Definitely a case of "hold your breath, zip down the alley, take a picture and run back out before exhaling"
Crikey, they must have been skinny back then.
Just like me...
PS Despite rumours to the contrary, this picture definitely wasn't taken in the Middle Ages... ;-)
Getting around Mainz is dead easy.
Walk (lots of pedestrian precincts and it's not that big)
Bike (remind me to tell you about the rules they have here sometime)
Car (although the parking fees will bankrupt you)
Tram.
Which is my favourite.
Park the car at the bank's (free) car park in Hechtsheim, get on the tram and whoooosh - you're in town.
You don't need a timetable - they run every few minutes and you can always put your ear to the rail to hear if one's close.
As I did in the Gaustrasse.
Good thing I'm not audibly challenged.
Could get messy......
There's German.
And then there's dialect.
Potatoes are Kartoffeln.
In Hochdeutsch - High German
They're also Erdapfel - "earth apples", which is also what the French call them - Pommes de Terre.
Where Mrs jb hails from, they're even more linguistically economical.
Erpel
Around here they're called Grumbeeren.
"Grum" will have come from "Grund" - earth - but "beeren"?
"Beeren" are berries - Erdbeeren (strawberries) Himbeeren (raspberries) Heidelbeeren (blueberries).
Seems like someone got all poetic in the 19th century and said "Well, these ones don't like apples. They look more like pears."
Birnen
Grundbirnen.
Grumbeeren
..just sound onomatopoetically distasteful.
"Smear", for example.
To stain by or as if by spreading or daubing with a sticky, greasy, or dirty substance
To stain or attempt to destroy the reputation of; vilify:
Yuck.
Same in German, which isn't a big surprise, given the languages' shared linguistic heritage.
"Bagel Brothers" are looking for staff for a new outlet in Mainz.
They're looking for bagel smearers.
Just the thing to boost someone's self-esteem.
(Pick up line in a bar:
"So what do YOU do when you're not standing here, looking angelic and stealing my heart"
"I smear bagels"
Man of her dreams exits rapidly, stage right)
At least Subway shows a bit of creativity.
Someone who works there applied to Mrs jb for an apartment in the Vertical Village.
Profession?
"Sandwich Artist"
Not to be confused with Vending Executive, seen...
...well, yeah, where else...?
Or with Sandwich Mechanic, which is a not-very-nice-name for what Mrs jb used do at Lufthansa way back in the Middle Ages...
Until the sun gets its skates on and achieves a decent elevation in order to spread its rays over the lip of the canyon that is the Augustinerstrasse, I won't even consider this place as a viable alternative to the tin shed on wheels.
Even if they do provide blankets.
This might be somewhat macabre and in (the usual) bad taste, but the first thing that came to mind when walking past the Senior's Village in Gonsenheim this afternoon was Martin Scorcese's 1974 film "Alice doesn't live here any more"
"Well" I said "I guess Alice won't be living here that long, either. Given that this appears to be a God's Waiting Room " which earned me the usual verbal abuse and threats of GBH.
"And don't even DREAM of putting a link in to that DISGUSTING song" she said.
I won't, then.
(Not for the faint-hearted or easily offended...)
Not really.Before we all get frantic and de-mothball the lawnmowers, this is winter wheat.Sow it in autumn, it germinates before winter sets in and then takes a low profile until the weather becomes somewhat more amenable to growth.Like around about now.
Or it might even be winter barley, which I actually prefer to wheat.
Come to think of it, I'm not bothered.
Barley - when properly nurtured - turns magically into beer.
But wheat beer's made of......
Must hop along.
It's the yeast I can do.....
People appear to have secateur-fever at the moment.Snip, snip, snip...Can't get away from it.First it's the grapevines.Now it's the pollarded plane trees along the banks of the Rhine.(I'll probably be next in line for a ritual scalping)
But it's all for a good cause.
Don't prune grapevines - no wine.
