Round 4 - January 2013

Winner - Viktoria Vegh

Viktoria Vegh is a lawyer who has been serving the public for almost ten years. She has lived in Hungary all her life save one year that she spent in Ireland. This experience seems to have long-term effects on her, not only in the form of a constant drive to complain about the weather and to stand by the bar at pubs rather than sitting properly at a table. Said to be a good listener, it is time to see whether she has heard something worth repeating. She always has something to say – just doesn't want to interrupt any monologues. And of course, she is terrified of public speaking, which is the very reason why she is longing to latch on to that mic.

Round 4 Speakers

According to his mother, Gaston Vadasz was the most beautiful baby born in the hospital in Budapest in 1944. The Nazis came..the Russians came...the Russians stayed, and the Vadasz family had to stay till 1956, when they escaped, ending up in the USA with the other huddled masses yearning to be free. Gaston had the opportunity to come back to the 'Old Country' as a Broadcast and Media Manager in 1994 and helped to build the first Commercial FM station in Budapest--Juventus Radio. For the last 11 years, he has run an advertising agency, was in the wine business, and is part owner of a company that raises and trains Peregrine falcons and falconers to protect grapes and airports against harmful birds and bird-strikes. For the last two years, he's been a film actor and landed a minor role inAsterix and Obelix God save Britannia, as a Roman senator and just recently in Ken Follett's HBO mini series,  World Without End, as the Archbishop of Canterbury. A staunch supporter of the GOTG, Gaston is back again this season to try his luck.

Owen Good has been living in Budapest for a little over a year now, though he has been involving himself with the Hungarian language itself for a good five years.  Originally hailing from Northern Ireland, in London he majored in Hungarian language and literature as part of his artsy-fartsy Bachelor's degree.  Since graduating and moving to Budapest he's been reaping the rewards of the arts degree and living the luxurious 'blood and gold' life of an English language teacher.  Now growing slightly weary of correcting grammar and hearing about daily routines, he is applying himself in his ever-expanding spare time to literature translation and other projects.  Such as this one.

Richard Holmes is a man of few words (although he claims to have a big vocabulary) but he is determined not to let that hold him back when he takes to the stage for GOTG in January. Originally from Birmingham in the UK, he has been living in Budapest for eleven years and lives with his wife and their two-year-old daughter and his wife's two dogs which he has to walk every morning. Not that you'd ever hear him complaining.

Ailsa Spindler came to Budapest in 2012, to work for the European Roma Rights Centre. Her working life has included management of various NGOs in the fields of human rights, environmental issues and sexual health, and she also spent five years as a commercial hot-air balloon pilot. She is an active member of the Budapest Exiles Ladies Rugby Team and enjoys the rich social and cultural life of Budapest. She hopes her Irish grandmother's influence includes an inherited gift of the gab.