On Days like These

Never seen anything like it. A football club is fighting for its chance to enter the German Bundesliga. Fortuna Düsseldorf has been dwindling around in lower leagues for 15 years and their fan base had to go through a long time of spite and hardship. Now their team is just under 2 minutes away from winning the game and entering a season in the top class. But the fans cannot hold back anymore and hundreds start running onto the field throwing the match into turmoil and chaos.

It doesn't really matter what the outcome was (they stopped the game for 20 minutes, then finished the last couple of minutes, Düsseldorf made it, the other team from Berlin announced it felt life threatened and wants the match reviewed, things will cool down and end in a fiscal penalty), but this was quite unique to observe. We talk about and defend individual rights, we believe in democracy and Human Dignity. Great stuff. But when you see these kind of pictures, you realize that Humans are no more than clever animals. Well, clever isn't the right word either. I mean how clever it is to destroy the resources and basis of your species, or actually of all species? A study just released urges that in about 18 years we will need another planet to sustain our current lifestyle.

But there is no passion for these topics. Where are the Earth fans? When will they storm to the street and fight for their planet? No, our climate, our environment, our oxygen, our water, our food, our survival don't seem to be things that arouse the masses the way football obviously does. These people storming the grounds were absolutely fanatical. Mothers with children ran across the grass between burning flames and bangali fireworks endagering their offspring in an irresponsible way. These people don't have anything more important in their lives than seeing their team - a group of talented but normally not very intelligent people with salaries sky high above their heads - make it from the second into the first leagues. That is what they really care about.

So, these people are the ones we ask to legitimize governments, these people are the ones we ask when we priotize our political agendas. Hm. Makes me slightly uneasy.

De-What?-Cracy

Pirates in German parliaments. A Socialist in the Èlysée Palace. A Greek election that renders an entire country in-governable just 24 hours after the fact making a re-election inevitable. The possible end of household consolidation in Europe. The possible end of the fiscal pact and the common currency Euro. What happened yesterday? What did these elections do to our way of life?

Let’s take a closer look: France elected a new President. No big deal. He’s boring, he’s a Socialist, and he announced that he wanted to save less and spend more. That’s going to change as soon as he regains soberness and spends his first day in the office. Sarkozy got on everyone’s nerves and I cannot blame the French. My biggest question – the one nobody seems to be asking – is how long the very beautiful Carla Bruni will remain with Sarkozy. The number of weeks it will take for them to announce their separation can probably mathematically be transferred into a proxy for the sex of power.

The Greek voted for a bunch of extremist parties, so none of the bigger parties could form a government which took only 24 hours to establish. Well, that’s democracy, the only form of government I want to live under. That’s what people vote for when they experience hardship. It’s the main flaw of the system, but unavoidable. If I were Greek and my state bankrupted by corruption and incompetence, I would also vote for someone else and not for the idiots who were in charge all along.

We can see a mild form of this principle happening in Germany at the moment. The Pirate Party is jumping into every state parliament at a hefty 8-9% of the vote. The established parties wish to silence this movement and don’t take it serious. The Pirates make them furious, because they get so much media attention and their options for the usual coalition governments is swindling. But watching any political debate on TV with the same personnel and their verbal bickering makes you really want to become a Pirate. At least they’re transparent, open, democratic, and get people interested in politics that would have normally spent their time playing World of Warcraft. I think that’s a good thing.

All these things are democracy in action and will be fine in the end. It’s how we govern ourselves. We also thought the Green party would be the end of life as we know it in the 90s. Instead, they really enriched the political arena and have become the establishment today.

The really problematic thing that happened yesterday is something else. Yesterday, Vladimir Putin got inaugurated as Russian President for the third time. Not for the usual four years, but for six years which was made possible by a prior change of the constitution. He nominated Medvedev as Prime Minister with whom he has switched places back and forth. They are practically ripping off their people and the World right before their eyes while giving them the finger. Opposition protesting this mockery of democracy got brutally beaten and arrested. This is the problem. Not the Pirates, not the Greek or French. But powerful States which are dictatorships, but get courted by our heads of State because of their huge natural resources. We should make clear who is democratic and who is only pretending to be.  

