Digging a Little Deeper

I went to a meeting of European Broadcasters in Prague last week, hosted by the good folks at Radio Prague. I always look forward to going to Prague and always look forward to leaving. I go for the visual feast as this city is a magnificent blend of Habsburg and Jugenstil delights. I leave, gratefully, as Prague continues to have the lowest standard of customer service of anywhere I’ve ever been, and I travel all over Europe.

Example - checking into my hotel, I had the following conversation, if you can it that, with the receptionist known only as “Miss Katka”:

Me: Hi, have other members of my party arrived?
Miss K: Yes, Mr. W. is in Room 205.
Me: But Mr. W lives in Prague. So who checked into Room 205?
Miss K: Yes, Mr. W.
Me: No. Mr. W. only made the reservation. He lives here.
Miss K: Yes, in Room 205.

Katkaesque?

The weather was frigid and the normally taciturn Pragueites were as antisocial as ever. I even managed to have a pretty unpleasant exchange in the airport with a lady bartender who silently scowled at my pretentious request for a double macchiato (a double espresso with a drop of milk foam on top, you really should try it). She glowered as I quickly gulped it down. I was glad to go.

All week I walked around all too glad to badmouth the Czechs. “The Slovaks were right to want to get away from them” I would say to anyone who would listen. And then something happened.

Yesterday, my 4 year old son and I went to a screening in Amsterdam of some cartoons. The best of them was a character called Krtek, or “Little Mole”. These are innocent, delicate, magnificently colored and drawn little vignettes made in the early 1970s. Armed with an unhealthy sense of curiosity, Krtek was constantly digging his way into trouble. Somehow, he would keep his wits and get out of it again. It must have been the same for Czechs in the 1970s where curiosity could get you into deep trouble and only a fast mouth could get you out of it. Life must have been Krtekesque.

My son cried when the cartoons ended. And every time the closing credits said “Made in Prague,” I felt a stab of guilt.

Click here to find out more about ‘Krtek’ the little mole!

The Fear Factor in EuroQuest

At left, Fiona Stewart and her daughter.

Segment 1 - London Underground Fear
Fiona Stewart, a London resident who travels to work each day on the London underground via Kings Cross, describes a scary situation that happened two years prior to the London
This is an excerpt from Michele Ernsting's excellent documentary "Testing the Alarms". Click here to go to the program's web page and listen to the entire program.

Segment 2 - The Fear Factor
Today’s media saturates the airwaves with round the clock news reporting. But when does coverage become too much? And what effect does that have on society? Richard Walker takes up the story in London.

Segment 3 - NI Gangs
N.Irish paramilitary groups are turning into mafia type organizations. Laura Haydon interviews teenage NI protestants about the attractions of joining these groups now that peace has come.

Segment 4 - Crime and (Lack of) Punishment in Bulgaria
Romania and Bulgaria are set to join the European Union in 2007. And while most things look good on paper, the reality is somewhat different. Margreet Strijbos has more.
Here's a longer article on the subject by Radio Netherlands' Richard Walker. Click here...

Here's the high quality download of this week's show.

Want podcasts? The XML is on the right...

The State of International Broadcasting

The Prague Coat of Arms

I'm currently in Prague at a conference for international broacasters involved in the Radio E project. In English, this means a program called "Network Europe". Listeners to EuroQuest will probably have heard me mention that this piece or that came from Network Europe. This is a magazine program with contributions from Radio Netherlands (us), RFI, DW Radio, Radio Sweden, Radio Romania International, Radio Slovakia and, of course, Radio Prague. Radio Sweden, DW and RFI acutally produce and directly broadcast it, so I guess this makes us a junior partner in the project.

Every 6 months we get together to discuss the current state of our particular flavor of broadcasting: international public radio. Later in the week, safely ensconced in the warm safety of my office in Hilversum, I shall update you with the state of things now and the state of things to come here on the continent, radiophonically speaking.

Diesel Dos and Donts in this week's EQ

Rapeseed, or Canola Oil as diesel fuel. As far as my admittedly cursory web search can determine, no one, not even the oil industry, seems to think this is a bad idea. There is a downside, as you can hear in segment 3, it makes your car smell like French fry fat. The whole show is filled with upsides and downsides, ins and outs, bottoms and tops, fricks and fracks (you get the point) of looking for alternative ways to fuel our wonderfully wasteful western lifestyle. As far as I can determine, it looks like we'll be cozying up to Gazprom for some time to come.

(Picture nicked from Greenpeace as part of a long article on bio-diesel)

Segment 1 - Stockholm's Congestion Charge Trial
In order to reduce traffic and pollution, the Swedish capital Stockholm is enacting a highly controversial 6-month congestion charge trial. Bill Schiller spoke to the project leaders of Stockholm's congestion charge trial.
Subsequent to this interview, the new toll has been introduced and seems to be working. Check out this article from Radio Sweden entitled "New road toll slashes traffic".

Segment 2 - The Sea Highway
How do you get a heavy goods vehicle from the south of France to the south of Italy on less than a liter of diesel? Answer: put it on a boat. John Laurenson reports on Europe's new sea highway...

