rupert's blog

This article also appeared in Romanian on www.121.ro.

My son Luca is nine years old and he’s obsessed by the supermarket chain Mega Image. If you ask him “What would you like to do today?” his face lights up and he says the same thing, time and time again: “Go to Mega Image!”.

When we get to one of the outlets of the rapidly expanding chain of small supermarkets that are dotted around Bucharest, Luca gets to work: he patiently waits by a check-out counter until there is a pause between customers and then he asks innocently “do you have any cards that the other customers don’t want?” They are unable to refuse his charms. read more…

This article also appeared in Romanian on the Contributors section of Hotnews.

When I published my first article in the Huffington Post I was greeted by over 100 negative comments, all from people who passionately believe that cannabis should be legalised (my crime was to suggest that cannabis can cause psychosis).  Most comments on most articles in most news-sites seem to be negative and there is a phenomenon in UK (I’m not sure if it has reached Romania yet) called “trolling” whereby a group of like minded people, or “trolls”, bombard individual articles with negative comment, creating the impression that the people are against the point made by the journalist. It is a form of PR. read more…

You can also read this article in Romanian, on the Contributors section of Hotnews. I don’t have a TV as I can’t stand the sensationalist nonsense pumped out by ProTV or the endless “analysis” the 24 hour news channels inflict on the public every evening.  But when something interesting does actually happen you get to hear about it (I was in a Romanian village in the early 1990s when a peasant told me the American’s were bombing Iraq. “Nonsense” I replied. But he was right, he’d seen it on his ancient black and white TV). read more…

This video was found in our archives, translated into Romanian and published in Jurnal National (click here).

If you want to see the video without reading all this text, go to the end of this article (scroll down).

The Story Behind the Video:

The ending of the year (2011) seems to be a month of nostalgia, particularly in Romania where the media are wallowing in a sea of memories based on unanswered questions about the 1989 revolution. Searching for answers gives editors pages of material (the biblical phrase “old wine in new bottles” springs to mind) and characters like Petre Roman, Romania’s first post revolutionary PM, get wheeled onto TV chat shows to discuss their memories of Communism. read more…

In 1989 I taught myself to be a journalist (I had no idea you could study it in university).  By the end of that year I was covering the Romanian revolution for Scotland on Sunday, a newspaper that was too “Scottish” to send me over to witness the action on the ground.  I didn’t get here until January 1990, which I thought was far too late, but there was still plenty of drama on the streets of Bucharest. read more…

This article was also published in Romanian on Contributors.ro

“There are two types of political lobby campaigns” explained my tutor of political science at Liverpool University, “you have the big movements with hundreds of thousands of members, such as the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. They make a lot of noise and get media coverage, but they rarely change things. The other type of lobby is done ‘in smoke filled rooms behind closed doors’ by big business groups who have limitless funds, patience and time.” George Monbiot writes brilliantly about the evil effectiveness of the corporate lobby groups in the Guardian and there was a recent article in TIME (“Is Obama Bad for the Environment?”) which describes how Obama is ruling in favour of Big Oil despite having been elected on a wave of pro-environmental promises. read more…

This article was also published in Romanian on the website www.121.ro

It’s not easy finding treatment for alcoholism or drug addiction in Romania. I know this because I have been looking for addiction treatment services in this country over the last year. You may be wondering why I’m looking for treatment (are you wondering if I’m addicted to drugs, alcohol, gambling or sex?). read more…

This article was also published in Romanian on Hotnews.

Anyone who knows Romania is aware that Sighisoara is a pretty amazing place. Guidebooks describe is as the only medieval citadel in Europe that is “lived in” and the old centre is one of the “must sees” on the Romanian map.  But I have avoided the place for about 5 years for a number of reasons: I was seriously put-off after visiting a so-called “Medieval Festival” (a grotesque combination of kitsch and heavy metal); and it takes so long to get there by car from Bucharest (over 5 hours) and the train doesn’t exactly hurry. read more…

This article was also published in Romanian on Hotnews.

The most interesting thing about “British Comedy Night”, which takes place on the first Saturday of each month, is the street.  Strada Gabroveni is the last street in Bucharest’s Lipscani area (the old town) that is still “under construction” (i.e. in total chaos). Michael Fraser, the manager of the Mojo Club and the organizer of British comedy in Romania, says “It’s the worst street in Bucharest”.

If you are tired of the uniformity of the streets of Bucharest go to Strada Gabroveni at night. It’s a trip to another dimension.  I savoured the uneven earth surface, the total absence of cars, the dark empty buildings, the wooden boards that people wobble drunkenly along, the orange pipes that spew crazily out of the ground and the contrast with the Cocor Shopping Centre, which is a vast TV screen at the end of the street. With music pumping out of a dozen clubs and images of high fashion being flashed down the street from Cocor, I felt like I was in a scene from Blade Runner. read more…

The Chinese Ambassador to Bucharest once compared the building of motorways in his country to what’s been achieved in Romania.  He said that both countries have been engaged on motorway building for about 20 years and while the Chinese have built over 40,000 kilometers of motorway during that time, Romania has barely managed 150 KM. He offered Chinese help in building a ring road for Bucharest, but his offer was ignored and Romania’s capital city remains in gridlock. read more…