Stacked deck - #659

"If you play your cards right...." as the actress said the bishop.

Seen at the container terminal on the Rhine

Build it and they will come - #658

Here's one of those classic "Only in Mainz" stories.

Mainz 05, the local football team, has drifted around at the top of the 2nd Division for years and inadvertently popped up into the 1st Division for a couple of seasons a while back. The stadium holds 20,300 manic supporters and it's a case of not being what you know, but rather who you when it comes to getting tickets.

But the marginally successful guest appearance up with the Top Dogs (they managed 2 seasons before relegation) was reason enough for what little sense they had to rapidly depart the collective crania of the politicians and club management.

"We need a new stadium" they cried. "We'll be back in the 1st Division in a flash and attract HUGE CROWDS"

The City Fathers dragged their feet in their usual manner, threats were issued, culminating with the ultimate WMD: "We'll move to Wiesbaden" (For new readers: the mortal enemy across the Rhine).

Compromises were found, creative accounting principles were applied to make it look as if it was all affordable (believe me, it's not...), an appropriate patch of land was identified (ignoring the fact that it lay slap in the middle of an area that provides the city with its supply of fresh cool air from the surrounding countryside) and negotiations commenced with the property owners.

All 127 of them.

122 of them were overjoyed and signed up straight away. A couple of them even went right out and bought a new Mercedes.
This was the deal of a lifetime for them, because somewhere along the line they'd inherited a strip of land from Aunt Sophie or Uncle Wilhelm. In some cases, 20 metres wide and 3000 metres long which they'd leased to a farmer for bugger-all-and-threepence a year.
This was like winning the lottery!

5 landowners weren't overjoyed. Not one bit.

These were people who farm for a living and losing 30% of your farm turns a marginally profitable business into a significantly unprofitable business.
So they weren't selling
Which didn't make them the most popular people in town.
Threats of physical violence, tirades of abuse in the village streets, burning of effigies, but they did they budge......?

No they did not.

Plan B.

Behind closed doors in smoke-filled rooms, deals were done and sprung on an unsuspecting world.

They'd move the stadium a bit further over into the fresh air stream ("but it won't be a very HIGH stadium, so don't worry about what we said last year...") and buy the land from the Catholic church.

Who had - until recently - been very vocal in their criticism of taking farm land out of production and thus driving starvation and poverty to even higher levels ("but it's not a LOT of land, so don't worry about what we said last year...").

And everyone lived happily ever after.

Unless, of course, you were one of the 122 landowners trying to work out how to pay off the car loan with bugger-all-and-threepence a year.

Or the neighbours who'll have nowhere to park on game days (and who pegged out the stadium with haybales in the picture)

Or the people of Mainz, who are going to be deprived of significant amounts of fresh air.

 Or the rest of us who are going to end up paying for the stadium.

And I bet I STILL can't get tickets......

What a bind - #657

If you're a bookbinder, you're treading on hallowed soil in Mainz, given that Johannes Gutenberg's birthplace is just around the corner.

Can't get much closer to the source of inspiration, really....

Islands in the stream - #656

So you're Ludwig II, it's 1277 and you've just bought the village of Kaub from Philipp II. von Falkenstein-Münzenberg.

As part of the deal - apart from a halfway decent castle - is the right to tax every bastard and his brother anyone venturing down your side of the Rhine.

Nice work if you can get it and very lucrative.

Even more so when your village is granted a town charter in 1324.

And then you start thinking (by now it's 1327, but Ludwig never was the sharpest knife in the drawer..)

"Oi! Those boaties aren't paying me any tolls! I'll put a stop to that - I'll build a toll station in the middle of the river"

Duly done - 6 stories high.

Which REALLY got up the nose of the Pope and the local archbishop, who proceeded to make threatening noises along the lines that they'd be very interested in getting into the act as well, ta v. much.

Up went a 40 foot wall around the whole shebang.

Which seems to have been quite effective, because Pfalzgrafenstein (as it's officially called; colloquially is gets by as the "Pfalz at Kaub") has survived undamaged to this day.

Maybe as a direct result of its getting out of the toll collection business in 1876.

Maybe I should even rename this post "For whom the Pfalz tolls".....

