Now that my sixty-fifth birthday is behind the corner, the main reason for my last trip to Motovun has to do with my application for a British state pension. All sorts of documents are required: birth certificate, marriage certificate, divorce certificate, and so on. In addition, all sorts of data are required: my employer in Britain and the employer’s address, my address while I was employed in Britain, my address at the time of divorce, and so forth. Horrendous. Even back in Motovun, where all the pertinent documents are at my disposal, I ran from room to room to find everything I needed to fill the forms. The job is behind me, though. All I need to do when I return to Zagreb is copy a bunch of documents, which I cannot easily do in Motovun, and send everything to Newcastle upon Tyne, of all places. Anyhow, I feel relieved. Every contact with the state, no matter how gentle, is another brush with the absurd. Not necessarily because of the state itself, I hasten to add, but because of all the precautions taken against the abuse by my fellow human beings. Judging by the forms I just filled, the abuse must be nothing if not staggering.