It looks like our decision to have a bit of an August slowdown was smart not only because we got to goof off - it also helped us avoid getting snookered by what surely must be the biggest dumbass non-story international story about Hungary of the summer, namely the saga of an 18-year-old young lady known only as "Miss Spring."

As you may have heard, Hungary filled the "oddly enough" quota of numerous international media outlets early last month with reports that the aforementioned young woman was auctioning off her virginity on Ebay. It's not exactly clear where the story got its start - it looks like local tabloid Bors was on the case early - but within a few days top UK tab the Sun was titillating its readers with a version of the tale that had the action being won by an unnamed Brit with a bit of £200,000, which is roughly Ft 70 million, or approximately 15,000 excellent lays in your average Budapest whorehouse, give or take a few hundred vigorous baby-oil handjobs in the bathroom of the Nyugati tér metro underpass.

Aaaaaanyway, the whole thing has now turned into a major anti-climax, because late last week Miss Spring said she was canceling the auction, claiming that it had ruined her relationship with her mother. More likely, she saw this and realized that what she had been trying to sell she might even have trouble just giving away.

Finally, as for the Sun, don't take it too hard, guys, it happens to everyone once in a while. Really.

Over on Caboodle.hu we see that the US Embassy in Budapest - as well as several other buildings adjacent to it on District V's Szabadság tér - was evacuated yesterday due to the unearthing of a World War II-era bomb during some construction work. While we can't say for sure, the construction work that led to the explosive discovery seems to have involved putting in some spectacularly ugly anti-bomb pylons around the bunker-like embassy "compound." Also, what are the odds that the bomb itself had been dropped by an US plane, or at least one belonging to the Brits or another "allied" power? Either way, hahahahahahaha dumbass Americans!

UPDATE: As pointed out in the comments below, a) the bomb was Soviet, and b) the work was being done on "gas pipes." As for a), recall that the Soviets were and "allied" power of the US, and b) the work on the gas pipes may still have something to do with the giant gas pipe/bomb-like poles Joe American is surrounding his bunker with.

UPDATE (II): This just landed in our mailbag: "Who ever called Americans dumbass would give his right arm to live in a free country. Anvie is oozing from the negative reteric. And yes Brits are allied with USA without the young man and woman arriving 65 years ago you would be kissing naci assas." No comment!

[Editor's Note: Regular readers will remember this wonderful tribute to the Hungarian-American film impresario Adolph Zukor we published back in January, courtesy of another regular reader, who goes by the name Farkas László. Well, László has done it again, this time with a video-annotated profile of Alexander Korda, the Hungarian-born director who, like Zukor, is considered one of the cinematic legends of the 20th century. Read, watch and marvel, and thanks as always for the memories, László.]

It is an extraordinary, almost probability defying coincidence that in the small nation of Hungary, within a few kilometers of each other, were born three men who would go on to world fame as founders of international film studios and as celebrity film moguls. Adolph Zukor of Paramount, Vilmos Fried (later William Fox) of 20th Century Fox and Alexander Korda of London Film Studios. This is a legacy that I will never tire of reminding my fellow Hungarians of, as I feel our film pioneers were positive examples to us of initiative and creativity. I am very proud of the long list of achievements that Hungarian born people have contributed to world cinema. In order to celebrate that heritage, it gives me great pleasure to present to you the life and work of Alexander Korda and his two younger brother associates, Vincent and Zoltán.

On September 16, 1893, Alexander Korda was born Sándor László Kellner in Túrkeve in Jász-Nagykun-Szolnok county, east of Budapest on the great Hungarian plain. Located on the super flat puszta, Sándor was affected from childhood by the monotony of a very small town, seemingly located in the middle of nowhere on a landscape that offered no relief or contrast. Looking in all directions and seeing nothing but the plain, aroused in him a burning fascination from childhood on to know and experience more about the world beyond his horizon. From the earliest age, he craved more intellectual and cultural stimulation than the rural environment he was born into could provide.

