a kind person by the name of LMNO suggested i do this
and mother-of-three Nigel seconded the advice, so i took it
*
i am a hungarian who got asylum in the UK at 17 (back in 1986), spent nine years there, working, drugging, rock-and-rolling, getting a couple of degrees in philosophy
then a love-affair in hungary made me move back, moved to the countryside, renovated adobe house, had three kids, all boys, and inertia moved me inexorably towards becoming a professional translator
work which can be done from home, on an independent timetable and which paid very well when i started it, going on 17 years ago
but it was work i call frontal lobe prostitution and the deep dissatisfaction with having to row a galley for a living did result in strain
after 13 years my wife decided she'd had enough
it was rough on me
but then i found the love of my life (with two kids in tow), and we have been very happily married for almost two years now, and we have a baby girl who is... well, not to beat about the bush too much, the future saviour of mankind and a well-critical mass of cute
only now we need to leave hungary, because it is sliding fast towards being a place we definitely don't want to live in
and we seem to have sort of half joined, half started a bit of an exodus
now three or four or possibly five large families are all moving together to bristol, a city we chose in a fairly complicated manner
we are taking all six kids, we spent 6 weeks in november and december in the UK, sorting things out and giving it a go, all eight of us
in the meantime, when i was doing some severe soul-torchlighting around the time of the divorce, i came to the conclusion that my three flaws are being lazy, cowardly and boorish
i immediately concluded that i don't in the least mind boorish and can live with lazy, but cowardly i don't like being, so i spent the three years since practicing brave, working up to making this move, which has been deeply liberating for me
but now my gut is telling me it's time to give up being lazy as well, and to stop punishing myself, and to find a way of making a living out of something i actually enjoy doing
the other two dads in our little team are accomplished musicians, with not so hot english
i am a passable musician, though not a great player of any instrument, know the country, speak the language
our plan is "the school of expression" - a business offering arts classes (initially music, later also movement, dance, the fine arts) aimed to show people of various ages, talents and skills the opportunity to experience creativity, improvisation, the joy of playing with others)
i bet it sounds outrageously hippie and infeasible, but we would like to give it a go, and the uk seems a good market still for this sort of thing
what do you think?
Hi Holist, it's nice to get to hear a little bit more about you and your history! I like your school idea, it sounds quite feasible. Good luck with the move... when is it? It seems like a very good move to move with other families all at once, sort of a built-in social support system.
this song has become a sort of micronational anthem.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=QAjtkyGVDxc (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QAjtkyGVDxc)
"we won't have to say goodbye if we all go"
Tom Waits is AWESOME.
Why do you doubt your skills as a musician? Do you only know how to play stuff in a magyar key?
Also is it the economy the political climate some other reason or a combination thats prompting the move?
Quote from: holist on January 06, 2012, 08:44:01 PM
a kind person by the name of LMNO suggested i do this
and mother-of-three Nigel seconded the advice, so i took it
*
i am a hungarian who got asylum in the UK at 17 (back in 1986), spent nine years there, working, drugging, rock-and-rolling, getting a couple of degrees in philosophy
then a love-affair in hungary made me move back, moved to the countryside, renovated adobe house, had three kids, all boys, and inertia moved me inexorably towards becoming a professional translator
work which can be done from home, on an independent timetable and which paid very well when i started it, going on 17 years ago
but it was work i call frontal lobe prostitution and the deep dissatisfaction with having to row a galley for a living did result in strain
after 13 years my wife decided she'd had enough
it was rough on me
but then i found the love of my life (with two kids in tow), and we have been very happily married for almost two years now, and we have a baby girl who is... well, not to beat about the bush too much, the future saviour of mankind and a well-critical mass of cute
only now we need to leave hungary, because it is sliding fast towards being a place we definitely don't want to live in
and we seem to have sort of half joined, half started a bit of an exodus
now three or four or possibly five large families are all moving together to bristol, a city we chose in a fairly complicated manner
we are taking all six kids, we spent 6 weeks in november and december in the UK, sorting things out and giving it a go, all eight of us
in the meantime, when i was doing some severe soul-torchlighting around the time of the divorce, i came to the conclusion that my three flaws are being lazy, cowardly and boorish
i immediately concluded that i don't in the least mind boorish and can live with lazy, but cowardly i don't like being, so i spent the three years since practicing brave, working up to making this move, which has been deeply liberating for me
but now my gut is telling me it's time to give up being lazy as well, and to stop punishing myself, and to find a way of making a living out of something i actually enjoy doing
the other two dads in our little team are accomplished musicians, with not so hot english
i am a passable musician, though not a great player of any instrument, know the country, speak the language
our plan is "the school of expression" - a business offering arts classes (initially music, later also movement, dance, the fine arts) aimed to show people of various ages, talents and skills the opportunity to experience creativity, improvisation, the joy of playing with others)
i bet it sounds outrageously hippie and infeasible, but we would like to give it a go, and the uk seems a good market still for this sort of thing
what do you think?