For free (sort of..) - #655

I slept last night in a good hotel
I went shopping today for jewels
The wind rushed around in the dirty town
And the children let out from the schools
I was standing on a noisy corner
Waiting for the walking green
Across the street she stood
And she played real good
On her clarinet flute, for free

Now me I play for fortunes
And those velvet curtain calls
Ive got a black limousine
And two gentlemen
Escorting me to the halls
And I play if you have the money
Or if youre a friend to me
But the one man band
By the quick lunch stand

She was playing real good, for free

Nobody stopped to hear her
Though she played so sweet and high
They knew she had never
Been on their t.v.
So they passed her music by
I meant to go over and ask for a song
Maybe put on a harmony...
I heard her refrain
As the signal changed

She was playing real good, for free

Joni Mitchell, "For free"

A fair few buskers around in the run-up to Christmas, but this young flossy was the pick of the bunch on the market last Saturday.

"Ka-CHING" went the money in her flute case and I got a lovely smile.

Well, as good as it gets while you're playing a flute, I guess..

Let there be light...#654

The 27 page user manual I got with my candle instructs me to "place vertically in a stable holder" and light the wick.

I would never have guessed.

And talking about stables - Merry Christmas (and a belated Happy Birthday)

Merry Christmas - 653#

Peace, joy and whatever....

And NO - not "Happy Holidays".

Merry Christmas

Home for the holidays - #652

My young friend Lena from across the way - having thankfully escaped the clutches of the mullahs - is home for Christmas.


Not in time to partake of the pleasures of the Christmas Market in Mainz, of course. (I sometimes do worry about her lack of foresight and planning, but she's studying law so it probably won't be perceived as a serious constraint to success..)

But if there's anything that makes the Christmas Market worth visiting, it's potato pancakes with apple sauce.

So - at the request of her aged, grey-haired mother - I locked myself in the kitchen this week and slaved away for DAYS making copious quantities of apple sauce from my mate Tibor's apples.

And tonight - to the background of Putomayo's Turkish Groove CD - I conjoured up a batch of potato pancakes.

Better than the ones on the market, people reckoned.

I think they only said that because they wanted seconds...

Worried about the economic cycle? - #651

Worried about deflation?

YOU'RE worried about deflation....?

They also serve....#650

..who only stand and wait.

If you have shutters on an older property around here, you'll also have these little chappies lurking around your windows

Quite self-explanatory, really....

Saturday morning treat - #649

Living in Mainz can be really quite cool.

In the run-up to Christmas, the cathedral hosts a series of midday concerts each Saturday - 30 minutes of choral and organ music, interspersed with prayer, mediation and readings.

And tonight there's a free concert at 5pm - "Paulus" von Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy with soloists, choir and orchestra.

Keeps pensioners from hanging about on street corners, that's for sure....

Don't be a boar - #648

Unless you want to end up as a sausage on the market in Mainz.

At least you get your likeness on their stand....

Butterfly of the Year - #647

Seriously.

Over here they have

• Tree of the Year
• Bird of the Year
• Animal of the Year
• Word of the Year ("Financial Crisis" - duh...)
  
• Un-word of the Year (Probably "Financial Crisis"....)
  
• Plant of the Year

They all tend to pop up around this time of year when we're getting all reminiscent and a bit soft around the edges, so we say "Aaaaaah! Isn't that nice"


Or something like that, anyway.


And then there's "Butterfly of the Year".

This year's prize goes to Inachis i. io, the European Peacock butterfly.

Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Arthropoda
Class:	Insecta
Order:	Lepidoptera
(unranked):	Rhopalocera
Superfamily:	Papilionoidea
Family:	Nymphalidae
Subfamily:	Nymphalinae
Tribe:	Nymphalini
Genus:	Inachis
Species:	I. io

I spotted this chappy up in the vineyards a while back.

Sad to say that he's now with all probability an ex-butterfly, given the prolonged cold snap we're having, but he certainly frightened me when I saw that big eyes on his wings.

Which is what they're there for.

Thinks:

I've never ever seen nominations for "Weed of the Year".

But that'd be Cannabis sativa.

Has been for as long as I can remember, anyway...

Branching out - #646

Just looking at bare trees makes me feel cold....

On the Rhine flood meadows

Mountains and molehills - #645

The flood meadows along the Rhine look as if everyone's been out, taking Great Danes for walkies and not using their plastic bags.

On closer inspection, it appears to be moles.


Pesky little blighters....

