Taken for a ride - #1324

Terminal giddiness at the Spring Fair on the banks of the Rhine.

Pollution - #1323

I'd noticed the mobile cell transmitters (pumping out electro-smog and giving us all instant brain tumours) on the top of this chimney in the Martinsstrasse, but it took a look at the Historical Monument plaque to get the whole story.

The explosion of the powder magazine in 1857 in one of the forts in the defensive wall pretty much flattened everything within sight. (To give you an idea of the force of the explosion: a significant chunk of the parapet - weighing over 1000kg - ended up 500 metres away. Smaller bits ended up in the Rhine...)

No point in rebuilding (rebuilding WHAT exactly - most of it's halfway to Wiesbaden...) so the city fathers started from scratch including that Shiny New Invention (tada...) - drains.

Duly dug, but what to do with the pong?

Build chimneys, shove the odours up into the lower stratossphere and let them drift about a bit and dilute.

And if anyone complains, you could always say "Wasn't me, it was from that chimney over there...."

Or - as the Romans used to say - "Is ut nidor is paciscor is"

Siblings - #1322

Now THIS is a good story...

When you drive down the mile-long hill into Pateley Bridge in Yorkshire in spring, you'll be stunned by the mass planting of daffodils - sponsored by a local quarry - on the road verge.

I thought that Klein-Winternheim could do with something similar on the 650m or so of the B40 that runs from the roundabout at the motorway exit down into the village.

So I wrote to Her Ladyship the Mayoress with the idea, suggesting that local businesses might care to sponsor 10 metres at a time, local people might want to get in on the act, Farmer Braun could zip up and down with a plough and hey!, wouldn't it be a great idea if the town had an event and let the littlies plant the bulbs - they'd be able to say proudly years later to their OWN kids "I planted those daffodils".

Heard nothing and weeks later - buried in the minutes of the council meeting - was something that went "The council proposes to beautify the verge of the B40 by planting bulbs. Donations from the community can be made by cheque"

Hohum.

So we donated DM200 - about $150 in today's money (and come to think of it, didn't even get a "thank you"...)  -, daffodils were unceremoniously planted and they actually blossomed the following year.

Then along came the diggers, ripped up the verge to lay cable for DSL or something similarly modern and disappeared.

As did the daffodils.

I'm pleased to see that someone's doing some guerilla planting along the top road into our bit of the village, though.

Sure to attract the diggers, though.....

Red sky at night.... - #1321

Stunning sunset at the University Clinic

What's good for the Wild Goose.... - #1320

...is good enough for me.

The Wild Goose house (aka as the "Golden Goose") in Kirschgarten in the old part of town has saved me from considerable expense and personal effort over the years.

Every time Ms jb says "I think the house needs painting", I simply refer her to this place - built in 1450 and renovated at roughly 250 year intervals - and say "Come back and talk to me in a couple of centuries"

Working well so far....

Barock and Roll - #1319

Tagged along with Mrs jb yesterday to the Augustinerkirche (St Augustine's) in the - yes - Augustinerstrasse.

Riotously decorated with angels, cherubims and seraphims perched on ledges all around the place.

Though we were in for a cracking sermon, too.

Started off well.

"180,000 people left the church last year. We as a church have to address the problem seriously and take a good look at ourselves"

Wow!

I thought he was going to rip into paedophile and otherwise abusive clergy and the church's decade-long practice of sweeping the stench under the rug, but he drifted off into areas in a meanderment that NEITHER of us completely followed.

But the MAIN problem appears to be that parents don't buy Easter eggs and hide them for the kiddies.

So that's OK, then......

The organic Easter Bunny..... - #1318

..appears to have crept in and laid these without my noticing.

Not too sure about the kryptonite colour, though....


Elsewhere

Book... - #1317

...your Gutenberg tour here.

World Book Day.

Appropriate then that the faithful should pay homage to the boy hisself.

Having a Senior Moment - #1316

"Now this certainly looks familiar...I wonder where I've seen it...?"