Not good.
Don't trim plane trees - grow like crazy and hide Mainz's skyline
Not good, either.
But not nearly as "not good" as no wine.....
It's time to get out into the vineyards and finish off the pruning.
Do it to early and you risk frost damage.
Leave it too late and you risk bleeding sap from the pruning cut.
Prune the vines back to one cane and trim to length, otherwise you'll have billions of minute grapes, providing no juice at all.
Now, we certainly wouldn't want that, would we?
No juice = no wine = one unhappy me.
This is definitely RSI-territory.
The modern way to do is to hook up your secateurs to a generator and clip away pneumatically, leaving the detritus on the ground for the female of species to entwine into expensive wreaths.
Like a hot knife through butter.
Just don't get your fingers in the way...
.. said Cameron Leslie about his sisters at one stage.
Could say the same about Christoph and Uschi Niklas's 3 kids.
Susie has Lucy (4) and Kalle (2) , Sonja's Magdalena just turned one and Stephan and Áine (in Dublin) just presented us with Grace Ursula Maria on 14 February.
But they're the sort of parents who should have a football team of kids.
Each.
Not soccer.
Rugby.
Rugby Union.
15 to a team.
So keep up the good work.
Someone has to pay for my pension....
Tags: Cameron Leslie, Christoph Niklas, Uschi Niklas, Susie Schmitt, Timo Schmitt, Lucie Schmitt, Kalle Schmitt, Sonja Bühler, Matthias Bühler, Magdalena Bühler, Stephan Niklas, Áine Niklas, Grace Niklas
"The Queen" ,in this case, is a very regal rubber duckie and a (the?) central figure in Kerstin Agger's "Die Königin reist" project.
Kerstin's an artist based in Bad Münster am Stein working in oils/acrylic/watercolours, photography and installations.
Bumped into her over the weekend at Kunst Direkt, Rhineland-Palatinate's exceptionally good biennial B2C art fair.
The project started out with a single duck that tagged along with Kerstin on her travels and was photographed in a wide range of locations.
They've obviously gone forth and multiplied (or been cloned) because large numbers have been released back into the wild.
In Cuxhaven, for example, where emigrants embarked on a new life in the Americas and elsewhere in the 19th century.
Cool stuff.
..at the market on Saturday.Think he's in training for the REAL THING
Willie Wisely says it best, of course.
As ever.
But photographically I'm more than happy with this (un-Photoshopped) view from the Grebenstrasse in the Altstadt.
Looking through the Kanzel restaurant to far side of the room, opening out onto a garden flooded by a hard late winter sun.
And while we're on the subject - no more Polaroids.
They stop producing cameras last year and they'll discontinue film production this year.
End of an era.
I was never quite sure what these conical structures on the Tritonplatz were.
Cold war-era missile silos that weren't dug quite deep enough, exposing the nosecones to the elements?
(If this were to happen anywhere, then in Mainz..)
Oversized dunces caps from some carnivalistic celebrations?
OTT graffiti-approved areas?
Turns out that they're ultra-flash skylights for the rehearsal rooms at the Theatre.
How disappointingly normal...
Appear to have overlooked a significant event.
Bugger.
Seen outside the "Girlande"
Where else...?
..I'm not.(Not like my friend John Whatley, who claims to be one at age 70 and whom we now disrespectfully but affectionately refer to as Methuselah.)
But this thingie turned up today in the letterbox and it's got me a bit concerned.
"Information for Seniors", it says.
They've finally tracked me down and I'm now invited to join my fellow decrepits for supervised walks through the woods, visit seminars on healthy nutrition and Red Cross lectures on geriatric care.
The 2 ministers in the village are also well represented on the events schedule for 2008.
I guess they'll be mentally measuring us all up for coffins.
They've obviously got the wrong person.
They obviously haven't referred to my LastFM profile or seen the "I'm not 50 - I'm 18 with 32 years experience" bumper sticker on the car.
