That's the problem....

...with living almost next door to the studios of one of the big TV channels - you just can't avoid bumping into  media stars.

Mrs jb stands next to Gundula Gouda Gause at the cheese counter of the local supermarket, I bump into her TWICE at a Mainz 05 game and Marcel Reif, the sports commentator (who's thankfully moved to one of the commercial channels - bit of a twerp, if you ask me) used to live in the village.

Oh, and Werner Eckert, an environmental reporter for one of the regional TV channels too. (Although his sister, Reinhilde, who runs the local greengrocer is marginally more famous.)

But who did we bump into today at the excellent Schloss Sörgenloch at lunchtime but Claus Kleber, the news anchor at ZDF and probably the best TV journalist around.

Up he zips in his Series 2 Alfa Spider (between the bobtail that Dustin Hofmann drove in "The Graduate" and the one with the ugly black rubber spoiler that we had) in a fairly celebratory mood on account of the popularity of a 3-part documentary on nuclear proliferation that's airing this week.

Which doesn't surprise me one bit, but I had to smile at his answer when asked the other day whether folk will watch the program (with its late-ish time slot) because of him or because of the topic:

"Well", he said, "I've had to accept the painful fact that the name Claus Kleber isn't that big a draw card".  

Sad, but true and while millions will sit glued to the screen while some airhead on a commercial channel spouts on self-importantly about nothing, Claus Kleber and his ilk will be analysing and reporting serious news with accuracy and eloquence.

A bit like the 1990s ad - "The Economist - not read by millions of people."

So I asked him if they'd hit the 10,000 viewer mark last night.


Puzzled look.


Well" I said "you with your false modesty and "no one's going to stay up late just watch Claus Kleber.."


"Oh" he says " we actually got 2 million viewers last night. Because of the film. Not because of me"


Yeah right

Quit painting!

True story.

Jörg Immendorf was one of Germany's most influential post-war modern artists.

He studied under Josef Beuys, arguably THE most influential post-war modern artist.

Beuys would come into the classroom and go from painting to painting: "Crap-Good-Crap-Crap-Crap-Good-Crap-Crap-Crap-Good"

Young Jorg's painting was among the many "crap" examples and he was SOOOO pissed off that he slashed a cross over the finished work with his paintbrush and scrawled

"Hört auf zu malen" ("Quit painting")

over the top.

Beuys turns up later, sees the picture and says "Classy stuff"....

Start of a career.

Alessandra Stanley at the New York Times gets it horribly wrong

"An appraisal on Saturday about Walter Cronkite's career included a number of errors.

In some copies, it misstated the date that the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was killed and referred incorrectly to Mr. Cronkite's coverage of D-Day.
Dr. King was killed on April 4, 1968, not April 30. Mr. Cronkite covered the D-Day landing from a warplane; he did not storm the beaches.
In addition, Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon on July 20, 1969, not July 26. "The CBS Evening News" overtook "The Huntley-Brinkley Report" on NBC in the ratings during the 1967-68 television season, not after Chet Huntley retired in 1970.
A communications satellite used to relay correspondents' reports from around the world was Telstar, not Telestar.
Howard K. Smith was not one of the CBS correspondents Mr. Cronkite would turn to for reports from the field after he became anchor of "The CBS Evening News" in 1962; he left CBS before Mr. Cronkite was the anchor.
Because of an editing error, the appraisal also misstated the name of the news agency for which Mr. Cronkite was Moscow bureau chief after World War II. At that time it was United Press, not United Press International."

If all else fails.....

....change your logo.

Over.

And over.

And over.

Again

This I need...maybe/definitely

Single serving deep frier.

Maybe for tempura. Maybe

High-tech herb pots

Yes, please.

But - then again -40 bucks....?

Please bear with me

Whenever I steal harvest mirabelles from abandoned trees out in the fields, I always think of Gunter O. Eser.

Aka Gunter Zero by his staff when he was IATA Director General.

And Gunter Null by the rest of us when he was on the Executive Board at Lufthansa.

Mirabel used to be the international airport in Montreal. MILES out in the woops, took ages and a day to get there and not exactly the buzzingest - people used to call it Tinkerbelle" - place.

