One of the great unexplained mysteries in life -- after the Big Question, "Is there a Richard Dawkins?" -- is why does so much of Munich's Oktoberfest take place in September?  There are only a few days of the Oktoberfest that actually take place in October.  So much of it takes place in September that the Germans really ought to rename that great bacchanal of beer-guzzling and Wurst-chomping the Septemberfest.  For a nations famed for its philosophers, this seems a remarkably illogical way to go about things.

We have the Germans to thank for the Gutenburg press, a revolutionary piece of late-medieval gadgetry that eventually lead to the mass production of books ... and impeccably creased trousers.

After Goethe and Schiller, Germany's most influential author was Thomas Mann.  Lured to a life on the waves, his career in the navy was an extremely busy, though short-lived one.  Permanently exhausted after jumping to the commands, "Mann, the lifeboats!", "Mann, the rigging!", "Mann, the side!", he suddenly left the navy when someone shouted, "Mann, overboard!"


Well, if you were to spill your beer,
I'm sure you'd be annoyed, eh?
But I would laugh until I ached:
Now, that is Schadenfreude.