Any news from Africa?

Talking about politically correct subjects in a politically correct way?? Not always, it's too hard for a blogger like me.

So this is about Africa. You know this big place down south, on the other side of the Mediterranean.

Not a day passes without news from there. The melody is always the same, CHAOS in all its forms plus a never omitted mention of colonialism. Whatever happens down there in Africa, it is somehow our fault, always.

You want short sleeves or long sleeves? In case you answer short, they cut your arm above the elbow. In case you opt for long sleeves, off comes your hand (Liberia, The Analyst, 10 January 2008).

In South Africa between 500 000 and 1 million women are raped per year, babies included. (World Net Daily, 27 May 2008).

Want to know how to make speed killing without any modern weapons? Please inquire in Ruanda Burundi. There, only with the help of machetes and other big size knifes they killed about eight hundred thousand people in just three months.

The Democratic Republic of Congo is so fertile that you can plant a broom stick into the ground and you have a fair chance to see it turning green. Nevertheless, famine is endemic over there. It should be said that that the Congo is indulging in a civil war that goes on nearly since the Belgians left there in the early sixties. The horrors happening there everyday defies imagination (CBS News, 27 May 2008).

And so on, and so on. The list is endless.

AIDS is spreading over there like a wild fire. Naturally, we are being told that this is due to cultural particularities and culture has to be respected, anywhere. So they need Bill Gates and his billions + plus European Union Aid + President Bush and his aid program + all good people world wide. Nobody seems to tell them and us that they should simply stop screwing around whenever they leave home.

By the way, in South Africa many people think raping a baby girl is a proven remedy against aids (BBC News, 9 April 2002).

Looking for a country with inflation well above 1.000.000 percent? Just go to Zimbabwe (Associated Press).

And then - at the telly - I see those Africans dancing around and I hate to see this. Dancing for just any reason. Got a new remedy against Malaria? Let's have a dance. Someone from far away Switzerland or elsewhere shows them how to make a stove, how to cook, how to purify water, how to plant a tree that is not withering away next week! another dance. Got a new president elected at 99 percent, the old one has been assassinated: let's have a dance.

So I think Africa and our media should give me a break. Stop talking about this endless list of horrors streaming out there as well as their perpetual non-performance.

I know they are poor but they are not the only ones. Why are the Koreans able to build big ships and TV flat screens? 50 years ago this country was nothing but a heap of rubble after a devastating war. And only 25 years ago China was as underdeveloped as Mongolia. And now?

So why not Africa? Why is there not a single manufactured product coming out of this continent?

These are the real questions to be asked and to be acted upon. By the Africans themselves, just for a change.

FLYING ABOVE THE ATLANTIC OCEAN

Once or twice a year I am having a little flying holiday. My favorite place to go is the Pyla dune, south of Bordeaux/France. With a maximum height of 110 m (about 350 feet) this dune is the highest in Europe.



The camping is situated right at the foot of the Pyla dune, in the pine forest, five minutes' walk through the quicksand and I am right at the paragliding launching pad.

However, no wind, no flying. The day of our arrival, nearly cloudless sky but no wind. Not the slightest. There were roughly two dozens of paraglider pilots standing in the sand, waiting, waiting, waiting (www. in abbreviation).



Next day, blue sky again but the very strong wind was blowing from the land to the sea. Flying under these conditions would be a suicide mission. So we had another walk on top of Master Pyla, tourists among tourists.

The dune advances inland about 1 meter (three feet) per year, at most places. Thus all those camping sites on the inland side of the dune get smaller and smaller over the years. When walking along the water, you see the remnants of shore defense bunkers, laying half hidden in the ocean. They were built by the German army during the Second World War, now subject to tagging. When they were constructed in 1942/43, they were on top of the dune!!



Pyla is a big tourist attraction and restaurants are aplenty. There I saw a waitress who had a new way of carrying her dish towels. Have a look.



The third day was sunny again but again without any wind. Thus we went to the nearby Hydroplane Museum, featuring this kind of airplanes from about 1905 till now. The museum was closed, exceptionally. No sweat, a real "grockel" (English for tourist)can always fall back on something else. What about a Cappuccino in a good looking Café?

Well, all this is a side line. I came here for some paragliding and now I am reading Patrick O'Brian's "The Ionian Mission". Splendid book, I recommend.

Here, have a look at the camping site, right on the Pyla dune, under big fir trees.



This camp site is one of the best I know. They feature clean toilets and if you feel like it, you can get a kind of paper ring to put on the toilet seat. Hygienic shitting of stand-alone quality. I am always coming back to the place because of this.

Sunday, our last day at Pyla. Again heavy sunshine but no wind. Again those idle paraglider pilots are standing or sitting on the dune, www for some wind. Then suddenly, a paraglider appears in the sky, just one.



