Making tracks - #870

Tracks of the  European Conspicio vermes.

Certainly up before me this morning

Mucky fat - #869

That's what they call it in Yorkshire - unfiltered drippings from roast meat.

The rest of the civilised world knows it as "bread and dripping"

Around here, it's romantically called Schmalzbrot - lard bread

<geriatric rambling>

We used to eat it a lot when I was growing up in post-world war 2 New Zealand.Not much money around on a military salary, then as now.

Roast lamb on Saturday and the remnants reprocessed during the week in various forms until there was just the bone left for the job.

Lots of cheap cuts of meat, quite a bit of offal - liver, kidneys, tripe.

And dripping.

There was always a tub in the pantry and if you were hungry in between meal times, it'd be that on a slice of bread. Or an apple.

</ geriatric rambling>

These days, it's become fashionable, which means that it'll be on the menu of every wine bar.

Flash restaurants feature it now again. They'll call it "Rillette" and charge the earth for it.

Even with a flash name, it's still 100% trans fat and chock-full of LDL  (i.e. bad) cholesterol

With a BMI of 23 and blood pressure of 120/80, I think I can afford it, though...

Schnorreswackler - #868

Not that I understand much about this stuff, of course, but it is That Time Of Year again, when the local newspaper reports on Karneval to the virtual exclusion of anything else of import and the number 11 pops up with confusing frequency

This chappy is the Schnorreswackler - Moustache Waggler -, symbol of the Gonsenbach Carnival Club.

The sculpture was installed in 2003 on the 111th anniversary (see what I mean..?) of the founding of the club at a time when exuberant upper-lip decoration was all the rage. (One was supposedly required to waggle same at times of great enjoyment i.e at carnivalistic events. So they say)

In a selfless demonstration of giving everyone a fair go, the sculptor also incorporates references to the club's choir - the Gonsbach Lerchen (Gonsbach Larks) - in the form of the bird with the straw hat (Look, I'm only repeating this, OK?) perched on his right hand and to the Fusilier Guard with their historical cranial decoration cradled on his left arm featuring - yes, that number again...

Another 2 and a bit weeks.
Oh, the relief....

Rituals - #867

Rituals are important.

When you go to a Mainz 05 game, there's a fixed procedure:

• Get there an hour early
• Get a beer
• Discuss strategy with whoever's within earshot
• Have a sausage on a bun
• Dispose of borrowed beer
• Have another beer
• Head up to your seat
• Discuss strategy with whoever's within earshot
• Stand up, stretch your Mainz 05 above your head and sing "You'll never walk alone" with the other 20,300 (minus opposition supporters)

Just like in the picture

In my next life.. - #866

..I think I shall be reincarnated as Joachim Brohm. (I could even keep my initials.)

He's a well-known (in Germany) photographer of industrial wastelands and marginal zones and the exhibition in the Kunsthalle in Mainz is worth a look.

They're a bit like this (not exhibited) effort  - apparently uncomposed pictures of the grim bits of cities that most people would rather not accept as reality. And the sort of stuff that would go undocumented if it weren't for artists like him.

"This", being the Mainz docklands that are going to spring to life with flash apartments and buzzing restaurants as soon as a) the banks will unfreeze some credit and b) people have the money and confidence to buy them.

There was some other stuff, too.

Sarah Mock (now if THAT name doesn't tell you something..) treated us to a brown packing paper igloo in which a film ran, featuring a buxom wench wrapped in - yes, brown packing paper - detaching the head of a stuffed turtle with a saw made of .... Right.

Best of all was the top floor.

I seriously thought that they were doing some repair work after storm damage, with window frames filled with insulating batts.

It wasn't until I had a prod around that I discovered that they ...er... actually WERE the works of art.

Confirmed by the alarms going off....

Kill the fatted calf - #865

 

I don't normally PhotoShop, but these endless grey skies are getting on my wick.....

What DOES, of course, brighten up everyone's lives is the fact that Johannes G is to be returned to his pedestal on 10 February and just in time for Karneval, a fact proclaimed by this (liberally translated) dainty bit of doggerel on the pedestal commenting on the festive seasonal decoration:

"I've been away for a bit of a rest

Where I am you'd never have guessed

My heart is heavy, believe me this

Because it's Määnz that I really miss

I really hope - with a bit of luck

At Karneval, to be back  

(Sod it - can't find a rhyme - suggestions welcomed)

I send you all a Christmas missive

In order to prevent that spiv

From laying illegitimate claim

To the podest that carries my name

Hence this piece of festive artwork

All my best wishes - Gutenberg"

Men at work - #864

And NOW I know why football/soccer players are overwhelmingly overcome by gravity and writhe around the pitch in excruciating pain as soon as one of the opposition gets near them.

