What a year!

This year AD 2011 was quite outstanding considering what has happened to me and what thankfully did not come about.


First stunt
One of the first days of January, I visited my Dutch friend here in the village. He showed me the crumbling wall of the boiler building standing on a kind of embankment. I ran down the slope and got my left foot entangled in some brambles.

So instead of running down I had a short flight and the prospect of a hard landing on the tarmac. Thus I tried some rowly-poly but anyway, you have to touch ground on something and in my case it was the elbow instead of my head. Hospital, arm in a sling, 20 sessions with a physical therapist.

Even now, my left arm remains slightly bent instead of stretching straight as it should be. But I could have landed on my face!


Second stunt
A left arm "out of service" means no paragliding. But end of May I was ok again and thus we decided to have one weeks' holiday at the Atlantic Coast, paragliding on the Pyla Dune and having a good time both of us.

On the highway after twenty minutes' driving my wife said to me "I think the roof box opened". At 80 miles/hour that is bad news. I stopped the car on the side lane and looked back. A sleeping bag, a rug and a plastic basin lay on the fast lane. At that moment a car was driving over the basin. Bam, a noise like a canon firing or a plane crossing the sound barrier.

So I sprinted back as fast as I could to retrieve the stuff and avoid an accident. You are not supposed to spread your belongings on a French motorway where people speed along at 130 or 140 km/hour (80 to 90 miles/hour).

My left foot Achilles tendon did not appreciate the highway racing and broke under the strain. The last meters or feet I was limping along but I got the stuff. I even crossed the two lanes to retrieve the rug that lay on the left side and than limped back to the car.

When the highway police came I was already busy fixing the roof box with a sturdy strap. "Did you cross the highway" one of the cops asked me. "Certainly not", I said and he was obliged to believe me. Quite friendly the chap and even helped me to get back on the highway, slowing down those other speeders passing by.

I drove to the nearest cafeteria. Sitting next to my wife, sipping some lukewarm coffee, I had to tell her that our holidays finished here. I showed her my left foot. There, where the tendon should show a hard tight surface it has a belly-like feeling. She drove the Audi back home, slowly.



The next day, operation, three nights in the hospital, then 45 days in plastic plaster with two clutches: that is a very different way to live. Two clutches means you have no hands, only four legs. And after that the muscles are gone so I had to learn how to walk, increasing the distance one can make on foot. That takes takes time. In September I was back again at about 80 percent.

Could have been worse, I never had any pain and the highway race, let's forget that one.

During those 45 days on clutches, I decided to try obtaining the "Air Transport Pilot Certificate" on Microsoft's Flight Simulator. It's the most difficult one to get, it requires quite a lot of knowledge, a high degree of concentration and very fast reactions. Obligation to do the right thing at the right time. If somebody is interested just to have a look on YouTube, here is a kind of "walkthrough" showing what to do in order to succeed Splendidly made video. Sure, I will never fly such a plane in reality but it gives a good idea of what is required. Since I am a flightsimmer, I have the highest respect for those pilots doing this demanding job. In case your Internet connection is fast enough, don't forget to click on the HD definition.



Stunt number 3
On a beautiful Thurday morning, three weeks ago, I was driving to Aurillac to buy this and that and meeting my wife there at noon to have a bite. The road from the village to the main road is narrow but large enough to cross even a truck. Each one goes a bit on the grass at the right side and that's it.

I see the car coming towards me, driving confortably in the middle of the road. I sverve to the right, the other one, nothing, I drive a bit more to the right, rien à faire, BAM, BONG. All four airbags came out. Inside the car there was powder smoke as if I was in the midst of the battle of Trafalgar, right near a cannon, on the lower deck.



Keeping my breath I scrambled out of the car. Starting to yell at the other driver who had stopped, too. In the middle of the road where we met. Out came a very old man, nearly 80 years old, I guess. He was a bit shaken and did not say a word. Don't know what happened, he must have been dreaming or looking at the green grass in the fields. Afterwards his son told me he is in bad health and his wife has a nervous breakdown.

Those airbags of my 12 year old Audi saved me, or at least my front teeth. The bags came out so fast I don't remember seeing them coming! One of these days I go to see the old man to have a little friendly chat and to ask him how he is doing. The insurance will pay me the full value of my car but by old banger is 12 years old. They give me 5500 €, about 7400 US$.

I think I'll get me another Audi A3, I owe something to that company, oh yes, I am an Audi addict and the next car will be flaming red again.

Astronomy - a dream job

When I was around 12 to 15 years old I knew what I would like to do: become an astronomer, a stargazer.

That was largely before Hubble was launched giving us those gorgeous photos I coulnd't even dream of seeing. Nevertheless, there was open space, unlimited distance, the infinity, the idea of stars being light-years away from here.


Our little computer room. How do you like the desk top image on this 24" LED flat screen? On the wall are my flight simulator diplomas: my every-day-hobby.


Later it became obvious to me that my mathematical possibilities were next to a deflated tyre. In fact I dreaded the math classes in school, geometry, algebra, I was always a struggler, the rear guard and tried my best to be invisible to the teacher during those hours.

Professionally I had to do something else, no doubt about that. But the fascination remained. And there was something else about astronomy that would have made trouble. I don't like to stay awake at night. My daily adult life span ends at Midnight AT THE LATEST, to be continued happily next day.

Being obliged to stay awake during the small hours of next day, 1, 2, 3 o'clock in the morning: I hate that. As an astronomer I would have been compelled to become a Sun specialist, no doubt about that. But I am not that much interested in our Mother Star.

However, this love for astronomy brought me a lot of splendid hours. And it taught me a few important things and answered some questions:

- is there any sens in life, is there a destiny? No, there isn't. Look at those black holes, super novae and exploding and imploding stars, colliding galaxies. They come and go and we can do nothing about it.

