"GRANDMOTHER Jula. Who is that woman who sings? The leader of the vampires' ball ... Tito equals zero compared to Grandmother Jula."
The words of Baba Jula sung by Born Djordjevic leader of the rock group Riblja Corba (Fish Soup) lose something of their venom when translated to English, writes Seamus Martin. To President Slobodan Milosevic's government they are anathema.
The song, recorded in Austria, has been banned. Tapes are confiscated if found and even the rebellious radio station B-92 doesn't dare broadcast it to those in Belgrade who can receive the signal from its weak transmitter.
The Grandmother Jula in question is Mira Markovic, leader of the coalition of "left wing" parties called JUL which form part of the political support for Mr Milosevic. More important still, Ms Markovic happens to be Mr Milosevic's wife, the country's most powerful woman and the only person the opposition demonstrators hate more than they hate the president.
Comparisons between the Milosevics and the Ceaucescus in neighbouring Romania are frequent and vicious. Effigies of Mr Milosevic carried in parades have pictured him in prison garb; those of his wife concentrate on her less than elegant dress sense and her penchant for wearing girlish bows in her hair. One effigy portrays her as a bowed she devil complete with pointed tail, another turns her into Minnie Mouse.
But in recent weeks all that has been seen of the husband and wife team has been their effigies. The president is not someone who goes walkabout among his people; nor does he often appear on the national television station he controls.
Usually the thoughts of President Milosevic are conveyed to the people in a fortnightly column by his wife in the magazine Duga (Rainbow) but Mira Markovic's column has stopped appearing and the last line from the president to the public has been cut.
Ostensibly a Marxist, and therefore theoretically to the left of the president, Ms Markovic and her party grouping have been supported by former communist big business leaders who have an eye on state contracts.
But despite a steady income and a highly professional advertising campaign, JUL did poorly in the local elections the annulment of which has brought the people on to the streets.
A third member of the family team, the president's daughter Ms Marija Milosevic, owns the Kosava radio station whose mast tops the former Communist Party headquarters in the bleak urban wilderness of New Belgrade across the Savn river from the city proper.
The station, like the rest of the Milosevic controlled media, maker little reference to the current wave of discontent. The "First Channel" of state TV does shows footage of the demonstrations but from such a distance that the numbers of people and, more importantly, the text of the placards are indistinguishable.
The pro Milosevic daily newspaper Politika carries tiny reports of the demonstrations, usually on page 14 or 15, with the front page devoted to events in Westminster, Israel, South Africa and Zaire.
It now lies in large piles at the newspaper kiosks as people snap up papers such as Demokratia, Blic and Nasha Borba which support the opposition.