From the fiction writer's point of view, none of those stories deserves to be published, irrespective of whether they were created by Mr. Life himself or by Mr. Life's myrmidons.

Let us analyze them story by story so that I can show you why.

* OK, we had crazy Serbs in Kosovo, we have crazy Albanians now. The literary move is to try to keep our attention by changing the roles of the central antagonists, but it is sordid trick which means only quaffing the need of action without any hint that the plot is going to be better in the continuance of the story.

Speaking about Mr. Chris Patton, he is absolutely needless in the story. Maybe something of his existence in the story could be reasonable if he had spoken about numbers in his BBC report in order to validate his conclusion, but no numbers were mentioned.

For example, he could say that violence is not as bad as it looks in Kosovo because we don't have 15 million wild Albanians against, say, 550,000 Serbs. Considering that in Kosovo there is no more than 2 million people (Albanians, Serbs, Turks, Romany, KFOR), we wouldn't be in the position to agonize over the point of the story or feel frustrated because it left us incredulous. We would know Mr.Patton's comments were only trimming, that they are some kind of excrescental but handy addenda meant to distract from the smuggling of an advertisement into the text.

* The story about the wall is too poor. Where is the background? An experienced ghost writer, uncorrupted by Mr. Life, would look for an excuse for this unbelievable act in tradition. Europeans can't live without walls. The wall between Scotland and England built by Romans, for example. Or the wall which separated East and West in Berlin.

Domestic people two thousand years ago maybe had serious problems with Hadrian's wall, perhaps there were a few ungrateful people near the Berlin wall 'til the end of the 'eighties; but ---listen!--- the ruins of both walls are tourist attractions and sources of income now.

The uncorrupted ghost writer would offer the assumption that ethnic Czechs didn't erect this new wall because they can't stand their Gypsy neighbors but because they simply want to ensure income for future generations who will be able to exploit the ruins when the wall falls. Interpreted in this way, the story from Usti nad Labem would continue to be as nasty as it is now, but it would also be amusing for readers. Excluding those who are living on the wrong side of the wall, of course.

* What to say about a plot in which we find featured an American administration and Yugoslavian crown-prince in exile, Alexander Karadjordjevic? Firstly, the average reader would easily recognize who is a bad guy in this story (Mr. Milosevic, of course), but are the good guys presented really good? Any writer worth his salt could do better, I say!

Let us ignore His Majesty for the while and take look at the Americans. Wherefrom springs this sudden love for royal blood after they exterminated Aztec dynasties, annihilated Indian chieftains and did their best to provoke headaches for that jolly good fellow George III? It makes no sense.

* The economic situation isn't so bad in Slovakia, the government still has lot of possibilities for creating a budget. I am expecting a new law declaring it a parking place on the road, and therefore subject to a new fee, while you hold up space at a red traffic signal.

These stories from Life are bad enough, but two other stories from the last week - inauguration of the sheriat(Muslim habitude law) in part of Nigeria and the proposal of a law which will ensure favored status to the Catholic Church in Slovakia - made me think about other possible motives of Mr. Life. I do not know if Mr. Life is religious or not, but it is obvious that he wants to be covered on that side, too.

In the meantime, I am coming to realize that involving bad writers isn't caused by Mr. Life's parsimony but moreso by the fact that good writers simply do not want to have anything to do with such cheap and dirty production.

For example, Mr. Vaclav Havel (President of Czech Republic at this very moment, but a writer forever) already has condemned the story of the wall in Usti nad Labem.

But that wall still separates "black" and "white" communities in the heart of Central Europe.