OK, so it's a couple of years old, but ESCORTED WALKS THROUGH THE WOODS?
Sod this for a game of soldiers.
Mind you, they might have been following this blog for a while and classified it as an advanced form of geriatric dementia....
Don't speak the local lingo?
Or just want to catch up on news from home?
No worries - you're pretty well looked after as far as newspapers are concerned around here.
The railway station's obviously a good place to start, but virtually all tobacconists/lottery ticket sellers/corner stores will have a rack on display.
Learning the language isn't really that difficult, though.
(If you ignore the fact that you have three genders, more cases than a left luggage office and new spelling reforms that turn up every couple of years, that is.)
Mark Twain gives you some idea.
I worked out fairly early on that the closer a noun got towards the end of a sentence, the more likely its preposition was to change.
Not actually what it would change TO, but inspired guessing and the law of averages kept me above water for a bit.
Some people take the easy way out.
Phonetic German.
Identify a potentially useful (because high frequency) word and convert it into your own language.
"Entschuldigung" (Excuse me) thus becomes "Shirley Gong".
Some folk even use mental hieroglyphics.
"Wie geht es Dir?" (How are you) is "V gate S deer"
The stuff of nightmares
.. that you shouldn't buy just anywhere"
So goes the Philip Morris ad, showing a lavatory attendant next to the "Yummy! Cheap rolls" sign at her place of work.
Continues:
"The same goes for cigarettes"
I'm not sure I get it.
.. how much this sort of kit costs.I haven't got a clue....
The region around Mainz isn't particularly suited to windmills. The hills of the Hunsrück and the Pfalz block the Atlantic westerlies, leaving us with 180 virtually wind-still days a year.
Up until the Industrial Revolution, the key source of power was water and you'll still find traces of the mills that were strung along the Selz Valley just outside Mainz,
But no-one told Monsieur Andre, a French civil servant in the early 19th century.
He reckoned that windmills were the coming thing and tried to drum up support (in the form of donations) from the local populace to realise his dream.
Not sure whether it was the general tightfistedness of the locals or the fact that they knew that M. André was flogging a dead horse, but he only rounded up enough to build one on the Zitadelle.
Which is quite appropriate, really, because the military was the biggest user of wind power at the time, cranking up wind-powered mills to grind corn during sieges.
The original's long gone, of course, and what you see these days above the Windmühlenstrasse (Windmill Road) is a pretty flash slide for kiddies on their playground
There are hipsters.And then there are HIPSTERS....(Or are they "upper-thighers"?)
Anyway, it's a good thing that we're open-minded around here and don't get all het up about wardrobe malfunctions.
Although publishing this will probably get me arrested on my next trip to the States...
...we'll be ready.
And who said that stacking firewood isn't an art form?In fact, it should be an Olympic discipline.
Has AT LEAST as much claim to inclusion as does synchronous swimming.
And you don't need to grin like an assassin with a clothes peg pinching your nostrils while you're competing, either...
All over for another year.Thank goodness for small mercies....
There is a world outside Karneval...
Take your pick from musicals, serious clubbing or disco.
The Tiroler's the place to go if you're a bit hard up - your bird'll get 25 drinks for free.
The mind boggles.
Just think how much she's going to TALK after all of that jungle juice.....
If you ever get over to our neck of the woods, this is a worthwhile day's outing - the Rheinsteig, a 250 km hiking track from Wiesbaden to Bonn.
Not in one go, of course, although my mate Simon thought I'd be up to it.
It's in easy 22km sections through woods and vineyards along both sides of the Rhine.
Getting up there can be a bit tricky, though.
Set off yeserday from Lorch on the other side of the river and dutifully followed the signposts, registering the information that it might get a bit dodgy in inclement weather. (Sun's shining, what are they talking about?)
Vertical outcrops of slate, that's what they're talking about.