- is there a superior being, a God, looking benevolently at you and me? No, there isn't, sorry for that. We are like the mice our cat is chasing day and night. If you have the right trajectory, you pass unscathed. If not..............





In about 2 billion years our galaxy the Milky Way will have a collision with the Andromeda Galaxy and in about 3 billion years they will have merged into a new, bigger one. Milky Way King Size. What does that mean to our Solar System and to our Earth? Nobody knows but all options are on the table.

Upgrading the house insulation

Our house must have been built just before the 1st Oil Price Shock, around 1973/74. At that time, heating was no problem, oil was cheap and consequently, the houses were barely insulated.

Happy times, gone forever.

Furthermore, practically all houses here are made of stone, the heavier the better. Wood is only used for the roof structure. That is a bit astonishing because France's Auvergne region is covered by forests in all directions. Pastures for cows or forests, that's it, more or less.

When we bought our house towards the end of last Century (sounds good, eh?), we decided to heat the place with a wood stove insert. So starting in 1998 I am in charge of the log preparation. We used about 15 cubic meters of firewood or 530 cubic feet. A huge pile of wood!

Finally, I was fed up to pass 2 months every year to transform oak tree trunks into logs. And an efficient outside insulation is the best method to reduce that big heap to a smaller one.

Thanks to the Internet and Google I found a company that covers the house with a 10 cm (about 4") thick polyurethane layer plus, on top of this, about 2 mm of painted aluminium, a little less than 1/10th of an inch.

Thus in August last year we got the job started and a week later all that remained to be done was to pay.











Funny thing is, the look of the house is the same as before. Only the walls are now about 4 inches thicker. And last Winter, the log consumption fell from about 530 cubic feet to about 350 cubic feet (from 15 m3 to 10 m3) meaning about one third less. And the cherry on the cake was that Goverment gave us a fat tax reduction.

Thus this year I had a new stove installed that is supposed to further reduce consumption. Mister stove's name is Max Heavyweight. Here, have a look at Max in all his glory.



Next week the missing pipe will be installed and if the present foul weather persists, we'll have a trial run.

Right now, my wife uses her iron for about half an hour and the temp rises 1°C in the living room!

The racists are among us

All news I hear of come to me through the different TV channels. I read an US weekly but this is more for in depth info world wide. If I am feeling they try to force-feed me some half truths or that I get only a lopsided picture I go to Google to find out.

So about ten days ago this stunning affair about the accusation of rape and sexual violence in a New York hotel against Dominique Strauss-Kahn (DSK as he is called here) came to my knowledge. Via the French TV, sure, at the evening news.

I know the man, like most people who live in France. He might well have been the next French President and I said to my wife, some months before "could be I would vote for him, if I were French".

The very day of these accusations and the videos showing him handcuffed in front of the NY prison, people, important well-known people, were interviewed and asked to comment .

Here is what I heard:

- Jack Lang, former minister of culture on television TF2 : "This was a kind of lynching inspite of the fact that no one was dead".

- Jean-François Kahn, journalist, writer and politician on France-Culture: "what happened there was a stripping of a servant".

- Robert Badinter former minister of justice) on television TF2 during a lengthy interview where he talked endlessly about the plight of DSK but not a word about the victim. When asked about this he said : "Yes, the victim, sure, that's a problem".

Bernard-Henry Lévy, philosopher, writer, movie director, journalist etc. on his blog and on the DailyBeast website : "...what I know is that nothing in the world can justify a man being thus thrown to the dogs...".

Jean Daniel, writer and journalist: "The fate inflicted upon Dominique Strauss-Kahn by the American justice system makes me think that we don't belong to the same civilisation ".

All these words have two things in common: first the men commenting seem not to care very much about the victim and second they are all jewish. The first point has been amply commented by now and I suppose this was the last time you can hear or read this kind of thoughts over here. Next time they will be more prudent I guess. But point number 2: nothing. Not a word. They are all rushing to the defence of the party but the very fact is not mentioned.

Now something else but there is a relation.The number 1 sports activity here is soccer, football as we call it rightly and the French national team won the World Championship some years ago. Have a look at this photo of "Les Bleus", the blue ones as they are called affectionately in the media.



About 3 or 4 years ago there was an uproar about the national team. The President Georges Frêche of the Langedoc-Roussillon region (bordering the Mediterranean) said one word too much "... in this crew of 11 there are 9 blacks. It would be normal to have 3 or 4...."

This triggered a big scandal. His party stripped him of his membership and they tried everything to avoid his reelection as president. Now have a look. What did he do? Nothing more than state a fact.

To conclude, Shakespeare's Hamlet comes to my mind: "There is a method in the madness" and the other one "Something is rotten in the state of Denmark".

The pleasure of reading - second thoughts

Some time ago I wrote a post about books I like most. When writing this list I really did my best and tried to be objective.

These days I am reading a book I have already read about three or four times and there are others I have even read nearly ten times. But not one of those books and its authors are in my list.

So I think I owe them something.

The book I am reading right now - for about the third time I guess - is "Tuesday The Rabbi Saw Red" by Harry Kemelman. This is a thriller as it should be, a real page turner, but there is something more to it.

The whole plot is set in a Jewish community situated near Boston/USA and this rabbi is a male version of Agatha Cristie's "Miss Marple", well known to those who like the genre.

The author who looks a bit like Ian Fleming




wanted to write a book about Jewish life in the United States but his editor told him that such a subject would be unsalable. So he wrapped it all into a thriller/mystery story and had a huge success worldwide with his rabbi stories.

