It's halfway through January and it's 42 degrees in the shade, so it must be time for Schutzenfest, the largest German festival that's not actually in Germany.
Many people in Adelaide deride the Schutzenfest as being merely an excuse to buy really big steins of lagerbier and get astoundingly drunk, but there's many more facets to it than that. There's cakes, for a start, and air-rifle shooting, and lashings of Aussie Cider. It's the one weekend of the year that you can wear a truly awful hat in public and say the words 'pretzel wench' with feeling. And what's more, you'll probably end up with a pretzel.
It's also the only place in Adelaide where you can reliably buy German-language CDs. Apart from the sublime tones of Zillertaler Schurzenjager, last year I found Germany's answer to Status Quo: a band called 'Normaal'. This year I picked up a live CD of 'De Dijk', who have a damn fine brass section, if I may say.
So there you have it. Schutzenfest: an Adelaide institution of dubious morals and even more dubious musical tastes. Long may it run.
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