Hello everybody, this edition of We Have Ways of Making You Talk was recorded before the coronavirus crisis began.

Figuel Mestito, Figuel Mestités, which is of course

Hungarian for act-on-act-on. That's a mouthful, isn't it? That's a mouthful.

I mean, you know, I've just really was written down in front of me.

If you are Hungarian and you've, you're now rushing for an air-raid shelter, I've done my job properly, but if not, if not, if you think I've just ordered a flatbread.

Anyway, now we haven't talked much about Hungary's role in the war, but I think it's fair to say the nation didn't cover itself in glory right now.

We've really upset the Hungarians. It joined the Axis Paz in 1914, took part in the invasion of Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union.

In 1944, we hit the found out that Hungary was trying to negotiate and amused this with Britain and the US, and he didn't look so favor on that.

So in went the Luftwaffe to stiffen their sinews, it did not end well.

But of course, what they really did was, you know, Ikeman went down and forced them to hand over their Jews, and that extra bit of railway was built specifically to hurry up the extermination of Hungarian Jews.

You know, it outstrets the famous railway that goes under the archway. That wasn't there before.

It was built specifically to take them straight to the gas chambers. It's absolutely horrific.

You know, what the Hungarians went through in the Second World War is absolutely beyond awful.

Yep, that's what he said.

Well, anyway, on a quite note, well, yes, so, well, first of all, how are you, James?

Yeah, I'm all right. If I get a little bit wet, you know, with some biblical levels of water, wind, and now pestilence, it's a bit of a worry, isn't it?

And you're physically in Wiltshire, but your mind, the Holland mind is in Sicily right now, right?

100% yeah, now I'm completely, absolutely in Sicily, where I find myself sweating just reading about it because I'm writing about it because it's so hot, you know.

It's quite complicated, isn't it? I mean, you've got that thing, if you've got a squeeze, it's like a ship in a bottle often, I think these books are yours.

You've got to get the whole thing, contain it, and it's got to read well, be exciting, be interesting, be entertaining, if you're honest.

Yeah, that's always the challenge. I mean, if I was just telling the story of invasion of Sicily, it'd be a kind of piece of cake.

It's absolutely that. It's that structure of it.

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