I was doing some hazardous cargo stuff with IATA at the time and - given that Lufthansa didn't fly there daily - the only option was to get on the flight that came in from Frankfurt and flew on to Toronto and fly back on the same flight. (You can do that if you're a) IATA Director General or b) on business travel for the airline.

So we both front up at the Lufthansa Station Manager's office at Tinkerbelle, he checks us in, gives us our boarding cards (Gunter Null - obviously - First Class, me Business) and off we toddle through an absolutely deserted airport (it supposedly wakes up in the early evening for the transatlantic departures) to passport control.

No-one there.

Obviously. No flights.

Station Manager gets on the blower to Immigration who are JUST NOT INTERESTED until he says "Listen, we've got the TOP GUY of all the airlines in the world here and (promoting me 18 years before I actually did reach that exalted level) a Lufthansa Director. They're entitled to fly on this flight and if you refuse to process them, I'll have REAL difficulty keeping this out of the papers..."

In the distance, we see an Immigration officer scurrying over towards us at great speed, waving his stamp.

Zip out to the aircraft in a ramp van, scuttle up the stairs to a moderately gob-smacked crew (this doesn't happen every day, believe me), Gunter Null turns left towards the sharp end, I turn right towards the blunt end and away we go.

Fill out the immigration documentation for Toronto which pretty much says that I haven't really come from anywhere and I'm leaving in about an hour.

Much confusion at Immigration (this doesn't happen every day, believe me), finally get allowed in (although I haven't actually LEFT Canada) and who do I meet at check-in, but my mate Gunter Null.

He's (obviously) checking in at he First Class desk and I'm (obviously) slumming it at the Business Class desk but he says to the Station Manager (who's hovering around close to him) "Oh, I'd like you to meet Mr jb, one of your senior managers from Frankfurt"

Station Manager takes a look at my boarding pass, tears it up (I think he might be related to MMTP...) and gives one of those flash red ones.

I nod my appreciation to Gunter Null, who's spirited away to the lounge or wherever and then it's onto the flight, have some champagne, Mr jb, some more caviar, Mr jb? and Gunter Null strolls past and says "A bit more pleasant at the sharp end, don't you think?"

Too right, mate.

Bloody hell....

Whew.

That was a close call.

Star journalist Birgit S (having turned mumble mumble the other day) invited a bunch of girl (I use the term loosely. Very loosely....) friends around for afternoon tea.

Someone (I have NO idea who, but I'm thinking Lena from the Bosporus....) stuck a BIG sign on the door, announcing a Casting Show for the German version of Desperate Housewives.

They were quite flattered, it appears.

I got roped into being the photog.

Afternoon tea.

Yeah, right.

As newts, all of them, and I only barely escaped their libidinous clutches.

Talk about desperate and a bloody good thing I thought to slip on my chastity belt....

This I need - Brain food

The Rubix Cubewich contains cubes of pastrami, kielbasa, pork fat (PORK FAT?!), salami, and two types of cheddar

Then again, maybe not....

How to get cheap parking...

..or "Fuck, I just tore up the parking ticket"

MMTP, renowned for his razor-sharp intellect (honest, he's really clued up) and for roasting his sister's cat and incediarising fondues, has just outdone himself.

We toddled off to the market in Offenbach yesterday and - after a long discussion with Mrs MMTP about where to park (Option 1: drive around for hours looking for street-parking, Option 2: go straight to the parking lot and pay a pittance) - we go for Option 2.

Mostly because I'm driving, MMTP is navigating and the wimmen are in the back.

I give the parking ticket to MMTP who promptly pops in his shirt pocket.

And later takes it discovers it, has no idea what it is, tears it into small pieces and puts it in his trouser pocket, then to utter the classic words at the top of the post.

Gets the usual bollocking from Mrs MMTP, but he says " Not a problems, I'll just show it to the cashier and we'll be away"

There IS no cashier, it's all automated, no-one responds to the emergency buttons and you can't just go down to the barrier and press the button to get a new one.

I know this.

I tried it.

I either don't weigh enough or the Bionic Leg didn't fool the magnetic loop into thinking I was a BMW.

So we had to call THE NUMBER.

Conversation goes something like this:

"I'm afraid our parking ticket's damaged and the machine can't read it"
"Well, it's in fact quite severely damaged"
"Well, actually, I tore it into small pieces. By mistake"

We send the wimmen off to look at shops to save ourselves from embarrassment when the chappy turns up to release us.

