Next month, just after Easter, I have a business trip to Vienna for a project meeting (hopefully – the project coordinator has *still* not sent the details for a planned meeting that’s now less than a month away), and so
On the way to school this morning, I broached the subject with him again. After an initial “it’s boring”, he advanced the notion that it might be fun “because they have lungans in bins there”.
: - What’s a lungan?
: - They go in bins. We saw it in a film.
: - We? You and I? I’m not sure what a lungan is.
: - Yes, we saw them in the film we watched about Vienna.
: - Are lungans animals or people?
: - (with an odd look) They’re people, dad!
: - Sorry, I’m just being a bit dim this morning! Was this film in black and white? (thinking that it might be a dim and toddler-memory-accented recollection of The Third Man)
: - No, it was a colour film.
: - Gosh. You’ve got me stumped here. Can you remember anything else about the film?
: - Yes, there were people in bed and they were talking about things.
: - What sort of things were they talking about?
: - Interesting things!
: - Of course.
: - And he had a blackboard in his bedroom.
: - (realisation dawns) You’re talking about A Very Peculiar Practice! They’re not lungans, they’re nuns!
: - (embarrassed) Yes! Nuns, not lungans!
: - That programme is set in, well, a made-up university, not Vienna. There will almost certainly be nuns somewhere in Vienna, but I very much doubt that we’ll see them going through bins.
: - (disappointed) Oh.
: - Vienna has other things. It has very chocolately chocolate cake!
: - (brightening) Oh!
No wonder the lad has been lukewarm about Vienna – he’s been under the misapprehension that we’re going on holiday to a crumbling 1960s university campus!