So while reading this you learn a lot about those American Jews and about their religion. Strange to say, most of those Jews depicted in this book (and in the other ones) are not very likeable at all. They are constantly quarreling among themselves, are self centered and do their very best to annoy our worthy rabbi and are constantly scheming to make him loose his job.

A very interesting part of the book are comparisons between the hebrew creed and christianity. Quite enlightening, at least for me who is very much interested in religions (though myself I have none).

A very endearing person is the Assistant District Attorney Bradford Ames (not a Jew) who belongs to a very old family in the town and considers he has a duty towards his fellow citizen. He is a kind of rebublican aristocrat made in USA. Then there is police chief Hugh Lanigan, a cop as a cop should be, intelligent, broad minded, friendly.

Reading what I wrote hereabove, I have to admit that I don't say much about the plot. But it is a page turner allright, you see the police and our rabbi chasing the different links that frequently become dead ends.

I am sure, this is a great book out of a great series though it will never make it to "world literature" and the author was certainly never eligible for the Nobel Price.

Last not least, if someone feels inclined to give it a try and read a book from Harry Kemelman just after having glanced through this post, I would like to hear how it goes.

Cheers to all of you.

Heroes - they pay for us

When the Tchernobyl nuclear power plant exploded in 1986, the Soviet government sent thousands of army draftees and miners to dig tunnels or clean away debris before erecting the steel coffin to contain the radiation.

These people did not realize fully what they were asked to do: to face certain death within weeks or months or long, painfull illnesses. They suffered for the common good and I can only hope they are honoured by their people for this.

But what unfolds right now in Fukoshima is of an entirely different kind. The Japanese people know what radiation means and most certainly those who fight the monster right on spot. These days I frequently have a look at NHK World, the Japanese news channel in English and saw there those Tokyo Firefighters shaking hands before trying to spray water on those melting nuke rods. Normally, the Japanese are a kind of poker face nation but here I saw they were fighting back tears.



To do this you have to be nearby and nearby means death, a very unpleasant slow death. They were volonteers I have been told and if the word Hero has any meaning they are.
They face death out of their own choice so that others may go on living! Heroes.

As to nuclear power plants, they should have been scrapped since long. This technology is just too dangerous for dumb human species. I have been working in industry all my life and we had the saying "something that can go wrong, will go wrong, one day".

This "Sword of Damocles" hangs above our heads and this for thousands of years because nobody knows for certain what to do with the nuclear waste. Even without Tsunami, earth quakes or terrorist attacks we are all facing this threat due to our collective stupidity. And this technology is not even cheap, one of these lies we are being told from time to time. There was a Tchernobyl type power plant in Eastern Germany, shut down about a months after reunification. Now, more than 20 years later, the plant is still not totally dismantled at a cost of about 1500 Million Euro or nearly 2 Billion US Dollar! Just dismantling.

As to the waste, nobody know what to do with it. There is not a single place on Mother Earth where the geologists can say "this hole deep down is safe for the next five thousand/ten thousand years". But the search for a waste dumb goes on, worldwide, to the tune of Billions of Euros or Dollars, Billions, really, no exageration. So, for the time being, the stuff remains somewhere behind each power plant, safely stored away in big costly steel drums. But in forty, fifty years, those containers have to be replaced. Everywhere, all over the world! And so on, and so on and so on. No need for a Tsunami or a king size quake to shiver a bit. No need to panic either, those are old facts, nothing new, no surprise here.

Last not least: don't swallow anti-radiation iode pills. They are useless unless your home adress is Fukoshima or Tchernobyl. Better sit under a table with a pillow over the head.

Pieces of Music I love most

The last post here gave the list of my ten most loved books. Now I am doing the same but this time with music. My top ten are right here but it is understood that number 1 is not the biggest love, it only means I have to start somewhere and I do it at 1.

Marie-Paule Belle - La Parisienne
This is a song of a young girls who starts living in Paris and what sie does to get popular. Very dahing, daring, osé, bold and melodious. Here is the text in French

Exultate Jubilate - Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - Lucia Popp
This music is like Champaign, it bubbles with the joy of life. Nothing to do with the customary dour church music. And Lucia Popp is my preferred singer anyway.

Wo die Nordseewellen - Lale Andersen
This is a song dedicated to the North Sea and the people living at its shore. Lale Anderson has a very strange voice. She sings in the Northern German dialect (Plattdütsch).

Hat man nicht auch Gold beineben - Fidelio - Ludwig van Beethoven - Matti Salminen
This endearing song is all and exclusively about money. You need to have it. The singer is a powerful basso; he starts "if you don't have it you can't be happy". Here are the lyrics in German and in English

Der Freischütz - Carl Maria von Weber - Hunters' chorus/Jägerchor
That's one of the very few operas I feel strong enough to listen from beginning to end. This "Hunters' Chorus" is great fun to look at: the choir director killing off his singers one by one.

The Dubliners - Dublin in the Green
I love them. Such powerful music. As far as I know I have more or less everything they published. So it is not specially this song, it's the group! They are unique. The singing black beard is grey now but the rasping voice is the same.

Carl Orff - Carmina Burana/In Taberna quando sumus/Drinking chorus
This drinking song has a latin text. I especially like the part where they sing the long list of who is boozing along: everybody. This list starts at about 1:40.

Paul McCarthney - Mull of Kintyre
This guy was one of the Beetles. The song is melodious and the lyrics are wonderfully nostalgic.You can click on two versions, the first sung by PMC, both are great.

Joseph Haydn - Cello concerto in D major - Mischa Maisky
Another piece of melodious music! I love this concerto so much I bought 3 versions and even to me - I am not a learned music lover - there is a clear difference.

