A "Hundebar"....#255

ist wunderbar!

A dog's life doesn't appear to be that bad, after all....

Update:

Perchance a little short on information.
Located at one of the few (and very strictly regulated) outlet malls

Self service - #254

Got a call yesterday afternoon from our friend, Petra Bittl, the ceramics artist from Bonn.

(Hugely talented and we were lucky enough to discover her before she achieved widespread recognition and her prices went ballistic. That's one of ours, abovr)

Opening of an exhibition in the foyer of the State Parliament in Mainz, would we care to toddle along?

Drinks and nibbles on offer, too

The usual 40 minutes or so of droning-on and platitudes by politicians, civil servants and lobbyists and I'm thinking "There aren't really that many people here who aren't involved with the exhibition itself..... Maybe 5. Max 10. Out of 60?"

Confirmed by the introductions:

"Honourable Deputy Leader of the House, Mayor, councillors, members of the State Parliament, sundry politicians, senior civil servants, lower ranking civil servants, drones, representatives of the clay industry, head honchos from the ceramic museum, artists, musicians, organisation committee.... guests"

So this is mercifully over at some stage, buffet's opened and - great sucking noise - WHOOOOSH!

I've never seen people get the nosebags on so quickly.

Looked as if a swarm of locusts had been through.

Not even crumbs.

OK. Wine.
Local stuff and not too bad either. Not GOOD, but drinkable.

(Big hoo-ha a while back, when they served wine from a neighbouring state at an official function in Mainz. "Cardinal sin" doesn't get close)

So - one by one - the mayor, councillors, members of the State Parliament, sundry politicians, senior civil servants, lower ranking civil servants, drones, representatives of the clay industry, head honchos from the ceramics museum, artists, musicians, organisation committee drift off

Laden down with free 10kg samples of clay and whatever else wasn't firmly attached to the floor.

Honourable Deputy Leader of the House and ex-Economics Minister, Hans-Artur Bauckhage, was still hovering round so we got chatting about politics, pots and whatever.

So he says goodbye, we say goodbye and talk to Petra for a bit longer.

And he's back!

Chatting about politics, pots and whatever as if he's never clapped eyes on us in his life before.

Says goodbye (again), we say goodbye (again) and make tracks for the car, just in case he gets us a third time.

Maybe the wine wasn't that bad, after all....

Window shopping - #253

I hereby declare Speyer to be a suburb of Mainz. Temporarily, at least.

(It's only a hop, skip and a jump of 80km or so down the road and the way Mrs jb drives, you're there in a flash...)

If it's on your travel itinerary, you'll know that the Cathedral was recognised as one of the most important Romanesque monuments from the time of the Holy Roman Empire and elevated to its current status as a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1981.

And if you look back down the main drag, you'll see the Town Gate - at 55m, one of the tallest in Germany.

And then there's the Jewish Courtyard, Memorial Church, City Hall, St. Magdalena, St. Ludwig, Fish Market, Sculpture Garden and Old Mint.

That's all that speyer.de deems worthy of mention on their Tourism page on the interweb.

They've missed out a classic.

The Archäologisches Schaufenster - the Archeological Shopfront.

It's an outpost of the State Government's Conservation Department in Mainz, with the usual administrative functions, storage areas for archaeological finds and so forth.

But on the ground floor, they've got a look-through-the-glass-window and-watch-the-conservationist-at-work area and an exhibition space, where they've had a curator at work who definitely knows his or her stuff.

You'll frequently encounter exhibitions which are collections of ...bits and pieces.

Not here.

These displays have context - they're articles unearthed during the excavations of Eisenberg, a Roman artisan settlement between Speyer and Mainz, dating from the earliest Roman colonisation to the 5th C AD - and walking around, you see how the items were used in everyday life and from which location and environment they were sourced.

And of course we had the absolutely enchanting Frau Weinberger to give us an impromptu introduction that turned into one of the best tours of an exhibition that I can recall.
Full of enthusiasm, knowledgeable without being intellectual or academic, willing (and able) to discuss aspects of the exhibition - an absolute treat.

In the courtyard in front of the building, you really can window-shop.

The two stylised structures on the left (Roman buildings in their original size) are double-glazed - as it were - with exhibits to whet one's appetite for the good stuff within.