It's so that the photogs can take a break from snapping away and get down to some cropping, editing and distribution.

These guys were better set up than Mission Control in Houston in the 1960s.

I'm sure they're in direct contact with the players via cochlear implant:

"OK, you can start getting up now - I've almost finished. Just rub your ankle a bit and limp around for 10 seconds and we're away. See you down at the pub"

For free, as well - #863

A very welcome sight at yesterday's match was this chappy (I think his name's  Bernard...) who turned up midway through the first half (by which time we were leading 1:0 - YESSSSS!) lugging a massive dispenser of Glühwein.

I'd have to say that he made a better door than a window, but it gave those of us with an impaired view of the proceedings a brief respite from a fairly grim display of football.

Free, though, through one of Christoph's friend-of-a-friend-of-a-friends.

I was under the impression that if someone's being paid big chunks of money, they'd at least stop and control and the ball before passing on to one of their own players.

I appear to be wrong.

Boot the ball in the vague direction of the other team's goal, wait for Hanover to bring it back to within striking distance and repeat.

Mind you, if that helps you win 1:0, more power to their collective elbows

The new players appear to be pretty useful, though, especially the Hungarian chappy who came from Real Madrid.

Not that he contributed much ("chocolate teapot" springs to mind...), but given that my mate Tibor's ALSO Hungarian, there's a chance that we might be in for even MORE freebies.

Now, if they could just do something about the weather....

Humba Humba Humba Täterä - #862

 

Excellent!

Christoph's got hold of 2 tickets for today's Mainz05 game vs Hanover.

Must be do-able - Mainz 10th in the table, Hanover 16th - but Hanover's got a new trainer and when THAT happens, just EVERYONE in the team extracts their collective digits and plays as if possessed in a very transparent display of brown-nosing.

"Apple for the teacher" stuff in a parallel universe.

But if stumbling over a bottle of Mainz 05's official wine yesterday wasn't an omen of great portent....

It's called "Humba" after one of those classic Karneval songs that you can still sing when you're utterly ripped:

"Humba Humba Humba Täterä" (repeated ad nauseum) is verse, bridge and chorus and you'll hear it after every Mainz home victory.

As in:

First there's a chorus, exhorting the players to sit down on the pitch in front of the hard-core-standing-room-only stand, the fans - by an eerily effective display of group dynamics - select their player of the day who then ascends the cage wall fence and leads the throng with a "Give me an "H", give me a "U"....", followed by verse/bridge/chorus to which all and sundry jump up and down and during which great fun and enjoyment is had by all.


Not to be confused, of course, with the NSFW "Feel like I'm fixing to die" cheer from Woodstock....

And then, of course, there's the non-apocryphal tale of a journalist from WDR (the German equivalent of NPR) in the 1960s, who was in Egypt covering the impending state visit of Walter Ulbricht, chairman of the Communist Party and East German head honcho.

Someone from the army band - possibly unaware of the difference between FRG and GDR - asked for his help in learning the East German national anthem.

"Of course" he said "it's called Humba Humba Humba Täterä and it goes like this...."

And they played it perfectly as Ulbricht descended the aircraft stairs onto the red carpet......

They're back - #861

 

And about time too...

TSOW's back on the market.

Until they make another pile of money and decide to disappear to far-flung places to spend it all, that is...

The Good Samurai - #860

I clear snow and do bits and pieces for the neat 164 year old neighbours across the road.

And - as much I enjoy organic wheat beer - I don't want anything for it.

I keep telling them that, I keep telling them that the road's still too icy to leave the house, but it didn't stop Siegfried from venturing out and forcing this on me the other day....

Snowcapped - #859

 

Some readers will doubtless categorise this image of an unfortunate hydrangea blossom as romantic.....

Snow Gems (English Sonnet)

 

 

Snow falls to earth as weightless feather down,
slow motion, glorious, desirable,
for a time a tree's magnificent crown,
jewel-like little gems indispensable.

I reach out, touch it, take it to my heart,
cold to hold, so delicate in it's form,
amazing web-like structure every part,
brilliant to the naked eye, not forlorn.

Such beauty, my mind ever in circles,
nature, like a framed tapestry of thread,
frosty figurines formed from icicles,
hiding snowdrops emerging from their bed.

Cold hearted - #858

The Big (de)-Freeze - #857

Big dump of sloppy snow and freezing rain on Saturday night and now the big Melt has set in.

