Ad astra per aspera
The 176th edition of Germany's most famous celebration, Oktoberfest, has officially opened in the southern German city of Munich. More than six million people are expected to visit the "Wiesn" this year. Munich Mayor Christian Ude officially opened the 176th edition of Oktoberfest on Saturday with the tapping of the keg and a cry of "Ozapft is!", or "It's tapped!" As is tradition, the head of Bavaria's government is entitled to the first keg. This year that honor went to the state's premier, Horst Seehofer, who was handed the first liter of beer by Ude. The celebration was spared last year's dirndl scandal by Seehofer's wife, Karin, who showed up dressed in the traditional manner. A year ago, Marga Beckstein, wife of then-governor Guenther Beckstein, refused to wear a dirndl and chose instead to don a traditional jacket. Some six million people are expected to show up at Oktoberfest this year where they will down close to seven million liters of beer and eat around 500,000 chickens and 100 oxen.
Munich Mayor Christian Ude officially opened the 176th edition of Oktoberfest on Saturday with the tapping of the keg and a cry of "Ozapft is!", or "It's tapped!"
As is tradition, the head of Bavaria's government is entitled to the first keg. This year that honor went to the state's premier, Horst Seehofer, who was handed the first liter of beer by Ude.
The celebration was spared last year's dirndl scandal by Seehofer's wife, Karin, who showed up dressed in the traditional manner. A year ago, Marga Beckstein, wife of then-governor Guenther Beckstein, refused to wear a dirndl and chose instead to don a traditional jacket.
Some six million people are expected to show up at Oktoberfest this year where they will down close to seven million liters of beer and eat around 500,000 chickens and 100 oxen.
The fact is that what we're experiencing right now is a top-down disaster. -Paul Krugman
I have about 20 housemates, and I like just about all of them quite a lot. One guy, however, is just plain tiresome. He's perfectly nice, but rather dim and a terrible bore and a huge motormouth. He will drone on and on and on for hours about things that nobody cares about, tell stories that are without a doubt 70 percent fiction and 30 percent inconsequential. He drives me nuts.
It's a holiday here today, and he's been camped at a table in the garden outside my room for hours, droning on and on with a collection of other housemates, basically dragging everyone into his monologue as soon as they walk outside. I want to go sit in the garden and read, but I can't unless I want to get dragged into some boring-ass conversation with someone I can't stand. So instead I'm trapped in my room on a beautiful sunny day, and getting crankier by the minute.
</gripe>
But I'd say your only hope is that The Bore is pissing everybody else off as much as he is you, so the game will become how to avoid him. If you show people it can be done, by going out to the garden and sitting apart with your book (a smile and "I'm reading" in response to all attempts to drag you into the Boretex), you may encourage others.
Oh, and such people aren't really nice, they're manipulative.
</agony aunt>
going out to the garden and sitting apart with your book (a smile and "I'm reading" in response to all attempts to drag you into the Boretex)
That's actually exactly what I did, and the Bore Party broke up not long afterward....
That's so much easier than accidentally smothering the poor soul with a covering of honey and mackerel sauce. Never underestimate their intelligence, always underestimate their knowledge.
Frank Delaney ~ Ireland
