If you stumble across this old blog you’ll find some interesting articles, about travel and the politics of Romania around the year 2014. I’ve deleted the rubbish.
If you’d like to see my new blog you can find it here: Rupert’s Cool New Blog (more…)
Category: Personal
How the Romanian Revolution Changed my Life
In 1989 I taught myself journalism, got a job on a Scottish newspaper and was assigned a subject that was considered marginal: Romania. Nothing was happening there. The date was December 1989. (more…)
Stephanie Wolfe Murray in 10 Short Sketches
A script/summary of my mother’s life (1941 to 2016). (more…)
Death and Art
I recently wrote a Tweet — one of those little phrases on Twitter — which I thought was rather clever: “Don’t read a book. Read an author”. Unfortunately I didn’t get a flood of emails congratulating me on my wisdom or asking what I meant. As with most tweets, I got no reaction, which begs the question “What’s Twitter for?”, a question I tried to answer in this article some time ago. (more…)
A Game of Monopoly
It came in a shiny tin box for Christmas. The Romanian version, with “credit cards” instead of cash.
There were four of us: me and Alina; Lara, who is 9, and Luca who is 6. (more…)
Why Not Give Up Alcohol For The New Year?
Why not give up alcohol for the new year? It makes you fat, smells bad to non drinkers (such as children) and ends up costing a fortune. But could survive socially without beer, wine or something stronger? Does it give you confidence? Can a modern adult have fun without booze? (more…)
Mega Image Take Over Bucharest
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. (more…)
Portuguese Ticket Inspectors
Last month I was enjoying the sun in Portugal. Here’s what happened when I was leaving… (more…)
The Difficulty of Writing
Everyone can write and yet but there are very few writers around. Many people can write funny letters, fluent emails and good reports but when it comes to writing articles most people can’t deliver. This is not to say that many people can’t write well – it’s just that the process of writing with confidence is much harder to achieve than you think, and few people have learned the basic rules of writing an article (something that I would like to explain here soon). (more…)
The Wrong Way to Run a Blog
Inspired by the BBC’s new Sherlock Holmes serial, I have decided to turn our company blog into a personal blog. Instead of monthly updates about various issues I will write more frequent posts about what’s going on around me. (more…)