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- [00:00]
A
You're listening to the Monocle Daily, first broadcast on 31st July, 2025 on Monocle Radio.
- [00:07]
B
The clock ticks towards US President Donald Trump's tariff deadline. Even if Europe's militaries can rebuff Russia, can they overcome Europe's own potholes? And Americans discover a worse way to spend a weekend than Glastonbury. I'm Andrew Muller. The Monocle Daily starts. Hello, and welcome to the Monocle Daily. Coming to you from our studios here at Midori House in London. I'm Andrew Muller. My guests Marion Messmer and Quentin Peel will discuss today's big stories. And our weekly letter from. Is from me from Prague, though I'm not there anymore, obviously. Stay tuned. All that and more coming up right here on the Monocle Daily. This is the Monocle Daily, Andrew Muller, and I am joined today by Quentin Peel, regular Monocle Radio contributor, and by Dr. Marion Messmer, senior Research Fellow in International Security at Chatham House. Hello to you both.
- [01:13]
A
Hello.
- [01:14]
C
Greetings.
- [01:15]
B
It is here in London summer, or at least, Marion, it is London's idea of summer. And because we're going to be talking about something absolutely ghastly that Americans are doing in the summer later in the show, I thought it would be nice at the top of the show to talk about nice things we have found to do in summer in London. And you have a favorite.
- [01:35]
A
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I tend to stick around London in the summer because most of my colleagues are on holiday, which means it's an amazing time in the office. And the weather is also usually.
- [01:45]
B
I hope they're listening.
- [01:46]
A
I hope so, too. I mean, I know some of them really enjoy the show and, yeah, one of my favorite things to do is to sit on the riverside terrace behind Somerset House, because depending on your budget, depending on what you want to do, you'll find something there for you because there's both a sort of pub and cafe area where you can order a drink or if you're, you know, feeling more budget, there's a lot of chairs where you can just sit, enjoy the view, maybe have a drink from the Tesco around the corner. So I really like that for.
- [02:16]
B
Well, now you've revealed that to the vast, teeming audience of the Monocle Daily, you will go back there and find it completely ruined. Which actually, weirdly, is a way of foreshadowing the letter from Prague coming up towards the back of the program. And it's an elaboration on that theme. Spoiler alert. Quentyn, do you have a particular favourite way to make the most of such summer as London bestows.
- [02:38]
C
Well, I've been taking grandchildren down to the. The wonderful redevelopment up around King's Cross where they can run in and out of fountains sprouting out of the, out of the ground, or they can sit on the steps and watch an old movie or they can wander along the canal. And it's a brilliant redevelopment, actually, of an area that was completely desolate.
- [02:59]
B
But yeah, you didn't, you don't have to be that old to recall a time in which, like if you walked into that area of King's Cross, there was not really much in the way of guarantee you'd ever walk back out.
- [03:09]
C
No, quite. Was somewhat unsafe and rather full of ladies of the night, if I remember rightly. But otherwise I would sneak away to Hampstead Heath and try and get a little bit away from the vast crowds of tourists. But it is. Marion's totally right. It's a great time to be in London because lots of people have gone away and you can get around.
- [03:31]
B
Well, we will start in the United states in about 11 hours from now. US President Donald Trump's latest tariff deadline will elapse. Those countries which have not come to terms terms with the US by then will revert to the arbitrary, not to say downright bizarre, terms of the schedule Trump unveiled earlier this year. Please enjoy your regular reminder that These included a 10% slug on the Heard and McDonald Islands, which export nothing on the grounds that nobody lives there except penguins, maybe also some seals. Ninety days ago, the President promised to conclude 90 such deals. The actual number as of this broadcast stands at I think eight, though others are reported to be trying. Breaking news in the last little while, Mexico has not actually reached a deal as such, Quentin, but the tariff that was going to be imposed on Mexico is going to be punted another 90 days. I do want to start with the evergreen on this one, Quentin, which isn't clear yet that President Trump does actually understand how tariffs work.