And the structure in the foreground is the recreation of a Frankish burial site, with the red sandstone slab casket in the centre and the burial mound suggested by the semi-circular contour of the Cor-Ten steel sheet.

In fact, it was so good, I think I'll revisit in spring.


There's also the added attraction of Mr Ho's Asian restaurant in the Kutschergasse - everything cooked in the wok before your very eyes. And nothing costs more than €8.

("Oh! You're from New Zealand?" he says " I'm from Hong Kong. Just around the corner...")

And an Apple Premium Reseller.

So I know where I'm buying my iMac...

A bit frayed around the edges - #252

The shopping arcade that links the Grosse Langgasse with the Schillerstrasse used to be as flash as a rat with a gold tooth.

Put it this way: Mrs jb used to clothes-shop there...

'nuff said.

Over the years, it's become a bit of a backwater, while other bits of the city have smartened themselves up and captured the pedestrian traffic.

The movie theatres are still there, though, despite the mega CineStar complex down next to the Roman Theatre railway station.

Which is why Marilyn still graces the wall....

Sloe gin and fast wimmin - #251

It's quite surprising what one finds when one lurks the hedgerows around these parts.

These are sloes, the fruit of the blackthorn (Prunus spinosa, which is a dead give-away that it's related to the plum).

The fruit's quite astringent (Agree. Took me 3 hours to untwist my lips...), but it supposedly makes a good jam and - best of all - converts cheap gin into an agreeable liqueur when mixed in with sugar.

There's a recipe over here.

(I especially like the bit " Take a litre bottle of gin and drink half a litre...)

And they make shillelaghs out of the wood. If you're in Ireland, that is...

Comfort food - #250

OK, so we've got regular cabbage, red cabbage, sweetheart cabbage (I had to look that up - it runs under "Spitzkohl" - pointed cabbage), butternut and hokkaido pumpkins and swede.

And one of the best inventions since sliced bread - soup veggies.

Everything you need for a decent casserole of stew, neatly bundled together and costing about €1

Honk if you're southbound - #249

Standing out in the road yesterday afternoon with ace reporters Hans-Willi and Birgit, rewarding ourselves for a good day's work in the garden with an Eisgrub beer, we witnessed the autumn migration of the storks.

"Impressive" doesn't come close.

Even more so when you read up about it (and it's a good thing I did, because the prevailing opinion was that we had Canada geese in our sights. Closer examination of the image suggests storks. Especially the trailing legs.).

At least 4 groupings of this size, flying southwest towards their winter quarters in France, Spain and - to a lesser extent - North Africa.

These guys set off yesterday morning from the Mecklenburg Lakes in north-eastern Germany, which is a staging area for birds from Scandinavia, Finland and Belarus.

They reached us at shortly before 5 pm and headed on at a steady 80kmh, honking merrily amongst themselves.

I wasn't quite aware how big this really is.

BirdLife International, an alliance of conservation group, involved over 40,000 people tracking and logging migratory activities a couple of weeks ago and NABU (Naturschutzbund = Nature Protection Society), the German conservation group, has excellent on-line resources, including web-based sighting reporting.

Which we duly did.

And talking about migratory birds....

Oliver - #248

"Oliver" is a hairdresser in the Gaustrasse, just down from the Stefanskirche.

Never been there - too expensive for me and too cheap for Mrs jb.

There was another Oliver, though, and the thought of the experience still gives me the heebie jeebies.

Mrs jb was a Sandwich Mechanic for 10 years or so back in the mumble mumbles and I used to tag along on decent flights.

So we're in San Francisco and it's decided that the hair's looking a bit tatty and oh-look-there's-a-vidal-sassoon-i've-always-wanted-to-go-to-vidal-sassoon's-meet me-here-in-an-hour.

Even back then, I was clued up enough to head off to a book store where I buy - and this is how deeply this incident is embedded in my psyche - The Rolling Stone Record Guide, Kenneth Galbraith's "An Ambassador's Journal" and a book of Anselm Adam photographs.

Chances are I bought a Joe Walsh album, too.

Turn up at the appointed time and get presented with a bill which states:

"1 Oliver - $3,000,000"

Something like that anyway.

A number that was - and still is - totally out my range of comprehension....

In the name of the Father....- #247

..and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, I baptise thee Johannes.

Gutenberg, that is.

