The blog of Hungary English-Hungary is a blog about Hungary for those who would like to know what\'s going on in our country but don\'t speak the language. We select random news about politics and about anything else that could interest people from Europe and from the rest of the world. Statistics Unique Visitors: Total Unique Visitors: Outgoing: Total Outgoing: 45 0 71 2810

Articles from The blog of Hungary

MADE IN HUNGARY: 600 new guards 2007-10-21 11:59:00 Almost 600 new Hungarian Guards sweared in on Heroes' Square (H?sök tere) today. The military-like parade was followed by two thousand spectators and curious tourists. The leader of the Hungarian Guard Association VONA Gábor spoke about an emergence of a "new power" and said that the upcoming referendums wouldn't solve anything that's why the Guards are needed. Among the new guards there are many women and the man (HORVÁTH György a.k.a Uncle Tank) who started up the T-34 tank last year on October 23. As a tribute to this"tank action" they went to Budaörs to visit the Tank exhibition. The Guards were also saluted by WITTNER Mária "flag mother" who is an MP and FIDESZ member.Der Spiegel published an article about the Guards on Sunday in which they compared the organisation with the Nazi SA force but stated that the situation is similar in all neighboring countries where the "brown cult" is rising and so is the harassment towards all minorities. I don't believe that the situati ...

OFF: Old Hungarian posters 2007-10-21 11:40:00 Our interest in politics and commercials isn't limited in space and time that's why we decided to collect the best Hungarian posters ever. Click here to view the first load of commercial posters between the two World Wars. ...

Spy hard! 2007-10-20 18:47:00 As we've said it's the national holiday of October 23 soon (Soviet invasion, uprising, Molotov cocktail, T-34, 1956) so TV channels are giving historical films all weekend. The Company, a miniseries dealing with the Cold War topic, is airing on TV2 featuring Michael Keaton and Neve Campbell. It was shot in Budapest and what is more inportant the authors of the show were inspired by the Hungarian revoultion in 1956. On the website of the series you can find a flash game in which you can assault Soviet tanks with the insurgents. Click here to enjoy.pasted from comment.com ...

Police are afraid of armored vehicles 2007-10-20 11:47:00 The police seized a tank collection in Budapest because - according to them - the tanks weren't defused properly. The man who exhibited his armored vehicles says that these machines couldn't even move and the action was only driven by the fear of armored assaults during the national celebrations.Last year a pensioner and an ex-tank pilot was inspired by the "revolutionary" atmosphere on 23 October, he started up an exhibited T-34 tank and drove it 100 m before it ran out of gas.View video of the tanks on tv2.hu: here ...

Headlines 2007-10-20 11:16:00 The Parliament is going to hold a debate this month on the question of women's quota in the legislation. According to the bill, which was introduced in May by two SzDSz MPs, 50% of the candidates on the parties' lists should be female. This would ensure that third of the MPs are female, giving women a real equal opportunity to be represented in the Parliament.A few thousand students protested on Wednesday against the prospective tution fee on universities. According to them, only those students should pay who don't complete some of their subjects. HILLER István, the Minister of Education is ready to negotiate, but the ministry's proposal is stricter: only the best 15% of the students could be tution-free.Since the Constitutional Court has approved the questions for referendum, FIDESZ announced that they would collect the necessary 200 000 signatures in 48 hours. Their enthusiasm is borderless: somebody tried to collect some in a school in Debrecen.Maybe there's still a chance of ...

Hungarian Pokerface producers reach down from Full Tilt 2007-10-20 11:02:00 It seems we're not the only copycats in Hungary. The producers of Pókerarc (the Hungarian version of Pokerface) reached down the concept of a Full Tilt Ad as Poszto Blog discovered. The Pokerface show is produced according to a ITV licence but it has nothing to do with fulltiltpoker so it's sure they just simply stole the idea. Few years ago copypasting was the basic marketing techniqe of the Hungarian channels but since more and more people have Internet connection this is becoming awkward for the TVs.Btw we could experience bigger reach-downs in Hungary, for example Cool Tv stole the idea of MTV's Pimp My Ride without paying for licence of the show.The original Ad: ...

MTV vs. MTV 2007-10-17 11:36:00 MTV (Hungarian Television a.k.a Magyar Televízió) the Hungarian state TV has filed a claim to the Metropolitan Court in which it demands the protection of his trademark. The television has the right to use the "MTV" logo until 2013 and argues that MTV (Music TV Hungary) is threatening these exclusive rights and his pattern (MTV) is able to confuse the audience and make a fake relation between the two channels. The attorney of the Music Televison is saying that the content of the two channels is totally different and the possibility that the audience would mix up them is very low.Music Tv Hungary had a noisy start, first the statue action and now this. It couldn't have been planned better. ...

OFF: Wear a G-shirt! 2007-10-17 09:03:00 Remember the Guards? I'm sure you didn't pay much attention to the lion pattern on the back of their vests. Now we reveal a secret thanks to our friend Tomcsi who discovered that you can paste a "Guard lion" picture on the selected clothes on polomania.hu's t-shirt editor. We don't know if the Guards created the pattern first or just used it. Anyway here is the chance to send a G-shirt to your liberal, anti-fascist or maybe Slovak friends.Bencsik András one of the designers of the Guard clothing told Velvet.hu that the vest with the silver lion was the pride of the uniform and "it carries positive values: strength, dignity, and discipline which we want the Guards to represent [...] The lion was a traditional symbol in Hungarian mythology from the XII. century. But today it has no meaning since lions don't live in this region anymore." The vest is by the way protected by copyright and it costs 8000 HUF. I'm planning to order one to Yasha, but I doubt she would wear it!Update!Polo ...