Beware of Limbach Secur

A couple of years ago, I had an alarm system installed in my house. It was really expensive and the electronic sophistication behind it didn’t seem tremendously advanced. Rationally, I asked myself back then already, if there is a positive business case for an alarm system in general. Despite what you read in the paper, the probability of having your house broken into is really small. Per year there are around 120,000 break-ins in all of Germany. With 42 million households, your chance of getting stuff stolen is around 0.3%. Even if you just consider actual free-standing houses, the chance is still slightly above 1%.

Your average damage is a likely to stay around a couple of thousand euros. Thieves mostly only take things they can turn into cash quickly like cash (obviously), jewelry, or electronics. So spending a couple of thousand euros to safeguard the very improbable loss of a couple of thousand euros, seems irrational. Of course, this doesn’t factor in the sentimental value of items that could be stolen, the damage from vandalism, and the subjective sense of safety that usually takes a real dip when you realize a stranger has been snooping around in your house. But still, the investment doesn’t really make sense economically.

But what I didn’t realize is that the companies installing these systems actually install a backdoor into your wallet which will give them easy access to your money later. I had some renovation work done in my house and one of the movement detection sensors had to be opened to wallpaper the surface underneath. This set off a sabotage alarm which entertained the renovation people all day until I came home in the evening and turned it off. The noise was gone, but the status “sabotage” remained on the display preventing me from using the system any further.

I called Limbach Secur, the company that had installed the system and the guy on the phone immediately said: “Oh no, you cannot delete the sabotage alarm yourself. One of our technicians will have to come by.” I scheduled an appointment and this is what happens: the “technician” walks in, enters a 6-digit override master-code of some sort into the controller and that’s it. The bill: almost 170 EUR. That’s nearly 30 EUR per digit of the code or minute that the guy was in my house.

What a shameless rip-off. There is absolutely no reason, I shouldn’t be able to turn off a sabotage alarm myself. It is my house and I paid for the alarm system. It is my property. However, that’s not what Limbach Secur thinks about this. When I complained about the bill, they basically told me in writing to go fuck myself and take my business elsewhere. Which I can’t because I don’t have the secret master code to the system. This is an actually legal scam that nobody knows about.

Sudden noise with Husqvarna Automower 305

This is, finally, my chance to add something new and original to the web. When I reconnected and started up my automatic lawnmower Husqvarna Automower 305 this year, it suddenly was incredibly loud and noisy. Last year it had silently cut my grass with the grace of a slow-moving stealth jet. But this year the noise level suddenly rose slightly above that of a regular lawnmower. Nowhere on the internet could I find a solution to this problem, let alone someone even experiencing it. Very strange, as the most ridiculous and extravagant of issues get discussed in depth online.

So, I figured, it must be broken. I checked the website for Husqvarna dealers in the area and called one of them. The guy on the phone had not heard of the problem and said he first needed to order the Husqvarna software to diagnose the machine. Just like with modern cars, you cannot look under the hood anymore and fix anything. You need to connect the little rascal to a computer, have the right software installed, and it will tell you how much you need to pay before starting to work again.

The dealer called the manufacturer to ask about the problem and then called me back with an idea: Had I recently changed the cutting knives on the Automower? Yes, indeed I had. Apparently, the knives are so thin that you can accidentally attach two overlapping knives onto on of the three positions without noticing. That could be the cause for the sudden noise increase.

I checked and that was exactly it. Two knives on one of the three positions, and only one each on the other two. That created an imbalance of the rotating plate which had caused the noise. I removed one of the knives and everything was back to silent. Perfect bliss. What noise a few grams in the wrong spot can cause! Almost philosophical.

So let me be the first to post this insignificant nugget of wisdom to the net and may someone out there benefit from it before going out and cursing the company that makes wonderful but super expensive lawnmower robots.

P.S. While I am writing this, a thunderstorm just hit my village piling up at least 3 centimeters of ice from hail. Everything is covered in ice now. Will climate change allow my Automower the benefit of a few more years of silent operation? The saga continues.

Dangerous & Unlawful

I went to New York beginning of the year. It amazes me each time what a great place on Earth it is. A true capitol of the World. Not just visually attractive and impressive, but a place with substance. Not sure how to describe that. If you go to Abu Dhabi or Dubai and take in the skyline there, you get this artificial, transient, impermanent feeling about it. New York on the other hand has substance.