Bairisch-diatonischer Jodelwahnsinn - Münchner Gestanzln/Monika Drasch
Thi is modern Bavarian folk. Jazzy folk I would say. Monika Drasch (click on her name) belonged to this group. She is the good lokoking girl with the red hair and the green violin. In the second recording, she talks first in Bavarian German and then sings about a love sick ox driver (kind of cowboy in US English). The lyrics are from a Bavarian girl who immigrated around 1900 to the USA and died in Chicago, totally unknown and penniless.

Mikis Theodorakis/Pablo Neruda - Canto General
This is a genious of a composer. And he shows that there is more to present day Greece than brainless spending of money you don't own. Powerful melodious music. Here, too, I have two different videos of different parts of the Canto. Maria Farantouri belongs to the original performers, her voice is unforgettable. The second recording replaces her by a beautiful blonde from Finland.

Paco Ibanez - Erase una vez........ El lobito bueno
A very endearing voice and a great composer. Met him first when I tried to learn Spanish. All that remains now are his records. This is the story of friendly wolves and nice witches. This is an old recording. He is still active and singing but his voice now is not what it was (too many bottles I was told).

Hubert von Goisern - Kuamelcher
That is a kind of contemporary yodel music performed by an Austrian singer and composer. He has been some time in Tibet and in Northern India and I think he created a kind of Zen-yodeling, I am not kidding.

Sick note (kind of singsong)
For those who wish to have some fun and nothing more. This is for you!
And anyway, who is reading and hearing this from one to ten? I wonder. The Sick Note is performed by The Dubliners but it is not really a song. It is about someone who had a ton of bricks falling on him, he explains how it happened and why he could not come to work.

One last word. Those recordings come from different countries but looking at my list, all the music I really love is from here, from this small place called Europe. I did not do this on purpose, it is like that though I know that every country, every continent has music, loved by its people. So I know, like and appreciate for instance Ragas from India, Chinese flute music and those choirs from South Africa. There is some music from Morocco I like and some songs from Ms Kalsoom, the Egyptian singer but it does not go to the heart. That is sad to say but so it is.

There is however one exception to what I said here: music made in USA. Non is included but I did not do this on purpose because there are some I love very much, oh yes. Like "John Brown's Body", "Clementine, oh my darling Clementine", "Father Death Blues" sung by Allen Ginsberg, one of my all-time favourites, "Duelling Banjos" out of the movie Deliverance, or "Sisters of Mercy" by Leonard Cohen or Nina Simone singing "Ain't got no.." Another singer, long dead, too, is Paul Robeson, this amazing basso voice. "Joe Hill" is the song I love most. Most of these people are dead, dead for many years. In my heart they are classical, classics, not forgotten by me and as I can find these people on YouTube I suppose I am not the only one.

The pleasure of reading

There are people who never read. By never reading I mean never reading a book for pleasure. It simply does not occur to them. They might read a daily newspaper, the television weekly but a book? Never.

As far as I could find out through observation of others, never reading a book implies a certain lack of curiosity. Reading a book - nearly any one - makes you enter the life of someone else. I have always thought that reading can b e a kind of fast lane to the experiences of others and that might come handy one day.

As to me, well I have been reading nearly all my life. By nearly I mean since I learned reading, about one year before entering school. When I was about five years old my grandma read those Till Eulenspiegel stories to me. This guy who lived in the Middle Ages was a kind of impudent trickster and I could not hear enough. Thus when my grandma stopped I was so impatient to know what will happen next that I managed to learn it without any outside help.

Here, have a look at this photo. This is Till Eulenspiegel's stature in his birth town. I owe him something.



Not long ago I read in Smorgy's blog a very exhausting list of his readings. And in the comments he gives even the ten books he likes most. So I just imitate him and give a list of my favourite ten. Here is it, I tried to do my best. Number 1 does not mean this is my absolute best, I only start at one.

1. Peter Weiss - Fluchtpunkt
2. Arno Schmidt - Kaff auch Mare Crisium
3. Bertold Brecht - his collected poems
4. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - his collected poems
5. J.D. Salinger - The Catcher in The Rye
6. W.H. Davies - The Autobiography of a Super-Tramp
7. Raymond Queneau - Le Dimanche de la Vie
8. Michael Crichton - Timeline
9. P.G. Wodehouse - Psmith/Jeeves stories
10. Egon Fridell - Kulturgeschichte der Neuzeit
11. Mika Waltari - Sinuhe the Egyptian
12. Ernst Vollbehr - Bunte leuchtende Welt

Well, those ten became twelf. I am unable to delete two books from that list.

Some are well known but others , like No 1, 2 and 10 are somehow lost, forgotten but to a very small number of readers. Some more years to go and nobody will remember.

And something should be mentioned, too. It is very difficult to find a factual description of a book. I mean a review that tells you what is going on inside. Instead of this the reviewer talks and talks but I am not wiser at the end. One of the rare exceptions to this is the blogger I Me My . But maybe this is so because this person is not a professional book reviewer.

Works of art are subject to aging like people. The fastest to age are movies. But books age, too. There are those famous writers of the 19th century, monuments of literature, but I can't help it they seem lengthy and boring to me. Most of them. Long descriptions of situations and surroundings, I am not so very much interested in. So it could well be that each century or each time has its own literature or let's say interesting and thrilling books.

Busy with other people's affairs

Imagined conversation: "..........and when you talk to the Chinese Prime Minister, don't forget to mention the Human Rights situation in his country".

To tell the truth, I hate this. Why not talk about the human rights situation right at home? There is certainly a lot to do!

These two YT's are not really unforgettable or outstanding; they just illustrate a bit this subject.