- [04:37]
C
Oh, no, absolutely no question. He just sees it as a very blunt instrument for doing unpleasant things to people. He's taken again, really, the way he's treating Brazil, for example, is quite extraordinary where he suddenly announced that he's going to impose a 50% tariff on Brazil, which doesn't have any surplus in its trade with the US but it has a large deficit. On the other hand, what he doesn't like is that Brazil is taking action against the former President Bolsonaro for attempting to overthrow an election result which, guess what, is something that Donald Trump himself feels shouldn't be done. So that's why he' slapping a tariff on. So it's just an extraordinary blunt instrument which he then seems to put on take away. I mean, really trying to find out what is going to happen in the next 24 hours, let alone 11 hours, as you said, is incredibly difficult.
- [05:35]
B
The more charitable explanation, and it's not that charitable, Marion, is that Donald Trump assumes that his voters, his base, don't understand how tariffs work because the White House has recently been boasting that since he was returned to office, they have raised $150 billion in tariffs, which is obviously a colossal sum of money. But is he calculating that the voters don't understand that the voters paid that $150 billion?
- [06:04]
A
I can only assume so. But I think if you look at actual, you know, public opinion figures on the economy in the US with the exception of the very early days of his presidency, when, you know, some people perceive the economy to be vastly better only a few days into his term in office, people are understanding that they are actually the ones who are worse off. And if you look at, for example, car manufacturing in the US it's really suffering because they have to pay tariffs on some of the steel imports. They have to pay tariffs on parts. And so the actual cost of cars manufactured in the US and cars imported into the US has gone up vastly, which, of course impacts the average Trump voter just as much.
- [06:48]
B
Quentin, you mentioned that he does waive tariffs around over things which are nothing to do with trade, like, for example, the trial of former President Jair Bolsonaro. He's looking like he's going to do it again with Canada. Canada is among those countries which have in recent days announced their intention to recognize Palestine. This has displeased President Trump, who has said that that will make concluding a deal difficult. Obviously, it only makes a deal as difficult as he decides to make it, because whether or not Canada recognizes Palestine has nothing to do with its trade relationship with the United States. But how does Canada get around that, though? Or how does anybody get around that? Or is there any point in even trying?
- [07:33]
C
It is a curious one because Canada seemed to be playing its cards. Mark Carney, the new prime minister, they.
- [07:39]
B
Seemed to be getting on all right for a while.
- [07:41]
C
Yeah, he was being quite tough, but actually seemed to be getting away with it. The timing, therefore, of this decision to say we're going to recognize the state of Palestine, almost guaranteed to annoy Donald Trump is curious. But having said that, there is a lot of pressure because clearly this is a move that is going to be timed to coincide with the UN General assembly in September. And so here it comes. It just comes back to the fact that Donald Trump is so difficult to deal with because he's incredibly thin skinned and he, he just reacts by the seat of his pants really to the latest thing. And that's what he clearly seems to be doing. In the case of Canada, saying it's going to be very difficult to do a deal with Canada. I wouldn't be surprised if this 90 day extension is suddenly given to Mexico. The other major neighbor and trading state in the American region is actually to say to Canada, I'm giving it to Mexico, but I'm not going to give it to you.
- [08:46]
B
Mar. As I was saying at the top of this item, there are those countries and entities, if we think of the eu, which have come to terms, and with the EU in particular, there's been a lot of grumbling about the deal from inside the eu. A lot of European leaders have said this deal sucks. Why are we signing up to it? Is the EU and perhaps other countries which have come to some sort of agreement, like the uk, Japan, South Korea, even if they think the deal's lousy, are they basically thinking, look, look, let's suck this up for three and a half years. There are wider things in play that we need to keep the US on board with. So, yeah, we're just going to have to eat this probably.
- [09:30]
A
I mean, it's an incredibly tough situation for everyone. The US is such a major trade partner for pretty much every country worldwide and the tariffs are going to have an impact on global trade anyway, even for the countries that have managed to get a trade deal just because of knock on effects in the economy. And so I think especially for European partners, whether that's the EU or whether that's individual states, given that there's also all the other security implications around the relationship with the US they're probably trying their hardest to make sure that things are as smooth as they can be. And knowing Trump and having seen how volatile all of the tariff negotiations have been, I'm not sure that he wouldn't also actually turn around on a deal that's already been agreed. If there's something else in the relationship.