I was in mountain goat-mode in a flash, but my trusty companion, Ms Sherpa B, needed a bit of encouragement to make it over the last crevasse.
Cattle prods and whips tend to do the trick, I find...
But once you're up there, you've got breathtaking views and masses of wild hellebores.
Nice mug of hot chocolate at the Gonso cafe on the way home.
Just the job
The Netherlands exports 40,000,000 - FORTY MILLION! - tulips a week. Sometimes I think their entire production ends up in our house.
A week has 7 days, 168 hours, 10080 minutes, 604800 seconds.
That's 66 tulips a second.
The bunch of tulips currently in residence is 0.2 second's worth.
The mind boggles.....
There's no holding back the (not so) subtle infiltration of the German language by Americanisms.
(This'll get Bat on a rant....! For sure!)
They could have written "Saisonendeabschlussverkauf", of course.
Doesn't have quite the same ring, though.
Wouldn't have fit the poster too well, either....
Fassenacht has a number of distinct milestones.
There's Rosenmontag - Rose Monday - of course, which is the culmination of the madness, before everyone settles down for Ash Wednesday, Lent and an extended period of penance.
And then there's the Thursday before Rosenmontag - Weiberfastnacht. (Wimmin's Carnival)
Started out in Beuel - now a suburb of Bonn - in the mid-1800s as an attempt by the stroppy wimminfolk of the village to storm the gender barriers and achieve carnivalistic equality.
And spread.
And spread.
It's developed into an alcohol-fuelled orgy of symbolic emasculation by cutting off men's neck attire and compensating them with a kiss. Or whatever.
Booze and hormones never being the best of bedfellows (if you'll forgive the pun...), things tend to get out of hand....
The outfit I worked for had its corporate HQ at one time in Cologne and there used to be a veritable annual pilgrimage from the operational hub in Frankfurt by people who had "urgent business meetings" - nod, nod, wink, wink - to attend on the day.
An appropriate euphemism would be "Succession Management"...
And it really is dangerous to wear a tie on the day. I used to go into Steve Jobs-mode and you'd have to warn visiting customers to wear something ugly and polyester.
You'd think that executive secretaries would show some respect for the CEO of a Key Account customer though.
Think again.
They're the most rabid of the lot...
....my mate Johannes.
Johannes Gutenberg, that is.
Fat chance of that, though
Bloody Karneval, more likely...
The other 135...
Portland (OR), USA - Menton, France - Monte Carlo, Monaco - Memphis (Tennessee), USA - Manila, Philippines - San Diego (CA), USA - Anderson (SC), USA - New York City (NY), USA - San Diego (CA), USA - Mexico City, Mexico - San Francisco (CA), USA - Mumbai (Maharashtra), India - Mainz, Germany - Weston (FL), USA - Minneapolis (MN), USA - Turin, Italy - Las Vegas (NV), USA - Hobart (Tasmania), Australia - Bicheno, Australia - Durban, South Africa - Joplin (MO), USA - Nashville (TN), USA - Stockholm, Sweden - Kyoto, Japan - Tokyo, Japan - Brussels, Belgium - Chicago (IL), USA - Montpellier, France - Seattle (WA), USA - Mazatlan, Mexico - Saint Paul (MN), USA - Sharon (CT), USA - Sesimbra, Portugal - Toulouse, France - Tuzla, Bosnia and Herzegovina - Susanville (CA), USA - Maple Ridge (BC), Canada - Saint Louis (MO), USA - Prague, Czech Republic - Helsinki, Finland - Pilisvörösvár, Hungary - Lisbon, Portugal - Mexico (DF), Mexico - Trujillo, Peru - Dunedin (FL), USA - Albuquerque (NM), USA - Port Angeles (WA), USA - Cottage Grove (MN), USA - Saint-Petersburg, Russian