Harvey Nichols is the last place on earth where you would expect to run into the conversation you have been trying to avoid for the past 20 years.
 But I managed to do just that a few weeks ago.
I was about to bite into a spring roll at a fundraiser organised by my favourite charity when I ran into an American lady. She was leaving for Prague the next day to attend a conference and… to my horror… she gave me the standard spiel about Westerners bringing democracy to Eastern Europe.
I have heard this a million times before…. I find it not only extremely boring, but also patronising, offensive, colonial… (at this point I always run out of adjectives).
However this encounter got me thinking. Did my work in Prague have an impact on anybody’s life?
As I said before, I feel I learned more from my Czech friends and colleagues than they did from me.
But I would be extremely proud to know that the articles I wrote for the German business press during those years contributed to attract investment to the country and made a place I love so much more prosperous.
Every time I walk through the streets of Prague - which now look so different - I ask myself if I really did. And then one day… something happened that felt like an answer.
 Remember how in the old days people would sit in the Prague Metro with long faces and not look at you….
I had this image in my mind when I boarded a train at Vysehrad. I was standing near the doors when I noticed a schoolgirl looking at me. She kept staring as if she knew me and all of a sudden… she gave me this enormous smile.
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