Austria

Monday

Steerpike

David Cameron admits he cries at the Sound of Music

This morning the PM turned on the passion in a shouty performance in front of a room full of accountants. Complaints from the lower orders about a lack of zing to the campaign have clearly reached the top of the Tory tree as the new emotional Prime Minister was not done there. Cameron went on to admit in an interview with Classic FM that he cries when he watches the Sound of Music, when those brave Austrian patriots declare their love for their national flower: 'I do cry in films, The Sound Of Music. As soon as we get on to Edelweiss I’m reaching for the Kleenex.' With the songs lyrics including the line 'Bless my homeland forever', Mr S suspects that this is an audacious bid by Cameron to lure back those lost Ukip voters.

Sunday

Lloyd Evans

When Arnie met Ross

Arnie mania struck the capital last night. A thousand fans crowded into the Lancaster London Hotel to see Schwarzenegger in conversation with Jonathan Ross. He came bounding on stage, in a Club Class business suit, and peered out at us with a glazed, lipless smile. He has dark tufty hair, an ochre tan, and a hint of cruelty about the anvil jawline and the small unflickering eyes. A deferential Ross gave him an effusive welcome. They sat opposite each other, like bores in a Pall Mall club, in matching armchairs upholstered in blood-red velvet. Arnie compels our attention because his career is unparalleled. He began as a bodybuilder which is technically a sport even though it looks like narcissism communicated to the muscles via steroids and dumb-bells.

Friday

The Spectator

The Spectator at war: An accent of prejudice

From The Spectator, 31 October 1914: We regret to record that a gallant and patriotic sailor, Prince Louis of Battenberg, has fallen a victim to the foolish prejudice that people with foreign names and of foreign birth cannot be loyal British subjects. It was announced on Friday that Prince Louis of Battenberg had resigned the office of First Sea Lord in a letter to Mr. Winston Churchill, the candour and simplicity of which do him the greatest credit.

Thursday

Tanya Gold

Fischer’s is like visiting Vienna without having to go to Austria (thank God)

Fischer’s is Austria made safe for liberals, gays, Jews and other Untermenschen riffraff, because it is a restaurant, not a concentration camp, and because it is in Marylebone High Street, not Linz. It is the new restaurant from Chris Corbin and Jeremy King, who opened the Wolseley, the Delaunay and Brasserie Zédel, and it is more profound and lovely than any of them. There is always a clock in a Corbin and King restaurant, a big old clock from some fairytale train station, poised over the clientele as they stuff and age; for remembrance of mortality, I guess. Or maybe they just like big clocks?

Thursday

Martin Vander Weyer

Any other business: trouble spots in European banking

‘1914: Day by Day’, the Radio 4 series by the historian Margaret MacMillan, is a gripping reminder that significant global events often arrive not in a single eruption but in a series of lesser happenings that only afterwards form an obvious pattern. Let’s hope that’s not what we’re watching in the banking sector as anticipation builds towards the results, due in October, of the European Banking Authority’s current round of ‘stress testing’. Last month’s trouble spot — with a certain resonance for the current centenary — was Austria, whose government forced losses on bondholders in the troubled Hypo Alpe-Adria-Bank by overriding a guarantee from the province of Carinthia.

Sunday

Rod Liddle

Eurovision: It was the beard wot won it

I enjoyed Fraser’s preview of the Eurovision Song Contest; I had not known that he was such a fan. You work with someone for years, oblivious to their dark secrets, their strange peccadilloes. It was typically brave of him to come out, in public. I watched the thing, again. I thought the entry from The Netherlands was the best song I have ever heard at a Eurovision Song Contest, and by some margin. But that may be because Europop makes me feel ill, and their song definitely wasn’t Europop. It’s the first time I’ve heard a pedal steel in this competition. That being said, the Dutch have form as purveyors of catchy, country-lite, soft rock – anyone remember “Mississippi” by Pussycat?

Friday

James Forsyth

S&P to downgrade France and Austria

The word is that France will be downgraded by Standard and Poor’s tonight. AFP is reporting that French officials expect France to drop to a AA+ rating, losing its treasured AAA status and increasing how much it will have to pay to borrow money. 2012 has, so far, been relatively quiet on the euro front. But expect the issue to return to centre stage over the coming weeks. There are the downgrades coming tonight – France is apparently not the only eurozone country that S&P will mark down with Austria set to lose its AAA rating too – and a coercive and chaotic Greek default seems increasingly likely.

Sunday

Fraser Nelson

European integration that we can get behind

Part of the magic of the New Year's Day concert from the Vienna Philharmonic is knowing that millions are watching the same event live, right throughout Europe. It's perhaps the only cultural event that unites the continent in this way (other than Eurovision). Politically and economically, not very much binds us together, as the tensions within the European Union demonstrate. The continent is a model of diversity, which is why homogenisation attempts fail. But when it comes to culture, it's a different story altogether — with classical music being, perhaps, one of the strongest unifying factors. Turn up to a concert hall in Edinburgh, Leeds or Athens to listen to classical music, and the odds are it'll be from a relatively small number of central European composers.