Later today I am off to taiwan, which is a first trip to asia if you don’t count kyrgystan and kazakstan. I’m not sure what my copy of the path of the communist party of china that I picked up earlier this week at a reception at the consul-general's would say about taiwan, but I read from their own site that it still styles itself the republic of china, and I am humble enough to say that despite being a relatively serious student of history over many years, I have never quite got to that part of the world or that conflict, so I don’t really know how things have come to pass there. No doubt I’ll get at least…

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Hungary’s youth, it seems, are even more inclined than their parents to support the extreme right jobbik party, with 29% approving, against 40% for the (quite) right of centre fidesz. In the real-life elections (12 april 2010) they got 16%, which they may yet improve on next year, and which already has the jewish world in such a spin that the annual world jewish congress decamped to budapest to protest against the party. Unfortunately, the rise of the far right (26 march 2011) in hungary is far from an isolated incident, and astounding results, like the french national front getting 46% of a second-round vote, just keep on coming. In that same poll of hungarian youth, many more thought the…

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A fortnight on, and I am still shaking the branches of my family tree, with ripe and interesting fruits falling out left, right and centre. There are family schisms over raincoat factories, penniless litvaks turning up in dundee thinking they’re in “amerika”, great uncles getting shot down in the battle of britain, rather too many kids disappearing between birth and adulthood, a dramatic deathbed scene, and offshoots springing up in america, south africa and australia, as well as much dead wood I know I’ll never find in the old world of der heim. A common thread is the amazing march across the generations, uncannily similar in the endless different branches I am delving into, of poverty-stricken immigrants seeing their…

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I have spent much of these new year days with my family, some living, but most dead, as I have been putting my hands into the magic box of family history I’ve been accumulating for at least a decade, and the magic box of the internet, which knows considerably more about my family than I do. My current investigative bout was sparked by relatives from australia and rediscovered memories of that big chunk of family that moved literally half way around the world after the war; though I’ve learnt most about my dad’s family, and my namesake, my grandpa baron morris frankal, on the far left of the picture. Next to him is my dad and his cheeky grin, and…

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Crispin blunt was unusually erudite in his commentary after the british prime minister’s defeat in the house of commons, ending the prospect at this time of the uk joining any military action against assad’s syria. His point was that it was high time london lost its imperial hangover of thinking it was a country of a size that deserved to have a hand on the world’s tiller. We should stop, he said, pretensions of “punching above our weight” and act in a way that is sustainable for a country of our means. It has been a while since such (to use the derogatory term) little englander views had any traction, anathema as they are both to the internationalist left that…

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I have for a long time tried to think about not just schools and education, but also - what is now well-used jargon – the early years. Though there has been some commentary about its use, the photo on the cover of graham allen’s excellent report sums up well the importance of that period. By age 3, whereas most of the body is 18% its full adult size, the brain is 90%. Babies are born with about 75% more brain cells than they need, and do not use them until they are connected via synapses, the connections between neurons. As they are biologicaly finite, if these synapses connections that come through parental and other stimulation are not made by this…

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In a few short hours, the second part of the holiday starts, our regular week by the lake (balaton in hungary), but with a twist. Whilst my youngest and other half are already in budapest, my eldest and I are making a 6am start to get on all manner of manchester transport systems before boarding the 7.55 to london, where a short underground trip to st pancras awaits us, as does a rather longer eurostar one to paris. This will be followed in short order by the tgv to munich, the overnight railjet to budapest and then some central european intercity niceties too as we make our way to our night in the capital before heading off to the country.…

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These days holidays are a compromise: “we” want to go to the british museum, “they” want to go to legoland. In the end of course we do both. However, while we (or actually “I” as other half heads off down oxford street) shlepp around lego star wars for the third time without too much complaint, just half an hour gazing at the wonders of pompeii leaves them moaning and seeking a bribe just to stay. My favourite quote was in the dining room, sage advice for any dinner party, “don't dirty the couch covers, keep your eyes off other people's partners and take your quarrels home with you.” We ate well, visited siblings, good friends, covent garden and the london…

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The background noise is growing that the western powers are finally moving towards declassifying hamas as untouchable and making them part of the peace process. Indeed, what has been apparent for some time, not least in john kerry’s invisible shuttling attempts, is that you can’t have a two-state solution, indeed any peace process, without them. Europe, oddly, was always the swing voter that will make this happen, but until now has badly misjudged the call (you can read this thesis in full in how we made the fatal mistake of not talking to hamas), for fear of rocking the boat on more important things with the us, which israel succeeded in convincing the last american president was the price…

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