91Èȱ¬

The journalist in me says I should write about the unprecedented cuts in the 91Èȱ¬ World Service.

Five of our language services will be closed and up to 650 of my colleagues could lose their jobs.

The writer inside me says I am too close the the news and I should let some time pass.

I am caught - as usual - inbetween journalism and literature.

Therefore let me start my piece from afar.

This week one of the leading Russian theatres - Sovremennik - was performing Chekhov in London.

Anton Chekhov is without doubt one of the greatest Russian writers, though during his lifetime he was considered the "smallest brother" in the family of Russian greats such as Pushkin, Gogol, Dostoevsky and Tolstoy.

From the perspective of more recent times his reputation is ever increasing. Such 20th century classics from Kafka, Borges and Becket all owe Chekhov more than any other writer.

Yet, watching his "Three Sisters", especially the monologues about the happy future of mankind in 100 - 200 years, I felt a bit embarrassed to say the least.

I don't blame Chekhov for it; neither do I hold him responsible for the pathos of the theatre, nor for the kind of British scepticism that has crept into my mind since I have lived in the UK.

There was something else in that scepticism.

Last week President Karimov of Uzbekistan has been received in Brussels by all manner of European and NATO officials and dignitaries, despite uproar from human rights activists and organisations.

You can read the background to it here.

The main concern was that the president of the European Union, the head of NATO and other officials are meeting with the leader of a country that has one of the worst human rights records in the world.

Human rights groups and some Western governments hold Mr Karimov responsible for the 2005 events in the eastern Uzbek city of Andijan, when government troops reportedly opened fire on mainly unarmed protesters, killing hundreds of them.

But before coming to Brussels, Mr Karimov as if to break some sort of taboo mentioned the Andijan at a Cabinet meeting. For the first time he blamed the local authorities for the uprising and not the West and the Western media.

He said: "Andijan has its special position in Uzbekistan. Not paying attention to the situation in Andijan, the engagement of the region's leaders in certain improper activities, resulted in them losing themselves and being indifferent [to the situation]. In addition, their involvement in dishonest activities destroyed such a great number of people.

After some time has lapsed, I would like to talk about participants in the Andijan events. Being the president I am speaking frankly. All of them were Uzbek people. Therefore, no matter who and how participated in these events, I personally think, I am expressing my personal opinion, I think that of course a senior official surely had responsibility before these people in any case. Nonetheless, no matter how these people participated in these events there are still some points that torment me.

"We did not pay attention to them at the time. To avoid the outbreak of such events, above all, we should live with the concerns of people and humans in all places."

So the words have been said.

Never mind the hundreds of people that were killed, the thousands that were prosecuted, arrested, exiled.

I come from the part of the world where the rulers say all right words about the happy future of their people and the harmony among mankind, but according to communications that were published by Wikileaks, if not the politicians themselves, then their sons, daughters and close relatives are competing to be in Forbes' lists of multi-millionaires and other compliation lists of the "rich and famous".

The Brussels hosts behaved quite strangely too.

Initially, when human rights groups alerted us to a possible back-door visit by the Uzbek President, and we called them, officials replied that they have no information about such visit.

Later, when the diary of the EU Commission's President was published and clearly showed the meeting, they said that the visit was initiated by the Uzbek side.

Finally, when the Uzbek state agency announced the visit, stating that the President Karimov was going to Brussels on the invitation of the EU Commission's President, officials from the EU Commission declined to comment.

There's a famous saying that the art of diplomacy is to say nothing about the things you know.

A friend of mine has extended it: "whereas the art of journalism is to say every- and anything about things you don't know".

Though I don't agree with the latter part of that statement, I think this case shows how hyper-inflated are words nowadays.

One thing is said, another thing is meant and the third thing is done.

Here in the World Service we have a training course called "Say what you mean".

Making a course like that widely available, I guess, might help many of us to rejoin and rejoice with likes of Chekhov.

It is 100 days to go until the Royal wedding of Prince William and his fiancee Kate Middleton.

In the lead up to the big day, programmes will be made and pictures, facts, opinion - and even gossip will be published by the British and the world media.

Our part in the celebrations is to write together an Ode to weddings under the title Nulla Dies Sine Linea (have a look if you haven't contributed already).

But I have story to tell about another spring wedding.

As you may know, I have been reporting from Pendle in Lancashire on the impact of the economic downturn on this small town. (See In Search of a Cotton Mill, Get Real, and Be Positive.)

During my investigations, I found a couple - Catriona and Nick - who are getting married on almost the same day as Prince William and Kate.

So I have asked the bride - Catriona - for her thoughts about the next 100 days: what's on her mind, what preoccupies her, what concerns or excites her?

Here she is in her own words:

On Thursday it will be 100 days to go until my man and I get married.

You'd think, after nine years or so of knowing each other, and a good proportion of that time spent dating, there'd be nothing that would faze us.

Piece of cake, right?

He is, after all, my best friend, my life partner, the person who knows me better than anyone.

Only it isn't a piece of cake, it's actually a little daunting.

It's not so much the prospect of committing to one person for the rest of my life (that's the part I'm quite happy with), it's the whole circus performance that comes with weddings.

Personalised wedding logos. Co-ordinating ribbon on the back of the chairs. A kind of a competition for the "best overall experience".

It's enough to make even the most competitive of sport players run fast in the opposite direction.

When my Mum describes the day she and my Dad got married, it all sounds so simple.

She walked to the church next door when she was ready (wearing a dress made by her friend).

My Grandad - a vicar - married them.

The reception was in the neighbouring school hall where my Grandma taught, and the cold finger buffet was provided by another friend.