Everybody gets excited because there is no wind. We are all running to the other side of the dune to have a slice of this happiness. Alas, when we are there, the lone paraglider is still alone in the sky, slowly gliding down to Mother Earth. He must have had a gust of warm air, for some minutes and was smart enough to act upon it.

Monday morning, we are leaving. Thanks to YouTube, have a look at my beloved activity. I like the video because the pilots are a bit nutty. Youthfully excited as well as the music. This is "Plastic Bertrand" singing a hit of about thirty years ago, very much to the point "ça plane pour moi" (something like 'I am high' - but not in the air but in the head). Naturally, I am not flying like this, coffin lid open, but still flying, peacefully in the sun, over the sand and the water, over the tree tops.








Another post that is a bit too long. Sorry.

Breakfast in the garden

This Saturday morning - 3rd May - is important. It was sufficiently warm and sunny to have our breakfast IN THE GARDEN. First time this year!





Weekend breakfast is always special. We load the table to capacity. That's what we had:

Croissants (four in all - two for each one) - plus baguette with sesame or poppy grains outside

Black Assam tea (for me with milk and a glass of orange or apple juice (I prefer the last)

Forest honey and Moor honey, both from nearby

Unsweetened almond paste and hazelnut paste (those two big jars) and Nutella

3 jams: cherry, cherry plum, quince.

Well, that's the breakfast. Let me stress this however: it's not French, it's not German, it's just ours.

My fellow blogger Bere in her blog A Chronology of Stupidity shows the photo of a very different kind of breakfast, US American style, I suppose. It is her post "time lost, weight gain", you have to scroll down a bit after landing there.

Here in France, most people have a very simple b. Black coffee, baguette, butter and some marmalade or jam. Frequently, the jam is skipped. So many different ways to start happily into a new day.

Being tagged

My fellow-blogger Patrick Joubert Conlon Born-again Redneck
had me tagged and here are the details of what this entails:

The rules:

1. The rules of the game get posted at the beginning.
2. Each player answers the questions about themselves.
3. At the end of the post, the player then tags 5-6 people
and posts their names, then goes to their blogs and leaves
them a comment, letting them know they've been tagged and
asking them to read your blog.
4. Let the person who tagged you know when you've posted your answer.

The questions are as follows:

1.) What I was doing 10 years ago?
2.) What are five things on my to-do list for to-day? (not in any particular order)
3.) Snacks I enjoy
4.) Things I would do if I were a billionaire
5.) Three of my bad habits
6.) Five places I have lived
7.) Jobs I have had

1.) What I was doing 10 years ago?

In 1998 I was living in Neuilly-Sur-Seine, a Paris suburb and worked for a German company selling gears, gear grinding and gear controlling machines. In July I married after having lived together for about 7 years. In September we left our jobs and moved 600 km down south to live in a village. I am still there, happy.

2.) Five things on my to-do list for to-day

a) Racking my brain to answer the tagging questions.

b) Continue working on the overhaul of the wooden terrace railing (balustrade), using an orbital sander, a power planer, a router, a band saw, a jigsaw plus a pot of paint.

c) If weather permitting, driving down to the Dordogne valley for some paragliding. Spring is the very best period for this. Half an hour of flying right above the treetops would be wonderful.

d) Calling on my friend in Brussels to talk about the last piece of music on my blog. He wrote me that clarinet player is not good enough and he has a better one.

e) Last not least: buying at Amazon.fr "Blandings Castle" from PG Wodehouse, Patrick "The Redneck" (see above) recommended to me. Incidentally, I met him by making a Google blog search for this beloved writer and now I have to find out, too, at Wikipedia what "redneck" really means in USA English.


3.) Snacks I enjoy

Black forest cherry cake, Tiramisu, bitter almond chocolate.


4.) Things I would do if I were a billionaire

Make a trip around the world, have a look at Australia, Japan, some US National Parks. Opening a world-wide TV station, kind of personal CNN but very much less boring and no publicity. Buying a car with a huge trunk that runs noiselessly and uses no petrol. Kicking out all those I don't want to see: that's the privilege of the rich.


3.) Three of my bad habits


I like to convince those who are not convinced. - I like reading when others make small talk - should eat less chocolate, pastries and other blow-up stuff.


5.) Five places I have lived

In Berlin-West before the Wall came down - in Aachen/Rhineland where Carolus Magnus had his HQ more than thousand years ago - in Brussels/Belgium where it rains more often than not - in Neuilly-Sur-Seine where the current French President was town mayor - in Rouffiac the farmers' village, far away from cities, noise, industry, business, pollution.


7.) Jobs I have had

In AACHEN as an apprentice for transports, export/import. Having got my diploma, I made the solemn oath never to work again in the transports business.

