What Lies Beneath

In conversation with Dorottya Szalay recently, I asked her what I could expect were I to call NANE’s helpline – ‘First of all’, she said, ‘We would believe you.’

‘Michael Gambon is dead’, he said. ‘I was there when he first set eyes on E. It was like seeing lightning strike.’

In the many road trips I’ve taken around Hungary, the same questions always come to mind. Why isn’t more being done to capitalise on the wealth of talent in the villages? Why is almost everything city-centred?

György Marx was everything I have never aspired to be: a physicist, an astrophysicist, a science historian, and a professor. Okay, I’d have liked to have been a professor, but not in science subjects. Google tells me that he discovered the lepton numbers and ...

I like to think that I can spot potential. In plans. In people. In property. Especially in property. I’m not for a minute suggesting that I know the real estate market and know where to invest to get the best return. I’m clueless in ...

Someone once told me that their birthday was on 16 June. Ah, I said, you were born on Bloomsday. They looked at me, cluelessly. In explaining what I meant, I realised that I was innately proud of a man I’d never met and a ...

I’m a firm believer in old souls and past lives. Some of us - not all of us, but some of us - have been around before. I’ve learned to pay attention to that feeling I get when I meet someone for the first ...

I didn’t get to see the Pope when he was in Budapest recently, but I was delighted to read that he’d revisited St István’s letter to his son from the eleventh century (knowns as the Admonitions) and had spoken so frequently about helping others, ...

It’s been a while since I’ve done the tourist thing in Budapest. Most of my visitors have been here before and want to venture further afield. This time though, I’d a first-timer and I’m in shock.

I grew up in a place and time when having some sort of voluntary experience on your resumé or CV was almost as important as your exam results. In 1980s Ireland, it was a given that you’d be asked about it in just about ...