Which he does in no time at all, looks at the remnants of the ticket and works out that we owe him €3.60.

"Just give me €3", he says. (We should do this more often...)

And then the obvious question

"How on earth can you rip up a parking ticket" he asks.

"Oh" I say " dead easy. I'll show you. You tear it once this way, fold it up, tear it again and then once more for good luck"

I think MMTP and I must be related....

Shoes for the fashionable man, it says

Rules ME out, then.....

Small Man Syndrome

That's what my mate Gunter once said to me when we were discussing the CIO of one of the sister companies.

A real little twerp (not Gunter - he's as cool as they come and looks me straight in the eye at 6'4"), who once introduced himself to a group of (English-speaking) airline CIOs with the classically over-formal "Good morning, my name is Mr (roughly translated) Goosefart"

Much rolling of eyes ensued.

Wendelin Wiedeking appears to be in the same boat, vertically-challenged-wise.

Brilliantly effective manager, turns Porsche around to make it the most profitable car maker in the world, but it's never a good idea to punch TOO much above your weight.

As in: a hostile takeover of Volkswagen.

Always looked a bit of a stretch and what with backroom politics, the recession and an unfortunately timed drying up of liquidity, he's ended up in the poo, without a job BUT with a €50m golden handshake.

And - get this - 64% of Financial Times Deutschland online readers appear to think that this is either a) about right or b) not enough.

So do I.

He gives half his annual salary to a trust, he'll give AT LEAST half of his bail-out package away and tears were shed by the workers today.

Bob Dylan wears his heart on his sleeve

Stevie Ray Vaughan died on 27 August 1990.

Bob Dylan played Merrillville, Indiana on the same night.

He sang this song for "Stevie - wherever you are, man"

Stumbled over this on the stunningly good "Cover Me" from Ray up in Hanover, NH.

"Songs done different", he says.

Rarely was a truer word spoke.

Bob Dylan - Moon River

In the pink

Visual Economics today treats us to a truly meaningless graphic, purporting to represent "how each country's employment situation has fared in the downturn"

Bollocks.

It shows that everyone's unemployment rate is pretty much the same (with the exception of Spain), and everything's pretty much in the pink.

Of course, having been suckled on PowerPoint, the people at Visual Economics are blithely unaware of the fact that they're not even displaying (albeit appallingly) what they claim to be doing.

Which is the impact of the downturn.

Which would be a chart showing a year-on-year INCREASE in unemployment.

No?

Tufte's The Visual Display of Quantitative Information would be a good place to start

Headlines

Two headlines caught my eye this week

Helicopters move house

Thought: Big helicopter (or multiples thereof) or a small house.
Turns out: that an aviation company in Nelson was relocating to new premises

Pool evacuated after leak

Thought: Well, hasn't everyone taken a leak at the swimming pool at some time in their lives and I've never experienced any mass hysteria of this nature.
(And you know what they say when spelling "pneumatic" - the "p" is silent as in bathing.)

Turns out: Chlorine gas had escaped

So that's OK, then....

IRD wins in massive tax case against BNZ

Good.

(Here's the story)

I had an account with the BNZ once.

It was at a time when mortgage rates in New Zealand were hitting 20% and interest rates for deposits weren't far behind.

I had maybe $200 left over after a trip home, so I asked the bank officer what sort of account he'd suggest, given that I wouldn't need to access the money for a year or so.

"This one" he said "15% per annum"

Thought nothing more of it until I get a letter (this is pre-fax and pre-email - yes children, there was such a time..) a while later stating that as I hadn't paid any money into the account in the last 3 months, they'd closed it and were holding the money in a NON-INTEREST BEARING central account for my disposal.

A long correspondence ensued during which they saw absolutely nothing wrong with their actions and had NO intention of of paying me ANY interest at all.

And they never did.

I now have my account with National in Richmond and an excellent consultant by the name of Phil Daly.

He's taken to dropping me mails along the lines of "You've got so and so much invested at such and such a rate, but you could get better interest with no increase in risk by doing this".

A dream come true.
Wasn't easy getting there, though.


His predecessor (at a different branch) responded to a request with "I shall reply at my earliest convenience"


Which she did.


A week later. (I kid you not...)


