Rausch

I found this in the Rhein-Neckar Zeitung, 'het lokale sufferdje', which I receive unrequestedly at random times:

Rausch nicht mehr strafmildernd

i.e., being drunk is no longer an excuse for breaking the law. What? No longer? No, indeed, no longer. Which indeed seems to imply that hitherto, it was... Of course I am not a lawyer, and I don't know anything about German law at all, but logic tells me that either, there must have been a very funny law in force, or the parliament has nothing better to do than passing pointless laws...
The latter option is interesting in face of the fact that at present, Germany is being ruled by the große Koalition, consisting of the two natural opponents SPD and CDU, which according to the public opinion is not doing much in general, and makes a mess of what it is doing.

Internet in Germany (2)

The procedure continues as follows:
The next day, the provider calls you again, saying that they have received a call from the monopolist company: the rescheduled date, in one week's time, is too early, they can't make it. It will be in two weeks after all. And indeed, a few days later, you receive a letter from the provider, informing you that the earlier appointment unfortunately did not work out as planned, but that, in order for the connection to work, someone really needs to come and install the whole thing, and that hence, a new date has been scheduled, which is about a week from the time at which you receive the letter. You appreciate their informativeness, although you think quietly by yourself that a little less information in exchange for a little more speed and efficiency would not be a bad deal.

Interesting note: the provider sends its letters through another company than the good old Deutsche Post, which was the reason the first letters were delayed rather severely. This time, however, the other company seems to have found my mailbox: the most recent letter was not delivered by DP. This was not the only change: the lid, which normally closes the mailbox, was sticking out, like a letter that didn't completely fit into the mailbox.
Apparently, the other company's mailmen are new to the job and, having figured out how to deliver letters to mailboxes without name (but with number), are now working on the next step: delivering mail to mailboxes without taking out the door first...
(It was quite easy to put it back in, I found to my relief.)

RHS

It's just a jump to the left
And then a step to the right...

(Rocky Horror Show - Time Warp)

Those of you who don't know the Rocky Horror Picture Show: do something about it.¹ Those who do: the live version is even more fun :). It is being staged at the Städtische Bühne in Heidelberg, which is where I saw it. (For those who are coming to Heidelberg in the near future and want to see it as well: it is running at least until the end of the year.)

Before the show, someone gave me a paper bag containing some rice, a flashlight, an old newspaper and some toilet paper, the purpose of which was a little mysterious to me. Then, during the wedding scene in the beginning of the show, the entire audience was showered in rice... The newspaper turned out to be intended for use during the rain scene, following Janet's attempt at remaining dry, and in retrospect I am glad that water pistols weren't included. (Apparently, the RHS has a tradition of audience participation, which does include water pistols.)

Most of the spoken text has been translated into German, which gives some funny effects and loses some jokes, but on the whole is not as disturbing as translations often are. The songs are still in English.
The part of the Criminologist works out better in German, at least to my foreign ears, because of the aptitude of the language to dry, generally boring, amtliche, texts; also in this range, it is better than English :p. The nicest effect of the translation occurs when Frank addresses Dr. Everett Scott:

"Dr. Scott, oder sollte ich lieber Dr. von Scott sagen?"

In one word: Geil!²

P.S.: If you don't know the show, I can imagine this post doesn't make too much sense... ignore it, watch the film, or come and see it here :).

¹Unless you can't stand transsexuals, even if parodied.
¹Means 'cool' in German, but has the same origin as the Dutch word.

