Post-Sziget Briefing: After the Mud, More Mud

So it's finally over! Throughout Budapest yesterday, the last stragglers attending this year's Sziget festival emerged from the filth and mud to return to their everyday drab lives or otherwise recover from the week of music, fun, international friendship and understanding and overpriced sandwiches and soft drinks. Here's a little of what went on while you or they were there:

• The festival was a flop, at least commercially speaking, with the organizers saying that they were likely to post a loss in the area of Ft 80 million (roughly €300,000). In a shocking turn of events, this unusual expected loss corresponds with the fact that 2007 was the first year in the festival's 15-year history that it didn't get subsidies from the Hungarian government. Also plus, any company in Hungary that actually shows a profit on paper isn't really successful. [caboodle.hu]

• The festival was also a flop for the oodles of non-profit weenies who showed up expecting to get free ticket, only to discover that they had to pay a full 80% of the full price, even if they were doing important work to save the whales or protect the cultural patrimony of some band of illiterate flesh-eating forest savages, or other shit like that. And speaking of illiterate flesh-eating forest savages, representatives of the Hungarian Parliament had their own tent at the Sziget for the first time this year. [MTI]

• The festival was also a flop for some Sziget dope dealers, with numerous seizures of frankly not so harmful, if it is still legal to say that potentially deadly illegal narcotics. In one touching moment that underscored the international friendship and understanding that is now an everyday part of life on the Sziget, a Nigerian, three Sudanese and two Hungarians were caught at the festival's "Africa Village" section with a combined total of 400 grams of marijuana, 200 tabs of X and an unidentified stash of hash. And no, Sudanese and Nigerians are not illiterate flesh-eating forest savages. Most of both Sudan and Nigeria is composed of semi-arid desert. [hirextra.hu]

• The festival was not a flop for the maniacs who keep themselves busy trying to maintain Hungary's status as world mass-kissing champion. The world record for "most couples kissing at the same time" was scored in BP for the second time in two months when 14,600 people smooched at the Sziget's Great Stage on Sunday evening, breaking the previous record of 13,000 recorded at Kossuth tér. [hirextra.hu]

• The festival might have been a major flop for anyone who met someone at the big kissing contest and then took them off for a quick fuck in the bushes without a rubber, as the secretary of the Hungarian AIDS Committee chose the event as the forum to announce that Hungary is facing an "explosion" in HIV cases. Whoops! [MTI]

• The festival was without a doubt a major flop for two middle-aged men who tried to swim to the Sziget from Buda late Monday evening, as one of them didn't make it. The District III Police and Budapest's "water police" were still looking for him as of Wednesday. [index.hu]

• From August 21 until October 2008, Budapest's Szabadság híd (Liberty Bridge) will be closed to traffic and may only be crossed on foot. This is only expected to have a minor impact on traffic in the city, and real estate agents are actually among the world's most honest people. [gondola.hu]

• A young female Pygmy Hippopotamus (Choeropsis liberiensis) named Tigi arrived at the Szeged Zoo from the Czech Republic earlier this week. As part of an international program to save the endangered species, a male animal will be brought to Szeged next year so that their breeding can be started. This we can't wait to see. [origo.hu]

• Police on Monday caught a pensioner who had been methodically stealing pieces of a railway bridge near Pinkamindszent (Vas County), removing a total of one ton of iron. The old goat, who is from the nearby village Nemesrempehollós, used a blowtorch to dismantle parts the bridge, which has been standing unused since 1962. [index.hu]

• Due to the unusually hot spring and summer, 18% more ice cream with a value of 27% more was consumed in Hungary between April and July 2007 than in the same period one year ago, according to a recent study by market researcher Nielsen. The ice cream "traffic" was nearly Ft 11 billion (€42.5 million) during the four months, though this apparently only counted ice-cream sales to humans. [vg.hu]

• A refrigerator burst into flames at a Budapest restaurant located on Somogyi Béla utca (District VIII) Tuesday morning. The restaurant filled with smoke, but nobody was injured. [langlovagok.hu]

• Opposition party Fidesz is calling for the mayor of Budakalász to resign for keeping secret his ties to the controversial Church of Scientology. Endre Parlagi, whose campaign was supported by Fidesz, denies that he has a relationship with the church and says that the allegations are part of a political campaign against him. [radio.hu]

• A single lucky person won Ft 1.92 billion (€7.62 million) playing Hungary's most popular lottery, the Ötös Lottó, where players have to guess five numbers out of 90, over the weekend. The winning numbers were 1, 3, 47, 76 and 78. The winner has 90 days to claim the prize, which, just in case you are wondering, is enough to cover the losses of an un-government subsidized Sziget festival for the next 25 years. [blikk.hu]