...of Freud and Falco...(3 - People)

It's really not a good idea to generalise about the native population of an entire capital city, is it? (Apart from Paris, where I think you can confidently say you will find a higher concentration of startlingly snotty people than anywhere else in the world. That said I've also met some very nice Parisians. Three, I think.). So what can I possibly tell you about the Viennese? Well, 'they' (and I use the term to mean 'a conspicuous number') seem to be doing very nicely for themselves. Austria is one of the 12 richest countries in the world, fact fans, and it shows.

As in Munich, the signs of prosperity are everywhere in Vienna - plenty of very new, very expensive German cars on the roads, lots of healthy-looking, robust elderly people out socialising and spending their money (not cooped up indoors counting their coppers for the Care Home Fund, yellowed from lack of vitamin D and too many fags like in the UK), and - always a source of great amusement for me - the visible presence of comfortable-looking nuclear families in their late thirties/early forties, out for a Saturday stroll with their two small sons Moritz and Andreas, who are dressed as miniature copies of their father in cords, sweater and soft-collared shirts, their hair neatly parted and clipped in a faithful but terrifying twin facsimile. These kids look like they're off for a snifter at the golf club before a game of bridge despite being no more than six and eight years old, and there seem to be hundreds of them, trotting obediently and silently in their parents' wake while the adults select a suitably smart restaurant for a spot of lunch or fuss over the family Labrador (my god, do the Viennese love their dogs. Watch where your feet may end up.). I've only ever seen this strange child-ageing phenomenon in German cities and now in Vienna, and I don't understand it. Maybe a kind Viennese reader will stop by and explain?

As far as the natives I met went, everyone apart from the dreadful (but very funny) maitre d' at Glassis was helpful, friendly and pleasant - though you sometimes have to wait a while to get a smile (which I'm more than used to doing, living in a country where people actively often actively glorify in their negativity.). There was also a notable absence of darker skins, which for a capital city surprised me, and made me wonder how rare it must be to see black or Asian faces in the outlying districts if there are so conspicuously few in the capital itself. Tourists - like me - were abundant and predominantly American, with a fairly high number of Japanese wrestling tinily with the huge meaty gravy-drenched platters of food - as far away from delicate sashimi as you could get (though sushi and sashimi joints are everywhere if all that meat gets too overwhelming.). The streets are clean, well-lit and quiet, and it all feels very safe, even taking short cuts through the parks at night time.

My favourite encounter took place in Loos American Bar, a tiny, perfect, frozen-in-time landmark to Vienna's gloriously louche heyday as a European hub of sensual pleasure. Swinging by for an early evening cocktail we bagged the last free table, adjacent to an American man of about forty. He was sitting with his father who he resembled strongly in every way but demeanour, Son maintained a broad but slightly strained smile while Dad glowered angrily at his Sidecar as though he'd discovered a small scab floating in it. Seated on the other side of Dad was a smart woman in her sixties - a good fifteen years younger than him - who was obviously his wife, but equally obviously not Son's mother. They seemed frozen in an odd tableau, Son beaming mutely at the unengaged scowling Dad, with Wife sucking anxiously on her straw in the background while watching them both. I began to count silently to myself, knowing that Son would engage me in conversation well before I reached 'ten'. I got to seven.

"The Daquiris are remarkable here" said Son, taking my cocktail menu from me gently but firmly and turning to the appropriate page. "I can really recommend the Chocodaquiri."I thanked him and went back to flicking though the other pages, though - dammit - I'd been thinking of ordering a Daquiri anyway. "You from the Uk?" he continued. "I was in London a few weeks back. Business, not the Olympics, in case you were wondering. Have to say, it was a big surprise that you guys managed to pull it off. I mean, who'd ever have guessed? The transport was fine, the venue was fine, the crowds were, well fine - even your opening ceremony went fine! Who'd ever have guessed you could do it?" he mused, shaking his head incredulously and chewing thoughtfully on his olive. I wanted to ask him if he worked for Mitt Romney, but thought better of it, wondering as I did so why I was being so bloody polite.

"And the Paralympics went brilliantly as well," I said, thinking that this might be news to him. It was. He shook his head. "I don't think so," he said. "Nobody ever watches the Paralympics." This was too much. "Actually every event was sold out, and they pulled in record TV figures, " I told him. "The events got full press coverage too. It was great, a real boost for the athletes." He looked like he really, really didn't believe me but had graciously decided to let it go.