Except that none of the liquid stuff was going down one of the downpipes at the back of the house, but rather over the guttering.

Investigation uncovered a perfectly cylindrical, 6 foot high ice sculpture hidden within the pipe, the result of the confluence of a bird's nest , copious amounts of fluid and Arctic temperatures.

Either that, or a decent sized chunk of ice for a bucket of gin and tonic....

The land of Latte e Miele - #856

You don't need to head south of the Alps to experience Bella Italia.

Just pop over to Kastel (which is STILL Mainz as far as we're concerned.....) to Celpro and you're there.

Celpro is an Italian supermarket.

As in:
You ask for pancetta and they'll ask you which of the 5 varieties you'd like.
Ditto Parmigiana
Ditto Mozzarella
Ditto everything

As in:
Mineral water is Italian, soap powder is Italian, milk is Italian, piped music is Italian (via satellite), chocolate is Italian, beer is Italian (which is probably the sole downside)....

EVERYTHING is Italian.

Apart from some of the customers.

Don't go there on the last Thursday Wednesday of the month, though.

They have 10% off everything and we even met some (Italian) folk who drive down from Bonn - a mere 200km - to do the Big Monthly Shop.

And who wait in the queue at the counter for almost as long as it's taken them to drive.

The place is packed, but there's no aggression, no queue-jumping, no pushing and shoving.

Quite cool, in fact

Waiting for Easter - #855

 

Unless, of course, a mythical bird of prey turned up and deposited them on the bench in front of the kitchen window.

They appear to have been there for some time.

They're as hard as rocs'....

(I'll get my coat.....)

Monthly Theme Day -Best photo of the year 2009 - #854

Technically and artistically, I'm sure I took better photos in 2009.

None of them, though, make me drool on my keyboard as this one did

Go over here for some decent ones
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Tools of the trade - #853

Need I say more...?

Light at the end of the tunnel - #852

All the way along, in fact, thanks to the attractive neon tubes.

The pedestrian tunnel under the tracks at the Römisches Theater train station.

The assorted clutter and detritus does detract a tad from the elegant brick ceilings, though.

Same chappy as here?

Think so

好運和保持良好 - #851

So. Farewell then

Bat

Resident Sinologist

Alien Expert

Occasional 50 Grad scribe

Architect too

Let's hope

she hasn't been

shanghaid

in Shanghai

E.J Thribb (17½)

*"Bat" has been a faithful follower of the blog since #104, complaining bitterly about occasional hiatuses (Hiati? No, isn't that a wildly unsuccessful country in the Caribbean..?) and expressing endless glee at reappearances. She's leaving tomorrow to take up a job in an architect's office in Shanghai. Despite frequent threats to buy each other a coffee @ TSOW, we've never met. Quite tragic,

Bovine basilica - #850

 

This is a "Kuhkapelle" or "cow chapel", a groin-vaulted barn and a fairly common feature of farms in the region.

The Romans (of course) had the idea first  - minimal use of materials, wide span of construction, ability to achieve lateral illumination and avoidance of lateral stresses.

Given the proliferation of pillars that, it's not surprising that it didn't catch on as a feature of living accommodation, but the cows don't appear to have complained.

Nice and warm.

Bright, too.

Dairy farming became less viable by the year and pretty much died out for smallholdings.

So what do we do with the barn?

Some got bowled, some got used as ....barns.

And some had inspired owners, who turned them into restaurants or similar.

Stefan and Cornelia Rumpf, for example, the proprietors of the excellent Kruger-Rumpf vineyard.

Worth a visit.

Definitely

"Daisy, Daisy.... - #849

...give me your answer do"

Daisy is a low pressure pattern that was going to bring chaos, pestilence and plagues of locusts down on us.

If you believed the more hysterical newspapers.

(In the USA, it would be a "weatherbomb". They have them all the time.)

So on Thursday, we were threatened with 50cm and drifts up to a metre, on Friday 5-10cm and this is what we had yesterday.

Don't know what the kerfuffle was all about, to be honest...

But wait! There's more!

Competition! Win valuable prizes!

Which of the 2 images is the original and which has been monochromed?

Answers on a $100, please. Shipping extra.

Looping the Loop - #848

It's not every shopping mall that can boast a MiG21 doing a veeeery slooooow (reminds me of this) barrel roll as one of its attractions.

Loop 5 can.

NQM, but worth a post nevertheless.

