Eight tonnes went through, and the scales were working the whole time

The heaviest number of the day is not the quantity, it is the fact that it was measured. In the case of eight tonnes of marijuana that crossed the border in a single year, a truck left declared empty and came back more than 1.2 tonnes heavier. Another left carrying some 640 kilograms above what it had cleared. The records exist, the discrepancies were measured, and the chain kept working for months. Two suspects took plea deals of just over three years each and waived their right to appeal. How the customs seal was opened and put back, the verdict does not say.

Another inspection done by somebody else's laboratory

The same day brought a second shipment stopped by someone other than us: 11.6 tonnes of Macedonian peppers turned back from Bulgaria over formetanate above the limit. That is the third European notification in three years, and once again the finding came from a laboratory outside the country. The question none of the responsible institutions will touch is simple: what happens to the same harvest that never goes for export and stays on domestic market stalls instead.

1,535 complaints, 637 upheld, and the lawyers are to blame

In public procurement the figures are even more concrete. The Commission logged 1,535 tender complaints, 637 of which were upheld - a jump of more than 50 percent in one year. In almost every third case, the company that complained was right. The Commission's explanation is that lawyers are „fishing in muddy water”. Which institutions lose those complaints most often was not mentioned.

The number that exists in the payment order but not in the press release

The clearest example of the same behaviour came from Skopje. More than 1,200 oncology patients applied for support, and the announcement contains not a single figure - not how many were paid, not how much each received, not the total sum. All three data points exist in the order that authorised the payment. „Behind every number stands a person”, says the statement that contains no numbers.

Twenty kilometres of fire and four days above 40 degrees

While the paperwork stays silent, the ground burns. The fire line in Mariovo runs twenty kilometres and is being held by volunteers from three towns, air tractors and local residents, with unexploded First World War shells making the work harder. Into the same region comes a new heatwave with over 40 degrees and tropical nights. The advice to „stay indoors” does not apply to anyone working a field or a yard.

Skopje sprays for the thirteenth time, and the sick are in the infectious diseases ward

The thirteenth disinsection of the year is behind us, with twenty sprayings planned by the end of the season, while patients with West Nile fever lie in the infectious diseases ward. Effectiveness is not measured by the number of treatments but by the number of cases, and that number is rising in parallel with the spraying.

A pothole, a tow truck and an e-application that replaces nothing

The smaller items of the day are the same picture in a smaller format. A councillor fell into a pothole in the centre of Bitola that had been marked with plastic signage for days; the machinery arrived the next morning. In Aerodrom, residents are mapping wrecked vehicles through a Facebook group - 15 have been lifted, another 22 removed by their owners, and estimates run into the hundreds. The ban has existed for years. At UKIM there are 8,851 available places, and the e-application is filled in online and then delivered in person, in 40-degree heat.

Diesel, buy-up prices and a bomb in a yard

In the economy, diesel went up by 6.5 denars while two parties argue over who holidays in Halkidiki - the excise duty is a domestic decision taken in Skopje, and neither the government nor the opposition published a calculation. In the fields, an entire harvest is on offer for 2,500 euros with an invitation to come and pick it yourself, because buy-up prices fell 5.5 percent while input costs rose 4.1. In politics, after a bomb in the yard of a police officer's family the debate collapsed into whose house it is, rather than the commissions and tenders that a prosecutor, not a spokesperson, answers for.

Sport as a break

Set apart from all of this, Ohrid knocked over Vardar by a single goal, and Pelister drew a group with Gummersbach. In Spain, Rodri is at Barcelona for 60 million after Real offered 40. Here the numbers are just numbers, and nobody is hiding any of them.

What the harder part of the day has in common is neither drugs, nor fire, nor tenders. What it has in common is that the data existed before the damage did - the measured weight, the marked pothole, the order with the sums, the case count. None of it was unknown. It just was not published in time by whoever held it.