After a year's training in Hungarian, the author was accredited as the British Defence Attaché in Budapest. In this book, in light-hearted mood, he describes some of the challenges and the variety of the life of a military attaché from intelligence gathering to arms sales, from writing the Hungarian application to join NATO to receptions and dinners great and small, from interpreting to intrigue. He lifts the curtain to look at life with the Diplomatic Service and explores the way different nations tried to cover the same tasks. This series of humorous anecdotes is set against the background of a Hungarian nation stepping out of communism and into a modern, western, market economy; something they were keen to do, but are not quite sure how to go about it.