The idea that Budapest is a little behind the times is nothing new… but even I had to do a double take when I came across this at the end of Vaci utca yesterday. At first glance, it looks fairly normal - two street artists sit behind a display of their caricatures and portraits, bored out of their minds. I nodded at the woman and bent down for a closer look. Of the four, perhaps Jean Claude van Damme's portrait was the most revealing. I was looking into the eyes, and hair, of a man who had just released Double Impact, rather than the mysterious-sounding, but largely unavailable The Shepherd:Border Patrol. And this was the old Kevin too. The superstar who strung together hit after hit after hit in the mid-eighties, who so charmed my own mother in Field of Dreams. There's something less charming about Kevin these days... perhaps it's this incident (and I quote from the Sun...)
The Untouchables star, 51, was on HONEYMOON in Scotland when he allegedly whipped off his towel and pleasured himself".
And where do you start with Britney? That's a cautionary tale for any all-American pop-star wannabe. It was really only this other character, the Richard Dean Anderson-a-like, the wild card of this wild bunch, that I felt warranted my wholehearted admiration. How times have changed!
With this in mind, I strolled away, my head filled with thoughts of the Muscles from Brussels, Britney on the Mickey Mouse Club, and Kevin Costner pleasuring himself. It wasn't long before I felt ridiculously nostalgic, and old... like a pensioner perhaps, who had just happened upon a battered picture of Vera Lynn.
(from our sister site, monkeyfallsofftower. Spoil films in four words...)Andy T.
I was fooling around on lastfm the other week when I came across an upcoming concert from Naughty by Nature, on the same day as my birthday. Ha! I thought... in terms of Hungarian hip-hop shows, Naughty by Nature is exactly what I’ve come to expect - rappers pushing forty, in the twilight of their careers, out East for a big(gish) payday. Eventually, the same man who had been popping up from time to time with these ridiculous announcements appeared again at 2 am to inform us that the King of New York wouldn't be turning up. The exact details about this were, and are, cloudy. At the time, we were told Nas had run away from his hotel in the middle of the night, wearing a big stripy burglar costume, carrying a bag of swag.
What's probably more accurate is that both promoter and performer let each other down. Nas claimed that he was lied to about the size of the hall, the sound was rubbish, and was promised things that never materialised. The promoters called him a criminal, who had been pulling out of shows all around Europe. Who was responsible ultimately, doesn't matter... the treatment the audience received from both parties was unacceptable. Your Nas tickets are valid for next month’s Snoop Dogg gig, we were told. What tickets? They’d been collected at the door.
The same people are involved with Naughty by Nature - among them DJ’s Zefil and Nadir (‘the low point of everything, the time of greatest depression’ according to Webster’s), whose reputation I‘m told, precedes them. Whether the same thing will happen again… hopefully not. And, this isn’t meant to be an attempt at scaremongering. It’s just that even though we've got your back, it’s best to watch your front, 'cos it’s the niggas in front, they be pullin' stunts...' etc.
I certainly won't be going... but having said that, this song is dope. Check it.
Andy T
There’s no denying that my neighbourhood, Kiraly utca, is moving up in the world. We have the swanky new Central Passage, which doesn’t lead anywhere special, the four star Hotel Carat, and as of last week, the city’s newest, most pompous hotspot (Donatella’s Kitchen), where the lights are made from antlers.Imagine my surprise then, when on Friday afternoon I stepped out of my front door to find the streets awash with bric-a-brac. It was refreshingly ridiculous - a stained mattress occupied the doorway across from Donatella’s, a doll with a smashed head lay near Hotel Carrot, and a homeless man trundled a rubbish-filled trolley past Central Passage.
It was my district’s first Garbage Throwaway Day for 2008, the twice yearly opportunity for residents to step out of their house into a pile of junk. Chairs, tables, sofas, televisions, bookcases, toilets and planks all lie there, waiting to be snapped up by scavengers or collected by orange-vested men from the city council.
