well another parental rite of passage – had 50 friends of harry's at ours for a party last night for his seventeenth. it seems ages since joel's! a beautiful evening meant we could use the garden with candles everywhere and the fire burning, and we had a sound system in the lounge with joel and friends playing tunes (we moved everything out that was remotely breakable or valuable) . harry had made it fancy dress – come dressed as a song title. there weren't prizes but the most impressive entrance was adam as 99 red balloons! it meant for some crazy outfits… i didn't take many photos – it was all very dark but this is joel and harry comparing 'fro's. harry will add the rest to his facebook i'm sure. harry started the evening dressed in an ice cream outfit but swapped with chris later in the evening. all good fun, no damage, no breakages, no neighbourly complaints (yet), and no one seemed to drink too much… wow!
the pressure is now building as we need to begin planning next year's having gone nuts for joel's eighteenth!
It was during a party
I saw a vision
Of underlings hair
And makeup full
Imparting gifts
That seances only wish
They could give
To mystic seekers
Because the fair
Become the ruddy,
And the ruddy,
Become the fair,
The gift of joy is shared, and
No divine secret is withheld.
Okay – that just came to me on a Monday morning.
Party on like you didn’t read that.
It’s like Rilke meets the Gong Show.
Raivo Pommer
raimo1@hot.ee
Italien-Schweiz
Italien wird wohl eines der ersten Länder sein, mit denen die Schweiz über ein neues Doppelbesteuerungsabkommen verhandeln wird.
Die Schweizer Aussenministerin Micheline Calmy-Rey hat am Montag in Rom ihrem italienischen Amtskollegen Franco Frattini die Lockerung des Schweizer Bankgeheimnisses gegenüber Ausländern erläutert und die Position der Schweiz dargelegt.
Frattini möchte mit «konkreten Massnahmen» auf die vom Bundesrat am 13. März beschlossene Auflockerung des Bankgeheimnisses reagieren, wie er nach dem Treffen mit Calmy-Rey sagte. Zur Debatte steht eine Revision des Doppelbesteuerungsabkommens nach den internationalen Standards. Sowohl Calmy-Rey als auch Frattini bezeichneten das Verhältnis zwischen Italien und der Schweiz als vorzüglich.