And when I requested a credit card from HER predecessor, I got the quick turn-down about "not being a resident".


I quietly pointed out that perhaps she should have a quick look at the balance of my account (BIG chunk of money at the time) and reconsider.


Which she did.


Quite rapidly. And positively.


But I'm glad I've got Phil

Close to the action

Don't know where you were 40 years ago today, but I was flying at somewhere around 30,000 feet on board TE558, an Air New Zealand flight DC-8 (ZK-NZA, if you must know) between Auckland and Los Angeles via Papeete.

And the captain piped the live broadcast of the lunar module touchdown via the PA system into the cabin.

Can't get much closer to the action than that....

Minding your Ps and Qs

Remember Hank Snow's "I've been everywhere"?

I've been everywhere, man.
I've been everywhere, man.
Crossed the deserts bare, man.
I've breathed the mountain air, man.
Of travel I've had my share, man.
I've been everywhere.

I've been to:

Reno, Chicago, Fargo, Minnesota,
Buffalo, Toronto, Winslow, Sarasota,
Wichita, Tulsa, Ottawa, Oklahoma,
Tampa, Panama, Mattawa, La Paloma,
Bangor, Baltimore, Salvador, Amarillo,
Tocapillo, Baranquilla, and Perdilla, I'm a killer.

Etc.
Etc.
Etc.

Pulitzer Prize winning (it's really only a matter of time..) journalists John William Flowers and Birgit Gift have been practising for their incipient old age on a cruise ship, lurking off the coast of Greenland.

And looking at Air Greenland's route map (yes, there IS such an airline and yes, they DID fly with them...), I couldn't get Hank Snow's song out of my head.

Except it went

I've been to:

Aappilattoq Aasiaat Akunnaaq Alluitsup

Ammassivik Arsuk Atammik Attu
Eqalugaarsuit Iginniarfik Ikamiut Ikerasaarsuk
Ikerasak Ikkatteq Ilimanaq Illorsuit
Ilulissat Innaarsuit Isortoq Itilleq
Itterajivit Ittoqqortoormiit Kangaamiut Kangaatsiaq
Kangerluk Kangerlussuaq Kangersuatsiaq Kangilinnguit
Kapisillit Kitsissuarsuit Kujalleq Kullorsuaq
Kulusuk Kuummiut Maniitsoq Moriusaq
Naajaat Nanortalik Napasoq Narsaq
Narsarmijit Narsarsuaq Niaqornaarsuk Niaqornat
Nuugaatsiaq Nuuk Nuussuaq Oqaatsut
Paamiut Pituffik Qaanaaq Qaarsut
Qaasuitsup Qaqortoq Qasigiannguit Qassiarsuk
Qassimiut Qeqertaq Qeqertarsuaq Qeqertarsuatsiaat
Qeqertat Qernertuarssuit Qullissat Saarloq
Saattut Saqqaq Sarfannguit Savissivik
Sermiligaaq Siorapaluk Sisimiut Tasiilaq
Tasiusaq Tiniteqilaaq Ukkusissat Upernavik
Kujalleq Uummannaq Uunarteq

What part of NO don't you understand?

Seth Godin would have a field day with this.

Thomas Heinicke probably less so.

Thomas runs the ever excellent Schloss Sörgenloch - a restaurant and hotel in what used to be the manor house in a village fairly close to here - together with his partner Nicole.

Nicest people, excellent cuisine, stylish (but familiar) service, great wines from our young friend Jürgen Hofmann, views to kill for.

Saw an advert for an open weekend at local winery that didn't ring a bell, but figured that if Thomas is doing the catering, it must be pretty good.


Obviously didn't read the ad properly, otherwise we wouldn't have fronted up at 5pm on the dot, just wanting a glass of wine and a snack.


Got the glass of wine, asked the front of house at the catering bit (Thomas and Nicole obviously weren't there) if they had any food ready.


"No"


That was it.


Not "What would you like?" or "We'll be ready to serve in 10 minutes".


Just "No"


It's just too silly to get mad about (and I was too gob-smacked to ask "When?" ), so we finished our glasses of wine and when we left - half an hour later - there was still no indication of food being served.


It's not as if we were starving.


It's not as if we had no options - dinner was always going to be a broad bean, new potato, leek and pancetta frittata with a salad bouquet from the garden - but this was just so silly.