These rubbish festivals last for around thirty-six hours, and as far as I can tell, are an opportunity for people to toss out unwieldy household items, things they might otherwise have had difficulty disposing of. Not that anyone pays too much attention to that... I spied a few things that looked perfectly wieldy… a used nappy, for example, which could have been wielded directly into an upstairs bin. A newspaper from 2005. A torn picture of Roberto Carlos. A Trivial Pursuit board, with a corner missing. A pair of over-exposed family photos. Dolls. Foam. String….
By the second evening, the piles always start to look rather forlorn - only the rubbish rubbish is left, and just the desperate are still digging through it. This Saturday evening on Kiraly, bemused tourists were stepping gingerly over broken glass and around the empty shells of televisions. Rubbish piles stretched up the street, like a series of unlit bonfires.
Then, on Sunday morning, they'd gone, and Garbage Throwaway Day was over for another six months. Call me sour, but I enjoyed this particular one, if only because it succeeded in taking some of our more upmarket neighbours down a peg or two. I'd even say I learnt something this weekend... no matter how you dress yourself up, pretending to be classy/special is a damn sight harder if a fat man is at your front door, beating the crap out of a television.
Andy T.
BANG BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BANG (zip) (zip) (fizz) SMAK BOOM BOOM (zip) (fizz) (zip). BANG BANG.
With all these bullets flying back and forth, it’s difficult to have any thoughts whatsoever on John Rambo, when watching John Rambo. The story is simple, which is good, because it’s (zip) hard to concentrate (BOOM), or even hear yourself ZIP above the think (noise) BOOM.
In all honesty, I’m not writing this in the cinema, but you get the idea. To prove that I understood the plot, here it is in 38 words.
__________________________________________________________________
It was last Sunday night, and I’d walked over to Palace Westend in light rain. I don't have an excuse, I couldn’t have ended up in that cinema by mistake. While John Rambo was never likely to be any good, there was something appealingly adolescent, and plain awful about it. At times, I questioned what I was doing, whether this should actually be a turning point in my life. Perhaps I was close to an epiphany. 28 years old, 11:00, Sunday night, in a shopping centre, with a beer. Maybe I would come out of the zip cinema realising it was (zip) about time I SMAK (zip) (whiz) BANG BOOM BOOM BOOM.
According to Wikipedia, John Rambo is one of the most violent movies ever produced, with 236 killings, an average of 2.59 every minute. By my reckoning, there were 234, but it still seems like a staggering figure. However, once you’ve done a few sums, it actually isn’t that many.
For instance, there are just 778.8 seconds of solid killings in John Rambo. This adds up to 12.8 minutes of screen time, or 14% of the movie. As a result, 80.02 minutes of this 93-minute film passed by with no killings at all.
14%. Assuming that's what you pay your money for, it's enough to make you ask for it back. Until you look at it like this.
- A discount cinema ticket at Palace Westend costs 1000 ft.
- 1000 ft divided by 236 per killing, or 234, gives you 4.
- Effectively, each screen killing costs 4ft. (3 ft on cheap days).
Pretty competitive, that. And once you start comparing it to other films (for argument’s sake, let’s say Seven and Bambi), John Rambo looks like the pound shop of Hollywood blockbusters. By today’s standards, it'd be 142 forint per screen death in Seven. Pricey yes, but compared to Bambi, it’s a bargain. As far as I can remember, there’s just one killing in that movie. 1 divided by 1000ft… equals 1000ft.
Come on, Walt! For goodness sake, that’s a little dear.
I learnt something that night. Unfortunately, it wasn’t about myself, or killing, but rather the Burmese military. They’re mean! Not only do they blow things up, they murder people, hit people, beat people, slap people, rape women and children, then shoot them. In a very exciting way.
