Indeed, why on earth (in devil’s name, which is closer to the Hungarian above) am I – and have been for so long – learning Hungarian? Sitting in Budapest half way through a three-week (almost) sojourn in Hungary in the early summer of 2025 with the specific intention of getting to grips with this intense, … Read more …
Listen carefully, and (my previous post refers) God is laughing his (their?) head off now as we prepare to drive home after a fascinating fortnight in Transylvania (writing this in Alba Iulia as the Romanian presidential election results come in – at the moment, looking good for Europe.) Instead of tandeming from Hungary to Bucharest … Read more …
It was tremendous fun discussing with Ian Sanders of Cold War Conversations my years first as student in East Germany and the Soviet Union in 1971/72, and then covering the communist world for the next 20 years for Reuters and the BBC. Click the screenshots below for the recordings – first covering my student days … Read more …
Why did I switch from journalism to psychotherapy? As chronicled (cautiously) elsewhere on this site (see my long-in-the-tooth Masters thesis from 2000), Romania and covering the revolution there 20 years ago this month were, looking back, the decisive turning point. As this year of revolutionary anniversaries draws to a close (wall-to-wall coverage of the fall … Read more …