If we didn't know (and like ) Thomas and Nicole, we'd perhaps have associated Schloss Sörgenloch with sloppy service and an absolute lack of customer orientation, never gone there and told our friends about the experience.

As it is, they only lost out on maybe €10.

But I did learn a lesson.

Don't ask a question that can answered with "No"....

Piracy is alive and well...

.. on dry land.

My Mate Houghton appears set on weighing his delightful boat Raindance down with so much useless crap essential nautical tackle that I'm sure it'll founder and sink if he does much more.

He's asked me to arrange to buy some essential high tech stuff from an outfit in Hamburg (now, if THAT'S not authenticity for you...), and - given that neither he nor they speak a shared language and I do - I've been talking to Toplicht, a ships' chandler for wooden boats.

Being a bit of a dope, I neglected to inform them that we only wanted one piece of essential high tech stuff, so they wrote back, quoting €65 for 1.5kg for 3.

Now, DHL charges under €15 for that weight, so I called them up, apologised for my error and asked what the shipping charge would be for a single item.

€65.

I ventured politely (honest..) that I couldn't quite understand that and it'd actually be cheaper for them to send in to me (€6) and for me to forward it.

"Well, why don't you just DO that" says this snotty Hanseatic person.

Which is what I did.

Talking about winning hearts and minds.....

Truth in advertising

Don't ask me about.....

 

 ...Bionic Legs.

Been there - done that

(As in - what's good for the gosling is good for the gander old fart)

Rick Danko and Levon Helm reloaded

Google Analytics tells me that this post from way back in 2007 is consistently my most-viewed.

Also tops a Google search for Levon Helm and Rick Danko.

Which might explain that....

Here's the music again, then

Short Fat Fanny

Every Night And Every Day

Willie And The Hand Jive

Caledonia

Evangeline

Down South In New Orleans

Ophelia

It Makes No Difference

The Whole World Is Mad

Long Black Veil

Rag Mama Rag

Blaze Of Glory

The Weight

Java Blues

Why I left the Dark Side

I bought a fire basket

I do like a fire.

I'm not as bad as My Mate Houghton, though.

He'll start scavenging for firewood in mid-summer the minute he arrives at any place with a fireplace.

It wouldn't even surprise me if his will specifies a Viking Funeral. Shame about Raindance, but there you just do go...

I'll give him this, though: he's by far the most proficient chef de barbecue I've encountered.

So - not having a fireplace - I bought a firebasket.

I'm convinced that it wasn't MY idea. I STILL think that Ms jb reckoned that it would be a Good Idea and when I hear stuff like "Good Idea", I get my skates on and carry out instructions.

Not sooner said than done.

Tried it out the other night with a fair degree of success.

Tell you what, though - it certainly rips through the firewood and I worked out that the local DIY superstore charges the equivalent of around €2,000,000 per pine tree if you buy your firewood in bags that you can carry.

Only minor singeing damage to the lawn, despite the terracotta tiles that were supposed to protect everything, so it was decided that Something Professional should be bought.

Said. Done.

Whacking great metal disc on legs on which one perches the basket.

Still rips through the firewood at a fearsome rate, but I slung on some bangkirai offcuts from the new deck to keep the costs down.

Things I have learnt:

• Bangkirai appears to have similar thermal properties to enriched uranium.
• Sitting within 5 metres of a bangkirai-powered fire basket will result in 3rd degree burns
• A bangkirai-powered fire threatens to melt steel
• A bangkirai-powered fire makes your lawn look as if a flying saucer made a recent landing.
• It will sterilise your lawn to a depth of 10cm.

Even through a a whacking great metal disc on legs.

Back to the drawing board......

Watch this space....

So what it's to be in the future?

Playing pocket planets...?

For a mere $450

The Trace of Time clock

Engadget has a shout-out about the ideal clock (wipes itself clean...YES!!) to get rid of those bloody "To Do" lists that spouses so enjoy.

"Haven't you cleaned out the roof guttering yet? It's on your To-Do list you know"

Now all you have to do is to get her to write in on the clock and say "Well, I CERTAINLY can't see on the list, so I've either done it or you didn't tell me about it in the first place"

Unless she uses an indelible marker, of course.

Didn't think about that....

I am fuel. You are friends.