Huge place with an aeronautical theme (being just down the road from one of Europe's major airports helps...) and cool stuff like simulated aircraft sections with real aircraft seats as Abandoned Husband zones.

Some pretty decent looking coffee places, some very dodgy looking coffee places, the usual mix of cuisines (albeit a tad heavy on the Asian, one amazingly named "Eat Gobi") at the Innernational Food Court, an Apple retailer and lots of shops, the names of which I've never heard - let alone can pronounce -  and which appear to sell stuff that is decidedly non-essential to the survival of the human race.

Mrs jb bought something vilely purple which I'm told is the fashion colour this week.

But they're very cunning.

The mall's called Loop because it comprises two massive ovals on top of each other, which means that those of us suffering from early Alzheimers can be given a shove in a random direction and we'll drift around like Duracell bunnies, looking in wonderment at all the shops and by the time we get back to our starting point, we've forgotten that we've seen it before and it's ALL NEW, so we keep on going.

We do this for hours until we're collected and told to drive home.

Unless the batteries have run out, of course, in which case we just stand there, gazing at "Eat Gobi" with absolutely no idea what to do with it.....

New Year Concert - #847

Always a treat and this year especially so, as it's the last of its kind with the current cathedral organist.

The usual moderately geriatric audience with the added attraction of one seriously disturbed chappy who leapt to his feet to turn, frown at and berate the incogniscenti who clapped at the wrong times.

And he was out of the cathedral quicker than a farter out of a lift, until he realised that an encore was in progress, returned, found his seat reoccupied and demanded loudly that imposter remove himself saspo.

And he looked so normal, too....

Chilly - #846

Looking over the fields in Ober-Olm to the vineyards that disappear down the hill towards the village.

-10ºC last night, more snow at the weekend.

Lots of it.

On getting funny looks -#845

As a non-snapshot photographer, you'll occasionally attract funny looks or even threats from folks who don't understand the law.

So I've become quite careful.

Case in point: The Fennel family.

Found this image on the market the other day and the lady who runs the vege stand asked me (in a voice that implied "You can't be serious") if I'd taken a picture of FENNEL?

"Well" I said "I asked them first and they didn't object"

Can't be too careful....

Distressed - #844

Christmas isn't over yet, it appears.

I'm all for getting the sparkly stuff stowed away for another year, but apparently Christmas has 12 days, starting from 25 December.

I, of course, got this muddled up over at the other place, getting thoroughly bolleauxed by Cousin Ruth (who knows about these things) in the process.

So we have a few more photo ops.

This example of the genre, I'm told, is MEANT to look distressed.

Probably cost twice as much as a new-looking one, too...

Low-tech fireworks- #843

None of this newfangled fireworks stuff around here on New Years Eve.

Unsurprisingly, pyromania appears to be an occupational hazard among ceramicists, and Frank the Potter is no exception.

"We have to have a fire" he said when I proposed the idea of their seeing in the New Year at our place.

Repeated at increasing intervals until his arrival with a boot/trunk-load of well-dried wood.

Fire basket set up, newspapers twisted tightly as starters (as learned from Grandfather Ramsden), birch and pine strategically stacked, liberal application of meths, whooosh.

Couldn't really compete with the semi-professional displays around the neighbourhood that we watched for free, but the sparks were quite entertaining.

In a low-tech sort of way

Winter wonderland -#842

 

More to come, too

Nothing like at Kate's though

You should have been here - #841

 

 New Years Eve dinner with Frank the Potter and Mrs Frank the Potter.

Trout pate from the Bourgogne with drinks

Tomato soup with basil oil. Own tomatoes
Lemon sorbet in champagne
Rabbit in Pinot Noir with roasted red peppers and goats cheese mash
Pavlova with raspberries


White port and sherry
Riesling with the soup
1998 Brancaia (Tuscany) 2007 Castano (Spain) with the bunny
Champagne at midnight

Next year, maybe...

Monthly Theme Day - (Small) Change(s) - #840

"If you don't like change you're going to like irrelevance even less"
General Eric Shinseki, Chief of Staff, U.S. Army as quoted by Tom Peters in ReImagine

I generally only need 4 currencies to get around - New Zealand dollars, Thai Baht, Pounds sterling and US dollars.

(Euros would be useful, but other members of the household tend to spend them before I can get my hands on them...)

Times were - when I was flying 100,000 miles a year - when I'd have left over MYR, AED, AUD, GRD, DKK, ITL, FFR, GBP, SEK, PTE, ESP and CHF rattling around the place.

Thank goodness for those plastic containers that Kodachrome (RIP 2009) came in.

Have a good 2010


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