This is St Christopher's in the centre of Mainz, first documented in 893 as a parish church and built in its present form between between 1280 and 1300 and indisputably the church of Gutenberg's baptism.

It was gutted by fire in a bombing raid in WW2 (Thanks for that, Arthur..) and was saved from demolition in the 1950s by the proverbial skin of its teeth.

The modern flying buttresses you can see through the windows were added in 1963 to secure stability of the main structure and it remains as a stark reminder of the insanity that went on in the first half of the last century, with its inscription

"To remember the dead, to admonish the living"

Cinquecento - #246

This is Fiat's "new" (very retro) 500 model.

Turned up at the dealers here last weekend - one per dealer.

Just like that.

No brochures, no price. Nothing.

Well, what's the point? The first year's production is sold out and it's achieving a premium of 20% on Ebay.

A bit different from the original, though.

That was introduced 50 years ago and "500" had a real significance - 500cc....

All of 17 bhp (although it later got tweaked to 23 bhp on production cars and Abarth doubtlessly got a bit more out of it.)

This one has 100 bhp and the turbocharged version will have a decidedly unhealthy 150 bhp

And here's Mrs jb as a dolly bird with HER Fiat 500, mumble mumble years ago

Tags: mainz, Fiat 500, retro

The Naked Truth - #245

There are two ways of harvesting grapes

You go through the lines of vines with your team, cut off each bunch and snip out the unripe grapes, the mouldy ones, the ones that the birds have been at and the one's that are starting to rot.

Then you make your wine with ripe, clean grapes and nothing else.

Or you can run a mechanical grape harvester through, which will pick up everything - ripe grapes, twigs, dirt, leaves, unripe grapes, mouldy grapes, bird-eaten grapes, rotting grapes and possibly a mobility-challenged rabbit or two .

I know which I prefer...


Victoria at Joplin Daily Photo tells me that she's tagged me.

If I've understood the concept correctly, I have to reveal 8 things about myself and then tag 8 other people.

So here goes.


1. I have flown over 2,000,000 miles and spent almost a complete year of my life in aeroplanes and airports.

2. I don't much like cauliflower.

3. Patrick Maisey says I'm a farmer.

4. I have parachuted out of a C47 from 1000 feet into the Waitemata Harbour, doing an involuntary forward somersault on exiting the aircraft whilst yelling "Geronimo".

5. I am occasionally mistaken for Ian Botham.

6. I once got 4% in a physics exam and went on to design quite successful Interactive Voice Response (Digitised Evi Seibert's voice even...) and Revenue Management systems.

7. I once sat next to Daliah Lavi on a flight and wondered why people looked envious. I had no idea who she was and having done some research, it doesn't much bother me either.

8. Based on a regression analysis of the lifespans of my direct ancestors (dating back to 1580), I should be dead by now.

My tagging victims are

Jilly at Menton Daily Photo

Rich at Wassenaar Daily Photo

Joy at Norwich Daily Photo

Lynette at Portland Daily Photo

Meg & Ben at Nelson Daily Photo

Fredrik at Ystad Daily Photo

Kate at Visual St Paul (though I imagine she's been tagged a zillion times already)

Chuckeroon at Richmond upon Thames Daily Photo


Go forth and multiply, as they say...

Tags: mainz, wine, harvester

Die Eisgrub - #244

The Eisgrube (Eis = Ice: Grube= Pit) in Mainz fulfilled the same function as an icehouse (Check out Minette Walters' thriller by the same name - it's excellent).

It was built in 1872, just below the Zitadelle in the Weissliliengasse, dug into the hill to provide storage for the ice that the city needed in summer.

Meantime Carl von Linde invents mechanical refrigeration in 1871.

Bad timing, guys, bad timing...

Share prices for ice storage and distribution companies crash.

Fast forward to 1989 and the opening of Die Eisgrub ("e" tend to get lost in the Mainz dialect..), the only (the ONLY...?) brew-pub/microbrewery in Mainz.

I've always liked the place and the beer's quite excellent, but I've always missed the opportunity to buy some for home consumption.

No longer.

Enter the "Eisgrub Flasch" (See what I mean about the self-destructing "e"...?)

You buy it for €2 and get a litre of freshly drawn beer - light or dark, although I'm sure they'd mix it if you asked nicely..) for a mere €3.

Keeps for a few days, they claim, but it didn't get much of a chance to prove it...