These days, it's those "presidential" elections in Ivory Coast (somewhere in Africa). Having finished these elections they landed with two presidents ready to cash in, one who did win but could not get in and one who got in but did not win. Now, in dozens of countries worldwide, they are being told what to do. "Be democratic", everybody is clamoring, respect this, respect that. Armies are made ready for a peaceful intervention, the UN votes something, etc, etc, etc. Why not leaving these countries alone and why not refrain from fostering on them our democratic procedures ?

Dear reader, if you managed to read down to this line, this is something you might appreciate:

Democracy is a device that insures we shall be governed no better than we deserve (Bernard Shaw)

And here another one from Winston Churchill:
The best argument against democracy is a five minute conversation with the average voter .

The spirit of democracy is not a mechanical thing to be adjusted by abolition of forms. It requires a change of heart.
Mahatma Gandhi

I like especially the last one. So true.

Democracy is one of the few products that are absolutely homegrown, cannot be exported and should not be imported. Otherwise, we'll see those lousy copies like in Afghanistan, Irak, Kossovo and elsewhere.

However, we should try to improve our own democratic procedures. That would be a big job and would keep us busy for dozens of years. Especially our politicians - many of them - need some tuition and some improvements, not to speak of our institutions. Useless to go into details, every country has its own shortcomings.............

When a country is subject to a catastrophic event, like an earth quake, tsunami or heavy floodings we should help and everybody is honoured by doing so. Nevertheless, there are questions that come to my mind.

Take the case of Haiti: last years' quake killed about 250.000 people and flattened their capital Port-au-Prince. Now about one year has passed and I hear they have managed to clean about 5 (five) percent of the rubble. On television I see some of our gallant helpers from Europe or North America (the ever expanding NGO's) working with a shovel to help shifting the rubble from A to B.
Why can't the Haitians clear the rubble away themselves?
Yesterday I saw on the telly Haitian women complain of rape gangs operating inside those tent cities. And the Haitian police force? And the other people, living near-by?
Some months ago they had a cholera epidemy starting and Haitians got busy accusing rescue workers sent by the United Nations to be responsible by means of witchcraft. Some UN soldiers even got killed.

A few months ago, we graced the Haitians with one more election, financed by other countries through the United Nations. They elected a musician as president but it seems not everybody there is ready to dance according to his tune. So they are fighting in the rubble streets, do a little killing among themselves because not everybody is happy with the counting of the votes. Some ballots disappeared, others were counted twice.

Considering all this, my idea is that help - meaning our money - should go where the concerned nations are ready to work themselves towards the same goal and show it! That's not a new idea, the dicton "help yourself and God will help you" was not coined yesterday.

So let's stop giving lessons to other nations and to far away peoples. They don't like it as we don't appreciate to be told what to do. I remember the uproar when at the height of the second oil crisis, the OPEC boss and king of Saudi-Arabia told a reporter "if you feel cold at home because you have no heating, just put on a warmer sweater".

The Soviet Union - The Evil Empire

Yesterday - my wife was out at the local gym session - I switched to the TV channel ARTE and saw the docu-fiction "Stalin-Molotov, the tyrant and his double".

The Soviet Union disappeared from the map in 1990 and nowadays it is nearly never mentioned anymore. But to me this state means a lot, the Soviet Union accompanied practically my entire life!




When I was born, the communist SU and Nazi Germany, The Third Reich, were mortal ennemies. Looking back on this I can't help thinking they hated each others guts so much because they had a lot of things in common.

I am born in Berlin and spent my youth there. At that time, after the Second World War, the city was divided. And this dividing line, The Wall, marked the border between the Communist East , sponsored and maintained by the Soviet Union and the Western World, as we called it at that time.

Like everybody else, everywhere, I lived my life. But the impression lingered on: we are being observed by a snake that waits patiently - and sometimes less patiently - to gobble us us, me included. Those who are older may remember those sayings "better red than dead" and the other one "better dead than red".

Years later, after my military service, I decided to take a break, have a sabbatical, and I went to India.

I had some money saved but not a big heap, so I hitchhiked and passed by cars or trucks through Yougoslavia, Greece, Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan. All countries I crossed - in Europe and Asia - had something in common: up north was the Soviet Union. I covered thousands of miles but up North was the big entity ready to rake me in, whenever possible.

In Afghanistan I even met Russians. At that time Afghanistan was still a kingdom but also something like a colony in waiting, ready to be gobbled up. The Russians there, in the Northern and Western part of the country were doing some development work there, kind of NGO's, probably with a hidden agenda, like all great powers.



That was the time of the Cold War and thus the US Americans were present in the Kandahar region. Looking back, thinking back, I wonder if those two ever met and talked it over............

Many, many years later, I lived in Paris and managed to pass a little holiday in Bruges/Belgium, one of the most beautiful town I have ever seen. In the street someone talked to me and said "The Berlin Wall has fallen". I could not believe it. This wall and the Soviet Union behind it seemed everlasting to me.

Now this is already twenty years in the past. The mighty Soviet Union, the nightmare of millions and millions of people, lasted only 70 years!

And what will remain of it in hundred or two hundred years: probably not much more than a footnote or some lines in history books.

Wikileaks and the national interests

Wikileaks: big hullabaloo about secrets of state, gone public. Thank you. We are being entertained by the US government, free of charge and at prime time. And not only this: many secondary choirs and solo singers give their best .

Sure, not everybody likes it. Some shit green or yellow. They stand there naked and exposed when - a moment before - everything looked so wonderful.

About 150 years ago, the German philosopher Friedrich Wilhelm Nitzsche said this: "State is the name of the coldest of all monsters. Coldly it tells lies and this crawls out of his mouth: I, the State, am the people".

