I think this video could be a metaphor for a phone conversation I had yesterday. It was one of those situations where I understood every single word… but nothing in the sentences made any sense.
Anyone else ever have those days?
Last week was Project Week at my daughter’s school. The whole school set itself the project of putting on a circus.
Working together with a small circus company the children had a week of learning to be clowns, acrobats, tightrope walkers, fire-breathers, fakirs, dancers, magicians, jugglers, uni-cyclists and trapeze artists.
Together with lots of parent volunteers, they erected a big top on the school playground.
They practised all week… and on Friday and Saturday they put on an amazing performance for all the parents (and grandparents and brothers and sisters…).
Not only was it really professionally done - but it was wonderful to see how ever the most shy children really shone in their roles. All of them learned to do something really amazing - something that made their parents’ jaws drop - something they’d never have believed themselves capable of. Whether it was breathing fire, or lying on a bed of nails, or walking on a tightrope.
The sense of personal achievement and pride which came across from each child was wonderful to see… and their faces were shining with excitement.
The whole week was videoed as a documentary, as well as the performances. I can’t wait to get my copy of the DVD.
Oh… and here is my Circus-performer, fresh from the show. She’d just been dancing in the dark with long streamers under fluorescent light… an amazing effect. Oh… and holding the hoops for the circus ponies to jump through (well, children dressed as ponies).
Oh… and I suspect this may be a model of me at the school gate….at least, she seems to be drinking my beer….
One of the things that’s difficult for me about living in Germany is the total absence of spicy food. German cuisine is bland. The best they can think of to spice it up seems to be mustard or possibly a dab of horseradish. As someone who likes curries and chilli dishes this just doesn’t challenge the taste-buds enough.
So over Easter I was excited to find this range of sauces being used in a restaurant we visited. It’s called Flying Goose Brand. The owner kindly told us where she’d bought it… and we duly toddled along and acquired a couple of bottles. The extra-garlic and the super hot chilli variety.
I have one thing to say about this sauce. It must never ever fall into the hands of our enemies.
I’d made a rice and stir-fry lunch and we thought we’d try the new sauces with it. All of us are used to spicy additives in our family. I regularly add chillies to our food. I chuck tabasco into most things. I have a large size jar of sambal there on the shelf… and a tube of harissa lurking in the fridge…
But the Flying Goose is something else again. It has truly caustic properties. It is so hot it feels like the skin is peeling from your mouth. Your tongue becomes paralysed… your throat is on fire and as the food slowly sears its way to your stomach you know you just made the biggest mistake in your life.
That was the extra-hot one. The extra garlic variety has the advantage that it is every so slightly less spicy… but it also has the disadvantage that nobody will ever sit in the same room as you again. The garlic content is overwhelming. You breathe garlic, you sweat garlic … the neighbours three streets away are wondering where that garlic smell is coming from. It seeps into the carpets and curtains. The walls absorb the smell of garlic. You are forced to demolish your home.
The effect lasts for days. It takes twenty four hours for the burning taste to subside… but by then the food is working its way relentlessly through your system and suddenly you understand why it is called Flying Goose Brand. Whatever you ate goes through you, just like shit through a goose.
Actually, it reminded me less of a flying goose and more of the space shuttle on take off. Because the fire has not abated during its long journey through your intestines… if anything the after-burn is even worse than the initial flame.
Of course, at this point you realise you’ve left it too late to flee the country. Because Germany, with its inspection-shelf model toilets is not the place you want to be when Flying Goose diarrhoea strikes…
After about half a day you stop functioning like a human flame-thrower and over the course of the next week your system slowly begins to recover. Your appetite returns and the thing you crave most in the world is a spicy kebab….
Slowly, reluctantly, you reach for the Flying Goose bottle again….
The German postman brought me an invitation to attend the DRUPA today.
For those who don’t have much to do with the media business, the DRUPA is the printing and paper industry’s biggest trade fair. It’s held in Düsseldorf every four years.
For the rest of the population, the DRUPA is the creator and perpetrator of corporate anthems so hideous that even short exposure to them will result in insanity and inevitable death.
The instant I opened the envelope and found my invitation to DRUPA…. this song (and I apologise on my knees for making you click on that link) shot through my brain like lightening.
I first heard that song back in 1986. And it’s been running round in my head almost continuously ever since. The Germans call it an Ohrwurm. I call it a sadistic form of musical torture. I’ll be sitting somewhere, on a bus or in a business meeting… and all of a sudden the 1986 DRUPA song will pop into my head and I’ll find myself humming along to it. People near me feign a sudden interest in reading their bus ticket or last month’s sales figures… usually the seat next to me is empty. Nobody wants to sit next to the person who hums the DRUPA song under her breath.
There was a brief time when I didn’t have that DRUPA song on my brain. It was in 2000. That was when I had THIS on my brain instead. The millenium DRUPA anthem has the advantage of lyrics which seem to have been written by an infinite number of monkeys which makes them harder to remember than the previous version. So within six months I’d forgotton that one… my brain reverted to permanently humming the 1986 one - a sort of musical version of tinnitus.
Four years later, however, in 2004 THIS happened… the ABBA-revival version of the DRUPA anthem… complete with backing singers warbling “Super Druper” and some of the least probable lyrics of all time. Even the infinite number of monkeys couldn’t have achieved that!
