Coffee

Coffee, that stuff that wakes your brain in the morning can, if you drink three to five, strong cups of the stuff a day, help prevent Alzheimer's, or so they say. Who say? Swedish & Finnish researchers that's who. This may of course have something to do with both Swede and Finn researchers having nothing to fill the time with during those six long months of darkness of course. This research however sounds encouraging as it has been found that the chemical in the brain that has some influence on the disease is lessened by the effects of coffee. Jolly good you say drinking three straight cups in an effort to stimulate deep thought and keep the ability to answer quiz questions alive until your first century dawns. Brilliant, if you remember to drink the stuff in the first place on not put a tea bag in the cup by mistake.

However, and there is always a 'however,' there is evidence elsewhere, whether from experiments on wide awake mice or humans I cannot tell and don't really care anyway, there is evidence that too much coffee can give you hallucinations! Now this need not bother most of us, that pink elephant Mike sees is caused by too much time in the 'Cock & Wallet,' in Dalkieth, and those spiders ruining Fishy's life are indeed there, that's what you get for living in Americas backwoods. It is of course a delicate balance when dealing with food as the research keeps coming and mostly disagrees with itself. Much reading between the lines (who sponsors this research for instance) and a great deal of cynicism is required to keep the mind sane. In this case careful coffee drinking is advised as while keeping the gray cells alive is very important to us all it can be somewhat diminished if those same gray cells are alive and well enough only to distinguish that large green mouse in the lavatory from the tree growing out of the television set! Women, you will not be surprised to hear, are much more likely to hallucinate and see things that are not there than men. Anyone who has had a woman in their house will of course already be aware of that, coffee or no coffee! On top of all this no one has mentioned that after drinking several strong cups of coffee the drinker cannot close their eyes for a month and the sleep deprivation may also have effects on their health. But that I suppose is the subject of different research!

However all this is slightly less worrying than the German manufacturers ability to foot their foot well in their mouths. Tchibo decided a slogan for their, rather strange, coffee shops was required. They chose 'To each his own,' and while you and I would innocently notice this and immediately forget it in Germany this is not possible. Why? Because the nasty Nazi's already made use of that phrase, on the gates of Buchenwald Concentration Camp, that's why! The camp was intended to hold political and religious prisoners, and a variety of others who offended the sensibilities of the Nazi Party. By putting 'To each his own' instead of 'Work makes free' as found on the extermination camp gates, the Germans intended it to be read as 'You get what you deserve,' at least in their eyes. It is easy to understand why a German coffee shops, probably innocent, advert should be read as offensive to some. The 'sins of the fathers' have been handed down to even this generation of Germans, and those sins were so grievous even coffee is cursed it seems.