It was very nippy today. Sarajevo woke up to temperatures ranging from -18 to -22 degrees across the city. Fortunately there wasn’t even so much as a breeze or brass monkeys would certainly have lost their bearings! I’ve faced this kind of situation in Almaty and despite the temperature being so low, if one were to stand still, it wouldn’t feel too bad. As soon as one starts walking, however, any exposed skin starts to feel the pinch: people with big noses and protruding ears would be at a disadvantage, for example. It’s a good job last night’s power cut didn’t last more than an hour or we’d all be shivering wrecks by now. Speaking of micro climates, in the ten minute walk from office to hotel I came across three separate zones: Zone 1 = icy underfoot Zone 2 = wet underfoot but not icy Zone 3 = dry underfoot and neither wet nor icy The air temperature felt constant across all zones at the -16 it was reported to be at 7 pm this evening. I did some teaching today: my first since August last year I think. Haven’t lost it either! The topic was cost behaviour analysis and the audience was experienced accountants from industry. There were around thirty of them and it went well enough I’d say: blether and excitement from yours truly with standard materials plus a few examples taken from the consultancies we’ve done that made the session much more interesting. A fairly good response to questions, too. It’s Activity Based Costing tomorrow. At the end of the session one of the participants came and showed me a Overhead Cost Summary from … believe this or believe it not … 1945: that’s the year 1945 not 1945 as in quarter to eight in the evening! Very neat and tidy it was too: a pity it was in Bosnian or I’d have purloined a copy. Just finished reading Alice Little and the Big Girl’s Blouse by Maggie Gibson. This is one of the books I got for Christmas and I recommend it unreservedly to absolutely everybody. Alice is a lovable clot and the Big Girl’s Blouse is a nance! I’ll review it shortly but don’t wait for that, get down to the bookshop and splash out on 266 pages of fantastic nonsense. I was smiling and laughing virtually the whole time that I was reading this book and I can’t say that about many books, can you? For anyone who’s interested Big Girl’s Blouse in Russian is dyevushka na blouska. Translate the whole title and we get Alice Malinkaya i dyevushka na blouska. So there! DW