The month that was November

I haven't published since October so, feeling guilty, I poked around my Drafts folder and found nothing even barely blog-worthy.

Blame the job stuff: meetings, commercial writing, tweaking, revisions, ,more writing, more tweaking throwing everything out, starting again, presenting again, trying to find the stuff that was thrown out and presenting it again. On and on went the Sisyphean roller coaster that is advertising.

But! Other things happened outside of the advertising bubble (thank goodness!) and so here is a roundup of the month that was November, or, as they say in German, November.


The Underwear Situation

Until now I have visited Canada with enough frequency that my underwear drawer has remained well stocked with good Canadian underpants, like the good ol' Canadian boy I try to be. I am currently in the longest stretch between visits to Canada (18 months) and have stretched my underwear drawer thin. 

Instead of turning yesterday's underpants inside out and donning them for a second day, I went underpants shopping in Germany for the first time. It lasted five minutes, cost little, and I was proud until I tried on a pair. 

For starters, a German medium is like a Canadian small. The tight elastic bands around my waist were so tight they gave me a muffin top. They also wedgied me and generally constricted everything in uncomfortable ways. 

Arguing over the return policy for underpants it didn't seem like a fun way to practice my German, so I went to a fancier store and paid a premium for quality underwear for the German larges. I threw in a pair of loose boxers, just in case.


Voting with hearts, not minds

One thing you learn in advertising is that successful brands don't make a rational argument to get you to buy their product – they make an emotional argument.

Think you're aware of what they're doing and all your purchase decisions are based on rational thought? Wrong! Studies show people are great at rationalizing their emotions in order to validate their purchase decisions.

The same can be applied to voting. My favourite example is Barack Obama, who ran on hope and won. Canada's new PM ran on "Sunny Ways" against a grumpy, cynical rival and also won.

This year we saw the other, darker side of emotional positioning in politics. 

Voters in Britain were told their country no longer belongs to them and were invited to take it back, despite the political and economic consequences. The Donald in America, appealed to a fearful, frustrated white working class with nostalgia, bigotry, sexism, and vague promises of prosperity to win the presidency. 

Of course, great advertising can't save a lousy product, so both of those emotional propositions were buttressed with lies, half-truths, and obfuscations.

Next month, Italy holds a referendum on constitutional reforms that could decide the fate of the current centrist government. Austria has the run-off vote for its presidency this Sunday. French presidential elections are next spring. German federal elections are in the autumn. 

Emotional messages around the nation work, especially when supported with falsehoods. 

If the current Powers That Be wish to remain in power, they will have to find similarly strong emotional messaging for voters – dismissing anyone outside the centre as racist or radical doesn't count. And they shouldn't feel like they have to lie, they're selling a great product: Democracy.


iPhone ergo iMarshall


I have joined the 2010s! I still type like one thumb, I haven't joined the Snapchat, and I still miss the simplicity of a flip phone or my old Blackberry's keypad, but I'm adjusting. 

My last phone for the last two years was a Windows phone, which had a nice interface and was easy to use by Luddite standards. Now, I am easing myself into a new operating system, with new swipes and taps and icons and actions, and a daunting new world of apps.

It also comes with a cool camera, so as I adjust to the 2010s, I will take some pretty pictures along the way.

The era of the iPhone Photos in Strange Places has begun!

Best Beer Bragging Rights

Who has Europe's best cheese? Ask a Frenchman, Italian, or a Dane about their cheese and watch the bloodbath begin. 

The best chocolate? Belgium, the Swiss, and the Dutch are too peaceful for a blood bath, but a Chocolate-Off might ensue.

Few topics bring out exceptionalism quite like the debate over who has the best beer, which I find strange. I come from a country that doesn't brag about having the best beer, just beer that's better than anything the Americans can brew.

After four years of painstaking research and over-sampling in bars and patios all over Europe (it was difficult, but I did it for you dearest reader), I have made a list in an attempt to untangle Europe's finest beer nations... in no particular order.


Germany
Germany has great factories, cars, public transit, and decent sausages, but their breweries are hamstrung by the country's Beer Law, which stipulates making beer with only hops, water, and barley. 

There are great tasting wheat beers and pilsners, and solid locals brews like Kölsch and Altbier. But! Germany has no stouts or frothy ales, no fruity beers, if that's your thing, or limited run seasonal craft beers.

So, the beer here is great, but Germany doesn't quite have the best beer, but it has the best beer laws, which is a wonderfully German thing to be good at.


Belgium 
Some might be angry at Belgium for holding up the Canada-E.U. free trade deal, but remember they have the best beers. 

Trappist beers, the dark beers, the strong beers that make you wobble on the way to the bathroom, fruity beers. They do everything and they do it proper, and not just proper-tasting, but also in proper fancy glasses. 

In a way, I'm sad about the successful free trade talks. Failed talks would have meant less beer for export to Canada and more beer for me here.

Fancy Boy Glasses in Antwerp!

France
There are no French beers. If a Frenchman wants a beer, he'll drink wine. If a tourist at a bar wants a beer, he is served a Stella Artois – from French part of Belgium, at least – and ignored the rest of the night. Or so I've heard.


Netherlands
The Dutch have a great business model: Make Heineken, and sell it all over the world for a ridiculous profit and go laughing to the bar to order a round of delicious Belgian beers.