Those in power, everywhere or nearly everywhere, tell us they are busy for the common good and acting in the national interest. That might be partly true but only partly.

When I hear the word "State" I am thinking not about a cold monster but about a huge bureaucracy that never sticks its head out but its members most certainly have interests. Permanent interests. Interests for soft life, money coming their way, influence and power and all this with as little responsibility as possible for their doings hence the need for secrecy, anonymity and hypocrisy to make it happen.

There is no such thing as an abstract body called STATE. There are only people who have chosen to hide their actions behind this word.

When we hear the "national entertainers" from here and there, let's think about this a moment before applauding those brilliant and convincing speeches.

The new aristocrats

On the left side: "we are fed up" and on the right side: "we are on strike"


A friend once said to me, France means three things to him: Paris, wine and strikes. Well, that's putting it into a nutshell. I have been living here now for over 25 years and I can testify there is more to it.

But there is no denying it: strikes are aplenty over here. What is less well known is the fact that it's always the same people who are on strike: the state employed teachers, the National Railway people and public transport in general. The public sector in general at all levels, state, cities, any kind of administration plus those companies that have at least strong ties with the public sector (the State being an important shareholder or so).

And when they have finished one of those stikes their speakers ask for compensation - meaning the salary paid in full - and if there is some hesitation to grant this, there is pronto another strike.

Good old Karl Marx's definition of strikers "people who have nothing to loose than their chains" is really an old hat.

These happy strikers are not the downtrodden poor, they are our aristrocrats and consequently, we have to feed them! As the aristocrats of old, they have prerogatives and special rights, like a secure job unless you kill father, mother and your boss, few hours of work, garanteed days of illness (oh yes, in some public sectors), 7 weeks of holidays per year at a minimum, pension at 55 or 58 at the latest with a monthly amount identical to the last salary.

When you talk to a civil servant, they always tell you how little they earn. But they never mention the numerous bonuses they get, for having children, for not working or living in the place where they have been engaged, three days of paid leave for one child that is ill and so on, and so on, paying less for their pensions than the private sector but getting more in the end.....

And there is another similarity with the pre-revolutionary aristocrats: they are not thankful for being fed by the taxpayer who pay their salary, their pension and their workplace.

I have been late at my job because of the railway strikes. I got sacked due to the railway strikes. The only solution for me is to die but even this I can't do because of the railway strikes!

The only exception to all this, as far as I know, is the police, they don't go on strike, they work long hours in frequently dangerous surroundings and they are grossly underpaid. The other exception is the people working in the public health sector, doctors, nurses etc. Long hours of work, unpaid overtime, stressful surroundings.

Here, the trade unions are very small compared to other countries. And their members are nearly exclusively "busy" in the public sector. Therefore, they have plenty of time to walk the streets shouting slogans and having a good time. When it rains they are less numerous. Nearly any reason is good for a strike here or there and when they are being asked you generally hear it's for the common good. Those striking teachers and public transport people see themselves as a kind of vanguard. They show us the way and do what we can't do. Thank you!

Small universe

September, 22, last day of a glorious Summer. Walking round the house, in the Sun, I thought what a happy life. No more city dwelling for me, surrounded by concrete, noise and bad air.



This is a big garden and I have the privilege to live there. Sure, I own the place but all the other inhabitants, the plants, birds, squirrels and so on happily ignore this. They live their own life and I try to have a light footprint.

The above apple tree is a tree baby. I planted it a year ago because the original tree was uprooted by a small cyclone. Thanks to global climate change, we had our first whirlwind ever over here, two years ago. Say hello to Oklahoma/USA.




The previous owner lodged his little dog in there. Now it is empty but I keep repairing it because of the roof. Those stone shingles are typical for the region. You need huge beams to support the weight of those stones. A normal roof would simply collapse under its weight.




Meet Mister Atlantic Cedar, cedrus atlantica. He is twice as big as the house but only slighly older. At least, that's what I suppose because hundred years ago this was grassy farmland for the cows. And peasants don't plant cedar trees! Let's hope he will never fall on the house. But in this area, the big storms always come from the South-West, never from the North-East...............




That's hard to believe, but they grew right here! These lepiota (in Latin macrolepiota procera - parasol mushroom) have a wonderful taste. Just put them in the frying pan like a steak if it is open. Add some butter. After frying, add some salt and pepper and then iam, iam.





Great to look at, don't know what happened when I made the second photo but I could not resist. Home-made abstract art, painting with light. And in this time of the year, the birds feast on them. End of October, the flowers are empty shells, not a single grain left.




Still life in a shady corner behind our "doll house". A good place to sit on a day with blazing sunshine, 40°C (or 104°Fahrenheit).




Same place as before, just another angle of view. Fuchsia flower. See the wooden door in the rear. I made it.





During the warm months, a frog is living there. And the second day I installed the little pond, some water fleas settled there. Where did they come from? Where did they live before? Another mystery.

A little excursion into paleobiology

I like science. I am interested in it. Any science, or nearly because there is science and science. You can study subjects at a university that may be worthwhile but only remotely related to science. So you can become a major in political science meaning you have got some coaching and training to con people into believing you will do something for them.

Or you can study theology so as to be mentally equipped to become a priest, a bishop, mullah, ayatollah, rabbi. Fully trained to speak convincingly about a specific eternal truth. However, you cannot study for a degree in animist religion, cargo cult (invented in Borneo), scientology, vodoo. Not yet. No, you cannot become a Science Major in Louisiana or Haitian Vodoo. That's a pity but so it is, for the time being!

No, the kind of science I am interested in are those branches where people try to find out, to understand, to improve.

Well, sorry, the stuff above is a digression. The subject right now is paleobiology, linked to evolution of animals and plants. People working in this field try to find out the evolutionary history of life.

