Books

Now everyone has different tastes in reading; if I like an author, I'll often buy all of their works, so we have wall to wall bookshelves in many rooms of this house. Several thousand in total.

For example, I have everything written by Terry Pratchett, everything written by Richard Bach, and of course the collected works of Goethe and of William Shakespeare. Did you know that many of the phrases we still use today we owe to William Shakespeare?

Not only do I read lots of books, I've also written several (see right sidebar), mostly textbooks, but also a (crappy) novel which was much harder to do. I used to write e.g. short stories too, but mostly in German, 20-40 years ago. BTW, Frank Fleming wrote an interesting article in 2020 on Why do people write fiction?, the comments were interesting too.

A friend who built his own sailboat and sailed up the swedish coast and down the finnish coast kept a photo-diary and turned that into a book. Another friend who rode his motorcycle up to the North Cape of Norway is turning his working-holiday diary into a book too. Personally I just write up my travel diaries in my blog, saving paper ;-)

What have you written?

Comments (2)
Cop Car wrote " Had I kept all of the books that I've bought/been given over the years, I should never have been able to move from one house to the next for the frightful expense of moving them all. I have given nearly all of them away to a person, library, or school. As to writing? Other than my (admittedly, poorly written) blog, if I wrote it, I was probably getting paid to do so - and I have written hundreds of "books" that we techies called "reports", some of which comprised thousands of pages (included computer outputs have that effect on length.) Better I should leave the writing to others like you and your friends." Our bookshelves are so full that we too donate books regularly, I think we discussed this some time ago. I like reading your blog, much better than all the US political ones. You can see how short my blogroll is.
Doug (Canada) wrote " 39 of 100 and sadly to my dismay one of them was Ayn Rand - " My commiserations ;-)

Copyright ^© Ole Phat Stu on May 31, 2022 permalink Comments Email

Bremerhaven Yacht Harbour

One vacation day we went to look at Bremerhaven, a major freight import/export harbour, dockside cranes stretching miles along the coast. We drove the road along the dockside, a customs-patrolled road. First few miles are for container ships, then the bulk carriers, all trans-oceanic. Seven railway tracks for land-side transport besides all the (container-) trucks. There was one train there, about a mile long, exporting cars. The cars were all white, which I thought unlikely, but guess they had been covered in foil as protection against salty sea spray ????

Our destination though was the yacht harbour, to see the historic sailing ships. There were a few motorised yachts, the russian oligarchs' ones presumably confiscated. No military ships, they have a separate harbour to the west, in Wilhelmshafen. This photo shows the yacht harbour as seen from Lloyd's beer garden, where we had lunch (spare ribs barbecue). Quite a forest of tall masts and their rigging obstructing the view :-)

One of the older ships there was this well-restored Kogge. They were the medieval coastal trading ships, plying between the Hansa towns from St. Petersberg in Russia down to harbours in France like Le Havre. Single mast with a lookout's basket (crows' nest) near the top, simply rigged. Waterproofed with black tar. Coats of arms of the Hansa towns on display, I guess to avoid custom's duties there ;-) Six story apartment block behind is for scale.

By far the most impressive sailing ship in the harbour was the training ship Deutschland (=Germany), built around 1900 AD. She is a three-master, previously used by the navy. Now she has been retired, but you can visit her for a guided tour (Covid masks below deck), stay overnight in bunks or hammocks, get married on board, hold company events on board, etc etc.

They have a webpage of photos and videos, text only in German though, but worth looking at.

Comments (1)
Billions of Versions... (Mike) wrote " Go on google maps. I’ve never seen so many white cars. Probably all ready for export. White is the most popular color. Then black, then silver, then red. And then I found a motorcycle race going on. Put in the coordinates 53.518452, 8.579638 . I could figure out some of the course but not all of it." Yeah. Us amateurs racing on (sometimes wet) cobblestones. I never finished a race there. But here's a video from 2017.

Copyright ^© Ole Phat Stu on May 29, 2022 permalink Comments Email

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Tuesday, May 24, 2022

Ozzy joke

The President of the USA has to be a native American, no such similar rule in Australia, indeed the new Prime Minister of Australia is Albanese ;-)

Copyright ^© Ole Phat Stu on May 24, 2022 permalink Comments Email

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Monday, May 23, 2022

North Sea coast vacation

We just spent the previous week on a pleasant vacation on the coast of the North Sea between the river Weser at Bremerhaven in the south and river Elbe in the north at Cuxhaven. Here are the first photos, more to follow.

We stayed in this well-renovated old fisherman's cottage; room for four/five at most.

Just 2 miles from the next village where there were two excellent fish restaurants, the 3 holiday homes were right behind the dyke (levee) which was 10/12 meters high. So we had a 180° view out across the sea grass and tidal mud flats, a national park area.

On the way there we avoided taking the tunnel under the river Weser, instead we took the Weser ferry. The Weser here is about 800 meters/yards wide; near where we live it is about 8 meters at the ferry at Polle which we often use. Photo for width comparison.

The 2 restaurants I mentioned served excellent fresh fish; this shot shows an example. It is tiny North Sea shrimp on a sole, with 3 fried eggs, gherkins and salad. Only there for a week, so we didn't get to sample all the fish on the menue:-(

An interesting local custom is to recycle your Xmas tree, putting it on top of the maypole erected at the start of the month. Lots and lots of cyclist tourists, the roads there are just wide enough for one car (or tractor) next to the tourist's bike (unless they wobble).

Out in the haze over the sea you can see the small island of Neuwerk about 3 or 4 miles away. This photo was taken at high tide, when Neuwerk really is an island.