"I’ve just walked in from stretching out on the lawn alongside my house, where I finished rapidly devouring of all 400 pages of Nick Hornby’s massively enjoyable new book Juliet, Naked. My skin is warm from the beginnings of a sunburn, and my insides are glowing from the focused joy I understood in these pages."

Not my words..

Heather Browne's

Words fail me....

We liberals can mock all we want, but don't forget that 60 million Americans thought that this airhead Sarah Palin was qualified to run for the second-highest office in the land.

With a high probability of succeeding McCain - either at the ballot box or stepping into his vacated shoes.

Nick Smith gets it wrong

The Accident Compensation Corporation (ACC) is New Zealand's no-fault personal injury cover for all New Zealand residents and visitors to New Zealand.

If some one hurts you (or you hurt yourself), you're entitled to compensation.

Open to immense abuse, of course - I trapped a nerve in my back when I was back on holiday once and the doctor put it down as an "ACC".

"Cheaper for you that way" he said, even though I had a travel insurance policy that covered it. I think I even got 150 Paracetamols included....

Given that it's a bloody expensive scheme, the money has to come from somewhere.

It's deducted from your salary with your tax if you're an employee, you're billed directly if you're self-employed and if you drive a car, part of your registration fee goes into the ACC fund.

Which is fair enough - if you drive a car, you carry a greater risk of injury.

The new ACC Minister, Dr Nick Smith, wants to tweak the model a bit further.

If you're not driving a vehicle that has a 5-star safety rating (side airbags and electronic stability control being prerequisites i.e a new car), you'll pay a higher registration fee.

This is a bit like trying to change a spark plug through the exhaust pipe, Nick.

Having higher efficiency airbags will certainly contribute to injury prevention.

Prerequisite: having an accident.

The prime cause of accidents (which result in the injuries that ACC addresses) is still going to be the driver:car:(drink) combination.

Now, insurance companies tend to be pretty good at assessing risk.

So while they're whacking the 20 year old driver of a (new-ish) tuned-to-within-inches-of-its life Honda Civic for an insurance premium that reflects the (not inconsiderable) risk of his/her wrapping themself around a tree or taking out a pedestrian/cyclist/other driver, why not surcharge the premium for ACC purposes and have the insurance companies pay it directly into the fund?

By all means charge me the 60 year old driver of a 1996 Honda CRV a higher ACC component of the registration fee for the higher risk of injuries by NOT having side airbags, but AT LEAST factor the lower risk of having an accident in the first place into the equation and the resulting tendential irrelevance of having (or not having) side airbags.

Back to the drawing board, Nick...

On yer bike, Seth

Seth Godin's a really clued-up guy, but sometimes his pearls of wisdom are a bit........BFO-ish?.

His post "What to do with special requests" is a case in point. 

"Let the customer decide" is his argument.

A bike shop is swamped with work - a tuneup takes a week and costs $39.

Someone needs it done in 3 days.

Do you turn him down or do you do him a favour, but charge him a premium for being a preferred customer?

You get the drift... obviously the latter.

Nothing new, though.

That's what Fedex/UPS/DHL based their original business model on (never noticed that there's a premium for overnight shipping?) and it's what we used to do with overnight translations. It's also at the core of ANY revenue management concept.

In fact, it's what any business will do with a scarce commodity - in this case, resources and time.

It actually believe it's frequently referred to as "Supply and Demand"...

Heatwave

Whenever I come back from the UK, folks must think I have Parkinson's.

Drifting around a bit dazed, constantly shaking my head...

There is an explanation, though.

In the UK over the weekend and they were forecasting a HEATWAVE.

30º Celcius - that's 90º in $ & ¢, I'm told - and pant-wetting was the least that you experienced in the media.

They actually had a bureaucrat from the NHS on the radio, mangling the English language with words larger than two syllables, but broadly getting the message across that one should stay indoors from 11 to 3, keep your windows open at night (if it's safe to...), wear cotton clothing, smear the kiddies with Factor 500 sun lotion and have cold compresses handy.

Got back on Tuesday just in time to watch the news over here and the weather flossy (who lives just down the road, actually) said:

"Well, it'll get up to the low to mid 30s tomorrow, so just act sensibly and don't forget to drink lots of water"


Cue for a song: Joan Osborne - Heatwave