- [10:17]
B
That displeases him, Quentin as well as well, it's the question now, and this is where I put the terrible pressure on, I guess, to try and predict Donald Trump's future, thinking where does he go with this? Because if these deals are done, surely then he needs to find something else to Argue with people about quite probably.
- [10:43]
C
I mean, at the end of the day, this is all about his relationship to his base in the us. It's not really about his relationship with the rest of the world, but it has huge consequences for the rest of the world. And you do. I think the man believes in tariffs as a great weapon in some way. I mean, it's a very superficial idea of the tariff as a tax on imports that'll bring in loads of money and, hey, it'll persuade lots of American investors or other investors to go and invest inside America. None of which has actually got a very clear track record in economic history and is likely, as Marion was saying, to be essentially paid for by the US taxpayer, indeed by the MAGA base of Donald Trump. But I think he's going to stick with it for a while. And I think that what baffles me, really, is that initially the stock markets, particularly the US stock markets, were obviously appalled by it, and they seem to have got used to the idea, whether they believe he's going to back off or whether they believe it isn't going to have that much of an effect. But in the world of globalization that we'd got used to living in, a blunt instrument like this is actually going to make an awful lot of linkages chaotic. And just to take one example, his making some very hostile noises about India. Now, India is precisely the country which Apple is now planning to produce lots of its phones for the US market, which it has realized may be not very competitive, with tariffs on China. Perhaps they could do it out of India. And suddenly you're in a position where a major US investor like Apple is going to get screwed by the tariffs he's threatening to put on India.
- [12:38]
B
Well, let's move along somewhat. It is an aphorism variously attributed to Omar Bradley, Sun Tzu and Napoleon, among others. The one to the effect that strategy is for amateurs, professionals talk logistics. However, just so the time I spent running it down wasn't entirely wasted. It seems actually to have been the coinage of former U.S. marine Corps General Robert Barrow in an interview with the San Diego Union in 1979. Anyway, whoever did say it wasn't wrong. You can't fight a war if you can't get your kit to the front line. And on. On which subject, concerns have been expressed by EU Transport Commissioner Apostolos Tsitsikostas about the state of Europe's roads. Marion, he says that moving military kit from Western to Eastern Europe can take weeks or months. That seems bad.
- [13:26]
A
Yeah, I mean, that's pretty bad. I also love that we found a story that, you know, combines my train commentary with my security policy commentary.
- [13:33]
B
Knew you'd be delighted.
- [13:35]
A
I mean, yeah, this is unfortunately not a new challenge, but I think the good news is that individual European, European states have already started doing something about it. It's also a really unfortunate intersection of all the savings that states have tried to make on infrastructure during the austerity years, which have come home to roost in many ways anyway. If we look, for example, at the perpetual transport chaos in Germany, but that's of course particularly bad if you need infrastructure to be ready to move lots of equipment and lots of troops at short notice and efficiently. So I think some of the things that are being done that are going to be incredibly useful is, for example, Finland and the Baltic states changing out their railroad tracks for the European standard. They are currently still using the former Soviet standard and that's going to make a big difference in terms of being able to move kit quickly. And it also conversely, would make it harder for Russia to move kit. But there's lots of other challenges with road surface. The UK always has the challenge of being an island, of course, so it's very difficult to get things on and off the island. The only other silver lining other than that states have already started working on this that I can give is that infrastructure in Russia is not any better.
- [15:01]
B
Quentyn, he does want to spend 17 billion euros to fix transport infrastructure. This is Commissioner Tsitsi Costas. Which is probably not a bad thing to be doing anyway because that has obvious non military applications and is good for business, encourages growth, etc. But I was struck by one of his concerns being, and I quote, red tape at border crossings. Now, I would hope that if Russian forces had started storming across the Polish border that the seventh Light mechanised would not be bailed up at Calais by French customs officials.