At low tide you can (just) walk across the mud flats to get there. Or you can take a horse-drawn taxi across the estuary, the safe route is marked by little bushes planted for that purpose. This photo taken by our friend Marion, to whom thanks.

The day we tried it was too stormy, the horses were chest deep at times, so we cancelled for safety reasons as I no longer swim well. I used to be able to swim across Lake Constance when I lived near Germany's southern border back in 1969/70.

Glad we missed that. No Paderborn friends hurt. Vacation photos to follow next.

Comments (1)
Billions of Versions... (Mike) wrote " The maypole looks like a fake tree/cell phone tower." I hadn't considered that possibility. But it all looked natural close up!

Copyright ^© Ole Phat Stu on May 23, 2022 permalink Comments Email

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Saturday, May 21, 2022

Tornado town :-(

While we were away on vacation, severe weather ripped through the area on friday. Our village's valley just got strong winds and heavy rain, almost no damage, so we returned to an intact house. However our local cathedral town of Paderborn got hit by a tornado, a rare weather event in these parts.

The usual tornado damage occurred : trees blown down, roof tiles torn off, trucks tipped over, trains derailed, cars blown around, complete flat roofs ripped off from industrial buildings and pieces airborne, livestock airborne, etc etc.

There were 43 people injured, over 30 seriously. Some had been outdoors despite official warnings to stay indoors. Some had stupidly stood at the windows to watch this rare destruction, so when the tornado blew out their windows they were struck by shards of flying glass (aka curiosity killed the cat).

Here is a 50-sec video from the local TV station, a collation of amateur clips :-

Glad we missed that. No Paderborn friends hurt. Vacation photos to follow next.

Comments (2)
Billions of Versions... (Mike) wrote " Everyone should consider themselves lucky that no one died. The closest a tornado has come to my house was about 8-10 years ago. It was 3 miles to the north. Some homes were totally destroyed. Nothing but the basement foundation left with nothing left inside. One family was hiding in a basement alcove under some outside concrete steps. If they hadn’t had been in that one spot in their home, all 4 of them would have been killed." No immediate dead here afaik. In another town, a guy went into his flooded cellar to turn off the electricity, without wearing rubber boots and was electrocuted :-(
Jenny (Ibiza) asks "How far away was touchdown and how wide the swath?" It was 14 miles north of our house. The tornado swath was 50-300 metres wide.
Copyright ^© Ole Phat Stu on May 21, 2022 permalink Comments Email

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Monday, May 9, 2022

Mothers' Day thanks ;-)

I just had to translate this newspaper ad for y'all ;-)

Yesterday was Mothers' Day. Most moms get a card and a box of chocs. Some get a "Thankyou Mom!" ad, naming and praising them, in the local paper, always nice to read. But there was one anonymous ad there which was unusual to say the least; I found it hilarious. I translate :-

"Well I'm 80 now, so it's time to say thankyou to all the not-moms today. To those 40-odd ladies who shared my bed or let me share theirs over the past 64 years. We always had safe-sex, using contraception, so none of you were a mom (by me), nor did anyone get an STD. An example for today's generation. I remember almost all of you (except for those 3 one-night stands) and would like to say thankyou on this not-a-mom day :-) You know who you are :-)"

I was surprised that the local (Catholic) paper let this through; Great fun!

Copyright ^© Ole Phat Stu on May 9, 2022 permalink Comments Email

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Wednesday, May 4, 2022

Star Wars Day, a tribute to Carrie

Thanks to Hollywood, today has become known as Star Wars Day. Being Merkins, they forgot the apostrophe, like the Hells Angels did. It is attributable to the pun on May the force/fourth be with you.

Thanks to Sir Isaac Newton, first lord applehead and chief minter, we know

F = Ma

so we could say May your Ma be with you. That'd help all the teenage geeks who still need help from their moms ;-)

Personally, I'll be celebrating tomorrow : May a fifth be with you. For those more used to the metric system, a fifth (of a US gallon) is about 750 milliliters, a regular wine bottle size in Yurp.

Comments (3)
Ed (USA) asks "What does F=Ma mean?" Force = Mass * Acceleration.
Jenny wrote "Is it true that Sir Isaac Newton died a virgin?" So we are told. But since he was Warden of the Royal Mint, he may have f*cked many people over ;-)
Billions of Versions... (Mike) wrote " You know that May the 5th is Cinco de Mayo which is the anniversary of Mexico's victory over the French Empire at the Battle of Puebla in 1862. It’s no big deal to the Mexicans but the Americans see it as another day to drink yourself into oblivion. So, celebrate and pound that fifth down!" Cheers, Mike!

Copyright ^© Ole Phat Stu on May 4, 2022 permalink Comments Email

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Sunday, May 1, 2022

Off the road again

My old university friend Mike The Hike, whom I haven't seen since about 6 years ago, is off on another hike, he tells me. He will be hiking across Scotland again, as he did in 2019. Off the road though.

This time he will be hiking along the ridges, not through the glens as he did last time. All the way across Scotland. When he did so last time, I was in Vaduz (capital of the Principality of Lichtenstein) one day, thinking that I couldn't even walk across Lichtenstein (which is about 4 miles across) nowadays :-(

Mike always takes great photos on his hikes so I'm providing y'all with a link to the blog of Mike's hike so you can follow him too. He starts on the tenth of may from the Shiel Bridge area, shown below, and then hikes east.

Comments (1)
Billions of Versions... (Mike) wrote " This Mike couldn’t do the hike either." Google Maps says 210 km, 70 hrs, so not for me too. But he has hiked through Patagonia etc too; go see his old hiking blogs.

Copyright ^© Ole Phat Stu on May 1, 2022 permalink Comments Email

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Link to the previous month's blog.

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