And this season's hottest accessory is...

On Monday, I rushed out of the office to meet a Japanese ex-colleague for lunch, who promised to give me some more last minute hands-on information. I had already walked down one third of Graben on my way to St. Stephen's Square, when I noticed something...heavy brushing against my right thigh. At first I thought it was the buckle of my trenchcoat's belt. When I reached back to retrieve the offending object, it turned out to be a big fat blue coat-hanger!

It had obviously slid down and become entangled with my belt when I took the coat off the coat rack.

Thankfully, I did not hear any people laughing behind me, so I furtively snatched it off and was glad I had a collapsible shopping bag in my handbag.

I arrived at our meeting point with the hanger safely hidden in the bag, but had to tell my friend anway because I could not help giggling as mental images of the interesting sight I offered kept replaying in my head. Who knows, maybe I ended up on some tourist pics which will get stuck into an album with the caption "the Viennese certainly are a bit peculiar".