Thursday, January 24, 2013

The fifth season

The Nickname for the carnival season in Germany.

The roadside signs and billboards announcing carnival festivities appeared out of nowhere. 
That should not surprise us because it happens every year in the middle of January.

But they always catch us off guard. Are we just not paying attention, or can be blame it on mild hibernation after Christmas? We'll see next year.

The period between November 11 and Ash Wednesday is the carnival season, and around here they call it the fifth season. Doesn't that sound like a great title for a French art film that nobody would watch?

The official start of the fifth season is on 11 November, at 11:11.

If you know your history or have watched Steven Spielberg's "War Horse", you may recall that November 11, 11 o'clock, marked the end of World War I.

The two are as unrelated as can possibly be, the juxtaposition is what it is.

Although, in the spirit of outrageousness, wouldn't it be fun to imagine the spiked helmet brigade in the negotiations going: "Can we finish up on 11 November, and make that before  11:11, so we can go and put on the carnival uniforms?"


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