Any residual, thoughts I had that I might yet attend ECER 2015 in Budapest have been completely scuppered by two new bit of info.
The first is the knowledge that Michael W Apple is a keynote speaker. Listening to the great communicator once in a lifetime is more than enough, and I heard him first in Beijing a while back, where the great helmsman brought the greetings of the Apple family to the whole Chinese people. This was followed by such an outpouring of cant that I walked out and left him to the adoration of his many Australian groupies in the audience. Wiser folk never went in the first place, I later learned. Oddly, the Chinese seem to love him, though, if he were a citizen, and bad-mouthed their state as much as he does the USA, they might have locked him up a long while back, and misplaced the key. It is only my inner liberal which prevents my saying: "And a good thing too". I doubt that there are enough sick bags in Hungary to cope with another of his orations. Best take one with you just in case.
The second reason is the increasingly illiberal government that is now riding roughshod over Hungarian democratic life, dismantling the checks and balances to its power along the way. The Americans are concerned enough to take action, and even EU panjandrums have woken up to it – though taking action is, of course, a step too far for them.
Anyway, it seems to me that this is no time to boost the government's tax coffers, so I'm staying at home to read some Isaiah Berlin.
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