Dardis McNamee

Just released, there is now an Only in Vienna audio CD of guided walks through Duncan Smith’s hidden city, a circular walk around Vienna’s Innerestadt, discovering the city from what he calls “a less conventional standpoint.” That’s an understatement. Smith’s voice is conspiratorial, almost seductive, as he leads you along with his warm and polished Oxbridge diction that feels like the person you hoped to be seated next to the best dinner party this season.

Recorded live as he walks the streets, Smith reveals the secrets behind the stones of Vienna as if it were hot gossip from the beaches of Cannes during the festival, deconstructing the layers of history back into the tales of power and personality that are always the real story.

In spite of the financial crisis, there are more millionaires than ever in Austria, according to a new study by Boston Consulting, with private investments in global markets back at pre 2007 levels.

The number of Austrian millionaires increased to 39,077 in 2009 from 35,582 the previous year, with investments growing 8% to $676 billion, making Austrian investors among the world’s biggest winners.

“We were surprised at the result,” said Peter Damisch, coauthor of the study, which reviewed assets held in stocks, bonds and investment funds worldwide.

Losses were significantly lower in Austria than elsewhere, with asset levels in the “horror year” of 2008 down only 1.4% here, as compared with 5.9% average for Europe and 20% in North America.

Austrian newspapers continue to prosper in spite of the financial crisis and the wrenching changes in the industry that have shaken the print press elsewhere, outperforming all other countries in the study by some measures, according to an soon-to-be-released study by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

Compared to a decline in revenue in the industry of almost 30% in the United States, revenue to the Austrian newspaper industry fell by just 2%, followed in Europe by France at 3%, although from an already lower level, and Germany at 10 %. The second-biggest decline was in the U.K, down 21%.

“Perhaps we should begin,” writes historian Tony Judt, “by reminding ourselves and our children that it wasn’t always like this.”

That there was a time, not so long ago in America and Britain, when social decisions were made for social reasons, when the public dialogue was about the public welfare, and when justice – not damage awards – was the goal of law.

A Hungarian friend of mine snorted at the mention of Embers, Sandor Marai’s eloquent exploration of memory and longing, of love and lost ideals.

“Sentimental drivel!” He said, laughing. Just more of the perennial wallowing in nostalgia for Old Empire.

It was on arriving in France in the 1980s, that Don and Petie Kladstrup discovered the world of cuisine and fine wine. It wasn’t that they had never tasted a decent wine before; there were some respectable vintages in their home state of California. But in France the wines were wonderful. Soon they were taking every holiday in the vineyards, and sampling some of France’s finest, including, to their suprise, old vintages produced during World War II.

It is sometimes hard to know where we are as women today. The evidence is so contradictory. Legal barriers are down, but often, the intangibles seem as intractable as ever. Or maybe it’s that the real barriers are not intangible after all.

For a start, statistically, things don’t look good. In Austria women’s earnings in relation to men have worsened yet again, dropping just in the last year from 29th place to 42nd in international comparisons, according to the Global Gender Gap Report of the World Economic Forum.

This places us behind even the crippled U.S, number 31, and far behind Germany, which in 12th place, out ranked in Europe only by the Scandinavians and Ireland. And even in these countries, women’s earnings lag by at least 20 percent.

With the passage of Interior Minister Maria Fekter’s new National Integration Plan Jan. 19, language has sprung back to the fore as a political issue in Austria. And not without a fight.

The Global Editor’s Forum in Copenhagen opened October 9, just as the Bangkok Climate Change Talks concluded in a tangle to frustration.