People there seem to have been impacted by 9/11 more than by the very visible increase in security everywhere. You really have to enjoy waiting in line and walking through metal detectors to check out any of the popular sites. But New Yorkers had this bad reputation of being cold and unfriendly. My experience was the exact opposite. No matter where, on the bus, on the street, waiting in line for something, everywhere people are friendly and helpful. You get out a map and make this puzzled “where am I”-face, someone will pop up next to you and offer guidance. Not just directions, but they really make an effort to understand what you are looking for and try to come up with options for you. Maybe the horror of the terrorist attacks made people more sociable and increased solidarity.

But America has always been a paranoid country. The rules, the amount of people in official looking uniforms, the orders you are given, makes you wonder what happened to the “land of the free”. I remember travelling to the US with my family. My dad and I were through immigration and waiting in a long hall for the rest of us. It was a pretty broad, well-lit space, probably 6 meters in width, with the typical awful carpeting of US airports. We were the only ones standing there. A police man or security official approached us saying “no loitering, move on”. We looked at each other obviously not presenting any danger to anyone explaining “we are waiting for our family". “Can I ask you to move on immediately, there is no standing or waiting in this area.”

Of course, there are abusive and bureaucratic people all over the World, but in America this has method. I visited the Ukrainian museum with my mother in New York. It is a medium-sized, very modern museum in Lower Manhattan organized and maintained by the Ukrainian community there. Obviously, it isn’t one of the top 10 sites. Not even one of the top 100. So, apart from us there was no one there. The cashier was reading a book at her desk and had a hard time remembering what money was and how the cash register worked when we showed up. In the yawning emptiness of an exhibition on Ukrainian wedding garments and their development over time, I discovered a lovely sign: “Occupancy by more than 148 persons is dangerous & unlawful.”

Fool me once

Advertisement is deceiving and condescending bullshit. We all know that. But yesterday, I saw an ad that obviously locates TV-viewers at the intelligence level of lower-developed fungi.

Maggi is a Nestlé brand that produces powdered sauces and stocks. Despite them consisting mainly of fat, starch, and artificial flavors, they sell at a nice premium and are the favorite ingredient in households that know two or less spices: salt and pepper or merely salt which isn’t even a spice.

The commercial in question was for a new sauce called: “Geschnetzeltes Hawaii”. The first part just refers to the fact that you need to add strips of meat to go with the sauce. “Hawaii” on the other hand signals to the common German that we are talking about a hearty dish with pineapple added. Toast Hawaii, Pizza Hawaii, Anything Hawaii are terrible, terrible meals which combine ham and cheese with warm pineapple. I reckon this must be what the inside of freshly filled diapers taste like.

The Toast Hawaii is the originator of this taste digression and was invented by German TV-cook Clemens Wilmenrod who was a huge star in the infant ages of television somewhere in the 50’s. He was the first to put ham, cheese, and pineapple on a toast, grill it, and call this concoction “Hawaii”. In the States nobody would even know what to expect when receiving a dish “Hawaii”. Most likely something with macadamia or coconuts.

Now, people have odd tastes and who am I to judge. Why not have a Bratwurst Hawaii or something similarly vulgar? This is not the essence of the Maggi commercial. It actually features an American cook who prepares the dish and says in German with a heavy American accent: “Good that I am here to prepare it, since I really know what it should taste like.” They actually want to stress the fact that the dish is authentic and made by someone from Hawaii, even though it has absolutely nothing to do with the lovely group of islands in the Pacific. What a load of crap! So Germans will actually prepare their Geschnetzeltes Hawaii and exclaim: this reminds me of the gigantic waves on Maui – eating this is like a holiday!

Fine. We are used to that. Shower gels that consist of two-thirds moisturizing technology, hair color that will give you 80% more shine, creams that stop the aging process of your skin, and so on. My favorite is an ad for the new market segment of male cosmetics: You see an active guy who excels in business, sports, and casual settings. The voice-over says: “Life demands a lot of you. It is time for you to demand something back.” The product is a shampoo.

But this Hawaii story assumes that we are all complete morons. Why not an advertisement for authentic French Toast served in the Louvre by Pierre with Cancan dancers in the background?

What Springs to mind

Nobody tells you this, but the truth is: people don’t like Summer. It’s clearly the season of failed expectations. Each Summer is either too cold, too wet, too dry, too hot, or something else altogether. Nobody ever says: this was a great Summer, but complains about how we were deprived of our rightful dose of sun.