All of this pornographic violence, presented in slow motion and with surround sound, struck me as somewhat questionable. In fact, in a boneheaded action film such as this, a dire situation becomes ridiculous - Burma looks artificial, like the town in Blazing Saddles.
For me, the film was far more revealing about Sylvester Stallone. It’s his Apocalypto, a glimpse into the mind of a slightly mad man. He wrote the screenplay, produced it, directed it, starred in it, and ultimately saves the day with a massive machine gun. I honestly felt as if this was Sly's 6th birthday party… and I'd been invited to sit around and watch.
Andy T.
Three monstrosities: huge luxury chains, I might add. Now, the Sofitel architect was somewhat worse than mediocre but at least it’s set back a little from the river. The Intercontinental, clad in brown plastic, swears blind that it’s not as bad as it might have been. And then there’s the Marriott.
Only one other hotel in Budapest can compete for the title of City’s Greatest Eyesore, and that’s the Hilton. Positioned precisely 1 millimetre away from the Fishermen’s Bastion, it’s the choice of the truly discerning culture trampler. As invasively located hotels go, it could look worse: its tinted, mirrored windows do at least deflect attention away from it, and the roof design tries to capture something vaguely historical.
So it's difficult to see whose crime is the greatest in this whole sorry affair: the former Communist State; the multinationals that own the hotels; or the tourists that stay there. Whichever way, I look forward to the "futuristic-looking yellow building" that will soon grace Clark Ádám tér. That, my friends, is progress.
Andy Sz.
Keleti's Arena Plaza opened in a blaze of glory around Christmas, Vörösmarty tér has unveiled its new H and M, but there's one poor little shopping centre that almost everyone has forgotten about. 'Poky' MOM Park never had an awful lot going for it, but there's much less now, given that half the shops seem to have closed down.
I was there a few weeks back, and noticed that even though the management had started to put cars inside the shopping centre, it hardly makes a difference. Customers still shuffle sleepily around, not wanting to move too quickly because then their trip will be finished and they'll have to go home.
Sadly, it's all very like Dawn of the Dead, George A Romero's semi-coherent attack on consumerism. This Zombie Great tells the story of a group of people in a shopping mall trying to withstand a zombie attack. At the beginning of the film, as two of the protagonists look down at the undead congregating outside the mall, there is the following exchange...
Francine: 'What are they doing?! Why do they come here?'
Stephen: 'I don't know. Some kind of instinct. Memory, of what they used to do. This was an important place in their lives.'
Ha! This conversation could easily have taken place in MOM park, standing on the balcony, watching people milling aimlessly from shop to shop. And, while all this has the potential to be quite frightening, at least nobody in MOM Park is eating anyone else's entrails.
Dawn of the Dead
MOM Park Andy T
Now then. The man on the right, as you may or may not know, is Mr Deak Ferenc. Take a quick look, then answer the following question... does he strike you as
a) sly?
b) moustachioed?
c) fashionable?
The correct answer of course, is c. If you answered a or b, then you've made a silly mistake. Have another look. It might be 132 years since Deak Ferenc died, but clearly, he's still a sartorial trailblazer... that vest/bib... those slanty buttons... the nondescript haircut...this season, they're so in! In fact, confronted with a picture of our dapper friend, the rebranding of Deak Ferenc utca as FASHION STREET suddenly makes perfect sense. (Quite why we aren't currently changing trains at FASHION STATION, soaking up rays in FASHION SQUARE, and struggling to change FASHION FORINT NOTES is a mystery).
Okay, enough of that. In all seriousness, I have no idea why FASHION STREET is still around. When the monstrous sign was first hauled over the side of an innocent building in late 2007, I grimaced and hoped that this was just end of year madness, that everything would return to normal once the twelve days of Christmas had passed. But it was still there yesterday and it'll probably be there tomorrow. An unfortunate, permanent (?) eyesore.
