Modern society has led to a great capsulization of daily life.

Within an hour, forty people were stuffed into his apartment, all carrying gifts, dressed for a party, and it quickly became obvious he'd prearranged a party for himself and not told me. Okay. That's a bit wackadoodle.

The change is due largely to the increased availability of antiretroviral treatment.

Appointed foreign minister in 2004, he has since then through successive US administrations developed a Putinesque revulsion for all western ideas, if not all western consumer durables. At one point, he said all the ills of the 20th century colonialism, two world wars and the cold war lay at the door of American arrogance.