In BRUSSELS in a company where we were selling turn key plants to Third World countries and to the Soviet Block. We went bust when Saddam launched his war against Iran instead of paying us. Professionally speaking, my best time.

In NEUILLY-SUR-SEINE near Paris selling gears and machine tools made by our German mother company to French industry. Thrilling but stressful job.

THE END of this huge task. Now let's shut down the 'puter and hit the road for the Dordogne valley, see 2-c here above. Bye bye.

SOME MORE MUSIC?

Judging by the number of comments, my last post about the opera singer Lucia Popp was quite (reasonably) popular.

What astonished me most was the fact that people from far away and from very different cultural background appreciate Mozart's music and the singer, too.
Unfortunately, I am sorry to admit that this is only partially true the other way round. So I don't fall for Chinese Opera but like their instrumental music.

This YouTube video features a composition from Carl Maria von Weber. The clarinet is played by Sabine Meyer. Please lend them both your ears for three or four minutes. It's really gorgeous, there are not many pieces of music like this.



When clicking you are being jumped to YouTube and that is ok because it gives you the possibility to read the comments.

Depending on the piece of music, some of these are truly ferocious. The pleasure to destroy, humiliate, downgrade. Music should not be the means to let off steam.

HAPPY DRIVING - PRICE OF DIESEL

Yesterday fellow-villager Valérie told me that the amount of money spent per month for Diesel by herself and her husband has reached 850 Euro (about 1300 Dollar at present exchange rate).

Quite a lot for a family that is not hauling it in with a shovel. Then I asked her how she is driving and she explains she drives sportingly. Meaning, she accelerates than brakes, braking accelerating, braking accelerating.

Well, I don't drive like this. In fact, you might say I am driving like my own grandfather. This is not due to fear of traffic and speed. I am accelerating smoothly, I brake only when I can't help it, preferring the motor brake by shifting into low gear. When reaching a village where the max. speed is 50 km/h (about 30 miles), I leave the gas pedal and frequently go into idle speed for better gliding.

You might consider this a rather boring driving technique. But it isn't because I am doing all this with a passion. I want to become world champion of low consumption. In case the title will ever be given I am ready to compete.

Last October my wife bought a new car - VW Polo Diesel TDI 1,4/80 HP - and this car is equipped with a kind of computer giving the average consumption of the current trip.

When she comes back from work in Aurillac, 40 km (25 Miles) from here, I frequently check her average consumption. Now it happens more and more often that she uses only 3,9 liter on 100 km or goes 60 1/3 Mile per Gallon!

Splendid, really. Good for the budget. Especially now with one liter of Diesel selling at 1,28 Euro (7,51 US Dollar per Gallon). But what amazes me is how she is doing it. With all my gimmicks I cannot do better and she is just an ordinary driver, like many women. She never goes into idle speed when the road is downhill. Just a careful, reasonable driver without any fuzz and addiction to overtaking whatever appears in front of her.

I would like to know and solve the riddle.

The first photo shows my wife where she gets the keys from the Volkswagen dealer. The lower one is our last homage to my Golf. I bought this car 20 years ago and it was still in top shape, passing the Technical Control with flying colours. When I made an ad in the local paper to sell it for 6OO Euro I got more than 30 phone calls.

PLEASE LISTEN TO THIS PIECE OF MUSIC

About ten years ago I heard for the first time an aria sung by Lucia Popp. Since then, she has been my favorite classical singer. I can't really say why because my technical knowledge of music is scant. I just love to hear her singing.

Lucia Popp's voice can go very high up but to me there is a difference with most other opera singers: even on top, she remains melodious, there is spare room and she never becomes the screechy slate pencil voice you hear so frequently.







Here, Lucia Popp is singing Laudate Dominum out of Vesperae Solemnes de Confessore from Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. When he composed this piece of music, Mozart must have been very young, about 20 or so. If I had faith and were a believer I would say Mozart was divinely inspired when writing this piece of church music.

Last not least, I would like to say thank you to YouTube that made all this possible and to the British chappie Glenmed who posted the recording. On his personal page Glenmed explains "I try to avoid present-day teenager dum-dum stuff". God bless England and the English, may they never loose their splendid sens of humor.

ARE THERE SOME ARTISTS OVER HERE ?

May I give you here my very personal and unsolicited opinion about modern arts: exception for movies and literature, I see it as mostly cheap, fast stuff made by con men/women who should thank God not to be obliged to work in an assembly line.

Painting has deteriorated to a kind of decoration but more ugly. In former times, a painter learned his job for years and years and the great ones never stopped learning and developing. Nowadays, a painter is someone who holds a brush in his hands, has some expensive color on the table nearby and busies himself to transfer the stuff on a flat surface.

A painter nowadays is nearly exclusively a person who has scant knowledge of painting techniques and is unable to make a living from it.