I think the idea itself is sound enough, but as I am not from the UK, and have never been I can't tell you how well that idea would go over.
Quote from: Areola Shinerbock on January 06, 2012, 09:01:05 PM
Why do you doubt your skills as a musician? Do you only know how to play stuff in a magyar key?
Oh, you are a dick. :tgrr:
:asshat:
Quote from: Areola Shinerbock on January 06, 2012, 09:01:05 PM
Why do you doubt your skills as a musician?
i don't doubt them, i know them
i love recording and i am interesting in music as a creative form of self-expression
but my aptitude for live playing for an audience is very limited - i led the circus band on keyboard and did a passable job, but i can't sing and play an instrument at the same time and all the others in the band were actually more competent, though i did write most of the music
Quote from: Areola Shinerbock on January 06, 2012, 09:01:05 PM
Do you only know how to play stuff in a magyar key?
haha, will you also ask me if i'm hungry, or am i missing something?
Quote from: Areola Shinerbock on January 06, 2012, 09:01:05 PM
Also is it the economy the political climate some other reason or a combination thats prompting the move?
hungary has a world record complexity to size ratio among nations
it is now turning into a dictatorship run by an incompetent and irritating dictator
the nazis have 13 percent in parliament, more in the street
inflation is so bad i can feel it week by week on the food
the three large credit raters have now all put hungarian state debt in the junk bonds category
and in order to explain all this, i would have to go back at least to the hungarian holocaust, if not a thousand years, when our nomadic predecessors rode their little horses into europe, scared a lot of people for a few hundred years, then got shafted
Quote from: holist on January 06, 2012, 09:19:11 PM
and in order to explain all this, i would have to go back at least to the hungarian holocaust, if not a thousand years, when our nomadic predecessors rode their little horses into europe, scared a lot of people for a few hundred years, then got shafted
Well, Eastern Europe never really had a sense of humor about that sort of thing. I mean, I would find it hilarious...All these barbarians riding in on little tiny ponies, almost like a Shriner parade. But the nomads were incapable of knowing when the joke stopped being funny, and they were dealing with serious people who just didn't get the same slapstick humor out of a burning village or three (as if they never burned those SAME villages down over tax issues or uppity peasants, right?).
Ask the Ossetians about that shit. They're STILL getting treated like shit for telling the same joke at about the same time.
That sucks dude. Yeah bounce as soon as you can.
Also going for a hungary pun is too obvious. A magyar pun is unexpected so ill leave it at that :)
Quote from: Areola Shinerbock on January 06, 2012, 09:24:33 PM
That sucks dude. Yeah bounce as soon as you can.
we are all set, 4 weeks to go and we're out
Quote from: holist on January 06, 2012, 08:44:01 PM
a kind person by the name of LMNO suggested i do this
and mother-of-three Nigel seconded the advice, so i took it
*
i am a hungarian who got asylum in the UK at 17 (back in 1986), spent nine years there, working, drugging, rock-and-rolling, getting a couple of degrees in philosophy
then a love-affair in hungary made me move back, moved to the countryside, renovated adobe house, had three kids, all boys, and inertia moved me inexorably towards becoming a professional translator
work which can be done from home, on an independent timetable and which paid very well when i started it, going on 17 years ago
but it was work i call frontal lobe prostitution and the deep dissatisfaction with having to row a galley for a living did result in strain
after 13 years my wife decided she'd had enough
it was rough on me
but then i found the love of my life (with two kids in tow), and we have been very happily married for almost two years now, and we have a baby girl who is... well, not to beat about the bush too much, the future saviour of mankind and a well-critical mass of cute
only now we need to leave hungary, because it is sliding fast towards being a place we definitely don't want to live in
and we seem to have sort of half joined, half started a bit of an exodus
now three or four or possibly five large families are all moving together to bristol, a city we chose in a fairly complicated manner
we are taking all six kids, we spent 6 weeks in november and december in the UK, sorting things out and giving it a go, all eight of us
in the meantime, when i was doing some severe soul-torchlighting around the time of the divorce, i came to the conclusion that my three flaws are being lazy, cowardly and boorish
i immediately concluded that i don't in the least mind boorish and can live with lazy, but cowardly i don't like being, so i spent the three years since practicing brave, working up to making this move, which has been deeply liberating for me
but now my gut is telling me it's time to give up being lazy as well, and to stop punishing myself, and to find a way of making a living out of something i actually enjoy doing
the other two dads in our little team are accomplished musicians, with not so hot english
i am a passable musician, though not a great player of any instrument, know the country, speak the language
our plan is "the school of expression" - a business offering arts classes (initially music, later also movement, dance, the fine arts) aimed to show people of various ages, talents and skills the opportunity to experience creativity, improvisation, the joy of playing with others)
i bet it sounds outrageously hippie and infeasible, but we would like to give it a go, and the uk seems a good market still for this sort of thing
what do you think?
