As for the fast food issue, they can do like Billa or Kaufland (with their carts where one has to insert RON 0.50): make customers pay RON 10 for the tray (place a tray dispenser somewhere) and give it back to them when at the end. I would go for RON 10, because less money would mean that people might simply not care for RON 1. However, let us be honest, this is a matter of the respective fast-food joint’s policy. So they should find a solution, provided they notice (I think they do) that the more people take away their leftovers and clear their table, the more they can serve in the same time frame.

But I find this to be less of a problem, if compared to that amazing evening fight in large retailers and hypermarkets (take Real, Cora, Carrefour, Kaufland or others), where people run, smash (or tear apart) packages, chaotically crowd instead of queue, volontierly go against the flow… But that is just an extension of the lawless traffic issue

A couple of points:

1. Something as potentially harmful to our children’s lives as vicious stray dogs should never just be ‘part of the city.’ Let;s just kill them all and be done with it.

2. We were not having a go at fast food outlets. We were having a go at those Romanians who leave their leftovers on the tables, and do not take them to the bin as they should. The restaurant at IKEA has dealt with this problem by putting up signs saying ‘de ce sa-mi strang singur masa’?

O zi minunata in continuare.

Take the dogs for instance; some people loathe them, but about just as many people in this city love and feed them. They are part of the city just as you and I am. The City Hall should do this and that about them (such as stopping their reproduction as it had once started), OK, but I for one do not believe in killing them (sorry for my use of this basic term used). By comparison, the Bucharest Driver is much more dangerous, has more power and less brains.

The excessive use of English words is not something unique in the world. Of course, this is not an excuse to be a total fraud and say “am ajuns la un agreement” or – even softer – to use “oportunitati” instead of “ocazii” etc., but – as a lot of information students get in university (talking only about them) comes in English, this just happens. Furthermore, it is also a matter of the Fitze Society, where people think they are smart(er) if they use “bonjourisms”. Look at the same situation in the same city (but with French back then) between the two world wars. The whole thing died when English took its place.

The fashion… hm, let us be straight and honest: every society has the trends and features it affords (not only financially, but also intellectually / culturally). Organizing an international conference a couple of weeks ago, the participants of which came from various capitals of Europe (but sharing a similar degree of welfare), I could not ignore the different ways they behaved; some were quiet, some could not attempt to show off in a more obvious way. This is a cultural issue and it would be both hard and relatively useless to attempt to eradicate it just because some (including myself) do not like people wearing sunglasses when it rains or while on the tube.

As for the big chain fast foods, without the need of naming them, they all sell crap. However, backed on the Fitze Society, on a solid marketing policy and on fast service (especially in this country), they are popular. Clean they are not, even if they respected all regulations in the world. I used to react when the first Fornetti and the Gogoasa Infuriata holes appeared, replacing the tasty (and real) local products with their frozen’n baked crap. However they sell well. This is reality now and it is granted by the market.

For drivers, traffic and motorcyclists using the bicycle lanes, you have all my consent. However there is someone breaking the law at every second in any street in this city (and in several other cities, including the Cluj someone tried to take separate a while ago, if you do not believe me, see the exit to Chinteni or the chaos in Piata Unirii – which should be closed to traffic anyway). The way to solve this problem is what they did on the DN1: cameras and bills delivered at home for faults that can be seen in pics, not police officers stopping drivers at street corners and blocking traffic even further. Then bill those imbeciles that park wherever, whenever and start (or allow) building multistorey parking lots, also advertising them, so that people use them. Advertise cycling and using the public transport; push those frauds at Metrorex to have trains run more often, grant them a 350 EUR flight ticket to Moscow (if not elsewhere) to see what an efficient tube system means, with trains coming every 50 secs and not every 7 minutes during the rush hour. Do not try to forbade cycling in town (that was the most hilarious thing the City Hall has ever tried to do).

Such things can be done or eased by the City Hall and it is here that they should move, but they don’t.

Beyond that, with the very high influx of totally different people (many workers from the neighbourhood and not only, students etc.), one cannot expect this city (just like any large city that attracts people for whatever reason) to behave like a compact community. For it is not. Subjective, I am. Just as subjective as one can be, after being bitten by a stray dog, respectively hit by cars while cycling a few times. My bottom line is that the issue is complex and should not be treated with deodorant when it needs soap.