The point I am interested in is the extinction of the dinosaurs about 65 Million years ago. There was this big comet crashing somewhere on this unhappy planet and wham, all the dinos died. Those living on the land, on the ground and in the air and those living in and under the water.

In a nutshell: I don't believe it. Some must have survived. Why shouldn't they? The sharks exist for more than 400 Million years and they managed to stay with us. Same for the crocodiles that crawl around for about 200 Million years and they are still here. So why only the dinosaurs vanished totally in a very short time?

So my idea is that though most died when this killer planet made Mother Earth dive into a long Winter, some survived and carried on. I am even convinced the first humans must have met some of those last dinosaurs, the biggies, kind of Tyrannosaur, I suppose.

Why I think that? Because in all civilizations there is talk of dragons. And when you look at pictures of those dragons one frequently sees a kind of big, snake-like lizard with big claws.

Here, please look at this Chines bronze showing how these people imagined a dragon.




And this one is a German engraving showing Hercules slaying the Hydra, the ancient Greek mythological dragon.





This is the Klagenfurt Lindworm. Well, I don't think that proves anything but I show it nevertheless because this is a beautiful stature. However, if you have a look at the old coat of arms of that city, the dragon there looks very convincing.




This last sculpture shows a very impressive dragon on the Kaiserbrücke in Mains/Germany.


This is a bit out-of-the-way subject. I wonder if I have convinced anybody and some of my readers might think "I don't care". Sure, right or wrong, nothing changes either side. But the same is true for evolution vs. creation. However, the outcome of this little quarrel might have huge implications.

Lawyers - the scourge of our time

In the year 8 at the time of the Roman Emperor Augustus, Germanic tribes destroyed three Roman legions during a battle that lasted several days. Those tribal people must have had a red-hot hatred against lawyers, called "legal pleaders" at that time. Lucius Annaeus Florus tells the story thus: "They sewed up his mouth after first cutting out his tongue, shouting: at last, you viper, you have ceased to hiss".

Sorry to say that but I love that story. Two thousand years have passed but the quality of those millions of "legal pleaders" has not improved.


Do you believe in God? - Depends on the client

Nearly all Western parliaments are swamped with lawyers of all kind. Due to their efforts, nearly everything is complicated, they are churning out laws, orders, edicts, rulings, regulations.

Generally ambiguous, those laws have the merit to keep busy and well paid that army of legal experts, feeding on the people like leeches.



As to me, I cannot change this situation. But at least I have made a solemn private oath never to vote for anyone who has a legal profession. There are hands you cannot cut off but at least nobody can oblige you to kiss it.

I have been told that in the USA lawyers sometimes contact people after an operation just to find out if there is a possibility to sue someone for money. We are not yet there but will have the same situation within the next ten years.





Right now there is a shortage of engineers and scientists in many Western countries. On the other hand, students of law are aplenty, studying to become parasites of their own and hoping to haul it in big.

A country functioning without rule of Law and security makes life a misery for everybody with the exception of some strongmen. But this cancer-like proliferation of litigations could well be our undoing.

Behind this big screen of legal safeguards lurks the real lawlessness. Just listen to the news.

How to become a tree hugger

This is my new paraglider. Swiss made, called Epsilon 6 and I am eager to get my first flights under the belt.

Here I am in the Dordogne valley, about a fortnight ago. The wind was quite strong, a bit too strong to be honest. Look at the wind sack, filled like sausage.

There was another paraglider pilot and the chap didn't hesitate a moment to prepare for take-off. He had some difficulties to launch but finally he made it in the air. His example made me decide to go as well.

First, I managed to lift off in spite of the strong wind. Here, I have already gained the first foot of height. Just lifting off.




Unfortunately, I made a mistake. Instead of speeding up (hands up at head level) I was braking (hands at hip level). Consequence, I was flying backwards, and in no time, I was back on Mother Earth

have a look



Being on the ground, the canopy above and behind me, I could not do very much. Du to the wind I was dragged backwards. Two or three seconds later the glider wrapped itself around this young oak tree and I came to rest near its trunk.



My flight was over. All I had to do was to disentangle the canopy and this I did.
It took me about an hour of intense work. A little later another pilot came and helped me from below.



Those photos were made by the wife of the airborne pilot. Thanks to Odile's photographic skills this little incident is thoroughly documented for the posterity. She proposed to send me some pics and I gave her my e-mail address. And she kept her word.



A paraglider is a high-tech machine, made of cloth and lines. To disentangle the stuff from a tree requires patience, lots of it. Don't tear on the lines, don't tear on the canopy. Patience, patience. The idea was to roll the glider right in the tree before getting in down all together. Fortunately, someone was helping me.



I don't even know his name. But we met yesterday before yesterday at the same site and I thanked him again for his help. If I meet him a third time, I'll ask his name. It's useless to propose a glass of beer in a pub, there is absolutely nothing near Mound Mercou. Just trees.

Friendly people.

Number 2 - Escaping death by a hair breadth

It seems I feel like adding one more post on this subject. But not chronologically, let's jump to the 1945 event "The School Yard Slaughter". The last of my near death experiences that happened during the Second World War.

My mom could not stand those daily bombings any longer. My father had a weak heart and was thus not drafted into the armed forces. But in 1945, the last months of this war, they took everybody who was at least able to crawl and he left for the militia (Volkssturm).


Old people reading the announcement that they are being called into the militia

My father gone, she decided to go to Vienna his native town. She thought in Vienna everything was peaceful, no air raids day and night. In this she was totally wrong but she did not know. In Prague our train trip came to an abrupt end. We never made it to Vienna.