Internet in Germany

It works as follows:

First, you go to several providers, and find out that apparently the best deal, even if you only want an internet connection, is something involving internet and telephone, costing about 50 euros a month, with a connection of 6 Mbit/s, i.e. 600 kb/s. Rather disappointed, you decide to do it anyway, and share the connection with a few people in your dorm to keep it manageable.
Then, you sign a contract, and hear that within two weeks, someone, from another company, as that company apparently owns the cable network, should come to install the whole thing in your room. You wait for two weeks, but nothing happens; no promised letters with exact date and time, no username and password, no technicians, nothing. You go back to the shop and ask what has gone wrong, and you hear that the next day, the technician should come; the letters have been delayed a bit but should also be there in a matter of one or two days.
The next day, no-one shows up, and still no letters. You go back to the shop, and ask again; they tell you that, apparently, something went wrong, and you will get a new date and time for the technician to come. You indeed get this date, in a letter, a week later, when also the old letters arrive; the new date is still a week later, all in all a month after signing the contract.
The day comes, but the technician doesn't. Calling the provider again to complain results in them starting an 'emergency procedure': someone should come in two or three days. Of course still no-one comes, or calls, or gives any sign of life, let alone of connection. You go back once more, to ask how this procedure is supposed to function if the people still aren't coming.
Then, to your great surprise, you find a note in your mailbox, from the monopolist cable-owning company, four days after the appointed date and time, saying that someone was there, but unfortunately could not reach you by phone or in person. Not that you have received any calls; you have not even been notified that someone would come at all. You call the company, and ask what this means; they tell you they didn't know anyone was coming, either, since the technician is employed by the monopolist.
They say that you have to call their customer service, through which you will be able to make an appointment with a technician of their own. Slightly surprised that now, they do appear to have technicians, you call the customer service, and they tell you to contact your landlord, because something in your room is still missing. You contact the landlord, who says that this particular item is provided by the provider. You call the provider again, and they suddenly inform you that a visit by a technician is scheduled in two weeks' time.
Rather angry by now, you go to the shop and tell them to do something about this. The people in the shop, who by now are getting tired of the whole episode as well, do their best, but don't get anything done at the moment. They promise to keep working on it, and later that day, you get a call from someone else in the company, saying that the appointment has been rescheduled to a week earlier, so in one week's time.

... and that's the point to which I've gotten in the procedure; I'm curious how it will continue. I always thought of Germany as an overly civilised and organised country, where the maxim 'pacta sunt servanda' is holy. But apparently, that belongs to the old-fashioned Germany, and not to the new, fresh, modern country where people have internet access...

Excellence...

Wir sind hier, wir sind laut, weil man uns die Bildung klaut!

The students' associations of the humanities departments organised a demonstration against what they called the Ausverkauf der Geisteswissenschaften, i.e. the selling out of the humanities. The main issue seemed to be the personnel shortage, the nicest expression of this being an empty chair with a sign saying 'Leerstuhl Portugesisch'¹. Some other issues were also mixed in, however: there was one sign saying 'Eine Welt mit Bush und ohne Rumänisch sieht schwarz aus', and another complaining about the upcoming tuition fees (those are new to Heidelberg).

Much of this is related to the Excellenzinitiative, which, roughly speaking, comes down to a redivision of the state support for the universities: some 'excellent' ones will be selected, which will then receive more money. Since the total amount of money available to the state does, of course, not change, this money will be taken from other universities, as far as I have understood it. Now the rectorate of Heidelberg university has decided that the best chances to be selected are in boosting the natural science departments, with the consequence that the humanities and social sciences budgets have been cut. Rather heavily, as it seems: a teacher in the French department told me the number of employees had decreased by 30% in the last three years, because of constant budget cuts.

I joined the demonstration, partly out of curiosity, partly to replace some friends of mine who would have gone, had they not gotten into sudden trouble with their landlord, and of course partly because I don't agree with the policy of the rectorate.
The demonstration itself was not very exciting, apart from being a demonstration; there were a few police officers walking along, although I must say I don't think they did so out of conviction, and there were several 'waves', which was new to me as a demonstration phenomenon: everybody squats, and then stands up in an ordered fashion, giving the traditional wave effect.

One other nice sign that was carried along:

Überfüllte Hörsäle:
Ich kam, ich sah, ich ging

(Overfilled lecture rooms: I came, I saw, I went)

¹The German word leer means 'empty', whereas Lehrstuhl means 'chair' in the sense of 'professor's position'.

Political physics?

Warning: theoretical physics jargon follows.

