Interestingly there is a scene in the film version where the yellow brick road and the red brick road spiral together in Emerald City.

Having completed my stocktaking of facts, clichés and outdated information I start flipping through The Insider’s Guide which came with the hotel room. Amongst the usual tourist information two items on the same page catch my eye. One, under the heading of ‘recycling’ — ‘At last some effort has been made to introduce recycling to the Bulgarians…containers for glass, plastic and paper… Old clothes and scrap metal can be left next to the bins where they will usually be collected by the Roma.’ The other is more Mask of Dimitrios: ‘The generally accepted advice is that if you are in a restaurant or café and someone enters surrounded by four body guards, it’s not a safe place to be. Generally it is best to avoid establishments frequented by “thick necks”…’ I don’t have time to think about the implications because L says, ‘The rain’s stopped. We can go out.’ And she closes her guide book.

A walk past the art school and poster accumulations on lampposts—which have reached such proportions that serious cultural archaeology could be undertaken by separating the layers—also takes us along streets which have puddles reflecting the riparian trees and buildings.

‘What associations do you have to Bulgaria?’ I ask.
‘Monks being being pulled up a cliff in a basket. We visited a monastery when we were at summer camp. I talked about it to B. She told me that from as far as Bulgarian school kids were concerned, the camp I was in was the ultimate. They all wanted to go there because of the foreign visitors. From what I remember though, we couldn’t talk to the Bulgarians because of the language problem. Then there is the bear photograph, the one I showed you, with the soldier, that I found on the flea market after B. told me about Brigitte Bardot devoting lots of money to rescue the dancing bears from the Roma. There is also a nice story from the last time I was here with a group of artists.