Federation - Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia - London, UK - Baziège, France - Jefferson City (MO), USA - Greenville (SC), USA - Selma (AL), USA - Mumbai, India - Naples (FL), USA - Norwich (Norfolk), UK - Silver Spring (MD), USA - Setúbal, Portugal - Stayton (OR), USA - Bellefonte (PA), USA - Sofia, Bulgaria - Arradon, France - Montego Bay, Jamaica - Athens, Greece - Austin (TX), USA - Singapore, Singapore - West Sacramento (CA), USA - Jackson (MS), USA - Wassenaar (ZH), Netherlands - Budapest, Hungary - Rotterdam, Netherlands - St Malo, France - Chandler (AZ), USA - Melbourne, Australia - Port Vila, Vanuatu - Cleveland (OH), USA - Nottingham, UK - Kansas City (MO), USA - The Hague, Netherlands - Crystal Lake (IL), USA - Wrocław, Poland - Chateaubriant, France - Cheltenham, UK - Moscow, Russia - Monrovia (CA), USA - Saigon, Vietnam - Toruń, Poland - Grenoble, France - Lisbon, Portugal - New Orleans (LA), USA - Sydney, Australia - Boston (MA), USA - American Fork (UT), USA - Boston (MA), USA - Montréal (QC), Canada - Wichita (KS), USA - Radonvilliers, France - Buenos Aires, Argentina - Christchurch, New Zealand - Rabaul, Papua New Guinea - Wailea (HI), USA - Aliso Viejo (CA), USA - St Francis, South Africa - Port Elizabeth, South Africa - Seattle (WA), USA - Pasadena (CA), USA - Vienna, Austria - Orlando (FL), USA - Torun, Poland - Delta (CO), USA - Santa Fe (NM), USA - Minneapolis (MN), USA - Haninge, Sweden - Paris, France - Stavanger, Norway - Niamey, Niger - Le Guilvinec, France - Bogor, Indonesia - Saarbrücken, Germany - Auckland, New Zealand - Wellington, New Zealand - Budapest, Hungary - Juneau (AK), USA - Bucaramanga (Santander), Colombia - Glasgow, Scotland - Chicago (IL), USA - Jakarta, Indonesia - Adelaide (SA), Australia - Sydney, Australia - Riga, Latvia - Subang Jaya (Selangor), Malaysia - Terrell (TX), USA - Terrell (TX), USA - Inverness (IL), USA
Definitely a case of "hold your breath, zip down the alley, take a picture and run back out before exhaling"
Getting around Mainz is dead easy.
There's German. 
..just sound onomatopoetically distasteful.
...well, yeah, where else...?
Until the sun gets its skates on and achieves a decent elevation in order to spread its rays over the lip of the canyon that is the Augustinerstrasse, I won't even consider this place as a viable alternative to the tin shed on wheels.
This might be somewhat macabre and in (the usual) bad taste, but the first thing that came to mind when walking past the Senior's Village in Gonsenheim this afternoon was Martin Scorcese's 1974 film "Alice doesn't live here any more"
Not really.
People appear to have secateur-fever at the moment.
It's time to get out into the vineyards and finish off the pruning.
.. said Cameron Leslie about his sisters at one stage.
"The Queen" ,in this case, is a very regal rubber duckie and a (the?) central figure in Kerstin Agger's "Die Königin reist" project.
Willie Wisely says it best, of course.
I was never quite sure what these conical structures on the Tritonplatz were. 
.. that you shouldn't buy just anywhere"
The region around Mainz isn't particularly suited to windmills. 
There are hipsters.
If you ever get over to our neck of the woods, this is a worthwhile day's outing - the Rheinsteig, a 250 km hiking track from Wiesbaden to Bonn.
The Netherlands exports 40,000,000 - FORTY MILLION! - tulips a week. Sometimes I think their entire production ends up in our house.
There's no holding back the (not so) subtle infiltration of the German language by Americanisms.
Fassenacht has a number of distinct milestones.