Segment 3 - Switching to Rapeseed Oil: A Cheap and Clean Solution?
Rapeseed oil can be used as fuel for cars and trucks. It is biodegradable, non-toxic and has fewer emissions when burned. Michel Walraven went to one of the Dutch rape oil mills in the north of the Netherlands where he was shown how it works.
An interesting article on Dutch biofuel policy. This article is in English.

Segment 4 - Human Powered Energy
Professor AJ Jansen of the faculty for industrial design at Delft Technical University in the Netherlands demonstrated Human Powered Energy devices to Thijs Westerbeek.
You want to know more? This is a Link to the Technical University of Delft's "Human Powered Energy Systems" site.

You can download this program in high quality mp3 format here.

Keeping the Demons at Bay

The lady on the left here is Anat Rosenberg. She was an Israeli woman who lived and worked in London for a charity agency. She was too afraid to move back to Israel for fear of terrorist violence. She was killed in the London bombings last July. In this week's EuroQuest, entitled "Keeping the Demons at Bay" we try to come to terms with a history of violence or misdeed.

Segment 1 - 7 Months On, Man Mourns Suicide Bombing Victim
Anat Rosenberg and 51 other people were killed in the July 7th suicide bombings in London. Her boyfriend John Falding says he is still trying to come to terms with what happened...
Coming soon: extra audio of Sarah Johnson's compelling interview with John Falding.

Segment 2 - Bosnia and Croatia Connected Again by Dutch Ferry
Hans Andringa reports on how the former Yugolsav republics are getting on 10 years since the end of the wars in the Balkans. He gives the example of the resumption of ferry service between pushover on the Croatian side of the Danube and Bacs on the Serbian side.

Segment 3 - Rumanian Church in Bed with Communists?
The Rumanian Orthodox church is something of a survivor in a sense. However, 16 years since Rumania's 1989 anti-communist revolution, people are beginning to wonder if that survival is no coincidence. IulianMuresan has more.
Wikipedia has a concise history of the Rumanian Church including information about state control during the Ceaucescu period.

Segment 4 - Moldova in Limbo
Western Moldova has its sights set on a future however the breakaway republic of Transdniestr has its feet firmly planted in its Soviet past, and its present is assured by Russian troops. Darrell Harvey brings us this report from Moldova.
The CIA World Factbook entry on Moldova.

Click here to download this week's show as a high quality mp3

EuroQuiz!

Actually, this isn't an annoucement for a new EuroQuest EuroQuiz as much as a callout for ideas for a new quiz. What should it be? A geography quiz? History? Something a little racier?
Why not get the old gray matter going and post a few ideas here at the EuroBlog. I look forward to reading what you come up with.

A Parable for Our Times

"....by then all of Turkey knew Yucel as the woman who had swept aside her son's choice of a bride with the words: 'I'll tell you when you're in love'." writes the Washington Post in an addendum to the January 3rd posting on a Turkish reality series that got so out of hand one contestant committed suicide. More insights into what happened in this excellent article.

New Year? New Morality!

Fully recovered? We're getting back up to full speed here in Hilversum. That's why we thought we'd cheer you all up with a program that takes a look at some of Europe's more recent moral pitfalls.



Segment 1 - De Einder: Support for Suicide
De Einder is a Dutch foundation that provides moral support for people contemplating suicide. Sarah Johnson went to investigate, starting at a symposium to celebrate the organization’s 10 year anniversary.
Interested in learning more or acutally speaking to someone there? You can go to their web page. It's all in Dutch so I've linked to the contact information page.
Taking a critical distance from the activities of de Einder, here is discussion of the topic from the point of view of several philosophers in an article from the New York Times's New York Review of Books.

Segment 2 - The dark side of Turkish reality TV
Reality shows are a phenomenon. But when the Turkish reality TV star, Ata Turk, was found dead in a hotel room of a suspected drug overdose, it raised serious questions about whether such programs really are just harmless entertainment. Dorian Jones reports from Istanbul.

Segment 3 - How real is reality TV?
It seems TV producers will go to any lengths to draw viewers here in Holland. Take a new program called 'Spuiten en Slikken' or 'Spurting and Swallowing.' But how far should these reality programs be able to go? To answer that question we spoke to Jan Teurings, a lecturer in media studies at the University of Amsterdam.

Interested in learning more about "Spuiten en Slikken"? Here's the link. Again, it's all in Dutch. That's why I'm also providing the link to Endemol. Endemol is the Dutch production company responsible for the entire worldwide reality TV craze by giving the world the gift that keeps on giving: Big Brother. Would you rather have knitting needles pushed through you eyes than watch a reality TV program? Click here...

Segment 4 - Taking the bull by the horns in Spain
To many Spaniards, bullfighting is not barbaric. It’s simply a contest between man and nature: an expression of tradition and culture. Did you know there’s even a bullfighting school down in Madrid? Neither did we, until Danny Wood told us about it.

Please click here to download the full program in high quality mp3 format

As always, you can leave comments below. Hope to hear from you. I suspect we'll hear from the antibullfighting crowd.