The spirit of this blog is perhaps summed up by something said by Karl Krauss, the Viennese satirist and habitual truth-teller: ‘Die Kunst dient dazu, uns die Augen auszuwischen’ – ‘The purpose of art is to wash the dust from our eyes’. To Central European intellectuals like Krauss, the coffeehouse was an essential part of life; a place of debate, conflicting ideas and ironic humour where it was possible to speak the truth in any of a dozen or more languages and be understood and welcomed by the other habitués, even if they disagreed with your opinions.