Sándor's father was a sergeant in the hussars who turned estate manager for the Salgó family. The father died when Sándor was 13, leaving the family penniless. In 1908 he moved to Budapest with his mother and two younger brothers, Vincent and Zoltán. At that young age, he feels the responsibility of being the paterfamilias, especially towards his younger brothers. Thus started a relationship that lasted all their lives, where they worked together, stayed together and accepted the older brother as a leader and family head. It was to be a fruitful collaboration, as each brother had strong talents.

Movies were a very big hit with Hungarians from the get-go. Perhaps there is something in the national temperament that accounts for this. Film takes a drama, gives it immediacy and blows it up to larger than real life size, something that matches well with the emotional makeup of many Hungarians! Just five years after Edison invents his film projector apparatus in 1891, the first films were shown in Budapest in 1896. Sándor saw his first film at the Café Velence, as coffee shops were a common venue for showing films then. He attended gymnasium (high school) and made extra money for the family by writing articles and reviews for a liberal daily newspaper called Független Magyarország ("Independent Hungary"). Students were not supposed to be employed, and so Sándor looked about for a pseudonym to write under. In a Budapest theater he saw written on the wall the Latin phrase Sursum Corda ("Lift up your hearts"). This appealed to him, partly because he had by then become fascinated with the Catholic mass, where this term was also used. He decided to call himself "Korda," changing the "c" to a "k" thinking that would make it look more Hungarian. That his two other brothers went along with this later on tells something of the influence the older sibling had.

When back in Budapest, he found it easy to find work when he told everyone that he had spent a year in Paris and had "worked" (as opposed to merely seeing) at the Pathé Studio (the most technologically advanced at the time). At this time Korda met writer Lajos Biró, with whom he was to form a life long creative partnership. Biró introduced Korda to Mór Ungerleider, the owner of Café Velence who started the first Hungarian film company, Projectograph in 1898. Sándor became secretary, ran the publicity department, advertising and translated the silent movie title cards. For the first time he was just above the poverty level in his life, and took to wearing Homburg hats and smoking fat cigars. The extreme deprivation and poverty he knew in his youth caused him to relish luxuries later in life.

Sándor Korda started the first Hungarian film magazine Pesti Mozi, (Budapest Film) and went on to start two more, Mozi and Mozihét in 1915. This was an exciting time for him, as the world of film in Budapest was linked with politics, art and journalism. It was the sort of stimulation that he craved growing up in his village. It was the test by which he would judge every place he was to live at for the rest of his life. The start of the First World War in 1914 actually caused a boom in Korda's business, as the Central Powers like Germany and Austria-Hungary could no longer import foreign films and thus had to make more of their own. Even then, the power and usefulness of film as a tool of propaganda was beginning to be understood.

In 1914 Sándor got went to work for an actor named Gyula Zilahy, who founded the Budapest Pedagogical Studio and a company called Trikolor Films. The company produced instructional films for Budapest schools and Sándor got to direct three of them. A better opportunity came along when Corvin Studios in Kolozsvár (now Cluj in Romania) offered him a job. In 1917, he returns to oversee the construction of another Corvin Studio near Budapest, costing a million crowns. The facility was years ahead of it's time, and designed by the avant guarde László Moholy-Nagy, who was to become world famous himself as part of the Bauhaus design school later on. (The studio is now the site of Mafilm) At the age of 23, he was put in charge and was earning more than the Hungarian Prime Minister.

In 1916 Korda directs his fist feature film Fehér éjszakák (White Nights). He takes up residence at Budapest's premier Hotel Royal, and thus begins a life long taste for residing in luxury hotels. Later he would take up a whole floor at Claridge's in London and live there. (Call them up and find out what that would cost you today!) He loved saying that a good hotel is the best home. Sándor met a beautiful young actress around this time named Antónia Farkas (no relation) and married her. Her stage name became "Maria Corda". She was to save his life later on.

The war ended in defeat for Hungary and its allies in 1918, the bitter, toxic consequences of that defeat still echoing. The monarchy had fallen, and a well meaning but incompetent democrat named Count Károlyi became head of an interim government, only to be replaced a few months later. Lenin's chief Hungarian disciple, Béla Kún, headed a revolutionary government and a "Soviet Republic of Hungary" was proclaimed. Along with revolutionary communism, the country was invaded from three fronts by its neighbors with Allied help. The Allies did not like seeing a second communist state in Europe, and decided they needed a Hungarian strongman whom they could trust to restore order. A landowner and ex-admiral named Horthy rolls into Budapest and he deposes the communists.