Bronze model of Mainz Cathedral on the Liebfrauenplatz.

Running for the train - #1315

Mainz Hauptbahnhof

(They missed it...)

Salad days... - #1314

...or weeks.

This is the way you do it.

Buy plugs of salad plants when they're this big (cost €0.15 an each), put them in a planter with home-made compost (not "compohst". Compost), light the fuse give them some water and stand well clear.

You'll be harvesting leaves in about 3 weeks.

We've got a mixture of Romana, oakleaf and Lollo Rosso and Bianco. Throw in some sorrel leaves, some ruby chard and whatever else you've got that's leafy and edible and away you just do go.

Pagan rituals - #1313

Rampant Easterisms on display at Caffee Moguntia. (The roastery in Bodenheim, not the TSOW that is..)

I couldn't resist and bought their entire stock.....

75c an each - #1312

I like tulips, but not THAT much.....

Breakfast at......#1311

...Tiffany's Nelly's.

This place is a treat.

Good Turkish mocca, good café au lait (if you order a double shot...), excellent menemen (a first for me), nice mix of people and great wait-staff.

Plus a great sense of humour.

"Not up to breakfast? How about an espresso, a glass of orange juice and a cigarette. Served on the terrace"

Hey kid, ya wanna try the Big Top? - #1310

Charles Knie's Big Top on the horizon in Hechtsheim.

Image signed in the foreground by an errant moped on a farm track

"Wild Billy's Circus Story" spring[steen]s to mind

These Germans have funny names - #1309

There are the Wagnerian Brünnhilde and Sieglinde (now adopted as the name of a strain of spud) and Siegmund (Victory Mouth) and Siegfried (Victory Peace).

Urmgard is one you'll stumble across and there's always Friedwart (Defender of the peace) and Friedhelm (Peace helment. Eh?)

But I'd never come across Mangalitza.

What a name! Mangalitza Wollschwein!

Mangalitza Woolly Pig!

"Healthy meat and sausage from Mangalita Wollschwein of Weidehaltung"

Hang on a sec! That's dative. Or is it genitive?

Whatever...

What it REALLY says is " Healthy meat and sausage from free-range Mangalitza* woolly pigs."

Good thing I don't do any translations. I'd be really crap, I'm sure.....

* A breed of Hungarian pig, valued for its hardiness and ability to live on virtually nothing and instantly recognisable by virtue of its thick woolly hide

Asparagusing - #1308

 

Now that all the nucular (oops, we don't have to say that any more now that the Idiot Bush is no longer President) nuclear power stations are being closed down over here, we should be happy that the place has been comprehensively verspargelt (=asparagussed, a pejorative phrase used to criticise the impact of windfarms on the landscape). 

They'll give us electricity for about 10 minutes a day, if I've got my sums right.

And while we're on the subject of renewables - here's a classic example of the peaceful use of solar energy being used to supercharge the local asparagus crop under plastic foil.

Thinks: isn't plastic a by-product of the petrochemical industry? 

Not that green after all, then...

Woman on the verge of a nervous breakdown - #1307

"But I could buy a NEW one for that money" she stammered.

€198 for getting a bike that hadn't been ridden for 7 years up to scratch doesn't sound TOO over the top, given the list of parts that he chanted out.

Have my doubts, though.

Took mine in for a service the other week.

€35 later, the chain and rear cogset hadn't been cleaned and oiled, the brakes hadn't been adjusted, one of the cables was frayed and in fact the ONLY thing they appeared to have done was to tighten the rear axle to get the 24th (longest) gear working again.

And only when I was leaving the workshop did they notice that the rear wheel had a wobble which pointed to the rear axle. Again.

Fixed that and then the front dérailleur stopped shifting properly after I'd done 5km.

Nice people and all, but am I going back?

No

An invitation - #1306

This is a good story.

Elements of revolution and conspiracies, provincialism and politics, neglect and vandalism, war and peace, fire and water.

And two lovely people.