- [15:35]
C
Yeah, we'd be asking for visas from the Russians. But I don't know, I'm a little bit baffled by this whole interview and by the story and I'd love to hear what Marion thinks because my perception of what's been happening in the war in Ukraine is that actually we're seeing a very different form of warfare and the old heavy tank warfare that the Russians were actually quite good at really doesn't seem to have made much progress. Do we really need to be sending vast quantities of armor? Surely we need to be investing much more in drones, in new technology, in a much more high tech form of warfare. And is it Actually right at this moment to be saying we need to be spending loads of money on railways and roads.
- [16:23]
B
Well, I mean, yeah, I would just before I basically relay that question to you, Marion, remind our listeners that episode 604 of the Foreign Desk, which went out a couple of weeks ago, considered exactly this, among other things, concerning the future of warfare. But yeah, if we have 17 billion euros to spend, is that going to be better spent on things like drones, long range missiles, cyber warfare than making sure that Leopard tanks can be moved from, well, from Germany to wherever they're needed?
- [16:52]
A
I think a bit of the challenge is the one that I always have in these questions, which is that we really need both. You're absolutely right that warfare is becoming much more technical, that things like drones are needed, that we need to really augment our cyber defenses. But one of the things we've also seen in the war in Ukraine is that the sort of old fashioned trench warfare type of war is still around and is still actually being used quite a bit. And so if we look at what is currently forward deployed along NATO's eastern flank, there's already a lot of kit there in part as a deterrence gesture towards Russia. But at the same time, if Russia was to try and breach any of the northeastern border of NATO, then there would be a lot of additional equipment and especially troops that would need to be moved there pretty quickly. And so I think that is probably the concern that the Commissioner is expressing there. Because while it's of course much more efficient to get a trackload of drones to the front line, if you also need to get thousands of soldiers to the front line, you still actually need quite a lot of transport in order to do that. And I think that's probably the bit that we would struggle with given current infrastructure.
- [18:10]
B
And just finally on this one, Quentin, just in terms of messaging from officialdom and whether you think it is getting through to European publics, because we do hear a variety of themes on the motif of the Russians are coming. The Russians are coming from European governments and from the European Union and from NATO and it is a non zero possibility. But it strikes me that it doesn't really register as such, at least perhaps not this far west.
- [18:38]
C
I think you're right. I think in many of the countries which have, after all, seen a lot of Ukrainian refugees coming to them and so on. Nonetheless, the reality of the war tends to be something that is in, if you like, the chattering classes, but I don't think is right down in the wider population and that people are not Convinced, I think they were. You know, there was a huge amount of relief when the Cold War effectively seemed to be over. People wanted that peace dividend. That's why we started spending less on defence and so on. And I think there is a very big job still to be done to persuade electorates that actually money is going to have to be spent on defence and not on the health service or education.
- [19:24]
B
Well, on the subject of persuading electorates to the United Kingdom and listeners especially sensitive to the inane frivolity of the online epoch, may now wish to hurl their radios and possibly themselves pre emptively into the nearest available pond. 10 Downing street has today hosted its first ever reception for Influences, I. E. That class of person who somehow makes a living being performatively indignant on social media. Several dozen such yahoos have been invited to the Prime Minister's residence, tragically not as a ruse conceived with a view to locking them all in the basement. Marion, you. You represent the youth at this table, relatively speaking. What on earth is going on here? Is this good? Is this bad? What is happening?
- [20:10]
A
I mean, that's a great question. And that's unfortunately also where my inner, you know, elder curmudgeon comes out, because I find this really concerning, actually. I mean, of course we all know that social media is here to stay, but if we look at the levels of unchecked disinformation on social media and the role that influencers play in propagating that, I find it really concerning that influencers are going to play an even bigger role in election campaigns and essentially the future of democracy. Because, I mean, this is where I always have my security hat on. But there were some pretty uncomfortable statistics around the last US election and the kind of influencers that got involved, you know, people who either hosted certain politicians on podcasts or gave endorsements or used their platform to put forward certain bits of election manifestos, and given how narrow the outcome of the election was, I think we can assume that that had some sort of an influence. But at the same time, these are also people that, you know, for example, spread health disinformation and so on. So, you know, actually quite dangerous things. And I wonder if we'd actually all be much better off if we had a much more robust sort of public, broadcast based public debate rather than something that is essentially privatized and locked away in echo chamber type platforms that only few people can access.