Under the Kún regime film production was nationalized. Korda had to meet with him on a number of occasions, and found that Kún was far more interested in film rather than focus on the many battlefronts that were raging all around. Korda made about three films under the short-lived communist government, but that turned out to three too many for Horthy. When Horthy came to town, suspected communists were rounded up by the banks of the Danube, shot and thrown into the river, where the corpses would make gruesome logjams around the bridges. Soldiers would have to pry them loose with poles and let the dead float down river, where they eventually became a Serbian and Romanian environmental concern. (The famous Hotel Gellért had a whole floor reserved for prisoner interrogation, and a part of the hotel was set aside for torture.) Horthy had heard of Korda and requested to privately screen two, any two of Korda's films. As it turned out, the two shown him were those Korda made under Kún. Horthy reluctantly said afterwards that "the man who made these films must go to prison." Korda was arrested and taken to the Hotel Gellért.

When wife Maria found out, she got Zoltán and did something about it. She had Zoli done up to look like a wounded soldier (to gain sympathy), and she dressed in her flamboyant movie star clothes. They went in a limousine to the Gellért and stormed past ordinary guards with her movie star glamour. Horthy's aide-de-camp immediately received her and was most helpful in obtaining a reprieve from the man later known as the "Regent." Korda was let go, with the understanding that he and his wife should continue their lives abroad. (Korda always suspected a set-up by his business rivals being behind it all, as the bulk of his past work was patriotic in nature.) Later, when Korda had world-class reputation, the Horthy government extended both public and private invitations to him to return and continue filmmaking in Hungary.

Thus began the first crash in his fortunes, (he lost two and made three) and the couple settled in Vienna along with a number of other film people from Hungary like Béla Lugosi, Michael Curtiz (the director of Casablanca) In Vienna, where Maria was known as a film star, they got back into the business and worked on Samson und Delila (1922). They moved to Berlin and made films there as well. Eventually Maria got an offer from Hollywood and the Kordas went.

No place could have been more unlike Hungary than the Los Angeles of the roaring 20's. Sándor, who by now had started calling himself Alexander, had a reaction to Los Angeles similar to Woody Allen in Annie Hall. (When driven around Beverly Hills by his friend and asked how he likes it, Allen says he finds it all to depressing because everything is "too nice.") He was too used to conflict and a dialectical existence to appreciate the always perfect weather and constant optimism. Alexander found LA to be a cultural and intellectual desert as well, with none of the stimulation that he enjoyed in Europe's great cities. Maria's career did not survive the coming of sound; she didn't learn much English and her accent was heavy. They divorced in 1930, and when Paramount offered Alex a chance to head its European division in Paris, he eagerly accepted. Two years later, Paramount sent him to head the British division in London. Alex makes his big move and founds London Films in 1932, his own studio.

Thus began Korda's long love affair with Britain, and it was mutual. It became his adopted country, and he loved both Hungary and Britain all his life. Alex's idea was that he could make movies just as well as Hollywood, if not better. He had, after all, been there, and had a low enough opinion of many of its people to feel that Britain could actually compete with them. Thus began a series of movies, some of them hailed as great classics later, made by Alex and his brothers with help from other Hungarians, like screenwriter Lajos Biró and the film score composer Miklós Rózsa.

The brothers Korda divided their talents, with Alex as studio chief, chief director and producer. Vincent's gift was set design, and some of his work has also received awards. Zoltán was also a fine director, very fond of exotic location shooting in places like Africa and India. They employed big name actors like Sir Lawrence Olivier, Vivien Leigh, Douglas Fairbanks and other talented people to help with production. Their first major film, The Private Life of Henry the VIII (1933) put Korda, star Charles Laughton and the British film industry on the world map. The British loved Korda. Here was this upstart Hungarian telling them that anything Hollywood could do, they could do and better, and he goes and builds a studio to prove it! Alex bought some "paprika passion" to that overcast island and he believed in reaching for the stars. The achievements of the Korda brothers did wonders for British public opinion as it pertains to Hungarians. We were suddenly seen as a very smart, clever bunch of people!

