Chief of Station - Netflix Movie

Chief of Station | Official Trailer (HD) | Vertical
Vertical

Okay action thriller. Lots of fisticuffs, lots of gunfire. There is a story, but it's pretty thin. The only people we care about here are Aaron Eckhart as Ben Malloy and Olga Kurylenko as Krystyna Kowerski. There are also a bunch of villains to hate.

Attila Boat Tour Budapest

The bad guys commandeered this boat which led to Krystyna killing most of them, all except the head villain. Isn't that the way it always goes?

P. S. Phil Hoad has a review of this movie on The Guardian

Re-2000

Re-2000 fighters Royal Hungarian Air Force

Reggiane Re.2000 Falco I was a minor player in WW2. It was designed and initially built in Italy. Italy made almost 200 of these airplanes. Hungary made 200 more under license. Performance was good in 1940 - speed of 300 MPH and altitude of 30,000 feet, but it was soon outclassed.

Hungarian Air Force Reggiane Re.2000 Heja of 1/1 'Dongo' squadron
Zoran Petek

Reggiane Re.2000 Falco (Svenska Flygvapnet J 20)
silvan500

Orbán

Professor Schlevogt's Compass

Fine story on RT about Hungary and European Union. It's kind of long, so I've only included the introduction. The professor is a heck of a wordsmith, so it's worth reading just to enjoy the flow. As to his argument, I totally agree. Europe is going to the dogs, and quickly.

Prof. Schlevogt’s Compass No. 53: Europe’s dying heart – Hungary’s vote delivers lethal kick

Orbán’s defeat will saddle EU taxpayers with over €100bn in short order – yet this is but the tip of the iceberg.

The speechwriter of European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen must have fancied himself (genderspeak: themselves) deserving of a handsome bonus when he placed the following words into his principal’s mouth: “Europe’s heart is beating stronger in Hungary tonight.”

Yet his euphoria – and the delirious jubilation of the liberal European elite at the defeat of Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán by his rival Péter Magyar in the 2026 parliamentary elections – will prove short-lived.

If anything, Europe’s “heart” is not beating stronger, but faster, driven by a final surge of adrenaline: the reflex of a chronically diseased system under acute stress. What masquerades as renewed vitality, then, is merely the pathological sign of a failing organism – a last, frantic acceleration before terminal failure.

The Union’s demise will not be averted by rhetoric; it is being hastened by it. In the absence of Viktor Orbán’s restraining role, five mutually reinforcing forces of erosion across multiple landscapes will accelerate, converging to precipitate the EU’s ignominious end.

Arizona Nightclub Budapest 1938

Arizona Night Club

Continuing to read Kingdom of Shadows by Alan Furst. Nicholas Morath, our hero, take the night train to Budapest where he visits the Arizona night club. It's kind of a wild place.

Dancers of the Arizona Nightclub in Budapest in 1938. They Are Climbing Onto A Boat Under The Dumbfounded Gaze Of The Sailors.

From a story in the Independent:

Around the corner in the magnificent green-tiled building at Nagymezo utca 20 you come to the Hungarian House of Photography. The first-floor shop displays the depth of Hungary's photographic tradition (think of Kertesz, Brassai and Moholy-Nagy) and the temporary exhibitions are usually worth a look. Before the Second World War, the building housed the Arizona Club, which wowed Patrick Leigh Fermor when he visited. But in 1944 The Arizona's owners were killed in the Holocaust – a reminder that the wartime ghetto was not far away on the other side of Andrassy ut.

Mai Manó Ház, Nagymező utca 20, circa 1900

Near as I can make out, this poster is advertising the accomplishments of the photographers Mai & Tarsa

Mai Manó Ház, Nagymező utca 20, Today

Chain Bridge and the Hungarian Parliament Building

The Chain Bridge connects Buda & Pest and is not far from the Hungarian House of Photography / Arizona Night Club.

