german humour and british readers

dear british readers,

titanic is a german satire magazine. it's funny. it's subversive. it's not owned by rupert murdoch. all great reasons to buy a copy and laugh at their jokes.

which reminds me: would you like to donate some money towards my mortgage payments?

titanen des geistes

da gruselt's mir... happy halloween!

marching on

today, a well balanced, in-depth article in the times on loo roll mystery consumption in germany.
on a day when i walked from russell square to st john's wood. in just under 180 minutes.

i have a new love

orchid flicker book

maida vale: man in tree, avoiding traffic

fire in the kitchen!

mmmmmh!
pear walnut and gorgonzola salad a la *great fire of rome*.

the recipe:
arrange a bed of salad leaves on a plate or in a bowl.
sprinkle mature gorgonzola cubes or slices over it. use generous amount.
(WARNING: if you are on a diet and think about using *fat free* cheese or any such abomination, GET OUT OF THE KITCHEN NOW YOU PERV!!!)
slice one or two pears into quarters, don't remove the core.
fry pear with some olive oil on both cut sides.
pour honey over pear. fry some more until you have a sticky sauce.
then: pour cointreau/brandy/whiskey (as long as it has 40%) into the pan. tilt pan so the liquid catches fire and the pan will go up in a flame. obviously you need a gas oven for this.
put back on stove. the flame will die down. no need to use the fire extinguisher.
add walnuts to sticky sauce in pan.
when all is heated up, pour sauce, pear and walnut over salad.
eat.
enjoy!

bikkembergs

munich wears bikkembergs. where can i get them in london?
greetings,
s., shopoholic

frieze

frieze art fair in regent's park last weekend: mega-expensive art, the chic and the weird amongst the visitors (and the boringly normal, like me - sorry). a david la chappelle photo freeze for 200000 dollar - that's only 100000 pounds, i could buy two! the chapman works, fuckfaces etc, in the white cube booth - sooo yesterday!

lots of german galleries, esp. from berlin. see above.

other people were more inspiring than the exhibits.

can't wait for next year.

no hero of mine

so al gore has predictably won the nobel peace prize. good for him. good for me that it wasn't helmut kohl or bono. i couldn't stand any more of the self-adulation that both are prone to already.

clearly, the choice of al gore is mostly a smacking slap in the face of george w bush. you can't argue with that. at the same time, in my books al gore will always remain the guy who gave bush the election in 2000. although the result was more than questionable, and therefore it would have been gore's duty to contest it, in the name of all those who went out to vote for him! but, out of cowardice, a false sense of generosity, or because he wasn't so keen on the job to begin with, he did nothing. wuss! loser!

what's the largely ceremonial nobel prize compared to an office where he could have made a difference? the question remains unanswered whether gore would have invaded iraq as well, driven by the same dark forces (i.e. lobbyists) that are now behind bush.

i'm deeply suspicious of do-gooders who refuse to take jobs with real accountability. even as vice president and no. 2 behind clinton he didn't really have that. anyone can open their mouth and make demands for justice, fairness, clean air etc, but it takes guts to implement changes against powerful opposition. where is he when it matters, in the us senate, for example? shooting another video?

al gore. no hero of mine.

out!

london is a great place. it's fun, exciting, vibrant, and the capital of the world. that's how i feel on a good day.
on bad days, i just find london loud, rude, backward and obnoxious. today is such a bad day. the big fat edgware road, which is too close to our house anyway, has been closed off since this morning, for reasons i still have to find out. the result is that all the heavy traffic is now diverted through our little side street, which is not meant to cope with this kind of noise and pollution.
neither am i!

it's a day when you just want to get out. and you ask yourself (well, i ask myself) why i keep doing this. why do i put up with this horrid place?

i really ought to have a standard reminder ready for moments like this. a list on my notice rope in the kitchen with all the things that i love and that attrected me to come to london. the list is pretty empty at the moment though.

i cannot believe the street noise today!!

ps: just sold my old telly for 32 pounds on ebay. good! the viewer possessions i have, the better, especially when they weigh a ton. for that time in the future when i really need to get out quickly.

doris lessing

wins this year's nobel prize for literature. as can currently be read on every single german news site. just not on the bbc or times online.
in the uk, dead diana is more important. and hospital bugs.
doris, move to germany!

i loved reading *the fifth child*, and *the golden notebook*.

my opinion: this year's favourite, philip roth - grossly overrated. my candidate would be abdelrahman munif. his epic *cities of salt* is simply wonderful. read it!

benn

wahrheit der woche: *eine gut ausgebildete, gesunde und zuversichtliche nation ist schwer zu regieren.* - tony benn

rallye dresden-dakar-banjul

heute mal auf deutsch: ein freund von mir, thomas aus heidelberg, nimmt im fruehling teil am wildesten rennen seit ben hur, der rallye dresden-dakar-banjul. sponsoring ist natuerlich jederzeit willkommen. mehr informationen, wenn das team steht.

ich freue mich ueber ganze 2 kommentare zu meiner buchkritik auf westropolis.de. per persoenlicher email gab's noch ein paar mehr, aber in meinem freundeskreis gibt's definitiv nicht viele surfer. man liest lieber, guckt fern, geht salsa tanzen...
hmm.

ausserdem: gleich 2 nobelpreise an deutsche wissenschafler. die englaender sind sauer.

what i would ask at question time

when will the brits stop blaming the germans/the war/the fact that they won the war for everything that doesn't work in britain today?

why is *menzies* pronounced *ming*?

what's with the litter bin phobia of london councils? (bombs? stop taking the mickey!)

who votes for ken livingston?

what's the alternative to ken?

when is proportional representation being introduced, like in the rest of the civilised world?

when is question time branching out to germany?

kritik

hier ist der link zu meiner buchkritik.