>Got a call yesterday afternoon from our friend, Petra Bittl, the ceramics artist from Bonn.

(Hugely talented and we were lucky enough to discover her before she achieved widespread recognition and her prices went ballistic. That’s one of ours, abovr)

Opening of an exhibition in the foyer of the State Parliament in Mainz, would we care to toddle along?

Drinks and nibbles on offer, too

The usual 40 minutes or so of droning-on and platitudes by politicians, civil servants and lobbyists and I’m thinking “There aren’t really that many people here who aren‘t involved with the exhibition itself….. Maybe 5. Max 10. Out of 60?”

Confirmed by the introductions:

“Honourable Deputy Leader of the House, Mayor, councillors, members of the State Parliament, sundry politicians, senior civil servants, lower ranking civil servants, drones, representatives of the clay industry, head honchos from the ceramic museum, artists, musicians, organisation committee…. guests”

So this is mercifully over at some stage, buffet’s opened and – great sucking noise – WHOOOOSH!

I’ve never seen people get the nosebags on so quickly.

Looked as if a swarm of locusts had been through.

Not even crumbs.

OK. Wine.
Local stuff and not too bad either. Not GOOD, but drinkable.

(Big hoo-ha a while back, when they served wine from a neighbouring state at an official function in Mainz. “Cardinal sin” doesn’t get close)

So – one by one – the mayor, councillors, members of the State Parliament, sundry politicians, senior civil servants, lower ranking civil servants, drones, representatives of the clay industry, head honchos from the ceramics museum, artists, musicians, organisation committee drift off

Laden down with free 10kg samples of clay and whatever else wasn’t firmly attached to the floor.

Honourable Deputy Leader of the House and ex-Economics Minister, Hans-Artur Bauckhage, was still hovering round so we got chatting about politics, pots and whatever.

So he says goodbye, we say goodbye and talk to Petra for a bit longer.

And he’s back!

Chatting about politics, pots and whatever as if he’s never clapped eyes on us in his life before.

Says goodbye (again), we say goodbye (again) and make tracks for the car, just in case he gets us a third time.

Maybe the wine wasn’t that bad, after all….

26 Oct This entry was published on 26 October, 2007 at 06:00. It’s filed under Mainz and tagged bauckhage, ceramic, Landtag, Petra Bittl. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post.