"My father and stepmother were just in Paris," Son volunteered, gesturing over to the glaring parent and his timid spouse. "Yeah, and I'd have headed back home with the rest of the group six days ago, if I hadn't had to head over here instead and see him," boomed Dad. "His son gave a shriek of hyena-pitched laughter that sounded like a sob. Dad fixed him with his sub-zero stare, while his wife fished desperately in the bottom of her glass for a stray maraschino cherry. "When do you fly back to the States?" I asked Dad. "Tuesday," he said, injecting the word with no small amount of rapturous longing. "Must be great to have family living in such a beautiful city," I ventured. "Pah," replied Dad, at which point his wife stood up suddenly and announced her need for the bathroom.

"Anyway, where are you folks staying?" asked Son, breaking away from Dad's death-ray eyes. I named the hotel. "Oh yeah, I stayed there," said Son confidently. "That's a Best Western, right?" I told him politely that it's actually a small independent hotel. "AND it's a Best Western," he added, poking out his lower lip like a petulant four-year old.

What IS the etiquette in a situation like this, gentle reader? I know perfectly well that the hotel I'm staying in is a small independent hotel because I found it, booked it, checked into it and am staying in it, and so far the Best Western logo has been satisfyingly absent from all transactions. How far should I be prepared to go to state my case? In the end I did the classic British Fudge, mumbling that if it's a Best Western I certainly wasn't aware of it and am rather surprised to hear it. I could hear my accent getting more English with every word I uttered; by the end of the sentence I sounded like Joan Plowright. But no matter, things were moving on to my left.

"HEEEEEY, Dad, you're looking like you're ready for another!" exclaimed Son, watching Dad sulkily twist his empty glass. Son turned to me. "There's no telling where he'll end up if he has another on of these babies, but hey..."
 "I had enough," said Dad, darkly and loudly. "When Marilla gets back from the bathroom, I'm heading back to the hotel." The air seemed to drain out of Son, along with any remaining will to persuade his father to enjoy himself. "Sure, Dad," he agreed. Dad already had one arm in the sleeve of his jacket as Marilla rejoined the unhappy pair. They were out the door within a minute, Dad's parting shot to us over his shoulder as he followed his defeated son a loudly whispered "Well! Three more days.." We had another cocktail each, and talked about the trio.

Back out on the streets of Vienna a busking festival was in full swing. We slyly photographed a group of quizzical-looking policemen watching a enthusiastic crusty playing a plastic didgeridoo to a terrible backing track (give them their due, they lasted longer than we did), then passed a terrifying, silent clown who was traumatising a small child by trying to place a balloon animal around the kid's neck while the kid clung desperately to his mother's leg. The child's screams were clearly disturbing the clown, who looked almost as scared of the nipper as the nipper was of him, but he'd decided on a course of action to pacify him and he was damn well going to see it through. I felt like giving Mum one of my cards and advising her to send the kid to me in ten years, when the full phobia embedded by this trauma will emerge, but it's a bit of long way to send him and I hear there are already one or two therapists practicing in Vienna.

In the end we spent half an hour watching a jolly round American man juggle a couple of chainsaws while balancing on a twelve-foot high unicycle, in the beautiful grounds of St Stephen's Cathedral. There's nothing kids across the world love more than the spectacle of a fellow human being putting themselves in severe and unnecessary danger of a spectacularly gory accident, and there were quite a few five Euro notes in the jongleur's hat at the end of his performance, quite deservedly. The man thanked the applauding crowd in a blend of English and German so fractured it was positively pulverised, as we took a slow measured walk towards the Cathedral steps pretending to be Ultravox in the closing frames of the 'Vienna' video.

It was after midnight by the time we headed back to our hotel through the Palace Park at Schonbrunn. The park was quiet though there were plenty of people around; teenagers snuggling up on the benches, groups of clubbers heading out for the night in their finery, well-dressed diners emerging from the Palm House Restaurant. On on of the lawns, picked out by the moonlight, an elderly couple were waltzing silently to a tune only they could hear, guiding one another lightly and gently through the turns and twists of the dance, like they looked to have been doing for fifty years or more. Late summer in Vienna.