Not every German vehicle has a lot of horsepower…

I saw this one in Aachen which only has half-a-horsepower.

Half-horse half-car…

Kleve…. Anne, Holbein, wild flowers and scary scary swans!

I was in Kleve today – a small town on the border between Germany and the Netherlands.  Best known in the English world for its most famous daughter, Anne of Cleves.  Anne, of course, was the unfortunate lady who was matched with Henry VIII of England. Henry sent Hans Holbein over to paint portraits of Anne and her sister Amalia, both of whom he was considering as candidates for his fourth wife.  (This was the Tudor equivalent of online dating… but without the internet it was rather unwieldy). It would appear that Holbein’s portrait of Anne was the Tudor equivalent of a nicely photo-shopped image.  Henry chose her, based on the portrait… but when she turned up, he was less than enamoured with “that Flemish mare” – and allegedly the marriage was never consummated.

Tudor photoshopping?

Nowadays in Kleve, Anne’s over-flattering portrait is still very much in evidence – which suggests it is well worth getting a decent photo done for your social media profile picture if you have an eye to posterity!

A tourist attraction… though in real life she may not have been so attractive

 

There were a few cool things in Kleve. The first was the fantastic (though rather dried out) wildflower planting all around the city car-parks.

Aha…. so there’s the parking ticket machine…

The other was a beautiful if slightly disturbing statue in the centre of town…  anyone have any idea what this is supposed to signify?

Whoa…. what’s this all about?

Nope… it’s just as weird from this side too….

Street scenes in Aachen

I had to go to Aachen this morning.  It was a sunny day and lots of people were taking the opportunity to have a paddle in one of the local fountains, along with some statue-people.

Real people and statue people enjoy the warm weather...

I can't reach my toy boat....

Is that statue picking pockets?

I also came across a small boy with some vomiting fish… or something like that…

Projectile vomiting fish?

…and a bird bath, but no real birds, only bronze ones…

Fake birds... and no wonder, the bath was empty!

What I really did like though, were the hanging baskets. Aachen has the biggest hanging baskets I’ve ever seen! They looked more like trees, because by now the petunias had all grown together… fabulous!

Giant hanging baskets....

 

More German street art…

I was in Viersen this week and I spotted plenty more interesting street art.

To start with, there was this group of figures playing boule…

A game of boule...

Then there was a strange bee-hive which seemed to be home to a range of weird bugs.

Beehive... or bug-basket?

Then there was a bishop sitting amidst a range of weird creatures…

Doctor Doolittle or St. Francis of the hallucinogenic pills?

A few details of the surrounding statues…

Cluck cluck

Hissss

A little further away there was a pair of angels engaged in WWE wrestling… or something…

Ready for the smack-down?

…or possibly it was Icarus being caught by a very skilled out-fielder…

Icarus caught out on the boundary...

 

Street art in Germany

I was out and about this morning in the part of Germany over towards the Dutch border.  You know… near that place that makes every Brit giggle as they pass the Ausfahrt on the Autobahn.

What I found interesting around there, was the wide range of ways local communities choose to “decorate” their streets. For instance, in Nettetal I found weird brick mounds in the street… and trees made from scrap iron….

Not all of the artwork was in particularly convenient places. I bet this outdoor café owner was chuffed when someone decided to build this right in his main seating area!

Further up the road, Grefrath was a bit more traditional about its street-art. There was a cross between a ship’s mast and a maypole with banners on it for all the local clubs and guilds.

The Grefrathers also have a slightly more traditional sense of civic art when it comes to statues. This was on the square.

I’m not sure what it was called, but I think I’ll refer to it as: Naked children wrestling with a lump of putty

 

 

Eurovision in Düsseldorf

We are preparing for the onslaught.

In 13 weeks and 3 days from now (there is, of course, a countdown on the official website) Düsseldorf will be hosting the Eurovision Song Contest and the preparations are in full swing. The local football club, Fortuna Düsseldorf, is vacating its stadium and moving into a “mobile stadium” next door for the period. The city is advertising for volunteer helpers, particularly those who speak minority languages, to support the various delegations. Düsseldorfers are registering online to rent out their spare rooms.You’d almost think we’d all become Swabians!

For those of us lucky enough to live in the city, there is good news and bad news.

The bad news is that the tickets for the final sold out within about 3 nanoseconds of them going on sale. So we’ll have to watch it on TV like everyone else. Or if we live around Stockum or Kaiserswerth, we could just open the window and listen.

The good news is that there will be plenty of great events around Eurovision which we will be able to join in. Obviously there are the “public viewings” – a word which mysteriously entered the German language during the 2006 World Cup and means anything from watching the TV in the pub to joining the masses in a public square where a giant screen has been set up.

There will also be a “fringe” (readers from Scotland will understand what I mean by that)  – the so-called Rahmenprogramm – including a Eurovision Song Contest for kids, flashmobs and the like. The city is currently polling the public for ideas.

Now, I happen to know for a fact that there are plenty of highly creative readers of this blog, so I’m throwing this one open to the public. What should we suggest to them?

Cliff Richard eternal youth makeover sessions? (With Lordi as make-up artists)

Puppet-on-a-string shows?

Vote rigging workshops?

Pure mathematics seminars on the “nul points” theory?

Ring-a-ding-a-ding bell-ringing contest?

Double murder: German watery psycho strikes again!

January has seen one of Germany’s most notorious serial killers back in action after a relatively long gap in activity. On January 13th a tanker carrying sulphuric acid overturned on the Rhine with the loss of two crew members.

