So we’re back in Bulgaria. Not quite the same place as last year, actually it’s next door to last year’s hotel and a bit nicer too. Okay, so it’s still full of Germans — as is the resort itself — and you’re certain to be addressed first as “Mein Herr”, but the order of the day is still plenty of hot sun and even more cheap beer. The first, being the proverbial pasty white Anglo-Saxon, I try to steer clear of, smothering myself in Factor Gazillion sunscreen and hiding under a beach umbrella. The second … well, let’s just say I’m keeping up the points on my CAMRA card.

But it’s not quite the same place as last year. The weather is better, sure. And the plants look greener: I guess Bulgaria’s been getting at least some of the rain that Old Blighty’s had all year. But it’s a lot busier than at the same time last year. That’s probably the Global Economic Meltdown: part people wanting to find a bit of a bargain in a country that’s as likely to descend into unrest and terrorism as the Isles of Scilly and part in seeking a refuge from the constant barrage of over-hyped bad news stories that you find everywhere. That could explain why there are so many Germans here: it must be the only place in Greater Europe they haven’t had to bail out yet.

Or could it be a folk memory? Wanting to visit all the places that Urgrossvater Heinrich spent his summers (and winters) back in 41-44? Heaven knows the Bulgarians seem ambivalent to their European patrons; after all, between 41 and 44 they were allies of Germany until the Red Army marched in to “liberate” them in September 1944. Judging by the respect that the average Bulgarian gives to the monstrous war memorials erected to that liberation in almost every big city here I wouldn’t take up offers of a bunting franchise in time for the 70th anniversary in 2014.

We’re again in Sunny Beach, the sprawling resort created by the Soviets after the war for the “trusted” few to take a “foreign” holiday in a place where they could be “trusted” not to flee to the West. For a long time now, however, the Black Sea coast resorts have been as western as any Mediterranean town and the hotels are as good as any you’ll find on the Costas (at a lot less costa, geddit!?)

The Russians are still here but the apparatchiks have been replaced by the St Petersburg chicks roaming the beach topless (I see boobies … everywhere!) on a girls-only holiday out to top up such a tan as to make those left in the office feel green. There aren’t many lobster-people here — as I said, the Brits are in a minority — but there are enough mahogany-coloured folks to make David Dickinson feel a bit anaemic. At least when they die, riddled with secondary cancers brought on by malignant melanomas (SCCs – this detail is on the insistence of my better third @berberis), they can feel appropriately smug as they donate their bodies to DFS to appear as a rather nice Chesterfield in the latest sale event.

Bikini weather

My wife is also trying to top up her tan but as she works as a medical secretary dealing with dermatology cases she is perhaps over-cautious about sun exposure, however, that didn’t stop her overdoing it a bit yesterday leaving a little pink patch on the small of her back (in the bit she couldn’t reach). She is now happily wearing bikinis she wouldn’t have dared to a year ago — and sometimes only the bottom half. This is partly because in the intervening 12 months she has joined a gym and partly because last year we saw so many examples of women wearing bikinis who just shouldn’t, that she now has greater confidence that she won’t be pointed out as some sort of freak. After all what size 12/14 woman doesn’t feel like that?

As I said, I’m hiding under sunscreen and parasols watching the boobies, and not all of them on women which makes me feel less of a freak. And I’m back writing this blog, partly because it’s the first free time I’ve had in months what with all this business travel: Washington one week, Singapore the next. It’s almost like I don’t know my Witchita from my Wolverhampton.

The other reason is that there is much here to record and comment about which doesn’t include bounce rates (apart from the obvious pun), drop-off (that one too) and entry and exit points (this is getting silly).

If you’re interested, watch this space.

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What is happening to our young people? They disrespect their elders, they disobey their parents. They ignore the law. They riot in the streets inflamed with wild notions. Their morals are decaying. What is to become of them?

There’s a lot of handwringing going on at the moment. Apparently, we’re all doomed. Global Warming, the breakdown of society, crumbling infrastructure, the double-dip recession. Something — everything — is out to get us.

The reason for this gloom is not just that the northern hemisphere seems to be locked in the coldest winter for a million years (and I’m not exagerrating that much). I think it has something to do with a human need to parcel time up into easy to fret about chunks.

This time around the catalyst seems to be the end of the decade dubbed the “Noughties”, (although it isn’t. The decade ends next year — don’t get me started). Ten years in to the 21st century, we might be forgiven a little glance back to see what’s gone wrong (and it’s always the case that things have gone wrong).

Apparently, according to the self appointed opinion leaders, we’ve replaced the class war with an age war and mortgaged our grandchildrens’ future up to the hilt because we’ve had to bale out those individuals who wouldn’t bale us out. And despite our best efforts, it’s only going to get worse …

Well, my personal view of the past is that the more things change, the more they stay the same.

The problems of today are nothing new, we just talk about them in a different way. And because scared people are more eager to buy snake-oil cures, the “powers that be” have found a new and effective way of encouraging us to think that the world is indeed going to Hell on a handcart: bad news overload. After all, no news is good news.

Of course it’s been going on for a while. The quote that leads this blog is attributed to Plato (427-347 BC) and despite people of my parents’ generation bemoaning the fact that “kids were well behaved in our day”, there are documented stories of vandalism, cruelty and bullying even when the country was experiencing the “Dunkirk Spirit”. The same goes for finance, climate and the breakdown of society: it’s all happened before, believe me.

Actually, we’re most of us much better off these days: we have greater freedoms, we don’t have regular international wars and the average life expectancy keeps on rising (of course some people say that means we’re headed for a population catastrophe).

It would seem it’s not so much a case of glass half full. For some, the environmentally unsound glass is cracked and is completely empty.

To all of the moaning minnies out there, I have just one thing to say, cheer up for Heaven’s sake and give us all a break!

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Tis said it’s darkest just before the dawn. Problem is, that only works in hindsight. You need to know WHEN the dawn is coming to make any comparisons.

Currently, I have no idea when the dawn is coming. If it’s soon then the black mood I find myself in right now is about as dark as it gets, but recent history and the constant stream of bad news from the world around me, hints that the dawn could be some way away.

That implies things are likely to get blacker: that in itself is depressing.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not about to top myself anytime soon. I’m a born optimist, and that little voice inside is telling me it’s all going to get better.

But couple together a less-than-satisfactory meeting with a couple of recruiters (which was meant to be lunch but turned out to be a cup of overpriced coffee), cold damp grey weather and the impending end of my employment, and it’s not difficult to understand why I feel so lousy right about now.

Time to chant my favourite mantra of the moment: “Don’t worry, a year from now, all this will be history.”

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