But it’s so obvious. Summer never really stands a chance. You work all year and rightfully think you deserve some time off. Some time to spend lying around in the garden with the BBQ going and a beer floating in your kiddie pool. Every day for months. That’s what you visualize and hope for all year. It’s what we remember from when we were kids (except for the beer). Summer break lasted ages. When I went back to school after 6 weeks of play time, I used to worry if I would be able to recognize everyone and remember their names.

But when the time is up, you realize that you don’t actually have that much holiday, that your kids want to be entertained, that this is your only chance to finally paint the house, and that the super important project you are working on has just gone bust. Summer is tainted. People don’t realize that the days already start getting shorter right at the beginning of Summer. At the beginning! June 21 is the longest day and it’s downhill from there.

But Summer remains so ingrained in our wish for bliss that people outright lie about their seasonal preference. Not so with me. I see myself as an enlightened seasonal expert and tell you: the best season by far is Spring!

No matter if it rains or the sun is shining, anything is better than the cold and dark of Winter. You can walk outside without gloves or hat. It’s still light out when you come home from work. Flowers and color spring up from dead looking wood and earth. Bare trees sprout white blossoms which you can see from far away since there are no leaves yet to obstruct their beauty. Within a matter of weeks, tree after tree turns white and you can literally see it change by the day. All of Summer and warmth is still ahead of you. Still so much to plan and dream of. Think about where to travel in the Summer. Get the garden furniture out. Watch the dog run around in the garden sniffing and chasing a ball happy to be outside again. No people, Spring is the best time of the year! Go outside and enjoy!

Real Virtuality

We talk a lot about digitization and virtualization. Communication, commerce, and media have shifted dramatically from analog to digital with the last decade. The famous Encyclopedia Britannica just announced it would discontinue its paper-based compendium of knowledge and just focus on the online version from now on. 244 years of tradition and probably the first subscription sales model of the World finally down the drain. No more sales people on your doorstep trying to sell you volume 1 (Aardvark – Anchovies) for 9.99 with successive volumes following on a monthly basis.

On the one hand this is a good thing. Knowledge will never again be skewed to the front section of the alphabet. It’s no wonder people don’t learn the xylophone any more or stopped listening to the works of Polish violinist Zywny. But on the other hand, traditionalists will mourn the loss of culture, values, and everything we stand for, if the Encyclopedia Britannica is delivered in any other form than printed and leather-bound version that adorns our bookshelves. 

Just recently, I attended a conference that asked the question “How virtual are our lives going to be by 2020?” My answer: not at all, not a single bit. There is no such thing as “virtual reality”. The expression in itself is contradictory. Reality cannot be virtual, because it would cease to be real. Experiences are real and never virtual. This hasn’t changed throughout the digital revolution. If you read a book on your ebook reader, you are still looking at letters on a sheet. The only difference is the medium, a display instead of paper. If you listen to music, the music itself or the listening experience doesn’t depend on the medium. The music doesn’t change from vinyl to mp3. The access, availability, quality, storage size, convenience, selection, and many more ambient aspects change, but not the music. Some goes for photos, videos, mail etc.

This is why “Second Life” failed. It doesn’t transport any real experiences. It might allow some initial excitement and fascination from the technological or social side. But the experiences we make in life cannot be transformed into the virtual world. As Humans we simply want to love somebody, be loved, find a purpose and meaningful thing to do, and interact with other people. Technology can assist and facilitate, but can never replace these basic desires. I therefore don’t believe in virtual vacations or cybersex.There are no substitutes for the physical acts of feeling, seeing, smelling, tasting, hearing. Maybe these can be simulated in the future, but without the good and bad aspects and changes of our bodies (matter) our thinking (mind) would become flat, boring, and unevolutionary. We as Humans would cease to exist.

Lang Lang

When I asked my piano teacher what he thought of Chinese pianist Lang Lang he said: “He’s a good piano player, but the David Garrett of pianists.” The “but” in that sentence lead me to conclude that he didn’t admire David Garrett all that much. I guess he thinks of him more in terms of gaudy show act than serious musician. Well, I had tickets for a Lang Lang concert and was disappointed by that sobering assessment.

So, when I entered the Beethoven concert hall in Bonn (which is falling apart and could easily earn the subtitle “Living Monument to Socialism”), I expected wild decoration, light effects, and at least some sort of warm-up starting act. But far from it. The stage was adorned by a single shiny black Steinway & Sons grand piano and that was all. Not even a microphone for the master to announce his pieces, no fireworks, no entry music, no laser show. Nobody introduced the artists, he just suddenly walked on stage, and the noise subdued to the level of occasional coughing and creaking chairs.