- [21:37]
B
This is the dilemma, though, that the politicians face, Quentin, and I don't really have a particularly good answer to it. I Don't think, because obviously they want to go where the voters are, especially they want to go where younger voters are. Get them while they're young and you keep them is the thinking. So if you are a politician, how do you make that judgment? Do I go on this thing operated by this clown who is funded by God knows who, but who reaches a gajillion people? Or do I go on the sober, serious current affairs program on the BBC which nobody watches?
- [22:13]
C
I think that's probably the question that Keir Starmer's been asking himself. And in a way, I think, I wonder if this isn't an exercise in, if you like, the education of Keir Starmer in finding out who these people are rather than the other way around of them, hoping to get the message from the government across to a load of influencers of a completely mixed bag of people. It is an extraordinary world, but I, and it clearly has taken over the airwave, so to speak, of social media in the United States more than, than anywhere, I think on the whole, Europe is still lagging behind on this. I had my 19 year old granddaughter staying for the last two weeks and I questioned her in some depth, not entirely about her use of such a.
- [22:59]
B
Journalist of your standing, Quentin.
- [23:01]
C
Well, I said, you know, who did you.
- [23:02]
B
I hope you gave her a properly hard time. I hope you used the phrase, I put it to you at least once.
- [23:08]
C
No, I was being a journalist. I wanted to find out what she did online and what she used as social media and essentially the answer came back, Granddad, I'm just talking to my friends. I'm not bothered with these other people out there, I'm not very interested in them. It's a means of communication. Used to be on the telephone, now we do it online and I wonder if in fact there isn't more of that and we exaggerate the influence of these people. It's the advertisers who are really keen to, you know, get on the bandwagon and that's. I think it's a real danger though, because there are people with some very weird ideas who are being given space there.
- [23:48]
B
Well, I might find myself on thin ice if I try to do. I tried to argue that point too much. But there's a similar dilemma, Marion, for legacy media as well, I. E. Do we just keep doing what we're doing because we have an audience that does value that, or do we go chasing what the influencers are doing and try to operate at that level? Because that's fairly perilous for all Concerned as well.
- [24:14]
A
Will, I think there's a difference between experimenting with new formats and new ways of getting your message out there and abandoning some of the more rigorous forms of journalism or fact checking. I mean, the things that concern me is that essentially on a podcast or on unregulated media, you can't really discern whether someone actually has expertise or whether someone just ordered a podcast Mike on Amazon, where whereas if you go to more traditional media, then you expect a higher standard of quality. And so as far as I've seen, there are lots of really interesting attempts by legacy media to be on TikTok to experiment with short form content, to do podcasts and so on. And a lot of that is really high quality. So I think that could be a way to maybe use the platforms that people are using to consume media while still making sure that the sort of standards that we expect and that are really helpful for democracies are still in place.
- [25:12]
B
Are you on TikTok, Quentin? Can we find you there?
- [25:15]
C
What is TikTok? You will not find me anywhere like that.
- [25:20]
B
I thought you'd enjoy that. And to the United States, where it says here non zero numbers of what are to most outward appearances actual grown adults are spending their own time and money to attend summer camps which, just like the ones they may have endured as school kids, feature organised group activities and probably sing alongs, Though possibly fewer obviously hungover short straw drawing schoolteachers. The average price for a weekend at such an institution is circa $800. A reminder that this incredibly is what you have to pay them, not the other way around. Marion, first of all, are you able to imagine anything worse?
