My sister Yugoslavia

I used to listen to the Smiths when I considered myself to be a disaffected youth (in fact, I was an over-privileged student).  I was reminiscing a few months ago and looked up "How Soon is Now?" - the bands anthem for lonely teenagers - and was surprised to see that it had been covered by a Russian band called t.a.T.u.  Johnny Marr, the Smiths' guitarist, apparently thought it silly, but Morrissey, the singer, liked it and when he heard that the band were "a pair of teenage Russian lesbians" he apparently said "aren't we all?"

Anyway, I looked the band up and was surprised to see that one of the pair, Lena, had actually performed a song called "Yugoslavia", that according to what I read was related to a concert that was planned in Moscow to protest against the Nato bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999.  The song and a translation can be found here.  

At the time, I don't think I considered the bombing to be anything but the right thing to do.  And I don't remember a lot of protests against the bombing in the west, though Google suggests that they did seemingly happen.  At any rate, I don't think it was on the scale (at least in the UK where I was living) of the anti-Gulf war protests of the early 1990s.

It is a fairly touching song somehow.  I guess I'm touched as somebody who, a long time after the fact, and for reasons that have nothing to do with the war per se, has some sympathy towards Serbia, or at the very least knows a bit more about it than most Westerners.  It's also interesting as it touches on one of the very ancient relationships (Russia/Serbia) that nothing seems to diminish.   Somehow I think it is probably for the best that Russia didn't start World War III over Serbia, but it is reassuring to know that there were some people who didn't like the bombing, probably for the right reasons.

The medical establishment endorsing old wives' tales

I've ranted before about how there are many old-fashioned beliefs in the former Yugoslavia. For instance that not wearing slippers inside causes female infertility.   Periodically my mother-in-law will back one of these up by saying that a doctor said it, which usually turns out to be some friend's son's girlfriend's uncle's colleague who is actually the Doctor, so third, fourth or fifth hand.  Nevertheless, getting strange advice from doctors isn't a new thing to me.

I'm not one to believe blindly a doctor's advice as I think a lot of it is not really medically based, and I certainly don't subscribe to the idea that all doctors are necessarily super intelligent (though of course many are). We have a pediatrician in Germany who pushed homeopathic drugs on our kids until I told him that I don't want to hear about them anymore (any chemist knows they are snake-oil).  He understood my objections because of my background (PhD in Biochemistry), and stopped, but his colleague get's rather annoyed with me when I don't want the various homeopathic concoctions that she wants me and my insurance company to buy.

Anyway, back to the Balkans, my son has what looks like a throat infection, and was prescribed some antibiotics. The Croatian doctor warned me that under no circumstances should he go swimming for the eight days that he needs to take them. I asked why and was then subjected to a rather teacher-like interrogation as if I should know better.  I had no idea and stared rather stupidly.  Rather annoyed, she said: "Pneumonia, of course".  She astonished me by also saying that he must not have any cold drinks for the next eight days either for the same reason.

Ah, right, Pneumonia.  The disease that you get by getting your hair wet, going outside after you've washed your hair, or by putting your feet in a swimming pool (but curiously not a bath).  And drinking cold drinks won't just give you a sore throat, it will actually increase your chances of getting Pneumonia.   I was stunned enough, and naturally worried enough about my son, to look things up again on the Internet, and surprisingly or reassuringly there is virtually nothing in English about avoiding swimming when taking antibiotics as it can cause pneumonia, with most hits that appear being related to ear infections treated with topical antibiotics (creams) whereby one obviously shouldn't swim.   Pneumonia, as everybody should know, is caused by an infection - most often bacterial - that leads to specific problems in your lungs.  The best way to avoid it is to avoid people who are infected and stay otherwise healthy as cold viruses or other infections can lead to pneumonia.  Water, wind, rain and cold don't cause Pneumonia, though probably if you get super cold (i.e. hypothermia) you would be more likely to get it if the bacteria/virus were present, but that's not the same thing as wet hair in 34 degree summer weather or dangling your feet in a 29 degree pool.

So  this is seemingly a bit of Balkan folklore making it into medical officialdom.  I think the advice was even written down in her book of drugs, but I didn't get a close look.  Anyway, she gave us the prescription and I went to pay at the cashier.  I noticed that the Kasa was air-conditioned (it was separated from the waiting room), and I joked that they were lucky as even the Doktorica didn't have air-conditioning (the examination room had been pretty hot).  The woman at the desk looked at me and said, with a faint hint of annoyance: "she has it, but doesn't turn it on because she says it will give her a sore neck".  I rest my case.