As I'll have to give a speech today, I thought a few opening words in Polish would be nice and had asked someone to translate them for me so I could practice, but whe I tried them out yesterday on my main contact in Krakow, he looked horrified and declared I sounded like the Pope (the current one, not the last one, whose image is everywhere in this country, btw) which I must not. I could have protested that while me might both be from the German South, he's a Bavarian and I'm a Franconian and so the accent is totally different, but instead I asked for a redraft and some more practice, and so I hope I'll be able to say hello without sounding too papal.

Thursday had a learning theme anyway. You'll see what I mean.

( Colleges, Pendulums and the Mines of Moria )