The incident happened at the infamous Loreley rocks… a previous scene of similar events in history. As the alleged legend has it, a sinister Rhine maiden sits on the rocks and lures sailors to their doom with her magical singing.

19th century police photofit of the killer

I’m not sure what kind of profile the police are working with to catch this killer, but as an amateur sleuth, I can provide the following information.

Age: Around 210 years old, but definitely looks younger than that.

Hair: Blonde

Eyes: Blue

Distinguishing features: Exceptional singing voice

Current alias: Laura Ley

Clothing: None, not even in January

Last seen: On the harbour wall, looking a little grey…

Police are looking for a 210 year-old female streaker with long hair

If you see this woman at a river near you, turn up your iPod and sail on by. Do not, repeat do not approach this suspect. She is a dangerous psychotic killer.

German Christmas pyramids

Christmas is the time of year when you construct pyramids in your house.  I don’t mean a Valley of the Kings stone affair… I mean a wooden one with candles and a windmill on the top. Obviously.

The Christmas pyramid is a sort of Heath-Robinson contraption which uses the convection current of hot air from candles to power a windmill and spin the pyramid. Unlike most other German inventions, this one has absolutely no practical purpose. None whatsoever.

Most German homes are content with a small table-top affair these days. Something that looks like this.

German towns and cities tend to build rather grander versions – often displayed at the local Christmas market.  The figures on the different tiers of the pyramids rotate, to indicate to people that they have drunk rather more Glühwein than is good for them.  Or something.

Originally these decorative carved pyramids date from the middle ages and symbolise light driving away darkness at Christmas time (literally and figuratively).  They pre-date the Christmas tree, which became a more popular decoration – probably due to it being easier to chop down a tree and bring it into the house than to spend months whittling away carving a wooden Christmas pyramid.

Many Germans still use real candles to illuminate their Christmas trees – at the annual risk of burning the house down, of course. What is it about Christmas that suddenly makes an otherwise sensible nation forget about Vorsprung durch Technik?

In the old days families would add to their collection of wooden figures in the Christmas pyramid every year, in the same way that nowadays people buy a few new baubles for the Christmas tree. For those who are trying to decide between a real or an artificial Christmas tree this year – a Christmas Pyramid could be the most amazing artificial tree you ever bought!

Alternatively, if you start carving now, you might have your very own pyramid ready for Christmas 2011….

 

 

 

Teatime and Cellos in Düsseldorf

Just a quick alert for anyone in Düsseldorf on October 3rd. I will be appearing at Teatime and Cellos on Planet Germany.

The event is organised by Rhinebuzz. It will be an afternoon of fabulous classical music interspersed with me reading funny passages from Planet Germany . It starts at 5 p.m. (that’s 17.00 if you’re German) and will be at  Kwadrat, Blücherstrasse 51, Düsseldorf.

I really hope to meet some of my regular readers there!

An afternoon with Ellen Schweitzer

This afternoon we had the chance to visit Düsseldorf artist Ellen Schweitzer in her studio.

Ellen creates amazing art and sculptures using mirrors, glass and a wide variety of other materials such as screws, cutlery, light bulbs, ball bearings, metal objects and even empty ink cartridges.

She told me she first started experimenting with creating art using mirrors at the age of thirteen. Her first piece was a gift for her grandfather. Since then she has made countless fabulous mirrors which are gracing the walls of restaurants, offices and homes all over Düsseldorf.

Her pieces are both decorative and useful – many of them actually function as a mirror, but with an intriguing design creating an inner frame around the centre.  The use of glass and metal creates amazing effects as the light is caught and reflected differently as you walk past. The viewer is irresistably drawn in to the swirling forms and the refracted light patterns.

Ellen works with a lot of humour too. In some pieces, closer examination yields strange objects suspended in the glass. One mirror contained rows of screws. Another was a pattern of bubbles and ball bearings.

“Can you guess what this one is?” giggles Ellen, pointing to a huge mirror with irregularly oval shaped blisters covering its surface.

I can’t.

“It’s lenses from old pairs of spectacles embedded in the surface of the glass.”

It seems like nothing goes to waste in the Schweitzer household.

Ellen’s mirror art is unique. She has developed the technique herself, along with the special materials she uses. She pulls out mirror after mirror of her technical tests, where she has documented the effects of different types of glue together with its impact on glass, metal, plastic… Many of the glues she uses, she blends herself, based of years of experimentation.

“Here, see… this one, this is no good at all. It discolours when it dries. This other one, look, it attracts dust after a while, so it doesn’t stay clear and bright. This one is good – but you can’t use it with copper objects because they go green. But this one is fine with copper….”

Under each test is a label detailing the exact location of the individual glue recipe in her notes. German artists are clearly extremely organised – an impression which is reinforced by the neatly arranged jars of glass marbles, beads, screws, ice cream spoons, washers, ball bearings and other items which appear in her work.

“I have to keep my studio spotlessly clean,” Ellen explains. “When you’re working with materials like glue, you can’t risk dust or cobwebs getting into it before it dries. Everything needs to shine.”

Ellen also shows me a lovely range of her hand-made jewellery – where mirrors also feature strongly. Her designs are bold and modern. Some incorporating oddities like screws and fuses, others more abstract – but nonetheless very striking.

I can’t decide between three of her brooches – so I end up buying all of them. I must be turning German… I’ve started my Christmas shopping in July already!