Already got your laugh for today?

George1959

Senior Member
Like many German Christmas markets, the Christmas market in Augsburg, Bavaria, is secured against Islamist attacks with concrete bollards. However, trams run there. This means that the bollards have to be moved 64 times an hour by security company employees using a lifting platform. And that's every day for one month. From Monday to Thursday and Sunday from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m., Friday and Saturday from 10 a.m. to 9:30 p.m.

Short version (English subtitles possible):


Long version without comment:

 

Okay, I must ask, since those bollards have minimal depth to them, what
are they protecting against??
They should not only protect against cars but even against big trucks, which might be used for terror attacks by driving with high speed into the crowd of people visiting the Christmas market. I also doubt that these bollards can do their job. And not to forget: If a car or a truck driver drives directly behind the tram, there is not enough time to stop this man.
But that's typical German. We call it "Eulenspiegelei". Till Eulenspiegel (literally "Till owl-mirror"). He is the protagonist of a European narrative tradition.

"Eulenspiegel's surname translates to "owl-mirror"; and the frontispiece of the 1515 chapbook, as well as his alleged tombstone in Mölln, Schleswig-Holstein, render it as a rebus comprising an owl and a hand mirror. It has been suggested that the name is in fact a pun on a Low German phrase that translates as "wipe-arse" (from Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Till_Eulenspiegel )

An "Eulenspiegelei" is a folly. Some comments below the videos name it "Narrenschiff Deutschland" (ship of fools Germany) after Sebastian Brant's satirical book "Ship of Fools".
Ship of fools - Wikipedia
 

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