Ireland
Guinness. It tastes like beer and coffee combined. Yay for Irish Beer Coffee! 


Czech Republic
Those crazy Czechs drink more beer per capita than anyone else. And it shows, because they have some good beers... and good beer bellies because you need somewhere to rest your beer.


Slovakia
The Slovak beer is almost as good as the Czech beer. But they're a mountain people, so they have local-made hard liquors. I tried some on a hike through Tatra. It warms your toes, face, and brain, and made me feel ike a lightweight. Don't mess the Slovaks' mountain juice.


Hungary
Another wine country, although it's underrated. Their beer is good. Not as good as the Czechs, but better than the Slovaks. My advice? If you're in Hungary, get the beer if you want, it's good, but drink the wine, drink the fröccs, hell, drink the palinka in responsible quantities – or irresponsible quantities if you want a good and/or bad story.

Poland
That beer before liquor rule applies to Poland as well.


Portugal
They drink their beer out of little bottles. Why? Because then you drink it quickly before it gets warm. This is important because their beer is nice cold, and mucky when it's warm. The Portuguese have also perfected the Buy-Two-Beers-at-a-Time Move to match the average drinking speed there.


United Kingdom
We make fun of their warm beer because we just don't understand. Then you're there and you're all confused by the beers with the strange names in the pub and in you point all confused at one of the taps and then you drink it and it's room temperature and you pause because you're realize you're an ignoramus and it's actually pretty good. 


Bulgaria, Slovenia, Bosnia, Croatia
They have their own national beers and they're all good. But I can't chose which one is best because they're all good and indistinguishable from one another and I don't want to take any sides and– oh my god, it's like a metaphor!

Beer.

Edinburgh and its Historical Ghosts

I could go on about Edinburgh. And the scotch. The architecture. The pubs. Oh, and the meat pies. The warm beer that actually tastes alright. The scotch... did I already say that? 

I heard about these wonderful things for years about the city, which propelled to the top of my Cities-To-Visit-Before-I-Have-Kids-and-Become-Too-Poor-and-Tired-to-Travel List.

Today, I'm telling you about something else: Edinburgh loves its historical ghosts. The city bleeds history – and has a lot of history about bleeding – and embraces it. All of it.

Here, they build monuments to poets and writers, not politicians and war heroes. There too many Robbie Burns statues to count, and there's beautifully Gothic, and monumental, the Walter Scott Monument.

The Walter Scott Monument.
Writers so rarely get this type of recognition.

It's not only the monuments that give you a sense of this city's strange love of its own history, warts and all – it's the stories they tell.

History in Edinburgh, and perhaps the rest of Scotland, is taught and told in yarns over pints in a pub or through ghost stories well after dark – all with that typically wry, ironical Scottish self-deprecation. 

If you are to believe the tour guides' theatrics, this city is filled with ghosts. The medieval city, most of which still eerily stands, was so crowded the dead were simply buried under the sidewalks. You're literally walking on the dead when you window shop along the Royal Mile.

There's the legend of Bloody MacKenzie, whose mausoleum is said to be cursed and – because you must include the young 'uns – is a stone's throw away from a school. 

There's the pub in the Grass Market named after a woman who was hanged and then miraculously came back to life. There's the death and suffering Edinburgh's vault, which housed the city's poorest, most desperate during the Industrial Revolution, not a great time to be poor.

The other pub named for Deacon Brodie, the cabinet-maker who robbed the homes he built cabinets for and was hanged on the gallows he built. If the Scots are known anything it's their gallows humour.

These stories and many more about battles and betrayals and the barbarism, ages ago and in the recent past, show this city embraces the ghosts of its past – and the mysterious rolling fog and the darkly romantic Gothic architecture just fits naturally with it.

Edinburgh's Castle.

Just in case a duel breaks out,
there's lots of weapons on the wall.

The gloomy view from Edinburgh Castle.

Strolling the streets

The best way to discover a city is walking it. Strolling down streets and into distant districts, and in Edinburgh's case, up a hill and cliffs – Arthur's Seat and the Salisbury Crags – overlooking the city. On foot, we visited the Botanical Gardens and the nearby Stockbridge neighbourhood, with its cute storefronts and Georgian houses. With a hot coffee in hand, we also discovered Leith, the city's old port and working class area.

Some might prefer seeing a city from station to station on the underground subway or getting the summary on a Hop-On-Hop-Off tour bus, but all we need is two feet and heartbeat.

Discovery Walks stop for nothing!
Even the rain!

The Salisbury Crags

Deep thoughts after the walk.

Ghost Sighting

We booked a tour in Edinburgh. Usually we avoid the tourist-y things, but we compelled to do it in such a spooky, superstitious city.

We heard ghost stories in the Greyfriars graveyard and visited vaults built into the South Bridge that were built for storing merchants' wares but eventually stored people in horrendous conditions. At one point we heard footsteps running past the door of the vault we were in, even though no one else was in the tunnel.

After the eerie tour, we walked through the Old Town and snapped a few photos of the dark, quiet, deserted street on our way to a pub for a night cap. I turned around and snapped a random photo behind us.

Look closely, crossing the street in front of the church.

Upon closer examination, you can see what could be an odd reflection of light, or a ghost, crossing a street. 

Here's it looks like in the un-enhanced close-up.

Is it a ghost? Kata thinks not, but I think so – this is a city that embraces its history and the ghosts that come along with it.