Make no waves - #644

If I'm reading this correctly, they're cool with water-skiing as long as you stay under 60km/h and don't make waves.

If it just wasn't so darn cold, I might be tempted....

Global warming - #643

They must know something that I don't....

Orage juice vines seem to be replacing grapes around here.

I mean, I know it's got Vitamin C and all that good stuff and you don't fall over after drinking it, but a glass of rose on a hot summer day just can't be beat.

Life's a beach - #642

Just downriver from Mainz, believe it or not.

Not many bikinis on display today (4ºC and a keen breeze) and not a lot of folk swimming.

None, in fact.....

It's a sign of the times.....#641

...when the stonemason engraves his URL on his work.

On the corner of the newly opened Markthäuser on the cathedral square

Facing reality - #640

They're not even flying the flags at halfmast these days at the Deutsche Bank.

The financial sector hasn't been hit as badly as their US and UK counterparts (no frenzied property market, no dodgy loans to insolvent homebuyers and similar), but a whole bunch of second tier institutes got their fingers burned with investments over the pond (or ditch)

Of course, everyone's affected by the ensuing credit crunch which causes the Germany Finance Minister (who runs a pretty tight ship) to go red in the face and start hyperventilating whenever he thinks about the inpact of the Anglosaxon silliness on the economy over here.

Of course, if you're the world's biggest exporter (bet you didn't know THAT - well, Kate would because she reads the Economist..) and the rest of the world goes into recession, you're dragged down too, because if no-one's buying your stuff, there's no point in making it and you don't need the people who make the stuff, who then don't have any money to buy the stuff that OTHER people make.

And so on

The 7 second rule - #639

Going back to the Burgundy market.

This chappy was doing a roaring trade, pouring a cup of batter onto his gridle and - with a flick of the hand - turning them into the thinnest of crepes.

Choice of apricot jam, raspberry jam or chocolate.

The lady standing next to me was so excited that she dropped hers onto the cobblestones.

7 second rule says that bacteria and other nasties need that many seconds to get their skates on and contaminate whatever it is that's landed in front of their noses.

Picked it up, dusted it off and devoured it.

Although it was closer to 20 seconds, if you ask me....

Out of the darkness...#638

Back in the days when the sun used to shine......

The best 4x4xfar - #637

I have a soft spot for Landrovers.

I learnt to drive on one quite similar to this way back in the Dark Ages and Dad and Snow Prouse used to terrorise Auckland in one.

So it's good to see them perched on various vantage points around Mainz, courtesy of the local Landrover/Jaguar dealer.

And I mean PERCHED.

This is nothing.

There's one in the big disused quarry next to the motorway, sitting improbably on an outcrop waaaay above the ground. 

Most folk wouldn't believe that it got there under its own steam.

I do.

The best Four by Four by Far, as they say

Pruning - #636

Well, there's pruning.

And then there's PRUNING.

With a capital "P" and writ large.

These ones are on their way to the Great Vineyard in the Sky by the look of it, following the trend of replacing heavy-croppers with more elegant varieties.

OK by me...

Jewel in the crown - #635

 

Mollers restaurant perched atop the Staatstheater is an eyecatcher at the best of times, but never better than on a cloudless day.

Which is what today isn't.

Nor yesterday.

Day before was a corker, though.

Thinks: Oh. That was in Los Angeles. Never mind....

Run it up the flagpole...#634

...in order to state the obvious.

Colour my world...#633

This is one of my favourite signs in Mainz - properly old school.

I also like the irony of a sign that says "colour", but is so faded that its different coloured letters are barely distinguishable from each other.

Baubles...#632

Who knew you weren't supposed to take photos in the department store?

I didn't, but I do now.

In the belly of the beast...#631

I've been doing a fair bit of looking up recently. I'm amazed I don't have a sore neck.

The new buildings at the back of the Market Houses are finished and are eagerly awaiting people to set up shop. This is the view from inside the atrium. I don't know why, but I felt a bit like Jonah.

Circles everywhere...#630

Once I started looking for circles for theme day, I just couldn't stop! They are everywhere.

This porthole window belongs to the cafe attached to the Rhinegoldhalle, a performance space and exhibition centre.

Theme Day - Spheres/Circles...#629

Public art on the Rhein - this sculpture is called "Zirkulationen im Raum II" by Vojin Bakic.

Click here to view thumbnails for all participants