Tags: eisgrub, mainz, Zitadelle

Smoke, smoke, smoke that cigarette - #243

"Now, I don't want to get on a rant here" Dennis Miller would say.

Smoking restrictions are gradually creeping across the land.

The politicians could ignore the trend for much longer.....

Give that Germany has a federal structure, stuff like this gets done regionally.

So some states have a smoking restriction in place in August, Hessen (neighbouring state) from October, Rheinland-Pfalz (i.e. Mainz) February 2008....

Wrote to Kurt Beck, the premier, asking him which good reason he had for exposing bar staff and sundry guests to a health hazard for a second longer than necessary, but I've yet to receive a reply.

You can still smoke in the open, though, if you're that way inclined....

Tags: kurt beck, mainz, smoking

A day at the beach - #242

I was having a bit of the moan the other day, envying my mate R&R in the Netherlands his proximity to the sea.

He, in return, wished for vineyards just around the corner.

Well, sport, I've discovered the ideal possie for us.

We're just 30 million years too late.....

This is the Weinheimer Trift. When the Mainz Basin - all 1.3 million acres of it - was a subtropical sea, this was a white sandy beach, lined with palms.

I kid you not.

In the sea, you would have found crocodiles, turtles, sea cows, sharks and stingrays. On land, flamingos, pelicans, rhinos, tapirs, apes and elephants.

The sand's long gone, but the cliffs are still there, with skeletal remains of sea cows, fossilised sharks' teeth and more bivalves that you you can say "she sells seashells on the seashore" to.

Which is why the place is sealed up tighter than Guantanamo.

Without the shackled figures in dayglo orange overalls, that is.

Ho hum...#241

Yet more accolades...

Folks DO seem to like this image.

First it gets chosen for an online tourist guide for Frankfurt.

Now it's gone and won a prize in a competition run by our local rag, the Mainzer Allgemeine Zeitung.

(Got a breathless call last night from the Nobel Academy in Stockholm our neighbour across the road, star reporter Birgit S., last night, bringing the tidings of great joy)

But I have to say that the prizes are definitely going down hill.

The last time they ran something like this, I won a 5 course menu for 2 at the restaurant in the Hilton - at least US$200 at today's prices.

AND the Wine Princess was on hand - tiara and all - with congratulations.

This time it's a book on how to take digital photographs.

By mail

And no Wine Princess.

Not that I'm ungrateful or anything...

Tags: allgemeine zeitung, birgit schenk, frankfurt, mainz, Schirn, schmap

The truth will out...#240

Well, they tried covering it up, but it didn't work..

The tatty tarmac job that someone slung on top of the brick surface of the Stefansstrasse, leading from St Stefan's down into town, is gradually crumbling away, revealing the original material.

Mind you, it's probably not absolutely original.

There's possibly a French trottoir under the bricks, closely followed by a Roman via.

As I've said before, it best not to go beyond a gentle sweeping around these parts...

(Someone ignored my advice yesterday and clunked against a 250kg bomb with a digger. Being defused at 11am, if you'd care to drop by and watch..)

The Gardeners - #239

Darius Niklas works for the Iveco commercial vehicle dealership as a mechanic and is on their 24 hour Roadside Assistance team.

How he finds time to garden as well, I have no idea.

But he's leased this big open sunny area right next to the Gonsbach (Goose Creek) in Gonsenheim and it pretty much keeps the extended family (he's birthday boy Christoph's nephew) in flowers, fruit and veggies throughout the year.

Mum and Dad wewre over for the birthday, so they got roped in yesterday.

From left to right: Mum, Dad, Darius, Tobias, Sarah and Danuta. (Markus, the oldest of the kids, showed a bit of sense and maintained a healthy distance from the work..)

We did quite well out of our visit, too.....

Did someone mention Zwiebelkuchen? - #238

The traditional accompaniment to Federweisser is Zwiebelkuchen or onion flan.

Standard fare in virtually every wine bar around here from September until well into October.

Wildly varying quality and price, so I suggested to the regional newspaper, the Mainzer Allgemeine Zeitung, a few years back that they did a not-very-serious series, comparing the various offerings on parameters other than taste - price per square centimetre, thickness of the base compared with topping, base sogginess index, that sort of stuff.

"Oh, no, we couldn't do THAT! We might OFFEND someone"

I might get round to doing it myself at some stage....