Alex was not blind to what was going on in Europe in the 1930's, and he was concerned for his adopted country. He made a series of films in the late 30's whose essential message to Britain was: Be prepared to defend yourselves. Sir Winston Churchill became a personal friend and they saw eye to eye on many things. Korda's life became very busy as WW2 approached. Between 1935 and 1945 he made 24 Atlantic crossings, and after 1940 it was almost impossible for civilians to book passage or get travel permits. That led some to believe that Alex was going to the US on other than Hollywood related business. There has been much talk of him working as a courier between the OSS and Churchill (The OSS was the precursor to the CIA), although such a link was never proven. In 1942, King George VI knighted him for service to the British film industry, and thus became Sir Alexander Korda.

Alex made perhaps his greatest critical success in The Third Man (1949), filmed on location in bombed-out Vienna with Orson Welles. Britain was economically moribund after the war, and amidst all the rationing and limited capital, Alex found it hard to re-establish the momentum he had earlier. He didn't want to work in Hollywood, and so ended up selling his film library to television in the 50's. The three Kordas worked on a total of 223 films in varying capacities, an impressive number by any count. Alexander Korda passed away on January 23, 1956, spared having to witness the bloodbath that was to come in Hungary nine months later. That would have broken his heart I'm sure.

There is a magic about these brothers from Hungary that I can't put in words. I can feel it, and perhaps you can too by watching some of the films I have found on youtube. It began with a boy in the Kunság, who dreamed of storybook adventure and thrills in faraway places beyond the horizon, and who as a man was able to make it happen. He and his brothers made their boyhood dreams come true, and that doesn't happen often enough in life.

I hope you enjoy these films, and don't forget to tell your friends. This is a lot of Hungarian heritage we are celebrating here, so keep the memory alive! Not everyone In Hungary needs reminding of Korda. There is a new studio named in his honor at Etyek (west of Budapest) called Korda Studios, which can be found online at www.kordastudio.hu.

UPDATE: Seems they are considering a 700-sqm castle in Buda built in Classicism style which costs Ft 6 million (€21,000) per month. [borsonline.hu]

Proving yet again that Hungarians can be successful once they leave our little country, 41-year old Erzsébet Gergely won the Miss Plastic Italy contest over the weekend, meaning that as far as we know, both Miss Plastics are of Hungarian origin. And who says Hungarians aren't the best at anything these days? Go here to see more pix. [velvet.hu]

The Hungarian media had a field day with Miss Universe Hungary Timea Babinyecz's Q&A session. While it's clear that Timea has never missed a session at the gym, we can't say the same about her English classes. [velvet.hu]

No doubt feeling that this year's August 20th fireworks display was a bit underwhelming, the Újpest August 21st fireworks display sought to be far more interactive, resulting in seven minor injuries. Skip to 1:37 to see just how close these fireworks were to the audience. [index.hu]

With this year's Sziget Festival over, I'm not going to try to write some epic wrap-up piece, since I wouldn't expect anyone to read it. So instead, here are some of the many photos I took over the previous week.

The barren wasteland of the main stage area.

The oh-so-shocking Dreher experience.

One of the popular poses at the festival.

Free vodka if she gets it into your mouth and not your eyes.

The trash-bin hippie king.

The only promotion with its own security detail.

And it was about 30 degrees too.

John Lydon took time out from selling butter to shout insults at the audience.

We found the one Hungarian camper on the island!

I wonder what file taste sauce is like.

The most impressive thing about Iron Maiden was the lack of wheelchairs.

Your sandcastle sucks in comparison.

Someone obviously forgot Belize.

I could think of better places to wash your dishes.

I don't even want to know how you can guzzle a fish. Well, maybe I do.

Some guys also decided to pole dance for workplace gender equality.

Despite Alma Pirner's attempt, this guy kept this post family friendly.

Népszabadság could use someone with better English skills.

Kasabian, who really got the crowd going last night.

Muse, who I assume had the largest audience during the week.

A bacon, corn and cucumber pizza, with ketchup.

And the last thing you see before you leave.