Yesterday, I had coffee with Karl-Heinz Krause and his wife, Ursula to shed some light on the mystery of the gates at the Gutenberg museum.

I told them to let me know when they'd had enough - he's 87, she's 79 - but the topics of conversation never dried up and 3 hours later we were still talking.

This a story you couldn't make up if you tried.

It starts in Berlin at the end of the war with a young art student who's recently been released from PoW camp and ends in a sunlight-flooded atelier in a house in one of Mainz's leafy suburbs where one of the most important German sculptors of the post-war period lives, virtually unrecognised and where one of his major works sits anonymously between the cathedral and the most important printing museum in the world.

It's going to be in episodes, it'll start in a couple of weeks and by that time I'll have learnt how to cast bronze sculptures in sand, cleared up some details with the Krauses and photographed great chunks of the gates.

And we'll have done the Gutenberg museum's job for them.

Which is to preserve cultural knowledge for future generations....

And if Gucki would like to give me a call/txt on zerooneseveneightsixninezerofivesixtwothree, I think we should get this on Wikipedia. Or anywhere.

Elementary, my dear Watson.. - #1305

If things work out, I'm meeting Karl-Heinz Krause and his wife Ursula at precisely....NOW... to learn the history, concept and technique of the 4 bronze gates of the Gutenberg Museum in Mainz.

Easy enough to track him down, too.

Called the owner of one of the galleries in Berlin which represent him and asked if he could point me towards a source of information.

"Best thing would be to call him" he said "You DO know that he lives in Mainz?"

Actually, no...

And it appears that I've thrashed past their house frequently on the way into and out of town on the trusty velocipede.

More soon.

This is getting to be fun...

Sunny afternoon - #1304

...in the Römerwall park.

The Kinks have something definitive on that, too.

The tax man's taken all my dough
And left me in my stately home
Lazing on a sunny afternoon

And I can't sail my yacht
He's taken everythin' I've got
All I've got's this sunny afternoon

Save me, save me
Save me from this squeeze
I've got a big fat momma tryin' to break me

And I love to live so pleasantly
Live this life of luxury
Lazing on a sunny afternoon
In the summertime, in the summertime
In the summertime

My girlfriend's gone off with my car
And gone back to her ma and pa
Telling tales of drunkenness and cruelty


Now I'm sitting here
Sipping at my ice cold beer
Lazing on a sunny afternoon

Help me, help me, help me sail away
Well, give me two good reasons
Why I ought to stay

'Cause I love to live so pleasantly
Live this life of luxury
Lazing on a sunny afternoon
In Summertime, in summertime
In summertime

Save me, save me
Save me from this squeeze
I've got a big fat momma tyin' to break me

And I love to live so pleasantly
Live this life of luxury
Lazing on a sunny afternoon

In the summertime, in the summertime
In the summertime, in the summertime
In the summertime

Lyrics and music: Raymond Douglas Davies

What goes around....- #1303

 

.....comes around.

It's asparagus time again.

A bit early for me - I'll wait until the unforced stuff comes on the market and then we'll pick it up from our new source in Finthen, what with Lydia Bugner having taken early retirement.....

The Wish Tree -#1302

It's no wonder that Nimmerland (the German translation of J.M. Barrie's "Neverneverland" from "Peter Pan"), an independent bookshop for kiddies in Gonsenheim is thriving.

And it's no wonder that it's regularly recognised for excellence.

Here's an example:

Susanne Lux, the owner, has set up a tree outside her shop and for a month, kiddies can write down their wishes and attach the cards to the branches.

At the end of the 4 weeks, she'll collect, collate and present the wishlists to whichever city department is responsible for doing whatever it is that the kiddies find important.

For example:

Hannah, 7, wants the green see-saw back on the playground in front of the Gleisberg school.

Great stuff.

You do, of course, get the usual people who just don't get it.

Antje, 2, supposedly wrote that she wants a world without nuclear power stations......

Yeah, right

Break a leg......-#1301

Someone appears to have mistaken Uschi Niklas for a thespian (I have no idea why - she's married with 3 kids - true story at the end of this drivel) and given her the traditional send-off before a performance.