The concert was sponsored by the Beethoven fest, but surprisingly not a single piece of the great composer was played. We heard Bach, Schubert, and Chopin, but not a phrase by Beethoven. Maybe, the Beethoven society over time gets so sick of listening to Beethoven that any diversion proves welcome. Maybe I misread the leaflet and the concert was in fact sponsored by the “Anything but Beethoven Society”.

Lang Lang performed the typical, down to Earth, no nonsense classical concert with concentration and emotion. There was no show, just music. I loved it. I’ve never been to a David Garrett concert, but I imagine him in a flowing shirt buttoned down to his belt with his violin resting on his oily chest hair. Lang Lang, quite serious, played his pieces, commanded the room, and touched everyone in it. He started off lightly and ended with Chopin’s 12 études for piano – 12 pieces each written for masters to practice an individual problem on the piano.

It was outstanding. You cannot believe the magic he performs with his hands. Most people were impressed by the fact that he knew all the notes by heart, but those are people who obviously have never played an instrument. Pieces you practice over and over after time penetrate your subconscious. The fingers move by themselves without thinking, just as they do when you set the blinker on your car. What impressed me the most was his ability to individually move each finger of his hands to do something completely independent from the rest.

When it was over, the applause was roaring. At first the serious German audience (80% over 80 years of age) hesitated to give a standing ovation. Some individuals jumped up, but got frowned upon from their neighboring music aficionados. But then something gave and everyone got up. The applause would not end. Lang Lang came out 5, 6, 7 times and the audience began to become disorderly with elderly women crowding the aisles. We got a soft and subtle encore and then were ushered out of the hall. No drink or occasion for a talk. “You heard it. Now go home”, is what the Beethovenhalle was telling us. Living monument to socialism.

Hail to the Chief

Another President down and another to go. Christian Wulff resigned just 3 days ago and our decisive political parties have already agreed on the new guy: Joachim Gauck, the one who didn’t make it in the last round of elections will have the honorable task of restoring our country’s dwindling faith in the most meaningless function in Germany: Federal President.

These Presidents really don’t last long anymore. Köhler, Wulff, and now Gauck happened all within the last 2 years. And can we blame them? Our unemployment rates are at an exceptional low, the economy is outgrowing the rest of the fest, so why should eligible elder state’s men accept any occupation offered to them by our Chancelloress Angela Merkel?

Seriously, in today’s job market, would you accept a President’s position without any of the fun parts? The power to declare war, veto any bill, throw out the government, or ride around half-naked in the prairies of Russia? All you can do in Germany, is sit around in your big castle, host a number of boring parties with pesky little children, fly out to other countries to inspect the designs of their military uniforms, and once a year address the nation on a subject of so little relevance that only the state-owned TV stations will endure the financial hardship of actually broadcasting it.

Wulff should have stayed on and made it a more fun function. Okay, he threatened the media, but hey, in other states the President owns the media. Okay, he was about to be stripped off his immunity for criminal proceedings, but hey, in other states the President simply legalizes whatever he was accused of through Parliament. Okay, he kind of liked fancy travelling and upgrades paid for by wealthy individuals not at all keen on any return on invest, but hey, how do you expect to pay for all that with the lousy income of 200 grand a year? He didn’t even have sex with an intern or spy on the opposition or declare war on countries with forged evidence or…

Whatever. In Germany, only the dullest guy will have any chance of lasting the term of service. Maybe this is a good thing. The more feisty Presidents of the past have lead to no good. So, hail to the Chief! Hail to Joachim Gauck! May he renew the glue of our society with his sincerity and sugary words.

Ballantine’s Day

Today is Valentine’s Day. And no, I have absolutely no intention of ridiculing it. Of course, there is much potential for it. As always, you just have to sample some of the entries on Wikipedia and you’ll find it hard to resist some bemused chuckling about the way traditions form.

Of course, Valentine’s Day is named after Valentinus, the name of one or several martyrs in the early and fun days of Christianity. I will not go into their individual misfortunes, but let’s just note here that their common plight was to be beheaded. How the day commemorating the headless became a day for lovers is just one of those mysteries that make us Humans so lovable.

