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.
The essence of Government is power and power lodged as it must be in human hands will ever be liable to abuse.