>Mainz hosts the annual State Fair – the Rheinland-Pfalz Ausstellung.

It’s a bit like the Easter Show of my youth in Auckland. Without the sheepdog trials. And candy floss. (Cotton candy, before you ask..)

This one’s an eclectic mix.

It’s got everything: PR for the state government, fashion, wellness, gastronomy, more flimflam and snake oil merchants than you can shake a stick at. And lots of oldies.

And stuff.

Probably need stuff: House insulation. Solar panels. New hip joints.

Might need stuff: Indestructible bike cable locks.

Definitely don’t need stuff: Garden sheds. Garages. €30 black boxes that cut your power bills by coverting “bad” electricity to “good” electricity.

WTF? stuff: Kitchen knives that cut through bike cable locks. (Hang on, I thought he said it was indestructible…)

The media’s there, of course.

ZDF – one of Germany’s two public service TV channels – is just up the road from here and they’ve got a mock-up of their news studio to show people where their license fee goes..

The local Walter Mitty mob even get to pretend to read the news and take it home on DVD

ZDF delegates a couple of minor personalities for the duration, one of whom burst into song a la Tony Bennett quite unexpectedly.

Cleared the place in a flash….

(I think these two had nodded off. Didn’t have the heart to wake them.)

22 Mar This entry was published on 22 March, 2007 at 11:46. It’s filed under Uncategorized and tagged Uncategorized. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post.