1988 I also received from the city of Vienna the cross of honour for art and science. These titles and the various honors mean a great deal to me most of all for the reason that they would mean a great deal to my parents too.

Like all young reporters - brilliant or hopelessly incompetent - I dreamed of the glamorous life of the foreign correspondent: prowling Vienna in a Burberry trench coat speaking a dozen languages to dangerous women narrowly escaping Sardinian bandits - the usual stuff that newspaper dreams are made of.