1. The Chancellor
Austria has had Karl Nehammer as Federal Chancellor for a year now.
Nehammer himself thinks he's done a great job, even though his People's Party has slipped from a dizzying first to a stable third place in all polls.
He wanted to celebrate the occasion properly, the public should participate.
But 15 to 20 individual interviews were too tedious for him.
So his new media guru Gerald Fleischmann, who had previously put Sebastian Kurz in a media slant, devised a new format: the Chancellor Talks.
Journalists from relevant media are specifically invited to come, all at once, for an hour and a half - and then everyone can construct their own interview with the Chancellor.
The exercise failed miserably.
The 65-hour blocking period was so absurd that it had to be changed.
Ultimately, the media reported more on the staging attempt than paying homage to the chancellor, who thought it had worked.
If you ask me about my personal Nehammer balance sheet: It is positive that he has evaded the staging frenzy of his predecessor Sebastian Kurz for so long.
Otherwise, I find that he is a hard-working and thoroughly committed manager of crises, although he always lags a step behind.
At least.
The fact that he is unable or unwilling to lead the ÖVP out of the corruption swamp does not speak for him.
What is left that could be credited to him later?
2. The greeting
The right half of the empire in Austria tends to say "Grüß Gott", especially in the countryside, while the left half usually greets "Guten Tag".
Last week, an invited person to provide information, a party official from the ÖVP from Lower Austria, entered the parliament to testify before the committee of inquiry.
Topic: alleged ÖVP corruption.
First he said: "Grüß Gott." An SPÖ deputy reprimanded him: "In Vienna it doesn't mean 'Grüß Gott', but 'Guten Tag'." It wasn't just the ÖVP official who was dumbfounded.
But the entire ÖVP.
A scandal.
The SPÖ wants to ban the ÖVP from saying hello.
Press releases were written, all hell broke loose on Twitter.
Salute militias were deployed.
The ÖVP will certainly not let the SPÖ ban saying hello.
However, the truth is: In the official castles, where red and black functionaries sit opposite each other, a compromise has long been agreed: one simply avoids both formulations.
From 10 a.m. people greet each other there with a "meal", already in anticipation of such a meal.
From 3 p.m. you say goodbye again with a whispered »Goodbye«.
3. The football
In Qatar, the Swiss national team beat the Serbian team 3-2.
Hundreds of Serbs took to the streets in Vienna-Ottakring and wished the Albanians dead.
More precisely: one calls for slaughtering them.
(Xherdan Shaqiri, a Swiss with Albanian roots, made it 1-0 in the 20th minute and perhaps celebrated a little too much when celebrating the goal. Serbia did the same for Germany and was eliminated from the World Cup after the game.)
Incidentally, the Serbs in Vienna, who are practically natives because they have been anchored here for at least three generations, don't give a damn whether you say "Grüß Gott" or "Guten Tag".
They stay out of it.
more on the subject
A spectacular victory: for Austria
And that Germany was eliminated from the World Cup – how should I put it?
We Austrians sympathize.
We celebrate with our malice in the basement, where since June 21, 1978 the adoration altar for St. Cordoba has been set up.
(The German team lost 3-2 to Austria in Córdoba, Argentina.) The Austrians can probably remember that in a tad more detail than the Germans.
My social media moment:
On current occasion, Nicola Werdenigg on St. Nikolaus.
Stories we recommend:
Karl Nehammer, a self-experiment: For the one-year anniversary, Karl Nehammer tried a new format: the "Chancellor Talks" with journalists.
A blocking period caused a stir, and protests followed.
A look behind the scenes .
ÖVP and SPÖ quarrel about the right greeting: what the argument about "Grüß Gott" is all about.
The trivialization of the People's Party: As chancellor, Karl Nehammer puts particular interests ahead of the common good.
In this sense: Bye, Baba and Pfiat di Gott,
Michael Völker (Head of Domestic Department, Der Standard)