Druzhba Pipeline

Druzhba Pipeline Map

Story on RT today:

Hungary and Serbia to speed up construction of new pipeline for Russian oil – Budapest

The two countries are building a connector to plug into the Druzhba energy network

Funny how Serbia and Hungary are more concerned about the price of oil than whatever comes out of Washington D. C.

So I gotta look up the Druzhba energy network. Wikipedia has a page that opens with this:

The Druzhba pipeline, also referred to as the Friendship Pipeline and the Comecon Pipeline, is one of the world's longest oil pipelines and one of the largest oil pipeline networks in the world. It began operation in 1964 and remains in operation today. It carries oil some 2,500 miles from the eastern part of European Russia to points in Ukraine, Belarus, Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, the Czech Republic and Germany. The network also branches out into numerous smaller pipelines to deliver its product throughout Eastern Europe and beyond.

The name "Druzhba" means "friendship", alluding to the fact that the pipeline established friendly relations between the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe through the reliable supply of oil. Today, it is the largest principal artery for the transportation of Russian and Kazakh oil across Europe.

While I am sure Eastern Europe welcomed the oil, 'friendly relations' might be overstating the case a bit.

A Short History of Hungary

A Castle by the Danube | Visegrad, Hungary
Lucky Dippers

I'm reading Mission to Paris by Alan Furst. Towards the end of the book the movie company has gone to Hungary to film some scenes at an authentic Hungary castle. The castle, most of it a ruin, belongs to one Count Polanyi. Pleased to have the movie company using his castle he invites the cast and crew to a sumptuous dinner, and then we have this passage:

With the pears and local cheese, and having drunk more than his share of Echezeaux Burgundy, Polanyi became reflective. "My poor old battered castle," he said. It's the border of northern Hungary now - the treaty that followed the Great War turned the other side of the river into Czech territory. But for this castle, it was just one more war. It began life as a Roman fortification, was taken by the Hungarian Grand Duke Arpad in 895 -legend has it that the Milky Way was formed from the dust raised by his army's horses. Then it was destroyed in 1241 by the Mongolian Tartars - a costly invasion, half of the people of Hungary were murdered. Rebuilt it was besieged by the Turks in 1683, then recaptured by Charles of Lorraine in 1684. History has always been bloody in this part of the world, and is about to be once again. But, what can we do. Now we'll have to sign some sort of treaty with Hitler and his thugs and, once the British and French have dealt with them, oh how we shall suffer for that." He paused for a time, then said, "Well, here comes the brandy, would anyone care to join me for a cigar?"

I wanted a picture of a half-ruined castle to go with this post, and Google served up this video. It's a fair stand-in for the Count's castle. There were a bunch of famous people named Polanyi. This article seems especially relevant to our current situation.

Budapest

Hungarian Parliament Building

This is the largest building in Hungary. It took almost 20 years to build and was completed in 1904. I don't understand how big projects like this get started, much less completed.

Cross Check

2018 May 01 Wizz Air Low pass in capital city Budapest air show above Danube - Maria Bruscha

I've seen similar photos of airliners flying into Taipei, so I wanted to see if I could find this place on Google Maps.

3D view of Budapest

I did. It wasn't too hard. The S-curve shows up very well in the map. When you zoom in on a Google 3D view, Google doesn't just enlarge the image, it moves your viewpoint closer. To get the same perspective as the photo at top, you would have to zoom way out and then the resulting cropped image would be much smaller:

Same view, different viewpoint

Makes me wonder how much storage space Google has in their server farms. Also wonder how long it will be before airliner flight tracking programs start to offer a 3D portrayal of the airplane over a real-time, 3D background. Don't know what possible use that would be, but we seem to spend an inordinate amount of time on stuff that has no real purpose, kind of like this post.

