I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – dig at your peril in Mainz. You’re likely to stumble across a Roman boatyard with the remains of 17 canoes.…
Pipes of the (relatively) new organ at St Stephans. “New” is always relative around here, given that we’re over 2000 years old. And 3 years old is just the blink…
Our neighbour planted a Catalpa bignonioides a few decades ago. It appears to have enjoyed the location, because it grew enthusiastically. It’s a beautiful tree. For 3 days a year,…
Oh. They’re always there? (I’m not paranoid, but I just wish they’d stop following me…)
ZZ Top clones as Rockin’ Santas. At least it’s not “Rockin Santa’s…….. Yet….
People, it’s only mid-October. Why on EARTH are you selling bottles of mulled wine as if the festive season is only a week away. Next thing, they’ll be selling Christmas…
I attended the laying of two Stolpersteine – “stumbling blocks’ – yesterday morning on a cold wet day that was a friend to no-one and which seemed more than appropriate…
Frankfurter Hof in the Altstadt on Tuesday night. You could have taken a feed from the sound desk and issued it untouched. That good.
…twice the light in half the time” Joe Walsh from “Falling Down” Only one end here. St. Stephans
A long time ago (3 years actually, but at my age…), Robin Fullmer wrote to me about a program on a Jewish emigree to New Zealand, I did some research…
Indian Summer in Mainz
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…
Invitation popped up in the mail the other week to the 10 year celebration of a cluster of ceramic artists’ studios in Höhr-Grenzhausen, a hop, skip and jump down the…
…but heaps of other good stuff… Natural History Museum
Oh. They’re clouds……
Here in Mainz, we’ve progressed from sun clocks to egg timers. I’m sure we’ll see wind-up chronometers within the next millennium….. (This is the world’s biggest and most accurate, gifted…
Don’t recall reading that 8 degrees C were on special offer, but it was rather parky
You know that something’s wrong when buses start thrashing up and down the Gaustrasse, shuttling passengers along the route normally served by trams. Probably “leaves on the track”. No, wait,…
Just don’t ask me how this tree opposite Mitternacht 18 squeezed into this pullover. Or swedderrr, as the colonials call them
This was an option for Thursday. I stumbled over an article by Michael Bermeitinger of the Allgemeine Zeitung dating back a year or so about a humungous chunk of concrete…
My young friend Lena is studying law (but I’ve almost forgiven her for that) She’s spent the last 3 months as a foreign comparative law clerk in a judge’s chambers…
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…
…would have you believe that these are chemtrails, used by the Gummint to geo-engineer [sic] the weather and drug us into submission. All I can tell you is that this…
Halftime score: 0:0 Niko Bungert has a market value of €2.5m. He marked Robert Lewandowski (who scored 5 goals in 9 minutes against Wolfsburg last week) Market value? €50m He…
The Coface Arena in Mainz holds 34,000 spectators. It’s normally pretty full, but when Bayern Munich turns up, you’re like sardines in a tin. I figured that trying to score…
Thekla, the little sweetie from next door, was christened at the Protestant church in the village last Sunday. Heaps of folks in addition to what appears to be a sizable…
Mainz has a coloured history – Romans, Franks, Vandals, Swedes, Austrians, French all turned up at some stage and stayed for various periods of time – but it’s the bleu-blanc-rouge…
Andrew van Leeuwen and I go back a long way. Although it seems longer than just 3 years….. We hit it off straight away and I was mightily narked when…
Yesterday was Officially Autumn, but I’d promised Simone Bott a slott [sic] on MDP so here we are – a day late and a dollar short. Did you know that…
Simone Bott co-runs the eponymous family tiling business in Weisenau. It’s the go-to place if you want quality and expert advice. In the process of renovating one of the bathrooms…
Riding through the fields in Hechtsheim can be quite traumatic….