he met with the president of Ukraine in a photo-opportunity of quite staggering hideousness. Except that in Yushenko's case he has an excuse, having been poisoned with Agent Orange by his political opponents. Basescu had no such excuse for his ridiculous "hairstyle". I'm just not entirely sure that it's necessarily deserving of being the lead item on the news.

I suspect it might be a mistake, politically, in some ways though. Now people will stop focussing on how crap he looks and start worrying about how good he is as president. And so far, he's, frankly, looked out of his depth. And there's a lot of stuff he really, really needs to deal with quite pressingly

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Jo estet Andy!
I was looking for other blogs in the Central/East European region and your friend Bill McCornish sent me in this direction.
Although we only live next door, my knowledge of both Romania and Szekely is woeful, so I'll be popping in quite often to see what the craic is down south!