Which she's taken quite literally, doing an excellent job of fracturing the tibia and fibula in 3 places and ending up with a lower leg full screws and plates and godknowswhatelse to hold it all together.

This exercise thing's bloody dangerous, I tell you.....


True story.
One of Mum's posh relatives was talking to a less posh person and referring to an actress daughter of an acquaintance.


"Terence's daughter is a thespian, of course"


To which the less posh person replied "Well, as long as they do it in private and don't frighten the horses...."

Can't wait - #1300

Am I ever glad that Annette Ludwig has taken over as Director of the Gutenberg Museum!

Talk about a breath of fresh air!
Talk about innovation!
Talk about getting information published in English!
Talk about....even opening on Sundays until 5pm?!

The upcoming exhibition "Lettern in Bewegung - Moving Types" is a retrospective study of the use of text in cinematography from its early days up to the present.

Coolest of all is the use of a QR code to take you to a YouTube clip with a taste of what awaits us in October.

I use "Scan" from QR Code City on the iPhone. Free. (I like "free")

And if you want to generate your own QR code, there's kaywa

All cool stuff.

Tired of life? - #1299

Impoverished?

Depressed?

Wife spent all your money on clothes?

Can't scrape €1000 together for a Nikon AF G DX 10,5/2,8?

 Thinking of giving it all away ?


WAIT!


DON'T DESPAIR!

HELP IS AT HAND!

Take advantage of the highly polished top of one of the bollards in front of the Gutenberg Museum.

Limited range of perspectives, granted, but you could always rip it out of its anchoring and carry it around with you.

Not that I'm suggesting that, of course....

Not boring - #1298

"At least it's not boring!!!"


"Too true" comments someone.

And then of course there's Pete Townshend

Bloody chewing gum.... - #1297

 

"I bet it's those sodding PIGEONS again. Pick up the chewing gum from the pavement, chew it for a while and just leave it lying around up here. Now, HOW am I going to get it off my hoof....?"

Only in Mainz - #1296

"I'm the winner!"

"No I'm the winner!"

This sort of thing happens with monotonous regularity in Mainz.

State elections on Sunday and these two went head to head in one of Mainz's voting precincts.

Doris Ahnen wins by 13 votes, the head electoral honcho (same party as the winner, but I'm not suggesting that party affiliations played a role. Moi?) rules out a recount (by a 0.04% margin? Hello?), so it's "Goodbye Wolfgang"

Next day, someone does a validity check and thinks "Funny, no absentee votes at such and such a voting location", someone goes over to have a nosey around and thinks "Funny, what's this here box?"

Turns out to contain 223 absentee votes, 3 of which are invalid and the rest go to Wolfgang by a margin of 32, giving him an overall lead of 19 and a seat in parliament.

Doris slips in by virtue of her position on the party list (a feature of the proportional representation voting system) and the poor bugger from the CDU in Trier who THOUGHT he had a seat by virtue of the party list suddenly didn't.

And then there's the candidate from the Pirate Party, Antje Krause aka fishandchips who did exceptionally well with 3.4% (up there with established parties like the FDP and Die Linke).

Not that she gets a favourable mention in the paper, of course...

Monthly Theme Day - Benson and ...... - #1295

...'edges.

Working in the UK in the early 1970s introduced me to Estuary English with its wide variates of h-dropping and h-adding, not to mention the fricatives and affricates that you bumped into at every turn.

And then there was my cousin who worked in an off-licence (liquor store) part-time whilst at college with his stories of people drifting in for a "bottle of Graves".

As in:  holes in the ground for dead people ( /ɡreɪvz/), not the region in Bordeaux ( (/ˈɡrɑːv/).

Best of all was the guy I used to work with asking a mate for a look at his copy of "Oui", a soft-core tits-and-teeth magazine of the era.

"Lemme 'have a butcher's* at yer "Oi" when yer finished....."




*Cockney rhyming slang: Butcher's hook = look