- [26:02]
A
I mean, it doesn't sound like my cup of tea, but one of the things I was thinking about is whether this is actually very similar to Center Parks or you like more traditional resorts because they also have a. They, they always seem to have an element of organized fun. And you also pay an inordinate amount of money to essentially stay in a cabin with a bunch of your family members in very cramped conditions. So I think, you know, I was.
- [26:24]
B
Wondering, you're not really selling it over there?
- [26:27]
A
No, I'm not trying to sell it. I'm just like asking whether the format is just like a rebrand of something that's actually been around for a long while.
- [26:33]
B
I mean, Centre Parks may have been looking for somebody to write copy for their new advertising campaign. Well, you've just talked yourself out of Quentin. Did you as an infant attend any sort of what I'm fondly going to imagine was some sort of old school British summer camp where you all had to like sleep in a drafty dormitory and were doused in icy water by merciless schoolmasters every morning at 5.
- [26:58]
C
No. But yes, I went to one sailing camp when I was about 14 and I do remember vividly my mother said she had never seen anybody return from a holiday quite so dirty. There was clear, really very poor on showering conditions. And the other fearful camp that I had to go on was my school had a cadet force and you had to actually volunteer, close quotes. To actually be part of this. It was a sort of baby military training and it was the most horrendous experience. We had to go down to South Wales to the Brecon Beacons and sort of do forced marches at midnight in the pouring rain and through the bogs where the only creature that you ever met were sheep just buying in your face. And it was ghastly. So I would never want to go near anything like that again.
- [27:54]
B
Marion, was it. Was this a feature of your education, the summer camp? I have a recollection of being bundled off to a couple. I went to a fairly wide variety of schools, a couple of them which did do such things. And they were all right in Australia. They tended to be sort of purpose built school camps in national parks. So there was lots of lovely countryside and the hikes weren't too much of an imposition. And nobody would let you get too far into the bush anyway because the last thing any schoolteacher wants to do is have to come back and explain to their parents that, look, most of the kids didn't get bitten by a snake. Why. Why are you focusing on the one that did? Was it a thing you did?
- [28:36]
A
It was, yeah. It was both a lot less dangerous than your camping experience and also a lot less grueling than Quentin's camping experience. Experience. It was essentially tent camping somewhere in the German countryside for a week. And yeah, lots of hiking, lots of sort of naturey things. I think it was organized by some woods.
- [28:52]
C
In woodland. In forest.
- [28:53]
A
Yeah, in forest.
- [28:54]
B
That actually sounds quite pleasant.
- [28:56]
A
It was. I mean, I'm not a big camper and I wasn't. I wasn't when I was younger either, so I never enjoyed that aspect of it. But the rest of it was very nice. The food was always really good, I remember, and it was meant to encourage just to be into nature, conservatory or something like that. Clearly the educational message was somewhat missed on me, but it was always a fun week.
- [29:16]
C
But the whole purpose of these camps surely is for parents to get rid of their children for as long as possible during these long summer holidays permanently.
- [29:25]
B
If there's a thing with a snake, I mean. Quentin. Marion made a correctly derisive reference to organized fragments. Fun. And I want to put to you a quote from one of the attendees reported by cbs. And this is what they said. This is, and I remind you, this is a grown adult human being saying this. What's really cool is all the activities are planned for you.
- [29:51]
C
It's like going on an eternal cruise line around the world and never being able to escape. I mean, it's sort of a country prison or something like that. It does sound terrible, terrifying.
- [30:06]
B
Would it be too much of a reach, Marion? Would it be too, like, sonorous and portentous a thing to say that this is a symptom of the infantilization of much modern society? These people are clearly seeking to regress to a childlike state.
- [30:21]
A
I mean, I think people are really overwhelmed. I mean, you know, whenever I go through a really stressful period at work, all of a sudden a cruise holiday sounds amazing because all you have to do is lie on a sun lounger, you know, drink a cocktail. Cocktail, maybe, like, play some tennis, and that's. That's all you have to do. But if I'm, you know, if I'm of sound mind and not stressed out, then I obviously much prefer something where I can actually choose my activities, can choose who I see and so on. So I think these kind of activities probably appeal to people that feel really overwhelmed by modern life, you know, that might be really stressed out. Maybe they, you know, have small kids and really struggle with looking after their kids. And so having a week where someone else does the cooking and plans your activities and all you have to do is, you know, wake up and show up sounds really nice.