In the meantime, here's one that's pretty much at the top of the heap.

We use pizza dough, which stays thin and crisp, and the topping comprises Vidalia-ish onions, 3 eggs, creme fraiche, creme double and pancetta.

And I get to eat the leftovers for lunch.

Lucky me..

Republicans. Boo! Hiss! - #237

No, not George W. Bush's lot.

The Germany-for-the-Germans, seal-the-borders-and-kick-out-the-foreigners, extreme right wing splinter party (i.e 1% of the total vote and shrinking) held a conference (about 800 delegates) in the Rheingoldhalle in Mainz on Saturday, flanked by a 2000 strong protest by a mixture of unions, church, ultra-left, liberals, socialists, military service opposition groups, peaceniks, anarchists and assorted right-minded citizens, none of the above being mutually exclusive.

And "Mainz 05 Supporters against Fascism", which allowed Harald Strutz, the club president, lawyer and local Liberal politician to strut around, preening himself like a bloody peacock and making sure that everyone was watching him.

The Eisenturm ("Iron Tower", site of a medieval metals market) was graced by a banner saying "You are not welcome", replacing - for the day - one with "R for Republic", marking it as a station on the "Road of Democracy", celebrating the democratic movement of the early 19th C.

And the Reps had to bring along their thermos flasks.

The city couldn't prevent them from renting the venue, but the staff at the Hilton (which has the catering concession for the Rheingoldhalle) said "Sod this - WE'RE not serving THEM..."

Way to go

An OpEd over at YMBFA

It's actually quite good for you...#236

It's Federweißer time!

Yippee!

Winemaking goes something like this.

Pick the grapes and crush them to extract the juice, add yeast and let it bubble away until the sugar's been converted to alcohol.

Filter. Bottle. Sell. Drink.

If you're quick and you live in the right place, you can treat your taste buds to Federweißer or Young Wine.

As in: "Pick the grapes and crush them to extract the juice, add yeast and let it bubble. Drink"

It's pretty much like fizzy, murky grape juice with a bit of a kick - around 4% alcohol - and you need to drink it on the day you buy it, because the conversion process keeps right on going in the bottle.

Which is why they're unsealed.

A couple of Euros for a litre bottle.

It's a great little money spinner for the vintners - instant cash flow, no cellar costs, no labelling, no storage, no transportation.

A lot of them have even planted early-cropping varieties specifically for Federweißer.

Which means "The white of the feather", referring to the yeast particles that give it its milky appearance.

And it's very healthy - contains yeast, lactic acid bacteria and heaps of Vitamin B1 and B2.

Burp..

I DO beg your pardon.......

Brille? Fielmann! - #235

If there was ever a German marketing success story in recent years, it has to be that of Fielmann, the chain opticians.

Up until 1981, there were exactly 8 different (plastic) spectacle frames that the health insurance would pay for.

And were they UGLY....!!!.

Günther Fielmann was an optician in Cuxhafen and figured that there was a market for stylish, inexpensive frames, so he did a deal with one of the health delivery organisations and designed 90 models in 640 permutations.

Today, he sells 50% of all frames sold in Germany and has a 21% market share and all this with 5% of the number of outlets.

The advertising slogan is "Glasses? Fielmann!" and it's become firmly anchored in the culture.

The stores are stylish, staffed with personable qualified opticians - 15% of his 10,000 or so staff are apprentices - and he plants a tree a year for each employee.

800,000 and counting.

Of course they'll try and flog you all sorts of extras, but they're not pushy and if you say that you don't want the special insurance against meteorite impact, they're quite happy to let it go.

Coming to a country near you.....

Jambon de Mayence - #234

I'm not sure if this rediscovery will in future rank up there with the Roman ships and the amphitheatre, but it certainly caused a kerfuffle on the market today.

The Jambon de Mayence - the Mainz Ham - was a huge export success dating back to the 16th C.
Francois Rabelais raved about it in 1534 and even Thomas Jefferson is recorded as singing its praises in 1788. The French even have a song about it.

But in recent (90 or so...) years, it disappeared around here.

Sort of like the Philly Cheese Steak being cult in Hawaii. And only in Hawaii. Sort of.

But French tourists kept turning up, warbling the song and looking for the real McCoy.

Hiltrud Gill-Heine, a tourist guide from Tourism Mainz, set about remedying the situation.