I think it's a brave idea. And Bristol is probably one of the better choices of City to base yourself in. Britain could very definitely benefit from a bit more of this kind of creativity. Unfortunately, most of the UK suffer from an age old ingrained prejudice against what I shall call, for want of a better term "Circus type Folks". You were here in the 1980's, can't you remember the grief meted out to the Peace Convoy? That whole scene, and the creativity it had, either fucked off to France, Spain, or Portugal where people are a bit more tolerant of such things, or got marginalised, legislated against, and descended into a morass of squalor, drugs, (and not the 'fun' kind) and general unpleasantness.
I'd like to see you make a success of this, but I'm not sure what kind of new spin you could give it, that would make it so. The Free Party scene still shows occasional glimmers of light, but still there is no permanence or conducive environments where it can be expanded from.
But there's definitely a need for it, in my opinion. Even if you have the creativity, It's going to be more a case of how stubborn and tenacious you are, than of how brave. But everyone likes a good time, that's what you are going to have to offer. And not only offer, but convince people that they even want
it.
Not going to lie, moving and setting up a new business is going to be a stone cold bitch in this environment. Especially for a business based largely on what most people would consider luxuries.
THAT SAID.
If you have definitely settled on Bristol, I might be able to put you in touch with people who can help with area specific business support. Their business development team is currently undergoing major restructuring, but there are initiatives coming down the pipeline and I should hopefully have a new contact there soon. (My work puts me in touch with business development teams across the country).
It is going to be a matter of presenting yourself as though you're a credible business, though (no offence meant by that). Although they do offer support to small businesses, by and large if you want something beyond fairly basic advice regarding licenses, they want to see a business plan and see that you have a relatively strong case for being able to turn a profit.
Get in touch via PM if you like. :)
Quote from: holist on January 06, 2012, 09:19:11 PM
haha, will you also ask me if i'm hungry, or am i missing something?
Bristol is not in Wales, but it is quite close. Does anyone remember how the joke went, about a Hungarian in Wales being "well-hung" ? I forgot ...
Quote from: holist on January 06, 2012, 09:19:11 PM
Quote from: Areola Shinerbock on January 06, 2012, 09:01:05 PM
Also is it the economy the political climate some other reason or a combination thats prompting the move?
hungary has a world record complexity to size ratio among nations
Yesterday I came across an article that's somewhat related to this, I meant to ask your opinion about it (as I just saw we had a new member from Hungary). So here it is. For context, I got the link from HackerNews which is not so much about hacking as a link aggregator (like Reddit) for tech startups and entrepeneurs. Please not to focus immediately in the "I won't hire a woman" example he starts out with, cause he's building to a point (IMO he should have started with the other examples and leave the maternity leave for last).
Three years of maternity leave, is that for real?? I haven't checked what the Dutch law tells about it, maybe it's entirely reasonable, but it does sound like a very bad climate for legitimate startups.
i cannot actually see your link
the three years of maternity leave are true, though not on full pay, i think 80% in the first year and then a set, low multiple of the minimum wage for two years
actually, in a state that can afford it, i'm all in favour of it as an option, though i think it should be publicly financed
Quote from: Triple Zero on January 08, 2012, 06:15:19 PM
Quote from: holist on January 06, 2012, 09:19:11 PM
Quote from: Areola Shinerbock on January 06, 2012, 09:01:05 PM
Also is it the economy the political climate some other reason or a combination thats prompting the move?
hungary has a world record complexity to size ratio among nations
Yesterday I came across an article that's somewhat related to this, I meant to ask your opinion about it (as I just saw we had a new member from Hungary). So here it is. For context, I got the link from HackerNews which is not so much about hacking as a link aggregator (like Reddit) for tech startups and entrepeneurs. Please not to focus immediately in the "I won't hire a woman" example he starts out with, cause he's building to a point (IMO he should have started with the other examples and leave the maternity leave for last).
