All clued up

I don't spend much on clothes these days.

I've still got all my business suits, button-down Oxford cotton shirts from Ralph Lauren and Cole Haan shoes, but I tend to wear shorts and t-shirts from April to September and then denims and sweaters for the rest of the year.

So clothes shops don't see much of me,as a rule.

I do have one failing and that's for cashmere sweaters.

I buy a new one each year and I have 2 fashion advisers at P&C, a fashion emporium.

(I call it a clothes shop.)

In Frankfurt, it's Frau Hirn and in Mainz, it's Frau Weiss.

"Hirn" in German means "brain".

And "weiss" comes from "Wissen", which is "knowledge.

Talk about all clued up.....

Please design a logo for me. With pie charts. For free.

From: Simon Edhouse
Date: Monday 16 November 2009 2.19pm
To: David Thorne
Subject: Logo Design
Hello David,
I would like to catch up as I am working on a really exciting project at the moment and need a logo designed. Basically something representing peer to peer networking. I have to have something to show prospective clients this week so would you be able to pull something together in the next few days? I will also need a couple of pie charts done for a 1 page website. If deal goes ahead there will be some good money in it for you.
Simon 

From: David Thorne
Date: Monday 16 November 2009 3.52pm
To: Simon Edhouse
Subject: Re: Logo Design
Dear Simon,
Disregarding the fact that you have still not paid me for work I completed earlier this year despite several assertions that you would do so, I would be delighted to spend my free time creating logos and pie charts for you based on further vague promises of future possible payment. Please find attached pie chart as requested and let me know of any changes required.
Regards, David. 

Continues at http://www.27bslash6.com

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Sartorially challenged

Stuart Piggot is a British wine critic and author.

His 5 Commandments

1. A wine is as good or bad as it tastes and smells to you.
2. For wine, there is no connection between price and quality.
3. Wine is not nearly so complicated or delicate as generally assumed.
4. There are no wrong words to describe wine.
5. There is only one error that is possible to make in connection with wine: to ruin other people's pleasure.

are spot on, as is his oenological judgement.

And anyone who rates my mate Jürgen Hofmann is OK by me.

But his dress sense - even taking his ethic background into consideration - is cause for concern.

It looks very much as if he"s a disciple of the Stevie Wonder method of attire selection, being "Close your eyes and put on the first thing you come across in the wardrobe"

(Except that Stevie Wonder didn't need to close his eyes..)

Or as Mrs jb put it so succinctly:

"He can't SERIOUSLY expect me to trust his judgement if he wears a jacket like that? (And where ON EARTH was his wife...?)"

A good year

Book by Peter Mayle, film with Russell Crowe, vineyard and wine by Nathalie Mangan of Chateau La Canorgue in Bonnieux.

Been buying there for years

Good for the garden....

The Hierarchy of Digital Distractions

I know this to be true

This is overdoing things...

I'm all for a healthy work:life balance (there was no such thing at senior management levels in the Lufthansa Group - the head of Executive HR once told a group of us that it was "an honour to work for the company in that capacity...." yeah, right....), but Jay Farnsworth at Red Gallery in Nelson is taking things to extremes.

It's mid-November.

The sun is shining.

It's 20 degrees.

It's Saturday.

It's not summer.

The Summer Solstice in Nelson is on 21 December, the first Saturday after which is Boxing Day and then there's the Big Sucking Noise and all businesses close for 3 weeks, so theoretically we'll get our first Saturday coffee there on 16 January 2010.

Unless astronomy works differently in Nelson and they declare summer to start on a random date, which would surprise me not one bit....

The new Herr Schwarz

Popped into Caffee Moguntia and was a bit miffed at the absence of my
mate Hans-Josef Schwarz who drives the espresso machines with great skill.

Appears that he's been traded in for this chappy.

At least they got the colour right....

Wrong

And you all thought that it's a legal requirement that German wine labels have to feature angels, cherubs et al....

My friend the artist

I have a friend who's a seriously famous artist in New Zealand and who is profoundly deaf.

"It's better that it's me and not my kids" she says.

She was reading a wine bottle label the other day without glasses (I can barely discern whether it's even a BOTTLE without my specs..) and I commended her on her eyesight.

"Oh no" she said "I wear contacts"

Continues:

"I thought that if I had to wear glasses on top of being deaf, I might just as well have dentures and a wooden leg too...."

So I succumbed....

...and bought an iPhone.

Mrs jb mentions this to a friend.

"What's an iPhone?" she asks.

In exactly which timewarp do these people live?

Are they aware that homo sapiens has discovered fire?

And invented the wheel...?

Burning the midnight oil

Qantas Economy cabin at night.

Spooky.....

Brekkie @ Uncle Bill's

At $60, a tad expensive.

That'd be $15 for brekkie and $45 for parking on street-sweeping day.

Which is Tuesday, but that can't be today because I left Auckland on
Tuesday pm, so it has to be Wednesday.

Sodding Innernational date line.....

Wouldn't have happened with a Mac

Linux, neither

Instant patina

14th St in Manhattan Beach.
I was standing there in gobsmacked mode when a young Flossie with an
ankle-biter in the pushchair stopped and said "Grim, isn't it? My Dad
swore he saw the Pope on the balcony last week"

Reminds me of Southern Belle Diane (from Atlanta by way of NY) visiting and - on seeing a garishly decorated house - "Oh, I see you have Puerto Ricans here too.." 

Always was a leg man....

Now, off you go kids, but BE CAREFUL....

Fish & chips

No, not the eponymous Professor.

The genuine article.

Mapua wharf, with a pint of bitter from the Golden Bear Brewing Company.

Does it get much better than this?

(Hint: No)

Sunset in the Mapua channel.

Just the thing to go with fish and chips.

Eat your collective hearts out, all and sundry...

Motueka is not a one horse town

I saw 2 today...

This guy was being giving a talking to by the local fuzz for encroaching on the loading zone.

"Didn't give me a ticket" he says "Never does. Knows I don't have any money. And LEGALLY, he can't ticket me for parking in a loading zone..." and proceeds to quote some arcane legal judgement that evidently refers to horse drawn carriages, but which has never been struck from the statute book.

This guy...

..(Captain Bumchumwallawalla, if I heard correctly) either has Parkinsons or the DTs.

TG491 Bangkok-Auckland

Going boldly where no lamp has lit before

Oops...

Public Service Announcement.

Sort of.

Suntan lotion ad from New Zealand.

Before and after scenarios.

These would be....

...loafers?

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Dodgems

Dodg'em?


Dodge her, for real....!

These bloody geriatrics think they own the road supermarket aisles...

You must be joking

I know that the Post Office has a reputation of losing things frequently being in the process of trying to locate items entrusted into their care, but this is silly.

Sending 4 IDENTICAL catalogs to the SAME address, arriving on the SAME day with the SAME customer number?

Just to be on the safe side?

The company is toast - I'll rephrase that - the company is Toast and they've done it before.

Consumerism gone mad

And I thought that Mrs jb was a serious shopper....

Do you like sex? And do you like travel?

Then %$&* off...


Edmund Wilson's general purpose sod-off letter.

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Too cool

The alphabet according to Google Maps

"But I've got cookery class....

..and we're making pancakes...!"