Sure, there are some real painters among us. Unfortunately, these people need one or two months at best to finish their job and nobody wants to pay thousands of Dollars or Euros to an unknown artist. If they don't want to die of hunger they have to do something else to make a living.

Last not least, the art of painting has no rules, these days. Nobody knows what is a good painting and what is a bad one.

Thus, painting as an art is dead, stone dead. Later centuries will probably look aghast at our artistic performances.

For those who are not yet tired of reading, what about this story that took place in some years ago in Beaubourg, the Paris museum of modern arts. Upon arrival in the morning (probably around 10 a.m., this is not a factory), the guards discovered to their stupefaction that one of those works of art had changed substantially over night.

If I am not totally wrong this happened to a work from the German artist Joseph Buys. It shows a fully equipped room featuring an unmade bed and various other items, mostly disposed in artistic disorder.

Unfortunately for this world famous artist, the charwoman (also called surface technician over here) newly hired by the museum took herself to the job to clean the room thoroughly.

Well, I imagine the restoration squad of the museum could face the challenge.......

PS to all that: just added a third picture following Anrosh's comment. This drawing from Käte Kollwitz is neither beautiful nor a homage to nature. But it gives emotion, plenty of it. Ms. Kollwitz lost her child in the last war and this drawing shows a mother taken away by the death far too early for her young child.

AFGHANISTAN - WHAT ARE WE DOING THERE?

In my youth I have been twice there, as a hitchhiking tourist, before the Soviet invasion. In my memory this was the country I liked most compared to Iran, Pakistan and India.

At that time, to me, Afghanistan seemed to be a fairy tale country, straight out of Thousand and One Night.I liked these proud men (proud of what?) in their baggy pants, frequently in rags, but carrying nearly always a gun slung over the shoulder.

Considering that half of the population is female in every country, I never saw one. Never. It took me some time to realize that these statures walking around and wearing a kind of blue sack covering from top to ground ARE the women I never saw.

So, when saying something about Afghanistan it must be said I only talked to men, met only men, saw only men, had only their opinion.

There was only one exception to this: in Kandahar, in an electrical appliance shop, I talked briefly to a German woman who had married an Afghani. She wanted to bail out of this country as fast as possible but could not because her husband confiscated her old passport as well as all her other papers. Furthermore, her marriage made her an Afghan national. She was the sales girl in this shop and during the 15 minutes I met her she told me her dream: to return to Munich, sit in the sofa at home, watch the telly and sip a cool beer.

All that is snow from yesterday.

The fairy tale country has long ago changed into what it is and probably always was: a God forsaken place with too much religious fanatics. And even those who are not practice a "way of life" coming straight out of the darkest part of the Middle Ages.

Afghanistan is the worlds' biggest heroin grower and exporter; the trade being protected by the armies of about ten NATO countries. The chase of Osama bin Laden has long ago turned into a farce. The Taliban fighters who happen to be made prisoners don't have to worry: they pay 1000 Dollars or more to the Police to be free again, back in business.

What are we doing there?



For good measure, here is a photo from a work of art made right there, but about 2000 years ago. It is safely in a Paris museum otherwise the present day people would either have smashed it or stolen it to be sold abroad for easy money.

Last not least: the first picture has not been made in Afghanistan but in Yemen and sent to me by a friend who went there. I like it, it is so funny. Hope you appreciate, too.

THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE - HOMMAGE TO BLOGGING

For me, English is a foreign language, I have never stayed in an English speaking country longer than a fortnight.

Considering all this it is clear that I am fully qualified to talk about usage of English. Why limit oneself to subjects you know all about? There would be too much silence all around.

So here we go.

When people talk to me, in real life or at the telly, I always hear again and again "you know", "you know", "you know". I hear it frequently in every second or third sentence and I hate it.

Sometimes, I try to interrupt by saying "no, I don't". Generally, I get an astonished look but no comment, never.

Next, there is a word that should be forbidden. "Nice". I hate that, too. Nice is not warm it is tepid. It is a mild agreement of something vaguely comfortable. A horrible hat on someone's head, "nice hat you have there", the weather is nice, a girl is nice. "Nice pic", seen frequently on blog comments for splendid photos. Nice be hanged.

And here comes the summit: "cool", bloody hell and damnation, I dislike "cool" intensely. Don't know why but it is non grata to me. I hear it in English, in French and in German and God knows in how more languages the word is being used.

"Cool" seems to be the macho version of "nice". "Nice" is kind of old spinster language, wishy-washy, no offense given no offense taken. "Cool" and its counterpart "uncool" is Rambo-English. "That's cool, yeah". "And that's not so cool, yeah".

The good thing about the Internet and especially about blogs is that everybody can have his saying. You and me. Now I can unburden and tell the world what is on my mind. Sure, there are 30 Million blogs outa there and I have about 50 readers max. Never mind. Better than nothing, far better.