This afternoon, I wandered over to FASHION STREET, hoping to find out if there was any chance of all this nonsense coming to an end. The first thing I saw was a skip, a stone's throw away from a brightly coloured pair of mobiltoaletts, something you'd hardly expect to find on the Ginza. I strolled on a little further, and gradually realised that most of the customers on FASHION STREET were tough-looking men, pushing FASHIONABLE wheelbarrows, wearing FASHIONABLE workclothes. Cutting edge, I thought... is this what to expect from Paris and Milan 2008?
No, of course not. FASHION STREET is under construction. It was started on 6/11/07, to be finished on 15/3/08, and apparently a man called Tibor Kamondy is to blame. I stumbled across this information on a sign, shortly before I went into a shop charging 34,300 ft for a jumper, 20,400 ft for a t-shirt (on sale) and 104, 990 ft for a bag (not on sale).
It's hard to put a finger on what's so irksome about FASHION STREET. Maybe the fact that many Hungarians struggle to pay their heating bills, never mind 10,000 ft for an umbrella. Perhaps it's the transformation of an unassuming corner into a characterless, slightly pathetic imitation of streets in other cities (FASHION STREET would hardly look out of place in say, Peterborough). Or maybe it's not that at all... it could just be the fact that FASHION STREET really doesn't need a signpost.
Andy T.
Bad customer service is famously common in Hungary... there really isn't an awful lot you can do. You hardly want to start an argument with a ticket collector, or a shopkeeper, or a barmaid, just because they look like they've spent the entire day sucking on a lemon.
Anyway, at thehub, we're a bit sick of it, so we've decided to start sticking up for ourselves! In a small-minded, cowardly way! We're going to put a handful of these situations on the site, an intermittent naming and shaming (... having said that, we probably won't get their names, and furthermore, as they're hardly likely to read this, they probably won't feel ashamed). We also want photos of the culprits, if we can possibly get away with taking one. This time, I couldn't.
Tuesday. 10 00 am. Who was miserable?
First, the cashier. Then me. But I wasn’t miserable before I met the cashier.
What was wrong with her?
Don’t know. When we first met she seemed fine, grumpy, but perhaps that’s what you expect. Working in Match first thing in the morning would make anyone grumpy. Initially, things were going very well… she scanned my food, I moved down to the end of the checkout to put my food in a bag. A familiar routine.
So where did it all go wrong?
Right about then. I was at the end of the till with a 5,000 forint note. But, she didn‘t turn around to take it. Instead she stood with her back to me, as if I'd magically disappeared.
Why?
Don’t know. Maybe she didn't like turning around because the staff in Match aren't given swivelly chairs. Making her a non-swiveller. So, she refused to turn around and haughtily tapped the little plastic shelf designed to put money on. I was obviously, foolishly, cluelessly, standing in the wrong place.
Where should you have been standing?
Slightly to my left and a little bit forwards.
How did all this finish?
I stood slightly to my left and a little bit forwards.
Did it make her happy?
No.
Match Supermarket is in the square at Blaha. To get there, come out of the red metro's left hand exit onto Rakoczi. It's on the corner.
Andy T.
Bleary-eyed, I wait on the platform having just missed my train but I do at least have the comfort of a beaming five year-old, holding up a 10,000 Forint note like the Holy Grail. Magyar Nemzeti Bank, it seems, are rather keen to turn your kids into raving capitalists. But he doesn't know what money is! He's five! He probably thinks that's enough money to buy a spaceship! On the other hand, he looks rather at home standing in front of that safe; I wonder if he lives there, raised by Forints.
The BKV itself is trying to develop a more personal image too. They've come up with a lovely poster, just in time for Valentine's day: two ticket validating machines - the ones that never work, even if you've figured out that they're not electronic - are arranged to form a heart, and hence the statement "I heart BKV". To me this seems a little unrealistic. The addition of graffiti improved it a little: "I fuck BKV", which is true, if you're a habitual fare-dodger. But really it should have read, and you'll know this if you've splashed out on a monthly pass recently, "BKV fucks you!"
