The sun on the state's own stage had more rays than the flag

At the Biljanini Izvori stadium in Ohrid, the musical spectacle "Silno svetnal den" marked 35 years of independence - directed by Dejan Projkovski, with over 30 performers and a tour through 11 cities that ends in Skopje on 4 September. On part of the set design and on the video screens appeared a sun with considerably more than the eight rays the law prescribes for the state flag. The fines exist: 4,000 to 5,000 euros for a legal entity.

The question, though, is not about the designer. A production that size has a process, and somewhere in that process sits a person whose job is to look at the set before it goes on screen. If nobody along that entire chain noticed, that tells you how carefully the state inspects what it displays about itself - and that is far more interesting than the number of rays.

Electricity passed 700 euros, and the culprit is the water level

On the Southeast European exchanges the price of electricity passed 700 euros per megawatt-hour, peaking on 3 and 4 August when prices jumped 50 to 100 percent against previous weeks. The cause is not a cartel and not a sanction. Hungary's Paks cut output by 90 percent because the Danube is too low, Romania's Cernavoda by 50, Slovenia's Krsko by 20 after a warm Sava left it unable to discharge heat. Iron Gates 1 is running at a fifth of capacity.

Romania sank barges to raise the water level and keep Cernavoda running. That is not a solution, it is the improvisation of a state running out of options. Macedonia buys from the same exchanges and our hydro plants drink the same drought - and the assumption that the rivers may not be there in the same volume next decade has so far appeared in exactly no strategic document.

Kavadarci scrapped cash, but left the ticket counters in town

From today, the buses of Kavadarci's public transport company no longer accept cash, in town or on the suburban lines. The decision is a good one and deserves credit: cash in public transport is a hole through which both the money and the data disappear, and a cashless system finally produces numbers on who travels when.

There is just one item the announcement does not cover. There are four sales points, and all four are in Kavadarci - while suburban transport, by definition, carries people who do not live in Kavadarci. A passenger from a village holding a hundred denars has nowhere to top up except the place they are travelling to. There are four and a half months left this year to count whether the number of cards issued matches the number of regular passengers. That is the figure that will say whether this was modernisation or a filter.

Stip counts garages, but not whether the existing ones fill up

Stip turned an illegal dump into its third multi-storey car park: 50 spaces for 20 million denars, which works out at 6,600 euros per space. The city already has over 1,400 parking spaces and knows what every hour costs. What is not published is whether the existing ones ever fill - and without that measurement, the next garage is an assumption with three levels.

Two mountain rivers, and the only recommended water charges admission

In Veles the Topolka rates fifth class and the Babuna third, and the only water recommended for swimming is behind a pool turnstile. Ammonia and nitrites are not natural cloudiness from rain. Somebody measures these rivers every June and publishes the result, and Lake Mladost has been closed for two years - which means the measuring exists, and the consequence of the measuring does not.

The same pattern governs the aerial spraying against mosquitoes in Skopje and Veles. The municipalities publish the treatment boundary down to the last village, but no announcement anywhere states how many mosquitoes actually disappear after an operation, or how long the effect lasts. Beekeepers, who have the most to lose, are left to find the announcement themselves.

After the Volkovo fire: they are not asking for planes, they want a mower

After the fire in Volkovo, residents did not ask for more firefighters. Neighbours with hoses and shovels waited for the fire engine, and then asked for something far cheaper than any aircraft: that the municipality mow the abandoned plot with two-metre grass next to their houses and invoice the owner for the cost. A measure that costs one mowing, against an intervention that costs a season.

Traffic, and measures shorter than the case

The prosecution has reconstructed the sequence in Radishani: the driver turned left at a junction with no traffic signs, cut off 19-year-old Nikola and left without helping. Police caught him seven and a half hours later. The sign at that junction still is not there.

The same weekend in Skopje, 21 people were detained, six of them minors - and four unlicensed minors behind the wheel in a single day and night means somebody handed them keys. The interior ministry catches the consequences. And in one statement covering cases from 7 August, a man who beat his wife and three children "on multiple occasions" received eight days of detention - a phrase that means this was not the first time, and a measure that lasts less than two weeks.

Belgrade, Pristina and one sentence about borders

Zelensky landed in Belgrade chasing gas and ammunition, and confirmed that Ukraine does not recognise Kosovo. He was met by the energy minister, not the president. A day later Pristina took down the Ukrainian flag that had stood in the city centre for four years, without a word of explanation. Vucic, for his part, asked the West why one set of rules applies to Ukraine and another to 14 percent of Serbia. The gas network being built across the region, incidentally, reaches Macedonia too.

The lighter half of the day

Shkendija took Vardar apart in the second round, two goals from Tamba, a third disallowed and a brawl after the whistle - the champions are already hunting for someone to blame. The cadets, meanwhile, ran over Israel for ninth place after three opening defeats and five straight wins to close, which is a story worth keeping. And in Avionche park, five days of street food opened with only domestic names on the stage: the budget that would have gone to one foreign headliner is spread across dozens of local performers. That is a decision, not a saving.

If today's domestic news shares anything, it is neither a scandal nor a blunder. Every one of these institutions announced its decision: the stage, the garage, the cashless system, the spraying, the river testing. What is missing in nearly all of them is the number that comes afterwards - whether the garage fills, whether the mosquitoes thin out, whether the ticket reached the village, whether anyone actually looked at the set design. The announcement is the easy part. The measuring is what nobody promises.