/> Beautiful Prague - in peaceful peacetime


I don't remember what happened then, I don't remember but I know there was an air raid, a big one, king size air raid, have a look at Wiki here in case someone wishes to know more about this one. Anyway, I see myself walking through the streets of Prague, the houses on fire to the right and to the left. It was so hot we had to walk in the middle of the street.

Then a army truck picked us up and soon Prague was behind us, we were passing through the country side. Suddenly the driver stopped and even to me, now an old war hand six years old, it was quite clear why. Ahead of us, to the right and to the left side of the road, there were burning cars of all kind, a flaming car cemetery. We all stepped out, our flight ended here.

We were herded by Czechoslovakian or Russian soldiers into a kind of garden park. I think we waited there quite a long time. A soldier came, took some chocolate out of his pocket and looked at me, quite a long time. Finally he made up his mind, ate the chocolate himself and strolled away.

Finally we left the place. A long line of civilians and a few wounded soldiers. After some time we reached a school built of red bricks. They parked us in the square school yard, surrounded on all sides by the school building. On first floor, running all around, was a colonnade.

The armed men who guarded us stood in this colonnade, looking upon us.

Suddenly they started to shoot. A panic brought out, people were running in all directions to escape the bullets. We, too. There was a nurse tending to a wounded soldier: her throat was half ripped away and she was standing there. Our eyes met.

In a corner right under the colonnade were cellar doors and windows. Someone smashed those windows and my mom and myself found refuge there. At least they could not reach us from above. Our cellar was packed to capacity. We were standing there like sardines in a tin.

At some distance from where we were standing I hear a whimper: "water, water, water please". And then some else answered: "no way, he'll die anyway". Some minutes later we were standing knee-deep in ice cold water.

So we left the cellar. The shooting had stopped............

----------------------------------------------

Yesterday, I had my first real flight with the new Swiss made paraglider. The wind was very strong, too strong. While starting, I was lifted up some meters, came down again and was dragged backwards on the ground. Then the canopy was stopped by a small oak tree wrapping itself around. I had nothing, not even a scratch. But it took me more than an hour to get the paraglider back to Mother Earth.

Escaping death by a hair breadth

Some weeks ago I saw at the television a show called "Incredible but true". The last video in this series was about a lady in the United States who had escaped death several times. She even had a near miss on Sept. 11, 2001. Instead of boarding one of those airplanes hijacked by Al-Qaida, she took one earlier or the next one. I don't remember. I think she had this kind of luck six or seven times.

That made me think about my own life. It's a fact, I have escaped death by a hair breadth at least six times. Just for entertainment an to continue filling this blog, here is what happened, chronologically.

1943 - Berlin: an incendiary bomb fell right near my bedside

1944 - Berlin: nearly roasted alive in a bomb shelter

1945 - Prague: the school yard slaughter

1976 - Brussels: near miss by 3 or 4 inches, stupid car accident

1986 - Granada/Spain, Serra Nevada: avoided falling down an iced over mountain slope

1993 - French Alps, Winter holiday, missed a frontal car accident on sludgy
road

1993 to 2010: over 520 flights in a paraglider: nothing. Life is great!

1943 - at that far-away time, my parents and yours truly were living in an outer Berlin suburb, more trees than houses. Nevertheless, bombs were falling nearly every night. Thus we took part in the war, potential collateral. Going to bed, prior to sleeping, meant that my grandma was reading a story to me. She was a bit deaf and did not hear the sirens warning of a new air raid and the signal to run for the bunker. Ours was in the garden. But I didn't tell her because I wanted to hear the end of the story. Then the bombers came, I still hear the overhead drone but I continued to keep mum.

Then it happened: a big black bomb landed right near my bed, between me and my grandma. It must have crossed the roof, then the first floor and last not least the roof of my room without exploding. A man living upstairs burst in, grabbed the heavy bomb and threw it out of the window. Without opening it! It exploded outside, yellow flames of a phosphor bomb. It burned a large part of our hedge, mostly wild roses.




This is the first of those unhealthy happenings and one of my first childhood souvenirs. I cannot help thinking that I remember this mostly because this unknown hero who saved us did not open the window prior to throwing the bomb out. I still see this today as if it was yesterday.

Those other events? Maybe another time. This one is already long enough and most people don't appreciate reading long text on the screen. Me, too.

Sports journalists - masters of empty talk

As I said in my post about the Olympics, I finished to dislike those journalists who talk and talk and talk without saying anything worthwhile.

As I could not stop them I thought it might be fun to copy this stuff. Those comments I have captured were originally given in French or German. Here is the English translation. It's up to you to compare this to the homegrown verbiage in the English speaking countries.

- He is the first: mission accomplished

- He has hatred and rage: he must get a medal

- Damned: he has been denied a good starting gate

- That's the Dark Lord

- Our Rock and Roll skier

- He is the little nervous one

- Enormous, enormous, enormous

- I am struck with shock

- this is monstrous, monstrous. Monstrous I am saying

- Monstrous, he is skiing on the roof of the world

- the guy is an alien

- push the accelerator, damn it

- Yelling: enormous, immense, monstrous, a genious

- She took over the controls. (A little later): she has been disqualified

- one gold medal is not enough for her

- Let's concentrate on the competitors

- He has got a problem in his head

- She is flying away and the others remain nailed down.

- You made us dream

- The guy advances as if he had been stung by a scorpion

- He was completely flat

- She got gold, I cannot believe it

- And now, suddenly, she is back in business

- It had to be done, he looks disgusted, but it is good anyway

- The greatest skier on planet Earth

- The Italian curse continues now for 18 years

- They have a monstrous female squad

- She is 19th, well, we have to look how the others are doing

- The public is totally charmed