She tracked down a recipe in Metz, found in Peter Walz a local butcher who was able - on the twelfth attempt - to reproduce the original and unveiled the secret on the market this morning.

Very tasty, indeed.

Pork leg from a happy (well, maybe not..) Mainz pig, natural herbs, a marinade of wine and a gestation period of 9 months.

Except around here, it's pronounced "Shampong de Mayence", which caused great mirth and sighs of exasperation from the queue at Caffe Moguntia.

And when the French choir kicked into the song at mega-decibels, Hans-Josef Schwarz just rolled his eyes and muttered something about "the Health and Safety people wouldn't stand for it" .

I don't know what his reaction was when some local talent (sic) segued into "Voulez vous Kartoffelsupp'?" - "How about some potato soup?".

I'd skedaddled....

My mate Christoph - #233

My mate Christoph's 60th birthday last week.

Stephan, his son who's an architect in Ireland, cornered me a while back and said that he was going to do his usual laudatio - about 10 minutes, he reckoned - and would I please follow up with a few personal words?

Great pleasure (and honour, in fact)

So we're all gathered at the restaurant last Saturday and Stephan gets into what I recognise as his standard speech on occasions like these.

This time it's different, though.

He gets to the bit about the hardship of his father's early years in Silesia (now Poland) and the sacrifices his parents made to bring the 3 children to Germany, when there's a series of dull muffled thuds, Stephan looks perplexed, stops in midstream and does a "Well,thanksverymuchandI'dliketoproposeatoasttomyfatherHappyBirthday,Dad,andI'veasked
JohnBurlandtosayafewpersonalwordsaboutDad"

So I do my 2 minutes about Christoph (won't bore anyone with the details, but tears were shed...) and everyone was quite happy, especially when I kicked into Polish at the end.

So I asked Stephan what happened.

"What happened?" he said "What HAPPENED? My bloody SISTER started kicking me under the table, THAT's what happened! So I thought I better finish quickly to avoid continuing pain"

Followed closely by Susie, his younger sister, who said how much she'd liked what I said and "when he started on about Poland again, I gave him a couple of solid kicks. I mean, how often have YOU heard the story?".

"4, maybe 5 times. But he ALWAYS tells the story. People expect it" I said

"Well, bad luck. Not any more" she said.

So here's the story.

Silesia had been German since its seizure by King Frederick the Great of Prussia in 1742, with a population of 4 million.
Germany invaded Poland in 1939, the Soviets seized it back in 1945 and the Yalta and Potsdam agreements decreed it to be Polish.
Mass expulsion and imprisonment follows for the majority of the ethnically German population.

So Christoph's family - lucky to escape significant persecution - is now Polish, forbidden to speak their mother tongue and marginalised by an understandably belligerent society.

Christoph meets Uschi, they marry, have 3 kids and shortly after Sonya's born are permitted to emigrate to Germany as part of some greasy deal (involving large amounts of folding stuff) with the Polish government.

So they arrive here with nothing, hardly able to speak German and with no contacts apart from a few people from their village who had emigrated earlier.

Fast forward to today.

Christoph's the much-loved janitor at the Vertical Village where Ms. jb works, Uschi works at the University clinic, all the kids (who are great, btw) have either tertiary or business qualification and are married with kids of their own (or on the way, in Stephan and Aine's case).

I thinks it's a story worth telling, anyway.

No matter what Susie reckons.....

(That's her youngest, Kalle, with Grandad)

Great timing - #232

Brand new organic supermarket arrives in the space vacated by Saturn, one of the big electronics places, next to Kaufhof.

Inconvenient that the newspapers are currently full of articles on the dubious benefits (and we're not talking cost/benefit) of organic vs conventional produce....

Eyesight to the blind - #231

If you're like me and somewhat easily confused, signs like this are a blessing sent from heaven.

They prevent one, for example, from turning up at K. Schäfers' premises and demanding a pound of pork sausages.

Quick look at the signage and you know you should be buying bread.

Or should I be buying tickets for "The Lion King"....?

See what I mean about "easily confused"?

Let there be light - #230

Very obliging of the chappy in the car to light up the Gaustrasse for me the other evening.

St Stephans (of Chagall fame) at the top of the hill.

(Puff, puff...)

