While waiting for the next book on Ceausescu's Romania I've just finished reading The land of green plums an autobiographic account by Romanian born Herta Muller (1953) translated from German by Michael Hofman.

The story sees a group of university students living during the reign of the dictator in a nation ruled by suspicion, fear and hatred. Muller kicks off by describing Lola, a student whose liberal sexual desires attract a member of the party. As soon as he's fed up with Lola she is found hanged in her little cubic dormitory that hosts another 6 girls one of which is the narrator. The author then meets three friends who are "looking for someone who shared Lola's room", as the reality of the suicide is put to doubt. The group starts meeting regularly, singing folk songs, writing poetry and reading German books. This behaviour in turn attracts the attention of Romanian's big brother – the Securitate.

The hardships and traumatic experiences the young quartet face are amazing. They go to great effort to avoid the tentacles of omnipresent prying Securitate with the ultimate goal of emigrating from Romania, at the risk of death.

The style of the prose takes some time to get used to. With no clearly defined story line the narrator moves through her psychological evolution which is transmitted through a series of events. The book probably explains why people are so diffident of strangers in their country. Anybody living during the reign of the dictator has suspicion and fear carved deeply inside him to the point of making suspicion a reflex emotion. 4 Stars.

Last Friday's wedding was a lesson in solidrinking (solitude drinking). After we nodded our way through the crowed we stuck to the bar like leeches and disregarded the entire reception. The only thing worth noting about the event was the simplicity of a civil wedding. The food was quite scarce although our location was not a favourite with waiters. We managed to leave before the final celebrations and the night end in the best idiom for the day – my mate vomiting!

We've just been to the movies and watched the sequel of the whole nine yards, which was very originally called The whole ten yards (review) starring Bruce Willis (Jimmy Tedeski) and Matthew Perry (Oz). The original film was by far better than this strained comedy which was only saved by Matthew Perry (but I happen to like him). Some of the humour like the nanny farting every second and the dozen burps with a bottle of beer could only make primates giggle. The story is about a gang of Hungarian killers who want to kill hitman Bruce Willis, who's lost all the dignity of his glory days and turned into a wimp crying more often than a toddler. One can easily imagine what happens next. 2 Stars.