Three years of maternity leave, is that for real?? I haven't checked what the Dutch law tells about it, maybe it's entirely reasonable, but it does sound like a very bad climate for legitimate startups.
WHERE IS YOUR LINK
YOU CLICK-TEASE!
By the way, maternity leave in the US is six weeks. Seriously. Six. Fucking. Weeks.
mark my words because i say this very rarely
Quote from: Nigel on January 08, 2012, 06:30:38 PM
By the way, maternity leave in the US is six weeks. Seriously. Six. Fucking. Weeks.
i think there is a moral problem with that one
that's messing with kids, ultimately, is why
Right, I should remember to press ctrl-V, sorry :oops:
Yesterday I came across an article that's somewhat related to this, I meant to ask your opinion about it (as I just saw we had a new member from Hungary). So here it is. For context, I got the link from HackerNews which is not so much about hacking as a link aggregator (like Reddit) for tech startups and entrepeneurs. Please not to focus immediately in the "I won't hire a woman" example he starts out with, cause he's building to a point (IMO he should have started with the other examples and leave the maternity leave for last).
http://andorjakab.blog.hu/2012/01/06/this_is_why_i_don_t_give_you_a_job
From the article I get the idea it's not publicly financed. Six weeks is way too short, though. In the Netherlands you get 16 weeks full paid maternity leave and 2 days paternity leave, and 26 weeks unpaid parental leave (dunno if that's cumulative or total).
The article is kind of misrepresenting the case for Hungary though, you "only" get 24 weeks paid, but 3 years unpaid, plus some sort of bonus paid leave at the end which I don't understand maybe you can figure it out from this table:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maternity_leave#Europe
AAAAAaaaanyway, the article talks about more than just maternity leave.
Quote from: holist on January 08, 2012, 07:01:55 PM
mark my words because i say this very rarely
Quote from: Nigel on January 08, 2012, 06:30:38 PM
By the way, maternity leave in the US is six weeks. Seriously. Six. Fucking. Weeks.
i think there is a moral problem with that one
that's messing with kids, ultimately, is why
Don't talk to AMERICA about morals
They might just send tanks in to show you.
Trip your link shows the problems with the system, which are monetary not sexist. The system itself is loaded against women. If the system offered the father the same leave, he could bring the baby to the mother's work to nurse.
I had an employee who became pregnant and had a baby and maternity leave under our system. Literally, the only way our system was able to work was because I allowed my employee to bring her baby to work. In the US, the system is heavily loaded against mothers, but also loaded against the existence of two-earner households. It's insane.
Quote from: Nigel on January 09, 2012, 01:09:07 AM
Quote from: holist on January 08, 2012, 07:01:55 PM
mark my words because i say this very rarely
Quote from: Nigel on January 08, 2012, 06:30:38 PM
By the way, maternity leave in the US is six weeks. Seriously. Six. Fucking. Weeks.
i think there is a moral problem with that one
that's messing with kids, ultimately, is why
Don't talk to AMERICA about morals
They might just send tanks in to show you.
We have to. It's our duty as the world's cop. We can't let communists determine how children will be raised.
Quote from: Nigel on January 09, 2012, 01:16:13 AMTrip your link shows the problems with the system, which are monetary not sexist.
Yes, I was just covering myself because while that is ultimately the point of the article, the way he started off about women made me go all WTF until I read on :)
You're right about the other stuff too btw.
Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on January 09, 2012, 02:01:30 AM
Quote from: Nigel on January 09, 2012, 01:09:07 AM
Quote from: holist on January 08, 2012, 07:01:55 PM
mark my words because i say this very rarely
Quote from: Nigel on January 08, 2012, 06:30:38 PM
By the way, maternity leave in the US is six weeks. Seriously. Six. Fucking. Weeks.
i think there is a moral problem with that one
that's messing with kids, ultimately, is why
Don't talk to AMERICA about morals
They might just send tanks in to show you.
We have to. It's our duty as the world's cop. We can't let communists determine how children will be raised.
EXACTLY.