There is only one topic of conversation in this and the other countries that used to make up Yugoslavia: the death of Slobodan Milosevic in his cell in The Hague. In Slovenia, a tiny Alpine state of two million and perhaps the most stable country in the Balkans, opinion about the former Serbian president remains divided. For every taxi driver who says Milosevic was the devil incarnate, there will be another who believes the "Butcher of the Balkans" was a great man, vilified by Nato.

This may be attributed to the lack of pain Milosevic inflicted on the northern-most Balkan state and its relative prosperity. Slovenia's 10-day war for independence in 1991 against the Yugoslav army, in which 64 people were killed, pales into insignificance beside what happened in Croatia, Serbia, Bosnia, Montenegro, Kosovo, Macedonia and Albania.