WiFi - why bother?

This year, I had to buy a new printer after my last HP printer gave up the ghost after four years. Unfortunately, I listened to my computer guy and got an Epson printer, which is the worst printer I've ever encountered in my entire life because there are white stripes across the pages, which means I have to guess what the words in the damaged lines actually are.

On top of that, though, is the faff (Herummacherei) involved in setting up the WiFi (WLAN) connection between the printer/scanner/photocopier and the computer itself. It took a long time to get that done. The password that I had to enter was damned long and with letters in lower and upper case, plus numbers. And I can't tell you how many times I had to enter it before it was accepted. Then, the next day, I'd have to do it all again. And the day after that, too. And so on and so forth.

After a while things settled down, but last week, I had to try to re-establish the WiFi connection yet again. And I did it, but only after entering the password a fair few times. But the next day, when I had to establish the connection yet again, I failed. Again and again and again. And the WPS button on the router didn't work either, before you ask.

In the end, with a bit of googling, I found you could buy a cable to link the printer etc. to the hard drive, so I went to notebooksbilliger, thinking it would be better for the high street if I were to actually support a local shop rather than order it via Amazon. Reader, the young man in the shop swore blind that they didn't have such a thing. Despite there being a whole load of cables hanging on the wall behind him. A young, good-looking man, the kind you might have found in a boy band of the past, I reckoned he was either too lazy to actually look at the cables on offer, or was working for a rival company and was trying to sabotage the business of notebooksbilliger. I left, returned home and ordered the cable on Amazon after all. 

Four days later, it arrived and I just took the cable out of the box, plugged it in to the printer and the hard drive and hey presto! Everything worked. No faff whatsoever. What a relief.

Just because wireless connection is possible, it doesn't mean you have to use it. A simple cable does the job much better.

Past, future - but what about the present?

I have a confession to make: I am a great worrier. No, not 'warrior', like some hulking hunk who's managed to survive an entire series of Game of Thrones or some other bloodthirsty programme, but a person who worries a lot.

Years ago, my past seemed to be stuck on a loop, playing scenes from my childhood, adolescence and the previous years of my adulthood time and time again. Images flashed before my mind's eye, as they are supposed to do when you're on the brink of death. They haunted me. However, I found some weekend seminars on psychology at the local adult education centre and they, along with some private sessions with the woman that led them, helped me put the past (mostly) to rest. (No-one's perfect.)

Now, however, I worry constantly about the future and have been doing so for the last few years, ever since the pandemic started. I am forever making calculations about how much money I might be able to set aside for my old age and how much I might still be able to earn from teaching even when I get the full UK state pension, and what might happen if the exchange rate drops further, and so on and so forth. There are bits of paper with calculations on them scattered throughout the flat - not to mention the endpapers of books that I've used to jot down some figures. The pocket calculator is one of my most-used gadgets.

Yet what will all this worry bring me? Nothing. I've survived so far and I can be pretty certain that I will continue to survive in the future. After all, what do I need? I certainly don't need to keep up with the Joneses; I am no status seeker. What I cherish most is my freedom, such as my freedom to pick and choose the work I want to do. If that means I have to live in a bedsit (what the Germans call a "studio apartment"), then so be it. So long as I have a bed to sleep in (and earplugs), a place to wash myself and cook for myself and space to store my stuff, that's fine.

I have to remind myself of a popular German saying: Unkraut vergeht nicht. I've just checked the translation and LEO.org suggests "bad weeds grow tall". Basically, it's usually said to imply that you're a bad lot and should survive. Rather in the same vein as "only the good die young", implying that you are a right old devil and should live to a ripe old age.

One thing I did a lot of last week was looking for inspirational quotes. I read a lot of quotes by Marcus Aurelius and then widened the search a bit.

This is one quote that I liked best:

Worry never robs tomorrow of its sorrow; it only saps today of its joy.

How true.

And to finish, here's a nice quote from the Dalai Lama:

If there is no solution to the problem, then don't waste time worrying about it. If there is a solution to the problem, then don't waste time worrying about it.

If only I could put that into practice. I shall try.

Germans and tea: the good, the bad and the incomprehensible

The Germans are famous for coffee and cakes, partaken in the afternoon. My German Oma always served them at 3 p.m. sharp and we always joked that my German Opa was always able to smell the coffee from afar as he always managed to get back from his post-lunch constitutional in good time for a cup of coffee and a slice of home-made slab cake or, as I believe the Americans call it, tray bake.

However, that does not mean to say that the Germans do not drink tea. Here are some points I've observed during my time in the Land of the Sausage (as I like to call Germany).

1. THE GOOD

What never fails to tickle me is the fact that the Germans are much more concerned with the quality of tea than the British, who are supposed to be serious tea drinkers. This German town has slightly more people in it than the whole of North Wales and has at least three tea shops that I can think of off the top of my head. (There may be more, but I don't know every corner of this town.) And yet there isn't one specialist tea shop for loose-leaf tea and accoutrements in all of North Wales. (Not when I last looked, anyway.)

When I tell the Germans that the British make tea with teabags, their faces fall. So disappointed are they. They still believe that the English in particular drink "four o'clock tea". Even in this day and age. 

The Brits make tea so strong you can stand a spoon up in it. Brick-red it has to be. And it's rumoured that what goes into the teabag is what they sweep up from the floor in the tea factory. The good stuff, it seems, is put into bags and sold in Germany: real loose-leaf tea of various blends and single origin teas. One accoutrement that I've only seen in Germany so far is the famous "Teeei" or "tea egg". They're like a perforated egg that you can unscrew, fill with tea, screw together again and thrown in a hot cup of water. Personally, I prefer "tea tongs" - no screwing involved!

2. THE BAD

Well, it's not so much bad as damned annoying.

As I said before, the Germans seem to think that just because you're British, you drink lots of tea - and only tea. Many are surprised when I order coffee and when I tell them that I drink more coffee than tea. And when it comes to presents at Christmas or "Mitbringsel" (little gifts you bring when invited to someone's home), I often get tea. HOWEVER, in the UK, when we say "tea" there is only one option we have in mind: so-called black tea. 

The Germans, however, think that any dried leaves constitutes "tea" and that the Brits will drink that, too. Sure, we have some herbal tea in the UK, but it's drunk by "cranks" or "health-food freaks" - well, that's the reputation such teas had. I hear that younger people are now turning to herbal infusions, but generally we do not normally drink "Christmas tea" or stuff like that. Tea that smells of all sorts of plants and aromas but isn't black. Basically, if you can't add a dash of milk into it, it ain't tea.

I can't tell you how many times I've passed on herbal tea to, say, the local library. Chamomile or peppermint - fine. Anything else... not tea.

3. THE INCOMPREHENSIBLE

So, since the Germans have good-quality tea available, I often order a cup of tea when out and about. My theory is that it's harder to muck up a cup of tea than a cup of coffee. (With coffee, it depends how much coffee they put into the filter and how long the coffee pot has been standing.)

However, when I order a cup or even a pot of tea, I get a cup and saucer, a spoon, milk and sugar and a cup of hot water and a teabag in a small paper case.

WHY????? How can you not pour the hot water straight onto the teabag when the water is boiling? You are supposed to pour freshly boiled water onto the tea. Not pour the water into a cup or pot and then maybe wait a while before taking it to the customer and then making them put the bag into the water themselves. Sure, you might say that if you do that yourself, you can calculate how long it's been brewing, but you can see that yourself from the colour of the water. 

On the whole, however, Germans take tea seriously and the quality is superior to what you get in the UK, so I'll suppose I shall just have to put up with this idiosyncracy. Now..where's the kettle?