BB FEELS THREATENED BY TOY GUN

Sadly for him, he is no longer invited to "open up" asphalt roads which he himself "built," so while he lingers in the wings hoping to make a reappearance he has to do with minor sports halls and kindergartens.

Not everything goes without an incident, though. At a recent kindergarten opening ceremony in Plovdiv Borisov's bodyguards disarmed a toddler who had a toy gun on him. News agencies reported that the men in black stopped a mother with her child and ordered her to put the "weapon" in her purse to avoid "some kind of trouble."

Borisov used the occasion to assert that his phone was being tapped. So were the phones of opposition politicians and many others: a "massively illegal activity," according to Borisov.

Ironically, it was under him and his interior minister, Tsvetan Tsvetanov, that eavesdropping of politicians, members of the press, public figures and so on went on undisturbed and supposedly with the endorsement of senior police. His establishment made blackmail of opponents in both politics and business the norm in Bulgaria, a legacy that the country will need years to rid itself of.

According to Borisov, when he was in offi ce "there was construction of motorways, kindergartens and schools." Now there was just "spending, debts and state bankruptcy."

The oftener the leaders of the BSP, or Bulgarian Socialist Party, and the DPS, or Movement for Rights and Freedoms, kissed each other, the stronger GERB became, concluded Borisov.

The kindergarten he inaugurated was called Puss in Boots.