- [31:06]
B
Well, on that generously sympathetic note, Marion Messmer and Quentin Peel, thank you both for joining us. Finally, on today's show, our weekly letter from is a letter from me from Prague, where we may all well have met, seeing as how everyone on earth seem to be there. Prague is obviously not the only city on earth which has become completely overrun by foreign tourists, but it has become so to a distinguishing degree. It's not just that the center of Prague is absolutely choked by visitors, it is that there is no longer any reason for anybody but visitors to go there. Pretty much everything in the center of Prague is selling some sort of souvenir of Prague, whether physical or metaphysical. Physical. Prague is one of those places which has become its own theme park. For bigger cities this is less of a problem. London, for example, Europe's most visited city, operates informal corrals, places where no Londoner would ever go. Leicester Square, Covent Garden. Prague doesn't have that option. Everything the city breaker will want to see is, is between, say, Prague Castle on the west bank of the Vltava river and Old Town Square on the east. Complaints that a particular destination has become swamped with riffraff are not new. Nor are nostalgic harrumphs that a place is less charming than it once was, now that its neighbourhood butchers, bakers and candlestick makers have been replaced by tacky fridge magnet shops, dubious handicraft retailers and merchants catering to that inexplicable cast of humanity. Humanity which believes that anything amusing has ever been printed on a T shirt. It is not, well, not exclusively the intention of this missive to add to these. Instead, what I'd like to do is gently suggest that the state of Prague now proves beyond much doubt the case against over tourism that is being made in a few European jurisdictions. Barcelona, probably most militantly by weary locals confronted visitors with placards and or water pistols. Where Prague is concerned, I have the advantage of perspective. I first visited Prague around Christmas 1990 as one of a couple of 22 year old Australians with backpacks measured against. Today, it was politically, if not geographically, a different world. Prague was still the capital of an entity called Czechoslovak. Though the Iron Curtain was recently open, the rejoining of 20th century Europe remained a work in progress which played to the advantage of shoestring travellers. A first class sleeper compartment from Budapest cost maybe US$10 at the border. It was still compulsory to change an amount of hard currency for a wallet bursting surplus of Czechoslovak karuna, only good as novelty bookmarks anywhere else. Our stay in Prague became a live action remake of Brewster's millions.
- [34:20]
C
You have 30 in which to spend 30 million bucks.
- [34:24]
B
As we tried to get rid of it all via the city's finest restaurants and fancy seats for the symphony orchestra. And Prague was just stunning. Its spires dusted with snow, its beautiful old town every romantic idea you might have harboured of a Central European warren of cafes and artisans. Walking back and forth between the statues haunting the Charles Bridge, it was occasionally the case that there was nobody else on it. Good luck with that. Now it feels like everybody else is on it. Were I to be presented with a button which would instantly restore Prague to the settings I first encountered, I absolutely would not press it. I would not imprison Eastern Europe all over again. Just to make my own visits more interesting. Interesting. Still less would I wish to deprive anybody else of the chance to admire one of the great European cityscapes or Prague's businesses of the revenues that tourists bring. But nor would I go out of my way to spend much more time here. It's a big world with plenty of cities and towns which haven't been gutted to this extent in the entire history of tourism. A thought that has rarely if ever, occurred to any tourist upon arrival in the place they are touring to is great loads and loads of other bloody tourists. Yet still they come. And still they photograph everything upwards to avoid capturing how many other people are doing the same. And that is all for this edition of the Monocle Daily. Thanks to our panelists today, Marion Mesmer and Quentin Peel. Today's show was produced by Monica Lillis and researched by Henry King. Our sound engineer was Lily Austin. I'm Andrew Muller here in London and the Daily is back at the same time tomorrow. Thanks for listening.