Düsseldorf
Leave a CommentMunich is always expensive at this time of the year. It is – or was – Oktoberfest. The British seem to love it. Consequently, air fares to Munich are prohibitively expensive.
We searched this year for an alternative German city. easyJet offers Hamburg, Berlin, Düsseldorf and Dortmund. We chose Düsseldorf because the air fares were very cheap – as were some of the hotels. Indeed, we stayed at one of the Lindner conference hotels in the Niederkassel district of the city. There are a few branded hotels parked in the middle of a technology park; though well connected by tram. Good value at the weekend.
The city is not the most attractive, but the beer is good. The local speciality is Uerige served in small glasses.
Fortunately. It is rather strong and drinkable. Be careful. The system by which it is served is, apparently, the following: when standing at the bar and seeming being ignored, point one’s finger at the bar and hey presto, Herr Ober appears and sells.
The Rhine is always fascinating as a working river. The barges negotiating its bends and the idiot skijeters negotiating the waves they generate provide some entertainment. The weather was sublime this weekend, so spending plenty of time by the river was a must.
Breakfast we recommend Bastions (Bastionstraβe). A big basket of different breads with butter, Marmelade and Honig is a must. The coffee is okay.
Towards the south side of the Rhine is the Medienhafen. It is home to the region’s media and still under development. Frank Gehry came a few years ago to build three of his signature blocks (pictures to come when I get them processed).
The airport, also, is interesting. It is pretty modern and clearly aspirant. One is transported from the terminal to the railway station on the Skytrain. This is clearly modelled on the famous Wuppertal transit system. The carriages are suspended from a track – for want of a better word. There is no driver. An interesting experience. The picture is taken from inside the Skytrain looking at the track.
New Vivaro
The beloved white Escort van had to leave the road. I have replaced it with a beautiful 5 year old Vauxhall Vivaro. Here it is. Travel just got easier and fun.
The Autumn has arrived
So, now we know why the British Government was so keen to intervene in Libya. Fools like myself believed for once that the reasons were truly humanitarian; i.e. to avert a massacre in Benghazi. But no. The British had used Gaddafi’s facilities for rendition – a consequence of that warming of relations between our nations (see http://tinyurl.com/3b8cakb). On seeing the tide flowing against Gaddafi and towards the ‘rebels’, how might we (the British) make friends quickly? Let us help the ‘rebels’ led by Gaddafi’s former Justice Minister, Mustafa Abdul Jalil. They will control the country and we continue to have a strategic interest in the region, not least the oil. So much for a people’s revolution.
Certainly a massacre in Benghazi was averted. But how many people died in the subsequent fighting in and around Tripoli?
Austra
The Kranhalle, Munich, last night hosted Austra – synth with a voice to complement. Kate Stelmanis heads up the band – playing as a sextet – that simply fill the space and more. The show revolves around their album, ‘Feel it Break’. Songs such as ‘Lose It’ and ‘Beat and the Pulse’ are anthemic in their presentation. It is fair to say that it is difficult to distinguish some of the songs, but these are early days for the band, and frankly they would have been 
mesmerising even if they had sung only one song all night. Kate Stelmanis’ voice is extraordinary. Originally trained as an opera singer, the voice booms, coming to rest only when it hits one’s pelvis. The two backing vocalists are, to some extent, superfluous; but maybe it is easy to say that because they were there. Also on stage, curiously for a synth band, a drummer (Maya Postepski) and a bassist (Dorian Wolf). The keyboard player (and for a short while, saxophonist) dresses exclusively in shorts and vests, from what I can see. That notwithstanding, he looks a shade like Ron Mael.
Endnote Software
I’ve been a user of Endnote bibliographic software for 12 years now. It has always been a bit clunky. Recently I decided to use Endnoteweb instead of having the program on my laptop (mainly because of the complications with licences). But then I got a little annoyed and decided to buy a copy for myself – downloaded from Adept Scientific’s website.
The first mistake was downloading X5 when using Office 2007 (it is not optimised for 2007). I upgraded to Office 2010 after considerable effort to get the Endnote tab on Word 2007. Still the tab did not appear and still I tried the range of fixes offered by Adept on their website and also in personal communication. Finally the penny dropped when I found some of the training videos on Youtube (I recommend them). The Endnoteweb program needs to be uninstalled and then the X5 tab appears as if by magic.
The journey is not then complete, unfortunately; one still has to activate the Endnoteweb program – for reasons which are bizarre. Again, another video guided me through the steps (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3BFSFgaD_Ic). Low and behold, it works!
The attack on Hama
1 August 2011
President Bashar al-Assad sent in the tanks to Hama, a non-conforming town to the north of Damascus. Hama had been attacked by his father in 1982 with 10 thousand deaths when the City was literally razed to the ground. The reports coming out of the city today, such that they are, talk of indiscriminate arms firing, tanks and explosions. The story is familiar; however, this time, UK and Nato forces are not there in support of the citizens.
Listening to William Hague, the UK foreign Secretary this morning on Radio 4 was pointless as he dishonestly explained the West’s absence. It is different, of course, but not because the Arab League has not asked for assistance.
This has got to stop
Catherine Pepinster, again, has used her 3 minutes on national radio to defend her religion’s approach to child abuse, in the context the Irish Government’s call for priests to pass details of child abusers in confession on to the police. This is unacceptable, BBC. This is not a ‘thought for the day’; this is pure religious propaganda, and in this case Vatican propaganda. Stop it!
Goran Hadžić
Picked up – the final of the wanted by the International Criminal Court from the Yugoslav conflict. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/aug/03/former-yugoslavia-war-crimes-hunt
News Corp
So, no bid at the moment for BSkyB. It all seemed so easy in the end. There is still time to ressurect the News of the World for an edition this weekend. No need to have closed it, one senses?
Magritte at Tate Liverpool
This exhibition, The Pleasure Principle, has all the favourites – the bowler-hatted ordinary men raining down over the houses, the train coming through the fireplace, the pipe (the one that is not), the daylight darkness (the streetlights shine whilst the sky is bright and blue), the couple kissing shrouded from one another, etc.
In all, it took about 3 hours to go round the whole exhibition. To a painting, they are mostly familiar. One possible exception is the gallery with examples of his commercial work – artwork to advertise cigarettes, fashion, theatre and cinema posters. Some of the motifs are visible, but not quite so strident. Rarely was he political. Though he did depict the Belgian fascist leader, Léon Degrelle, looking into a handheld mirror (one of Magritte’s motifs) and seeing Adolf Hitler. And on only one occasion is a picture with a grey sky depicted; again a scene from the war.
Equally unfamiliar are the home movies that he made with his wife and other members of the surrealist movement in Brussels. Their playfulness is enchanting as they do strange things, using their bodies as objects for Magritte’s moving art (he was not a very good cameraman; reassuringly, the movies are no better than the ones I made on Super 8 when I was 10 years old).
http://www.tate.org.uk/liverpool/exhibitions/renemagritte/default.shtm
http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2011/jun/10/rene-magritte-pleasure-principle-exhibition