Professor Nachtmann, who teaches the theoretical part of a course on the Standard Model, discussing the Lagrangian density of the free Dirac field:

"We can add a phase factor to ψ, which we can choose freely, since it is unobservable. However, we can see from the definition of the Lagrangian density that it has to be the same at all points in space(time); here, in America, and on the other side of the moon. Now this is of course highly undesirable: a theory where we could choose this factor freely at every point in space would be much nicer, since we wouldn't have to care what the Americans do."

Then he went on to show that the Lagrangian density for coupled photon and free Dirac fields does allow a position-dependent phase factor... For those who are interested in the physics: lecture slides can be found here.

P.S.: I'm curious how many of those who have read this understood the joke (to me it seems understandable with relatively basic physics/math knowledge, but I might be mistaken), and how many of those liked it...:p

Köln

Doch weil in Köln jeder Zweite vergisst,
Dass nicht das ganze Jahr Karnaval ist...

(Wise Guys - Schunkeln)

The akademische Auslandsamt organises excursions for exchange students. Last Saturday, 11-11, there was one to Köln. I decided to go, not suspecting anything, just curious what the city that is home to the Wise Guys would look like. Then someone told me that on 11-11, carnaval starts there, which reminded me of the above quote, given that I had always been told that carnaval is in February¹. Given the Rhineland's reputation for partying, and Köln's special status in the Rhineland (undisputed leader), I was expecting to see a colourful city.

I did.

In the centre, literally everybody was wearing some sort of costume. In spite of the cloudy, rainy and cold weather, the streets were filled the entire day. I have seen devils, Gevatter Tod, navy sailors, Supermen and -women, People's Army officers, bears, monks, pigs, cavepeople, police officers in blue suits, police officers in green suits (those were the real ones), witches, Sumo wrestlers, tigres, people clad in beer cans, male nuns, pregnant nuns, Captain Jack Sparrow, and many more, including many of the possible combinations of the above.
There was a guide with the excursion, who tried to give some sort of city tour, but even in the more quiet places, he was often hard to hear because of the background noise. In squares, phone calls were impossible, and people were holding hands in trains in order not to lose each other. Since we didn't know this trick at first, and failed to adopt it later, we did lose each other, a number of times (hence the attempts at phone calls).

The tour guide at some point told us that the alcohol consumption, as we could see, was 'well, high' at carnaval. We could see this indeed: there were many people with bottles, and, in fact, many bottles in general, even without people. There were places where we had to wade through glass shards, and in one place we saw one possible origin of these shards: some people were at variance, on some topic that didn't become clear to us passers-by, and were throwing bottles at each other to resolve the conflict; the bottles were not always empty. Also, at some point, we were addressed by a few people in costumes with bottles, who, upon hearing that we came from Heidelberg, told us: 'Wenn ihr ein Paar Bierchen trinkt, und dann hier mitfeiern kommt, könnt ihr das richtige Köln erfahren.' In the end, we did not, however true the statement seemed.²
Many of the people with bottles were already quite suitably refreshed³, and in spite of the rather noticable and increased presence of the police, many used the street as a public urinoir. All the publicly accessible toilets (i.e. in bars and such) were indeed very full; most of the men's toilets were actually filled mainly by women.

As the afternoon wore on, the number of costumes on the streets decreased slightly, which was accompanied by an increase in the number of orphaned bottles. I expect this was due in part to the fact that it became a bit rainier and colder, but also because many of those wearing costumes had been on the streets since the previous night. So, if I would happen to go back to Köln, I would try to do so on the evening of 10-11. Also, I can advise everybody who enjoys people in funny costumes to go and see carnaval in Köln at least once in their life.

P.S.: I also saw the Dom, the symbol of Köln, which is impressive indeed. Apart from that, the main attractions in the city are the people and shops and museums and conferences and such; the Altstadt was largely (90%) destroyed in WWII. It has been restored, but does not quite have the same atmosphere of a real old Altstadt, as far as I could see it.


