TV Observations

I sat last night and watched two information-related shows last night on German TV.

The first?  MEX....an HR information show.  They take various topics and go over these with legit experts.  The big topic last night?  Germans and their lack of sleep.

The people who collect statistical data say that 80-percent of all German adults have a problem with sleeping.  So the HR folks went out on the street and asked folks about remedy list.  Alcohol, sleeping pills, reading books. etc.

One German pharmacy manager was questioned over this, and noted that there are near 300 different sleeping pills now on the market in Germany.  Some are herbal in nature....some go to the stronger level.

The emphasis of the whole report is this odd statistic.....eight years ago, it was 47.5-percent of folks who said they had sleep issues.  Now?  It's almost 80-percent.  What changed in eight years?  Unknown.  They really couldn't find anything that stands out.  Maybe it's stress....maybe it's more of a society worried about something.  You just don't know.

The second show of interest was the Mario Barth Show.  Mario is a German comedian who covers a number of topics.  But he has a TV show which focuses on governmental waste of money.  As much as you'd like to think America is the king of wasting tax-payer money....the Germans work hard at wasting money as well.

So the show is entirely focused on various projects....from federal to state, and onto local city council projects.

Last night's lead topic was BER.  BER is the new Berlin airport which is now roughly seven years over their delivery date.  Most folks are confident that the airport won't open in 2017, and fairly confident that it won't open in 2018 either.  2019 is a 50-50 shot at this point, in my humble opinion.

What he pointed out last night covered several BER topics, but my favorite was the BER operations manual.  The airport has installed all of the phones and intercom devices.  To orientate yourself (if they were operational), you need to read the BER manual.  There's an entire page to explain how to use the phone.  Yeah, all phones are the standard type, and you'd think that instructions would not be necessary, but there's an entire page with a picture of identification of buttons.  Same for the intercom device.  The booklet has hundreds of tips but the curious thing is that it's been around for probably the whole seven years.  Nothing about the airport is operational, but the book is sitting there and waiting for someone to open the door and start landing planes.  In fact, the book appears to be the only thing that works as designed.