So now we come to the present day. The invitation is sitting staring at me on the desk… and I know what will happen when I go. This year’s anthem is already written and it will be performed at top volume at the fair itself. If I sacrifice all for my career and attend the fair… I will condemn myself to four years of yet another DRUPA anthem on the brain….
I may have to go outside and shoot myself.
After I posted about how I don’t like people banging on about the war (but couldn’t help laughing at the Dambusters ad) someone pointed out to me that there are actually two Dambusters ads!
So I went and looked and sure enough - there’s another one. This one bangs on about sunbeds.
Now I have to admit that my experience of beach holidays is pretty much restricted to my youth.
For a start, there were no Germans on the beaches around Blackpool and Morecombe. They have more sense than to go somewhere where your beach outfit consists of a fisherman’s rainjacket, wellingtons and a souwester.
Secondly, there were no beach loungers. At best there were some of those windbreaker constructions… though in my experience they don’t give you much protection against driving sleet.
So while we huddled in our boarding house (the etymology of which must relate to playing endless board games while waiting for the rain to stop) we were definitely not worried about anyone plonking a towel anywhere on the beach ahead of us. Anyway - in Morecombe the sea is at least half a day’s walk across the beach - there would have been space for the entire population of Germany on it, with elbow room to spare!
But I digress… what you wanted to see was the clip right? Well, here it is.
You already know that my daughter’s cat is currently under suspicion of being a nazi infiltrator in our household. Well, I suspect that he’s now started to expand his influence within the household… let me explain.
Over the past week or so, my dear husband has been suffering from a bad cold. Now, those of you who either are male or live with one of that species will know that the combination of a man and a bad cold is a pretty serious proposition. We’re talking about a man-cold here. For those who are not aware of the severity of this… I’ve included a short clip to remind you.
Now… it so happens that this man-cold has caused my husband to blow his nose a lot - and he has a sore area directly below his nostrils. As a result of this a scab has formed there. And he is unable to shave the centre part of his upper lip.
Now obviously at first (following the advice of the video) I was sympathetic. I made chicken soup. I said “Poor bunny” and “Can I fetch you something.”
But then, this morning, I happened to catch sight of something that made my blood run cold. I saw my husband stroking the cat.
It all made sense now… the cold must be some form of cat flu, brought into the house deliberately to infect the humans with Hitler-moustaches. The two of them are in league! Before we know it the kittens will have been recruited too and then the Anschluß of next door’s garden will start in earnest.
You have been warned!
G posted a meme asking me to reveal what’s on my shelves. I’ve never had one of these before… but I discover that a meme is a bit like a parlour game. G revealed her shelves in response to Slouching Mom’s show and tell. Slouching Mom was acting under orders from Niobe. I guess nobody argues with Niobe, because her blog is called Dead Baby Jokes… which must make people treat her warily….
When I went for a browse of G’s shelves I was really excited to spot that she’s actually got a copy of Planet Germany sitting there in plain view, nestling between a recipe book and one of those impressive coffee table books with photos of Berlin. Having seen that, of course, I couldn’t refuse.
But then I realised… if G has read Planet Germany, then she already knows that my house is the most chaotic, untidy and undusted place in the whole of Germany. If I attempt to cheat, by dusting a couple of feet of the bookshelf and taking a snap of that…. G will rumble me. She’ll expose me as a fraud, a cheat, a scoundrel… she might distrust me so much, she’d even mistake me for a Member of Parliament.
No… I had to do this honestly. No cheating, no attempting to put books straight and absolutely no vacuuming.
Ladies, gentlemen and dead babies of the world… I bring you *drumroll* my bookshelf! (Well, a bit of one of them anyway…)
And a couple of close ups just so you can see some titles (I’m still trying to distract you all from the cobwebs…)
OK… that’s done. Now I have to nominate some other bloggers to show their shelves….
Umm… let me see… I pick…
Mausi and Maribeth (only if you want to of course)
I suppose we should all breathe a sigh of relief it was the bookshelves this time, not the deepest depths of the kitchen cupboards…. or the dark recesses of the fridge. I wonder what did happen to that Camembert…..
One of the things that always annoys me about my fellow Brits is that they will keep banging on about the second world war. Any football international between England and Germany brings wartime references out in the tabloids. Several interviewers who talked to me recently about Planet Germany brought up questions about the second world war…. even though it’s barely even mentioned in the book.
So it wasn’t a surprise when someone reminded me today of one of those great ads from our youth. What did surprise me was that despite the fact that I’m the biggest critic of English people who constantly talk about the war…. it’s had me chuckling all afternoon.
Guess I’d better go and wash my mouth out with soap!
The kittens are all growing up now… and it’s utter, total mayhem in our house. Wherever you try to step….wherever you try to sit down, there’s a kitten there already. By the time you’re reading this post I’ll probably have broken my neck.
Even something as simple as putting a box on the floor with old newspapers for recycling seems to attract a horde of kittens… it’s like having a toddler’s birthday party in your home day-in-day-out. Here’s the scene in our living room earlier.
A few people have left messages asking whether any of the kittens are available for adoption… the answer is yes. We’ll keep two of them - but the other three are looking for good homes. They’re all males - and even I think five is too many tomcats for one house! Leave a message if you’re seriously interested in giving a home to one of them (and live somewhere around Düsseldorf).
What has happened to our weather? Christmas was so mild… and then all of a sudden at Easter… this!
Our farmhouse was just starting to look Spring-like with all the daffodils… and suddenly we’re covered in a dusting of unexpected snow.
