Hungarian photographers have won four prizes in this year’s World Press Photo contest, the premier accolade for news photographers worldwide.

Easy-to-digest tips on learning languages quickly & effectivelyFredrick A. Rothhaar spent over three decades as a crisis manager in North America as well as in Central and Eastern Europe, working mainly in the food, pharmaceuticals and confectionery industries. In this excerpt, from his book Organise Yourself and Your Environment: 20 Aids for a Stress-free and Successful Life at Home and at Work outlines his approach to a problem managers from the English-speaking world often find hard to deal with: learning languages.

Review: The Will to Survive – A History of HungaryThis is a weighty volume is all senses of the term – even the paperback edition is well over one kilo. Yet its depth and breadth is not off-putting; the racy text speeds you with clarity through the twists and turns of Hungary’s often tortuous history. Knowledge of and enthusiasm for his subject shines through this work by Bryan Cartledge, a former British Ambassador to Hungary.

Waltz, pop & rock in a ball gown

The Budapest Opera Ball, which was revived following
the change of regime, took place for the 13th time on 2 February at the
Hungarian State Opera on Andrássy út.  

Light touches

Sztereó is a new exhibition open from 13 February
presenting paintings by Barna Benedek and sculptures by Bálint Józsa. Despite
the different genres, geographical surroundings and the age difference, the
artists are interested in a similar subject: both play with light and the
spatial dimensions of colours and materials.  

Pálinka & pork: pig of a festival has wingsA festival devoted to a breed of pig is the kind of thing you night expect in some rural market town, not cosmopolitan Budapest.

Transport went more smoothly in days gone byIncredible as it may seem to anyone who has read about the difficult birth of the fourth metro in the papers in the last year or two, Budapest’s first metro line was built without a hitch.

Melancholy and memoryscapes of the pastYou do not often hear an artist admitting that the title he or she has chosen for an exhibition sounds pretentious, but that’s exactly how Georgian artist Lado Pochkhua describes the title of his latest show The Anatomy of Melancholia. Such frankness is refreshing in an art world were pretentiousness often rules the roost, and Pochkhua’s art itself is just as refreshing as his approach.

Organ
tornado sweeps over BudapestAt the
beginning she was dubbed the “organ tornado from Munich” – Barbara Dennerlein,
who began her career around 20 years ago in a small jazz club in Munich, is now
regarded as one of the world’s most brilliant players of the Hammond B3 organ.
Barbara Dennerlein will perform at 7.30pm at the Palace of Arts
on Thursday 31 January.  

Fairytale
three-quarter timeThis
Saturday Budapesti Operabál Kft will invite guests to waltz for the 13th time.
The star guest is Richard Clayderman, the “Prince of Romance”.