The traditions surrounding Valentine’s Day in Western countries today are well known (but usually forgotten by male individuals during the first half of February). Probably lesser known is the way South Koreans like to celebrate February, 14. As in Japan, Valentine’s Day is all about women giving men chocolate. Yes, women give chocolates to men and not vice versa. The main purpose of this ritual is to get some chocolate back (namely white chocolate, which my friend Stefan refuses to classify as chocolate, but merely as “fat”). The return gift is due exactly one month later on March, 14 and is aptly called White Day.

While Japanese leave it at the “you give me chocolate, I give you chocolate back one month later”, the South Koreans really take it to the next level. They have another day called Black Day yet another month later. On April 14, those who have been left out on White Day, express their disappointment by eating a dish called Jajangmyeon which consists of noodles in black sauce. So men who missed out on Valentine’s Day and women who expected their rightfully earned white chocolate in vain on White Day, all get to drown their sorrow in Jajangmyeon. Probably better than killing yourself. Then again, who knows what Jajangmyeon tastes like.

Heroes of the past

When I was a student, his music was absolute cult. We spent quite a few evenings singing his songs in the drunk over heightened pitch that groups gravitate towards later in the night. Everyone listened to Udo Jürgens, everyone knew his songs and lyrics. Not because they were such astute writing. They had an ironic, rebellious, sometimes melancholic, sometimes defying ring to them, but mostly dealt with simple but emotionally rich scenes you could relate to and soak up. Greek immigrants in a foreign land longing for their home country, a man stuck in the mediocrity of his life realizing he could just run away, dreaming about the exciting things he could spontaneously do, just to pass up the chance and never mention his dreams again. A man who knows what he wants and sings his self-affirmation song while the woman he longs for is just leaving him.

There are many singers who deal with love, life, and all the rest. Udo Jürgens is by no means unique in that. But what differs him from the kitsch of the harmonious and naive Schlager scene is his courage to go down several layers deeper into problems and couple his texts with outstanding, rich, and melodious music. Music venturing into all the different styles of the 60’s and 70’s from funk to salsa to bossa nova with the piano as unifying element.

Why do I recall his legacy? Because tonight it was shattered before my eyes. For the first time ever, I went to see him in concert and I never should have done that. Heroes of the mind can quite painfully clash with people of reality.

He is approaching 80 years of age, and naturally you wouldn’t expect him to rock the stage quite as he used to. However, when the audience gathered, I felt immediately disconnected from the crowd. The average age must have been around 55 to 60, probably higher. For the greater part of the concert, Udo Jürgens insisted on playing new songs which were terrible and nothing more than a feeble attempt to tie in with his former hits. They tried to address current themes, such as the insecurities of the internet or the frequent usage of anglicisms in the German language. But instead of the emotional and visually rich scenes of the past, his new songs were blunt, boring, and really embarrassing echoing a simplistic negation of anything new.

His attempts at positive contributions were nothing but platitudes, empty statements verging on the headlines of self-help books. No inspiration, only shallowness. Then the shameless promotion of his brother’s paintings with a terrible, really terrible song called “Mein Bruder is ein Maler” that featured pictures of his brother’s art. The storyline of the song was: My brother is a painter, oh so wonderful, and I am but a mere singer with his petty little notes. “I’m not worthy. I’m not worthy.” Give me a break of this bull-crap! This might impress the fat lady desperately waving a bundle of roses at your face.

Then he promoted some movie covering his life and that of his family. The main message of this never-ending piece was “listen to the man with the bassoon” (which is Fagott in German – so: “listen to the faggot”), which I never understood because I never saw the movie and everything was completely out of context and simply abysmal. It was like watching a 20 minute preview of a movie edited by a chimpanzee on some mind-altering drug. The worst, worst, worst was that his voice kept cracking and on at least 4 or 5 occasions he completely forgot the lyrics which was apparent to everyone.

I was so depressed, I couldn’t even enjoy the 10-15 minutes of the 3 hour concert that he actually played the old songs. My favorite song “Ich weiß, was ich will” was part of a stupid medley! But his last encore was different. He came on stage in a bathrobe (as always – there is a story behind it: google it). Before, there had been a fantastic 30 person orchestra accompanying him, but now he just sat at the piano alone and played some of his old songs. As if nobody were around. He started a song, stopped in the middle, chatted away into the microphone, and played another. Even here, on one of his greatest hits called “Merci” he forgot the lyrics. But it was beautiful, it was magical. It was the one intimate moment in which I realized that I probably love his music for entirely different reasons than 99% of the people in the hall.