Whenever there is reason to celebrate on a festive scale, a dramatic sound scape must not be missing. Worldwide, solemn ceremonies are carried by Beethoven’s „Ode to Joy“ (Ode an die Freude), being played by enthusiastic orchestras and sung by effervescent choirs in front of a mesmerised audience. Since its debut in Vienna in 1824, the compassionate tune and emotional lyrics manifested themselves as the epitome of the brotherhood of man.
Austria: The science of coffee-brewing in Vienna
Coffee is not just an invigorating brew but rather a scientific field of expertise worth being explored. Barista Schools popping up the world over bear witness to the cognition that a cup of coffee is not something to be prepared in one’s stride. It is a challenge that deserves care and devotion at least as deep as is granted to the meticulously performed Asian Tea Ceremony.
Here in Vienna, each type of coffee is honoured with its individual cryptical name – the least one could have done for a treasure accidentally left by the Ottomans after their siege of Vienna in 1683. Apart from war and devastation, the Turks had brought along with them a culinary novelty Viennese citizens discovered by chance in the shape of a number of bags filled with precious coffee beans, stored in an abandoned Turkish camp after the troups had retreated. Jerzy Franciszek Kulczycki, a Polish-Lithuanian nobleman, had taken hold of the bags and opened Vienna’s first coffeehouse in the same year.
The Doppler Effect: Mysterious wavelengths
Zzzzzzzzzzp! Flash! There you go! A spiteful and cowardly camouflaged radar trap has lashed out at you once again, and another costly and questionably handsome snapshot is on its way into your post box. Fuming traffic offenders are said to have clandestinely returned to the place of crime to take revenge – fortified by a bunch of best-friends’ hercules’s and in order to punish the wicked contraption out of its wits. Ignoring, that there’s sure to be another invincible clone around the next corner. Instead of adding up on the offence front, avoiding speeding and/or respecting red traffic lights may actually do the trick fairly well and entail far less trouble: It allows short tempers to lie dormant just a little longer and lends bank statements a so much more encouraging appearance. Similar to police records …
Oktoberfest Munich: O’zapft is’!
On Saturday, September 20th, 2025 at high noon sharp Munich’s Lord Mayor will once again ceremonially exclaim: ‘It’s tapped!’ The Oktoberfest, a festival recurring for the 190th time, has been exerting its magnetism on the crowds since 1810. It means huge fun for regular folks, works as an illustrious place-to-be-seen for celebrities of all shapes, sizes and financial prowess and could even enhance or jog a career of one trade or another. And it serves as a welcome runway for the presentation of suitably traditional garb (such as Dirndl, Lederhos’n or Lodenjanker) – or for a rare species of couture whose daring crossover creations are at times hard to swallow for the more conservative.
TED Talk: How to beat stage fright
Phobias: A Plague or Mutations of the Basic Instinct?
Phobia is Greek and means to be afraid of something. In the non-Greek world, it is mainly used in psychological terms, signifying severe fear as in: terrified and: neurotic and: in need of professional treatment. Those in the grip of a veritable phobia are panic-stricken and paralyzed when it comes to tackling certain situations. Phobias are relics of our evolutionary past and were quite useful back then. Should a ferocious sabre-toothed tiger – teeth bared – spring up inadvertently from the undergrowth with an intimidating roar, the primitive brain would switch to red-alert and reliably signal to the short-legged homo erectus: RUN as fast as you can! It was a matter of survival, and the same basic instinct takes control over us in perilous situations until this day.