Airshow Budapest 2014 Highlights

This video suits my ADD perfectly. It's short, and all of the scenes are short as well. Sometimes too short. It's like a teaser for the full length movie. It's interesting what happens when you change the rules. Some of these stunts (i.e. the ones involving bridges) would never be permitted in the USA.
    It's kind of like when Surya Bonaly did a back flip at the 1998 Winter Olympics. That impressed me all the way around the block. I enjoy Olympic ice skating performances, they are generally pretty cool, but after you've seen a dozen or twenty, they kind of all begin to look alike. And then this girl comes out and does a backflip! I was totally blown away! Wowzers!
    I don't drink Red Bull, I've never even been tempted to try it. Probably because I'm old and cheap. My boys drink it occasionally.
   Video via Posthip Scott.

Update October 2016 deleted duplicate phrase.

Fast Food

Ronald McDonald - Antonov An-2R - Budapest, Hungary, April 18, 2003. 

 Taco Time in downtown Hillsboro is closing, which is too bad. Today was their last day. Thank god for fast food, otherwise I might have to cook, and cooking implies dirty pots and pans, which means somebody should do the dishes, and since I will avoid my chores if at all possible, this leads to guilt, and I really don't need any more guilt. I have a hard enough time ignoring all the guilt I already have without piling on more. Fortunately there are a good half dozen fast food joints within about three miles, so it isn't too arduous to run out and get something.
    I like McDonald's for their breakfast burritos and their coffee, and their $1 menu when I am feeling cheap. My wife likes Black Rock coffee across from Shute Park. I like fresh brewed coffee. I like it even better when I don't have to make it. Black Rock wants $2.50 for a medium coffee, which is slightly larger than the McDonald's cup, but I know most of the people who work there even though I only stop by maybe a couple of times a month. I know one person at McDonald's. "Know" may be a bit strong, I recognize them, and they do a passable job of pretending to recognize me. I dunno, maybe they actually do. Some people are really good at that. I am not one of those people.
    I heard about McDonald's offering budget advice for their employees. I don't know that anyone aspires to make a career out of working at McDonald's. A manager might earn a living wage, but I doubt anyone else does. At best it's a temporary gig to cover your expenses until something better comes along. I wonder if the baristas who work in coffee kiosks make more than people working at McDonald's. I will tip them 50 cents when I get a cup there (or a dollar for two). There is no tip jar at McDonald's.
    I suppose that in the current economy there are people who would be glad to get a job at McDonald's. Sad state of affairs.
    Rumor has it that fast food restaurants could afford to pay people more money, possibly even a decent wage without having to raise their prices significantly, but in a cutthroat business in a cutthroat economy that would destroy you. Until we have fewer people looking for work wages aren't going anywhere. Some people might argue that if workers made more money, they would spend more money, which would stimulate the economy, which would mean more jobs, which would mean wages would go up. It's an interesting theory, but I doubt anyone is going to implement it. The last person to try something that radical was Henry Ford when he started paying his assembly line workers $5 a day, and look what happened to him: he grew old and died, and they are still using his name on cars. Is it doing him any good now that he's dead? No, it's not. Now you may argue that his generous wages had nothing to do with his demise, and you might be right. But are you willing to take that chance?

Buda-Pest

Buda

Audrey Tautou in front of Buda Castle

So Jack & I stop in at Post Hip after lunch today, and I'm looking through the murder mysteries and I pick up Cobblestone by Peter Lengyet. There's a blurb on the back: "... until the story returns full circle to Buda and Pest." What!?!?! Is this some kind of joke? I've heard of Budapest, but I've never heard them referred to as separate cities. Jack assures me that is the case, kind of like Minneapolis-St.Paul. Two cities, on opposite sides of the river, one metropolitan area. Kind of like Portland-Vancouver, except nobody ever says that. Maybe because there are only two bridges across the Columbia in the metro area, and both of them are interstate highways.

Pest

Viviana Vasadi, Pest, Hungary

I did not find a map that showed the two cities as being separate entities, but I did find these two girls. Whether they reflect the character of their respective cities will take more research.

Update September 2016 replaced missing pictures, added captions.