Tits!

"Du hast Kohlmeisen"
Put that in Google Translate, German to English, said my German friend (eine Freundin von mir) Änni the other day. Amusingly enough it is translated into the Queen's (although possibly not in this case) English as "you have great tits", something which Änni understandably thought was some sort of mistake, the German Meise just being a sort of wingéd beast with no relation to ladies' chests.

Why are they called tits though? Why are there so many tits about? would be another question, and I'm not necessarily referring to the small but perfectly formed ones sported enthusiastically by those young East European ladies on the internet the other day, or the ones caused by too much beer.

I for one would appear to be surrounded by them...

Flying Bastards!

Bloody flies, not necessarily the same ones, be patient, have been buzzing around my office for a couple of weeks now. Hopefully it's not me they're flocking round or, God forbid, issuing from, but they are driving me fucking mad.

Now I've taken to shooting them with GPO (or whatever they're called now) rubber bands, which whilst highly enjoyable makes me feel more than a little guilty, especially the stage before the 'stamping them into the carpet' stage, which I'll refer to as the 'rolling around on the desk wiggling their ankles' stage.

I even open the window for them to piss off out of, but I think that just lets more of the bastards in.

Opaque Deficit

Tons of the usual dubiously motivated financial pundits and their uninquisitive media friends on radio and TV at the moment, all telling us how the next government needs to be more transparent about how to close the massive budget deficit. Obviously by cutting our public services, pensions etc.

However reducing this to a personal finance level, as the experts and their intellectual vassals like to do, then I'd like to see some transparency about the deficit itself. Surely if it was your own money then you'd like to know who you owe what to before going onto a diet of bread and water in order to pay it back?

Let's have a proper breakdown of exactly who we owe the money to, what interest we're actually paying on it, and especially if Fractional Reserve Banking may be involved, where did the lenders get it from?

Election Strategy

My election strategy is changing all the time, but currently it looks like I'll vote for the LibDems as usual.
In Cambridge City we actually have a Trade Union & Socialist Coalition candidate, who would certainly get my vote in the real world.
But this being politics I'm thinking that it may be better to attempt to ensure a LibDem victory so that they can make some headway towards PR before the bond markets up the interest rates and bring them crashing down.
Then at the next election votes for the TUSC are likely to count for more and maybe we can start to get the country run for the people rather than for international finance.

Language Aquisition

I was intrigued recently by the story about the Croatian girl who awoke from a coma speaking fluent German.
For those too lazy to read it, she was learning German but far from fluent, then ended up in a coma, how we aren't told. When she awoke however, she couldn't speak her native Croatian at all, but spoke only fluent German.

For me this is both intriguing and annoying, because it would appear that all the German that I've seen and heard is most likely in my head somewhere, I just can't get it out. Unless I'm drunk and talking to a taxi driver anyway.
Inducing a coma seems a bit of a drastic solution though, perhaps I should get my Suzuki GSX 750 back on the road....

Barry from the Clarry

No more apparently, seems like Barry has left the Clarendon Arms.
A shame, at least for a segment of the drinking classes, it was a good pub with a good crowd, despite being Greene King. I've personally quite happily lost a few Sunday afternoons there.
It'll be interesting to see what it's like when it re-opens, interesting but most likely disappointing.

It's strange how pubs are small communities, seemingly permanent but in reality constantly changing; people leaving, dying, joining and at times places changing hands or closing completely. Schweben und schwinden as Herder would say.
There's probably a lesson in there somewhere.

Tattoo

Yesterday I finally got Alec to cover up the couple of old tattoos on my left wrist that have been bothering me for a while.
The Imperial Eagle just seemed like a good design at the time, and technically the 'Totenkopf' text just meant 'skull' in German, although it would me misleading of me to deny that I knew it was also the name of a Waffen SS division.
But I was only 17 at the time...

Recently though I've caught myself consciously hiding that arm, especially when in Germany, so time to cover it up. I would have been happy with just blocking it in with black, but I think Alec's idea of the bats works better.

I think it'll turn out fine, but whatever happens it's one less reason for people to mistakenly take me for a Nazi, although jeans and boots will still do that for your average Sun reader.

Sod's Law

This morning I had a contact lens fitting, but after sitting at home with my eyes streaming because of the bloody cold I've had for a day or two I cancelled it.
Now I feel much better, surely there's a Murphy's style law for that?

At least I'll be OK now for DJing for the Peacocks at the weekend.

Dead Soldiers

Why when reporting on the deaths of Servicemen do the news reports always say: "Their families have been informed"?

Surely it´s obvious that the families have been informed, otherwise they wouldn´t be reporting the names, and if they weren´t informed beforehand then it´s a bit late now.

Here we go, looks like Unkei was the main man, I think that one of the six patriarch figures might have been the one that I saw all those years ago.

I've a feeling that these examples may be a little ambitious for a beginner.

This is the sort of carving that I'd like to be able to do, the ascetic Buddha (or Shakyamuni correctly I suppose, it being pre-enlightenment) is a wonderful subject too.

I've always liked woodcarving, especially since reading Hermann Hesse's 'Narziss & Goldmund', but for now we can just add it to the list of things that I want to do but have yet to apply myself to.

There's a Japanese carving of a tea master I was really impressed by, in either the British Museum or the V & A, it was a while ago. I'll try and find it and post again on this subject.