How it started Ursula Groden-Kranich (CDU = centre-centre-centre-right) was Mainz’s directly elected MP for the last 2 legislative sessions of the Bundestag. Place was plastered with her election posters, along…
…the other one. This would be Olaf Scholz, SPD chancellor candidate in the upcoming federal election with a good chance of succeeding Angela Merkel, who could possibly have a chat…
But you should see the *other* guy…
This is the story of 4 significant sculptures by a significant living artist flanking the entrance to the world’s leading printing museum. The Gutenberg Museum in Mainz, Germany. It’s…
Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past year or so, you’ll be aware that the trickle of refugees from Syria/Eritrea/Libya/Balkans has grown from a trickle to a…
The Catholic church gets up my nose on occasion with some of its medieval attitudes. Not my problem, of course. Let the adherents to the faith sort it out. But…
Well, price and product don’t really apply, but promotion, and place? Brother, did this guy get THOSE two right…. The Schottenhof at the bifurcation (if you’re ascending) or the confluence…
The other day, we featured a balcony full of rampant petunias threatening to take over the whole of a highrise block. The City of Mainz is going one better. It’s…
…to Kita (pre-school) on Tuesday, forget it. First of all, you wouldn’t have got there, all major thoroughfares being blocked by striking workers (making such a din that even I…
Nothing compared with what it used to be like during the Cold War (and for more than a few years after the Wall came down), but there’s still an American…
Pick your own pansies. Katrin Eder, responsible for environment, energy and transport in Mainz, comes up with some good ideas. Last year, they planted veges instead of the ubiquitous bedding…
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…
…back in the northern hemisphere, storm clouds are gathering… Industrial architecture at the Panzerwerk in Mombach. (If you want better weather, check out notthenelsondailyphoto.com
You wouldn’t want to be a Green these days – their star is definitely on the wane. A mere 2 weeks until the elections and they’re into single digit territory….
…shaming sometimes will. Mainz’s perennial shortage of working capital is finally being addressed by council. Roads aren’t being patched, dog licenses have gone up and last year, they turned off…
National elections (and I’ll refrain from telling the joke about George Bush in Japan…) in nigh on 3 weeks and you can’t move without tripping over a bloody placard for…
The Greens are a well-meaning bunch, but they lose the plot too often to be taken seriously. Their most recent brain fart idea is for a compulsory (in finest Denglish)…
The SPD – Germany’s left-ish opposition party – has a discussion forum set up on the Schillerplatz. The slogan is a play on words – “Gute Aussichten für 2013” can…
We famous people know what it’s like, right? You’re out and about, hidden behind the RayBan Wayfarers, and people recognise you and then pretend NOT to recognise you. We just…
…but this is just so typically Mainz. Perennially bankrupt ( Markus Würz, my young historian friend, tells me that it’s been that way since the Middle Ages…) and fairly clueless.…
“Get your carnival parade badge here!!! Carneval’s not Carneval if you don’t wear a parade (Zug – dialect: Zuch) badge (Plakette – dialect: Plakettcher) and the various carnival clubs are…
St Martin will have to do. I had Kurt Beck, Premier of Rhineland-Palatinate, all lined up for a silhouette portrait, but he held a press conference on Friday to tell…
The “Drei-Mädchen” fountain on the Ballplatz, suffering from severe dehydration. The reason: No money. As usual. Mainz has enormous debts – close to €1bn – and it costs €220,000 annually…
And it came to pass that THE LORD did appear before the HIGH PRIEST of the Melanchthonkirche in the Schlesische Viertel of the City of Mayence and SPAKE unto him…
Another bloody feminist in the making. Rant on about being oppressed and all that crap and then expect you to open the door for her.. And clenched fist salutes will…
Important stuff, this. Taste The Waste is a grass-roots political platform created to combat food waste. They put on an event on the Gutenbergplatz on Friday, serving 3500 really good…
There are few enough remnants of Mainz’s mediaeval city wall without their being imprisoned. Up until 10 years ago, this was a petrol station on the Rheinstrasse. BP closed it…
> Now THIS is a good story… When you drive down the mile-long hill into Pateley Bridge in Yorkshire in spring, you’ll be stunned by the mass planting of daffodils…
> “I’m the winner!” “No I’m the winner!” This sort of thing happens with monotonous regularity in Mainz. State elections on Sunday and these two went head to head in…
> A navigationally-challenged electioneering balloon in the Altstadt last week, drifting around to the whims of the breeze. Just like a real politician. (Gucki is now thinking: “You don’t need…
> Looking up at the fortifications that are the Mainz Rathaus (town hall), one could be excused for thinking that at any moment boiling oil or similar could be…
Mainz Daily Photo 