Promising Gas Fields In Cyprus
Since the discovery of gas fields some 180 km offshore south of Cyprus in late 2011, the country has been keen to talk up its potential as a future eastern Mediterranean energy hub. For Europe, this and later finds add weight to the theory that the eastern Mediterranean could hold the key to European energy [...]
Book Review: The Duty of Genius
Assessing the life of a philosopher may be a writer’s greatest challenge – with few individuals do the spiritual and emotional realms play such a prominent role in moulding professional consequences. With that in mind, author Ray Monk sets off on a very specific quest in Ludwig Wittgenstein: Duty of Genius – to draw, where [...]
Austrians Keep Their Secrets
Changing banking laws is tricky, wherever it’s done. It affects nations, businesses and citizens – in fact, everything. In Austria, the last big change was made in 1996, when it was decided that Austrian savings accounts (Sparbücher) could no longer be anonymous. By 2000, it was literally impossible to open a savings account without showing [...]
When Music Caused Riots
“If that’s a bassoon, I’m a baboon!” quipped composer Camille Saint-Saëns on hearing the opening bars of Igor Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring. At least that’s the legend. It was 29 May 1913, and although some doubt whether the French composer really was there that Paris evening, the ensuing “riot” at the Théâtre de Champs-Elysées [...]
MQM: A New Home For Media Companies
“Welcome to the future!” shouts the sign outside the Media Quarter Marx (MQM), proclaiming a complex aim to be ahead of its time. The red brick buildings that once stood alone on a gaping lot are now joined by futuristic glass in a campus-like atmosphere, with pathways interrupted by pleasant outdoor seating. But unlike Vienna’s [...]
Körperwelten: Body Worlds Reaches Out
“One can tell the morals of a culture by the way they treat their dead.” – Benjamin Franklin I first saw one of Gunther von Hagens’ Körperwelten (Body Worlds) exhibitions more than ten years ago. The figure I remember most was controversial: a cross-sectional cut of a woman bearing an almost finished pregnancy. It was [...]
Cycle City Vienna: Planning and Paving the Way
“We want to make our city a better place to live in and bikes can play a key role,” says Alec Hager of the Vienna Cycle Lobby. Green in an era of smog and climate change, healthy in an era of obesity, and economic in an age of austerity, a vibrant cycling culture can [...]
The Truth About Legalising Drugs
Three years after decriminalisation, Prague is slowly but surely replacing Amsterdam as the mecca of Europe’s drug scene. “Cannabis has become somewhat of a complimentary item for a lot of tourists,” says Karolina Korvasova, a part-time guide. “Dumplings, beer, marijuana – this seems to be the young man’s tourist diet here in Prague.” In January [...]
Book Review: Night Falls on the City
The annals of publishing history are rife with writers lost in the grinding wheels of intellectual fashion. So it is especially gratifying when a deserving novel, like Sarah Gainham’s Night Falls on the City, is retrieved from obscurity. A best-seller when it first appeared in 1967, this powerful work of descriptive fiction has been republished [...]
