MATCHMAKING MAYOR

Speed dating in the Slovak provinces? The mayor of the village of Zemplínské Hámre boasts an impressive record: reduced unemployment, a new football pitch, a state-of-the-art swimming pool. But one problem apparently exceeds even the former general’s powers – how to marry off his community’s seventy or so unmarried people over thirty years of age. He has delivered encouraging speeches and promised financial incentives for fledgling families, but nothing seems to work – even though the local bachelors are especially desperate to settle down. The mayor (never one to give up easily) comes up with a new ploy to kindle the nesting instincts of his solitary citizens: a party for singles in the village hall.