The wedding cost them around £600 (and that was only because she wanted imported flowers in January).

They honeymooned - "exotically" - in London.

Thirty-two years on they're still happily married, living in Pendle.

So this is my reference point for marriage; something meaningful. Personal.

Something to mark the start of a long and happy journey.

There are times during the wedding preparations when I have to remind myself of this, as the industry has evolved into something of a crazed monster that can encourage you to part with more money than is comprehensible, in attempt to exude a perfectly stage-managed, choreographed fairy tale picture, if just for one day.

Personalised table favours? Don't even get me started...

So, at this stage, with 100 days to go, the planning process is going relatively well, if only limited to the bare essentials (Date? Check. Groom? Check. Vicar? Sorted.)

See? I'm a dab hand at this wedding lark.

Joking apart, lest anyone think I'm way behind, I have actually also confirmed the reception venue and found a dress.

I sometimes wonder what it must like for Miss Middleton at this stage.

Does she have free reign (excuse the pun) over any of the wedding preparation decisions?

My other half and I have made the majority of the decisions together - where to have the wedding, who to invite.

I thought this part might cause tension but it was quite simple.

We wrote a long list of friends and family we wanted to invite.

It was longer than we could stretch to, so we decided not to invite children or anyone that we felt wouldn't recognise us if they walked past us in the street.

Job done - perfect - a manageable number of guests achieved in under 30 minutes!

The next things on the to-do list is to sort out places for everyone to stay, and get the invites out.

I've designed the invite myself (with a little thievery from my favourite artist).

Someone asked me a while back what the "theme" of our wedding was.

Apparently this is the way to coordinate all the creative elements of the day; a way of ensuring cohesion and standing apart from the crowd.

At first, my response, slightly bewilderedly was "er... wedding?"

Now that I have become a slightly more experienced wedding planner, I have landed upon the theme of "homemade".

You could also call it DIY (probably a more apt description of my homemade invite attempts).

Where we can, we'll make things ourselves.

Where we can't, we'll get friends and family to help.

Hopefully this will keep things personal and down to earth (read: in budget).

I must confess at this point, before I come across as too much of an anti-wedding industry, artsy do-gooder, I have sourced the most amazing pair of shoes for the big day.

Designer. Limited edition. And definitely not homemade.

Before starting this entry here's a piece of good news.

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I would also like to remind you that I still need your help with our writing project Nulla Dies Sine Linea. I need contribution every day until 28 April.

How the boundaries of journalism and literature are blurred these days...

The days when highbrowed writers would dismiss whole epochs as "feuilletonic" or mundanely journalistic (in the case of the great German writer Herman Hesse), the days when one writer would diminish another one by considering him too non-fictional and newspaperly (in the case of Nabokov judging the writing of Solzhenitsyn) are long gone.

Nowadays even the most refined and subtle knights of belles-lettres can't disregard tabloids or TV, Facebook or Twitter.

There was a time when journalism was considered to be a loaf of rye bread in a bakery that also offered croissants to éclairs (the latter standing metaphorically for different genres of literature).

Yes, it's true, that journalism reports here and now events, and the domain of literature tends to be more eternal.

The language and rhetoric of journalism are simpler and more straightforward.

The span of journalistic interest is also seemingly narrower and more predictable.

But don't you think that the whole of literature is moving towards journalism?

I'm not talking about the thriving non-fictional books boom (now the majority of bestsellers are non-fiction, aren't they?).

I mean contemporary literary works.

Topicality, experience described using simple and straightforward language with an easy message - aren't those qualities journalistic in their nature?

If 40 to 50 years ago it was usual to say that journalism was at its best a shadow of good literature, nowadays one is tempted to say that the best literature is reflection of a good journalism.

I'm going to talk more about it, as my compatriot Scheherazade would say at the end of her 1001 night -time tales.

But what do you think: who are the winners and who are the loses in this shift of direction in literature towards a simpler style in literature?

I used to take New Year festivities much more seriously.

Many of the short stories I wrote as a teenager either start, happen or end on the 31 December.

I felt it was a clear watershed between something old and something new.

During my childhood, my friends and I were children of many different creeds and nations.

We used to sing Ramadan songs during Muslim Ramadan, Easter songs during Christian Easter, snowdrop songs during the pagan festivities.

When I came to Britain I easily adapted to the mandatory stuffed turkey for Christmas.

I made allowances for it by saying that we are celebrating the birthday of the Prophet Isa-Messiah - as Jesus Christ is known in Islam.

Somehow this year I lost the edginess I usually have for New Year.

This year me and my wife we spent our New Year eve with old English friends.

We nearly joined in with the annual moaning about the fire works being too loud.

As for New Year resolutions, until recently I used to fill up the first few pages of my diary with my plans for the coming year: yoga classes or learning another language.

The books I have written first appeared in those lists of resolutions.

Lists of objectives have given me structure through my life.

On the other hand, when I look through my diaries now, I can see (according to words of a Russian poet Sergey Esenin) "how few roads were taken, how many mistakes were made".

If each convition to learn to play a musical instrument were converted into a single note, I would have composed a symphony by now.

It has never happened.

But the resolution remains in pen and ink.

And then this year I couldn't summon up the enthusiasm for a single resolution.

I asked myself, am I finally at the edge of wisdom?

There is one, however, that came to me through a third party.

In Eastbourne - where we spent first days of this year - an elderly English lady, Beryl, half-jokingly made me concede to go with my wife to a Scottish dances class this year - an act which I would never countenance on my own.

So now I've gone public with this resolution, it can't be hidden or lost among hundreds of others.

Either I'll defeat Scottish dance or it will trample me down.

Please console me! And tell me: what were your New Year resolutions?