Can you have 2 places where you feel you belong? I guess so. I got tapped for the March theme and I chose – there was a bit of pushback…
Down here in NotNelson, I’m really spoiled for choice. In Mainz, there IS only one coffee house worth considering, namely Paul Bonna’s Kaffeekommune. Paul himself, with an espresso cup…
The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner
At this rate, guest photographer Ute Matschke is going to be permanent staff… This wonderful landscape shot would have been ideal for yesterday’s Monthly Theme Day, but I figured that…
I do love Paul Bonna’s kaffeekommune, but it’s definitely solaristically challenged. Solution: Grab a chair, move to the sunny side of the street. Tony’ll take his life in his hands…
Je m’appelle Curiosité. Je vais tuer ce chat
A vehicle with two wheels in tandem, usually propelled by pedals connected to the rear wheel by a chain, and having handlebars for steering and a saddle-like seat. Right, so…
Or Back to Front, more like it Mainz is twinned with more places than you can shake a stick at. Watford, for example. (Cousin Graham asked me whether anyone from…
The German language doesn’t really lend itself to wordplay in the way that English does, but it certainly doesn’t stop folk trying. This flower shop is called “Style and Blossoms”…
I bought The Beatles’ “White Album” in December 1968 (it was released in late November in the UK, 3 days later in the US, took a while to get down…
Or was it The Rapture….?
Despite the strong African influence on cuisine in Mainz – you’ll find Pizza Togo and Kaffee Togo on almost every corner – the classic has to be Ditsch’s Brezelbäckerei. The…
This is the Eisberger. Take: 1 large ice cube a double shot of espresso Creamy milk, cold foamed to a soft-creamy texture Assemble. To be admired/enjoyed at kaffee kommune zwei.…
“Citrus” is a restaurant/bar down by the Fort Malakoff Centre on the Rheinstrasse. (Years back when it had just opened, I was talking to a couple of our young sales…
Local body electioneering in full swing around these parts, with Germany’s Most Wanted party political posters attached to the majority of immovable objects. Can’t say that I’l be voting for…
I started counting them and even got up to 43. Then I thought “Sod it, I’ll just say that there are n trees….”
Four images made it through to the final: 17 August 5 July (I seriously thought that I’d win a photo competition with tis one, but they chose something that was…
1st Advent Sunday today, so Ms jb and her willing helpers having been decking the halls with boughs of holly digging through boxes full of Christmas crap decorations. All very…
The only pink I normally ever see is when I’m dragged into a fashion store. Thank goodness for sandstone….
There are these ones, of course, but I’m trying to avoid brutal modernism as much as I can these days… Used to be gas, now electric bulbs, LEDs can’t be…
The Markthäuser on the Cathedral square. You just can’t avoid them. They either house the best record store in Mainz (used to any way) or they’re being knocked down and…
A compost (pronounced “compohst” in Americanese) heap is a thing of true beauty. We have 3. One that’s active – sling in any organic matter from the kitchen, grass clippings,…
Frank Jung learned potting as a apprentice production thrower in a factory in Höhr-Grenzhausen, one of the centres of ceramics in Germany, First, you do menial tasks (clean up after…
Through accidents of birth and abduction, resulting in forced emigration at an early age, I have 2 passports. The UK side of the family dates back to the 1600s, so…
Time was, I had a motorbike. Quite fancied myself as the roadracer back then, reinforced by the praise of a traffic cop who surmised that I’d been breaking the speed…
Not a spare chair to be found at the Playhouse Café and Theatre in Mapua last night for The Eastern’s gig, Except – being Mapua which is “country” (as in…
The Määnzer Mädcher fountain outside the Maria Ward school on Mainz’s Ballplatz
Seriously, what can beat this? A summer’s day out on the bike and not imagining in my WILDEST DREAMS that Mainz 05, our local team, would end the year at…
I do take this privacy stuff quite seriously and I’ve asked jb to respect my concerns in that matter and not divulge my name. I’m just a regular street really…
So what’s a letter between friends…? (Somewhere between Wells and York)
City Daily Photo, the website that kicked this whole thing off, got comprehensively hacked a while back and doesn’t look like re-emerging anytime soon. Apparently there’s a Facebook page that’s…