¹I have also learned why carnaval starts on 11-11 (at 11:11, to be precise): it is the day on which the Eleventh Commandment becomes effective. The Eleventh Commandment supersedes the previous ten, and revokes them.
²Small correction: the advice about drinking beer was followed by some of my friends, but it probably would have been regardless of being given.
³One of the nicer English euphemisms I have heard; it means 'drunk'.

MathPhysRom

Treffen sich ein Mathematiker, ein Physiker und eine Romanistin...

This was on the posters announcing a party organised by the student associations for maths/physics and romance languages. I found it rather funny, and said so to a girl from my choir, who studies Spanish and English. She agreed, but said that it was true as well, quoting gender ratios of 1 to 30 in her classes. Apparently, the traditionality of German universities is not limited to the use of old words such as Kommilitone and habits such as akademisches Klatschen, but also extends to the gender divisions between various fields of study.
I have indeed noticed a clear difference, but nowhere near 1 to 30, at any rate in my classes (three physics and one maths). Also, when I went to the party with this girl from the choir and a few friends of hers, those friends were mainly Romanisten, i.e. male romance language students.
The party itself was what I suppose the UC Beach Party must be like, except for the fact that it was at the beginning, rather than the end of term/year. Crowded, music of moderate quality (I noticed many poor covers of originally nice songs) with the exception of the accidental Nirvana song, a bit too loud to be able to talk to each other, etc.. I don't think I'll be going to many of those, but now I've at least seen why :).

Othello

...has a remarkably Caucasian physiognomy for a Moor, in spite of his black skin. And he sings well. At least, according to Verdi's opera version of the story.

There seems to be some truth in the myth of the German Bildungsideal and the notion that the government should foster said ideal. Yesterday evening, I went to a staging of Verdi's Otello in the Nationaltheater Mannheim. Going to operas is not something I used to do very often until now, given that they are normally quite expensive. In this case, however, I was happily surprised to find that, with student discount and for the back row, the tickets were a mere 5,50 euros apiece. It sounds a bit ridiculous to me... a live opera cheaper than a film in a movie theatre? Not that I'm complaining, though; a short look at the performance agenda makes it even very likely that I'll come back there :).
Now, I must renounce my Dutchness a bit and say that the most important thing was of course the opera, which I liked: orchestral and choral parts were overwhelming, as they should be with Verdi, and of course the soloists' singing was astounding; sometimes even a bit too astounding for my taste.
Interestingly, the programme booklet offered the libretto only in German. I suppose this means that

1. either, the German opera audience is assumed not to understand Italian anyway, which would make including the original libretto a futile exercise
   
2. or, perhaps more likely, the organisation assumes the audience can't figure out the singing even with libretto, and hence just offers a version that is easier to understand
   

But, in conclusion: long live Germany, the land of art and culture :).

Rome

...is not strictly Heidelberg, so maybe it does not belong on this weblog, but it is nonetheless nice :p. To quote Reinhard, das kann man alles ruhig so lassen. It has a number of Heidelberg's qualities, but then in greater measure: nice old buildings (some so old that they have become ruins, or puintuinen), somewhat anarchistic traffic proceedings (in Heidelberg, this is limited to pedestrians and cyclists; in Rome, everyone joins); also it is in general bigger.
For those who are wondering how I came to this subject: last weekend, there was a family meeting, in Rome. My sister, younger brother and dad came from the Netherlands, my other brother from Switzerland (although his usual residence is in Canada) and I from Germany, for 'a meeting on neutral territory' in Rome. We have experienced claustrophobia on the stairs to the summit of the San Pietro, which are built into the walls of the dome, we have awed at the unparallelled art of the Renaissance masters who decorated the papal rooms and Vatican museums, wondered how the popes managed to live in such rooms, without a single quiet empty spot on the walls and ceilings, we have walked around the many vie and piazze and noticed that the Dutch are always easy to find by looking twenty centimetres above the average head height, and enjoyed the warm 'autumn', if one may call it that (there is a law in Rome forbidding people to turn on the heating before the fifteenth of November...). Also, to add a bit of human oddity, I have caught a cold over there.
In conclusion, it was nice. Now, I have to get back to studying, which can be nice, but always has the drawback of obligation to it.