Symmetry - #228a

I especially liked the way these three iMacs were lined up at the Apple Store in London.

Eh?

CEMETERIES?

I thought the theme was SYMMETRY....!

Bugger! I appear to have got it DEAD wrong.

(Mrs jb's been moaning on at me to go and visit that Tarzan chappy for ages.)

Maybe I'd better to do that....

(It's not as if it's the first time)

While I'm at it, here's the rest of the team, most of whom got it right.

I hope.

St. Louis (MO), USA - San Diego (CA), USA - Cleveland (OH), USA - New York City (NY), USA - Boston (MA), USA - Mainz, Germany - Hyde, UK - Arlington (VA), USA - Cape Town, South Africa - Saint Paul (MN), USA - Toulouse, France - Arradon, France - Menton, France - Monte Carlo, Monaco - Montego Bay, Jamaica - Ampang (Selangor), Malaysia - Joplin (MO), USA - Cottage Grove (MN), USA - Bellefonte (PA), USA - Mexico (DF), Mexico - Seattle (WA), USA - Baziège, France - Baltimore (MD), USA - Chandler (AZ), USA - Sequim (WA), USA - Stayton (OR), USA - Stockholm, Sweden - Austin (TX), USA - Singapore, Singapore - Anderson (SC), USA - Orlando (FL), USA - Greenville (SC), USA - Wassenaar (ZH), Netherlands - Nashville (TN), USA - Tenerife, Spain - Manila, Philippines - Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia - Jacksonville (FL), USA - River Falls (WI), USA - Chateaubriant, France - Quincy (MA), USA - Rabaul, Papua New Guinea - Buenos Aires, Argentina - Crystal Lake (IL), USA - Inverness (IL), usa - Lubbock (TX), USA - Phoenix (AZ), USA - Moscow, Russia - Norwich (Norfolk), UK - Crepy-en-Valois, France - Minneapolis (MN), USA - New Orleans (LA), USA - Montréal (QC), Canada - West Sacramento (CA), USA - Toruń, Poland - Philadelphia (PA), USA - Christchurch, New Zealand - London, England - Paderborn, Germany - The Hague, Netherlands - Selma (AL), USA - Sunderland, UK - Kyoto, Japan - Tokyo, Japan - Stavanger, Norway - Fort Lauderdale (FL), USA - Weston (FL), USA - Portland (OR), USA - Forks (WA), USA - Saint-Petersburg, Russian Federation - Maple Ridge (BC), Canada - Boston (MA), USA - Sydney, Australia - Wellington, New Zealand - Montpellier, France - Jackson (MS), USA - Wailea (HI), USA - Petaling Jaya (Selangor), Malaysia - Evry, France - Saarbrücken, Germany - New York City (NY), USA - Santa Fe (NM), USA - North Bay (ON), Canada - Melbourne, Australia - Port Vila, Vanuatu - Cypress (TX), USA - Saint Louis (MO), USA - Paris, France - San Diego (CA), USA - Wichita (Ks), USA - Haninge, Sweden - Prague, Czech Republic - Zurich, Switzerland - Budapest, Hungary - Paris, France - Saigon, Vietnam - Grenoble, France - Zurich, Switzerland - Port Angeles (WA), USA - Naples (FL), USA - Toronto (ON), Canada - Sequim (WA), USA - Chicago (IL), USA

To be or not to be... #228

...organic.

Why is it that organic veges mostly look pretty shitty? Y

ou got to Alnatura and see the faithful buying a wizened parsnip or two and paying a small fortune for the pleasure.

(And I'm convinced that there's a profession out there that goes by the name of "Feather attacher" or "Chicken shit smearer", because every darned organic egg you buy has something stuck to it.

It's almost like those cooks who use powdered eggs and keep a supply of crushed eggshell on hand to provide false authenticity to scrambled eggs.

And that REALLY DOES happen!)

Then you go to the market and see highly polished fruit and veges that just scream out "Herbicide! Pesticide! Orthophosphates!

Our Sicilian friends from Nackenheim fall somewhere in the middle.

Their stand looks like no other on the market.

Everything looks like the stuff I grow in the garden.

They've got heritage tomatoes as misshapen as the boss's nose, paprika with lumps, really nasty looking beans that taste phenomenal.

And grapes that they've cut from the vine and just bunged in the crate, leaves and all.

Great stuff.