Andy Sz.
Belvárosi Lugas Étterem
Bajcsy-Zsilinszky út 15 [map]
Pest Centre, VI, Bajcsy-Zsilinszky (M1) or Deák F. tér (M3), 2 mins
First stop: sour cherry-filled pancakes with almond sauce at the Belvárosi Lugas Étterem opposite St. Stephen’s Basilica. Big portion, loads of sour cherries, lovely and plump and shiny. The almond sauce however, was also generously slopped all over the pancakes, and since it was an unearthly pale green colour, the dish didn’t look very appetizing. Are almonds green? Maybe there was an accident with the food colouring in the kitchen. It made me anxious to wipe my mouth well after each forkful, to avoid walking out into Bajcsy-Zsilinszky út with green slime on my chin, looking like an extra from a zombie flick. I couldn’t finish it, but I left the restaurant with an enjoyable warm, if slightly gloopy feeling.
Alföldi Vendéglő
Kecskeméti utca 4 [map]
Pest Centre, V, Kálvin tér (M3), 1 min
The Alföldi Vendéglő offer it as a hearty starter (or heart-stopper?), which my friend ordered. She definitely made the right choice, I thought as I looked at my enormous beef-stuffed cabbage surrounded by a ‘garnish’ of fatty chunks of pork, drenched in a rich and salty tomato sauce. I looked across the coronary-red and salt-white tablecloth and envied her choice of meal. Beware the generous portions, but do visit for a genuine taste of Hungarian country cooking.
Berliner Pub
Ráday utca, 5. [map]
Pest South, IX, Kálvin tér (M3), 4 min
On trendy Ráday utca, I shared a truly delicious pancake with a friend in the cellar of the Berliner Pub. We ended an excellent meal with a plate of Gundel palacsinta and two spoons. I’m not sure if it was the rum-soaked filling or the incredibly rich dark chocolate sauce, but these indulgent pancakes made me swoon. For half the price of the same dish at Gundel’s Étterem, these are much better value-for-money and there’s no need to comb your hair and shine your shoes before you go in.
cakes, cherry, eating, food, gundel, gundle, hungary, pan, pancake, pancakes
Lucy F.
I’ve also been knocking around Budapest for a bit and I’ve found that the existing guides don’t really serve me very well, the principal reasons being:
- Many of them are rather more interested in their advertising revenue than producing a genuine guide.
- The standard of English and/or journalism is largely woeful.
- Most are aimed at tourists and high-income expats.
- They are rarely designed with the user in mind.
We want to produce something that has more of a community ethic than a commercial one: a starting point for whatever you might need. We’re not interested in being a self-contained website. If the information’s sitting there on another website, we’re damned if we’re going to reproduce it – we’ll just link to it. If the internet is to be of any value, it has to be more than a series of cul-de-sacs.
We’d also like to involve our users as much as we can, so we welcome your comments and suggestions.
If the site looks a bit homemade, that’s because it is. If we find that people are interested in thehub.hu we’ll eventually upgrade. But for the moment, we’re concentrating on the content and making sure we produce something genuine and relevant.
Andy Sz.
Hello,thehub.hu was started by me, Andy Sz, and him, Andy T but he, Andy T took a plane going West. I was in tears, obviously. But Jacob P turned up at the right moment, so he's now a big part of it. SF's started contributing too, so we're on the up.
Enormous thanks to all contributors!
If anyone else is interested in contributing anything to the site, please get in touch by emailing us at hubevents@gmail.com or alternatively, leave us a comment here or on our Facebook site - just search for thehub.hu and you'll find us.
At the moment, we're concentrating on content and building up a readership but we do welcome contact from potential advertisers too. Equally, we'd be glad to hear from anyone who wants to share information about any upcoming events in Budapest.
Cheers,
Andy Sz.
Blog to follow.
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