The noisy October 2007-10-16 11:39:00 It isn't so noisy as it was last year but according to the National Defence Office radical groups are planning to interrupt the national celebration on October 23. The neonazi and football hooligan groups are planning to commit spectacular actions to draw the attention of the media. So far 103 demonstrations have been announced at the Metropolitan Police Department to October 23rd. The police as they said are ready for any action since they have totally new equipment and they promise not to violate human rights as they did last year in some cases.Also it is worth to mention kuruc.info's initiative of organising a blockade to Erzsébet bridge to October 26. In 2002 when FIDESZ lost the elections, radicals summoned from nowhere and blocked Erzsébet bridge for half a day and demanded the recounting of the votes. Maybe kurucinfo fans will achieve the same. As they say this kind of "passive resistance" is the only way to keep up the opposing spirit of the Hungarians after the speech of ...

OFF: Imerika 2007-10-15 11:16:00 We usually don't like to paste posts but Vik's discovery which was submitted to homár blog surprised even us too. This photo was made in Ripley's Believe it or Not amusement park and says that Stephen I., the founder of Hungary named his son Emeric (Imre in Hungarian) which is Amerigo in Italian and this name inspired Amerigo Vespucci's father when he named his son. According to the blog this theory is not impossible since after Emeric's canonisation he became a popular saint in Italy with a big cult. So this means the name America maybe has something to do with Stephen I. and with Hungary. Honestly when we visited the Ripley's Museum in Wisconsin Dells we missed this picture but the Alien doll was cool! ...

Headlines of the week 2007-10-13 13:43:00 There is a lot of catch up to do since we were absent this week, so here is what happened while we were away:A nagy fogyás (picture above) the Hungarian adaptation of the Biggest Loser launched on Tuesday. Compared to its US version it's a bit sad and depressing but that's why we love it.It is the season of the referendums. As we reported earlier GYURCSÁNY Ferenc proposed 7 clean up drafts and after his fraction and the opposition didn't really welcome the ideas he threatened them by submitting his initiatives for referendum. His way or the let the people choose. If the parties don't come to a common position and the questions will be authenticated, there might be 15-16 questions on the upcoming referendum (after attaching them to the 8 awaiting questions). It seems so far he succeeded to discipline his own fraction since they accepted the proposals on Saturday.In connection with the previous topic, after GYURCSÁNY Ferenc had announced his draft and the idea of referendum FIDESZ ...

MP resigns because of hidden recording 2007-10-13 09:50:00 Népszabadság published an awkward article yesterday. According to a hidden mobile phone recording which was captured in July, KISPÁL Ferenc (FIDESZ) MP after voting pressed the button several times for his absent colleague NAGY Sándor too. The newspaper checked the records of the parliament and according to those NAGY Sándor voted as his neighbour did but he can't be seen on the pictures. First the MP denied the charges but yesterday afternoon he resigned because as he said: I made a mistake which is incompatible with my mandate so as of this day I resign. Since the MP's sit in blocks (according to their parties) there is a big chance that a member of his own party made the recording. I wonder who wasted him.view report on tv2.hu: here ...

The "second" first AIDS avenger in Hungary 2007-10-11 20:37:00 A few days ago the public was warned that the first Hungarian AIDS avenger is on the loose. The waiter was infected 7 years ago as he believes deliberately and he vowed to take revenge on women including his wife. His case is being investigated but he is still at large. Well everybody was wrong. As yesterday dr FÜLÖP Valter police commissioner said in a morning show: "the first crime similar to this happened 6 years ago when a homosexual prostitute called dj Bobo forgot to warn his partners about his infection". He didn't expressly say it was the famous artist dj Bobo. We think it might be possible since these clean freaks all look gay and you may never know about the prostitution thing.view video: here (interview at 3:27) ...

CODE: Civil! 2007-10-07 10:08:00 Duty calls so we will be away for a few days, maybe for a week but we'll be back! ...

First Gentleman and the national tragedy 2007-10-06 10:38:00 It's a quiet national holiday: finally no riots, no urban rage, precious unconcern except the Americans are sending the becoming first gentleman to Budapest. Not as a gift of course, rumor has it that he has a fee of 50 million HUF which is not impossible to imagine since one single ticket to Bill Clinton's presentation is 250 000 HUF (1200 €) and a picture with him is half million (picture for hardcore myspace users). Billl was invited by Central European Business Center (CEBC) and he is going to speak about world peace ("To capture our common humanity"). All the tickets are sold out so you don't have any chance to get there unless you find ticket touts on the scene. If you are a fan of Clinton and you've bought your ticket, there is a way to get your money back: you only have to do him or make him to do you and take a picture of the action. In this case you have good chance to win the 1 million HUF prize on the "Buda-Bubba Bill Clinton Sex Contest" announced by Sexiside.hu. Hav ...