Alexander Mikhailian

Even Metro can be source of insightful information. Look, 1.4 mln belgians get luncheon vouchers, 0.35% of luncheon vouchers stay unused, so how much do the distribution companies pocket each year on these unused luncheon vouchers?

1.4 mln people * 6€ *22 days *11 months * 0.35% = 7 114 800 € per year

And what if Fedis is right and 5% of luncheon vouchers get unused? Then, Sodexo and Accor would make a whopping 100 mln per year out of the holes in our pockets!

La Première a annoncé aujourd'hui dans son journal de 9 heures le limogage du maire de Moscou Yuri loujkov, qu'ils ont prononcé comme [jʊri jʊjkov]. Le nom du maire est Юрий Лужков, transliteré le plus souvent comme Yuri Loujkov et prononcé comme [jʊri lʊʒkof].

Look at the list of 100 most popular professions in Belgium. Sales and medical care jobs are topping. There are two times more public administration workers than IT workers, but IT workers already outnumbered accountants and haulers.

«When I use a word, Humpty Dumpty said in a rather a scornful tone, it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less». © Lewis Carroll

Check out that article from Metro. Seems like the text was written by the Belgian anti-piracy association, and the title — by a Metro editor who tried to please the public by indicating that some still like belgian music and movies.

Now, do the numbers given in the article make any sense to you? What would have changed if they were divided by 100 or multiplied by 1000?

Belgium has a multitude of e-government solutions. Local residents have now ID cards in the form of a banking card with a chip, there are services to order certificates online with these cards, pay taxes and check for medicines.

Last week, I was struggling with the Intervat, an online system for entering various VAT declarations. I had no clients outside belgium, so I tried to enter an empty declaration for inter-country transfers when the application displayed an error saying that "the declaration has to contain minumum one client.".

To make sure, I asked the support whether I should send an empty declaration, and got the reply that I have to resubmit my declaration. To top it all, the reply was in Dutch, although my question was in French. I am still trying to figure what to do, and the deadline for the declaration is today.