The mad hair came on the cheap

 

Einstein's second wife was his cousin Elsa Loewenthal. Elsa could not persuade Einstein to pay for a barber so she would cut his hair herself. Waldow recalled: "When his hair was too long, when it was beyond the pale, Elsa would cut off his hair with scissors and he was willing to put up with it. As well as his disheveled hair, Elsa also trimmed the great scientist's moustache.

 

He made his shoes last

 

Penny-pinching seems to have been a thing in the Einstein household - a seven-room apartment. Waldow, who was the housekeeper¹ from 1927-1933, said that he was always short of cash and his wife was very penny pinching. He wore shoes with holes in them, even if they were no longer watertight. "He would wear them until it was no longer possible." She said his favourite footwear was sandals. No wonder he kept a sign up in his office in later life in Princeton that said: "Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts."

 

He really was an egghead (especially fried eggs)

 

Waldow had to deliver fried eggs and scrambled² eggs almost every day for his breakfast. There were eggs for breakfast, usually fried. There was also a lot of honey, which we bought by the pail, brought by a beekeeper. "Herr Professor always ate fried eggs, at least two." They bought their fresh eggs from an elderly Jewish man. "Dear me, he was so grubby!" Waldow said. Einstein also enjoyed mushrooms with his eggs. "He would probably have eaten mushrooms three times a day, that's how fond he was of them."

 

But he didn't want to eat 'bloody³' steak

 

He would only eat steak if it was very well done. He would always say: "I am not a tiger". Einstein didn't like having his private remarks published and later wrote, "it never occurred to me that every casual remark of mine would be snatched up and recorded. Otherwise I would have crept further into my shell."

 

And he hated English cooking

 

Einstein visited England in 1933 but wasn't much impressed with our cuisine⁴, saying of English cooking, "it's ghastly, they cook everything with mutton fat". But give him a strawberry and he was content. Einstein was "passionately⁵ fond of strawberries" - he liked a strawberry dish served with whipped cream, together with what he called "strawberry snow".

 

He hardly drank alcohol

 

Einstein only drank caffeine-free coffee called Kaffee Haag and black tea. The inveterate⁶ pipe smoker⁷ didn't drink much alcohol but like celery punch. Just imagine, celery punch!

 

He had a toy telescope on his desk

 

Waldow recalled that next to his desk Einstein kept a telescope for observing the stars. "It was a kind of school telescope mounted on a tripod," she said.

 

He loved playing the violin - but was terrible

 

Einstein liked to play the violin at night. He did not play pieces of music but "his own improvisations as he did his thinking to them". He played in the kitchen because he liked the way the tiles made the music resonate. Alas⁸, he wasn't that good. Fellow scientist Professor Walter Frierich said of Einstein's playing that he "bowed like a lumberjack".

 

Einstein was not a party animal

 

He hated attending social events and "he often railed against it very angrily". He did sometimes have dinner parties and special nights in with stars such as Charlie Chaplin.

 

He liked to wander round starkers

 

"Herr professor just liked to look at beautiful women, he always had a weakness for lovely ladies," said Waldow. The woman he called Fraulein Herta was 21 when she first started working for the 48-year-old Einstein. Waldow remembered that she blushed when she saw him naked. "It was very embarrassing for me. Either Herr Professor had not bothered putting on his bathrobe, or he was too lost in thought to remember wearing it". Ah, the old absent-minded professor excuse.

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