So how I can find such a day a happy one? I will tell you.

My happiness could be called selfish, but I have realized - while my heart was full of that noble feeling of malice toward my competitor Mr. Life - that Mr. Life is sharing the destiny of other writers and has no guarantee that the story he creates will be published. One has to look no further than the international press to see that I have been too hard on Mr. Life in this column. The press ignores his stories, too!

Take for example the story from Montenegro, the small mountainous republic on the Adriatic Sea. Montenegro was one of six federal states in the former Yugoslavia (SFr) and the only one which agreed to stay with Serbia in Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY).

Some two years ago, part of Montenegrian political elite turned their course against Mr.Milosevic's mainstream and decided to follow the values of civil society.

Official Serbia was not happy about this and in the last year was full of marital skirmishes in the Federation. In the last few weeks a few summits between Podgorica (former Titograd, the capital of Montenegro) and Belgrade have taken place with the purpose of saving the marriage between the two states.

In meantime, Montenegro's government proclaimed that instead of the dinar (Yugoslavian official money) the legal tool of payment is going to be the German mark. The reason for this decision was the fact that the value of dinar is controlled by Belgrade and that Mr. Milosevic hasn't hesitated to print as much money as he needs in these last few years.

The reaction of Belgrade was to freeze all financial operations with Montenegro.

In Vojvodina, a self-governed province of the former Yugoslavia before Mr. Milosevic and "the North Province of Serbia" after - Mr. Milosevic's opponents also are thinking about establishing their own currency. It could be called "Maize Cob" (with "Corn" as change). (Neighboring Croatia has "kuna" - which means "marten" - a currency based on the price of marten's leather in the Dark Ages.)

AND WHAT HAS THE MEDIA HERE OR ELSEWHERE HAD TO SAY ABOUT THESE FINANCIAL SHENANIGANS?

Basically nothing. Nil. Mr. Life's stories get the same respectful treatment as any other writer's.

Well, there were a few minutes in a broadcast here to fill the duration of the news program, a few lines in newspapers there (to cover unsold advertisement pages). All round muff!

A few days ago cardinal Edward Cassidy (on behalf of Catholic Church) and Mr. Christian Krause (on behalf of World Lutheran Association) signed, in Augsburg, the so-called "Rechtfertigungslehre." This is a document which is supposed to lead to reconciliation of the two branches of Christianity after 500 hundred years of mutual extermination.

The Slovak Parliament proclaimed a law which will indemnify victims of deportation during World War II (when Slovakia got sovereignty by Hitler and had a fascist government). Some 70, 000 people were deported between 1939 and 1945 to concentration camps because of their nationality, religion or political affiliations. 5, 000 of them are still alive today and they will receive 3,000 SK (around US$ 70, or 30 % of average salary in Slovakia now) for every month which they spent in camp.

The donkey from George Orwell' s The Animal Farmsaid, "The Good Lord gave me a tail to swat away the flies, but I would be much more happy without the tail and without the flies."

This month we in Europe are celebrating a decade from the fall of the Berlin Wall.

I am just listening to BBC Word Service, where some young Germans from Berlin are talking about how happy they are because Communism has gone with the wind.

Well, they have good reason to be happy - Eastern Germany was born into a capitalism & Free World through the beneficence of a midwife named West Germany who had both the know-how and facilities to make delivery painless as it could be. For other countries the West has had a "shock cure" as the tool for their delivery into capitalism. Think of it like a Caesarian section for a premature birth.

Some of our "countries in transition" have survived the shock and they are convalescing now with life better than it was ten years ago (Slovenija, Poland, some of Baltic countries, according to BBC WS commentator). They are ailing only from minute children's diseases (58th place for Latvia on list of Transparency International which means that 57 of about hundred countries have lower levels of corruption).

In some other "countries in transition" - not only the former SFR - recreation will come after the fall which is not finished yet. Details such as terror created by the political police are being replaced by terror created by organized crime.

"You have some objections because communism has gone with the wind?" Mr. Life could rightfully challenge me.

"I am glad that we have no communism any more," I would say. "But you didn't use the wind but a hurricane! The hurricane made lot of damage, you know?"

"Do not be a haberdasher. Maybe I have made some small mistakes in the development of the plot, but I will rewrite the story and all ex-communist countries will be part of civil society soon..."