Literal video

We found that on the Spiegel Online website.

Silly Sunday

These are the official, premliminary results of our latest election last Sunday. You can find more here.

Falls uns am Wahlsonntag das Lachen vergeht...

... hier eine kleine Vorsorge, die aber auch sonst wirkt:

Horst Evers und die Arbeitsplatte
(Den Text findet man in seinem Buch: Gefühltes Wissen, was an sich auch schon ein Knallertitel ist.)

Cake business in Kigali or a lovely time in another world

Since we love books so passionately we decided to write a bit more about books we liked reading. The first book I (little D.) want to write about is

Gaile Parkin's Baking Cakes in Kigali.

This is Gaile Parkin's first novel (let's hope for more). She was born and raised in Zambia and has lived and worked in many African countries. She also worked in Rwanda, counselling women and girls who had survived the genocide.

In the book Angel Tungaraza, a professional cake-baker, has recently moved from Tanzania to Rwanda with her husband and her five orphaned grand-children. While taking orders for her colourful, tasty, artful cakes she listens to stories and confessions and problems of her customers and friends. She often helps them to solve their problems and eventually finds the answer to her own personal struggle. The book is written in a light and vivid tongue. The underlying theme is a basically positive view on the development in a country after the genocide. But the author does not shy away from the very serious aspects of life in Rwanda. One character in the book, a friend of Angel and a restaurant owner, tells about the sad despair of having survived by chance only after she saw her family being killed. Aids is an underlying theme in the book. And even female genital mutilation is raised (which is not a Rwandan tradition).

But it is a funny book as well. One guy in the story sent his maid to ask a neighbour for condoms in the middle of the afternoon. This raised some embarrassment and suspicion about the guy's sex life. In the end it turns out that the maid's English wasn't that good and that she was sent to ask for cardamom instead. Really a laugh.

Another quite lovely story in the book is the story about a baby-girl named Good-Enough. The baby's uncle orders a cake for the Christening and when Angel asks about the odd name he explains it. The baby's mother wanted a boy and got a girl instead. Good-Enough. After some soft persuasion Angel is able to put a new name of the baby on top the cake: Perfect.

'Baking cakes in Kigali' is a moving book. Again, it made me think of our own luck and wealth. And it shows at least a little bit of life in another country. I dearly hope for a sequel novel.

And to make it clear: This is not a book like the Mma Ramotswe ones (The No.1 ladies' detective agency-series by Alexander McCall Smith). I love the Mma Ramotswe books as well, since it made me curious about Botswana, a country which wasn't on my radar before. Now I dearly want to visit Botswana. Better sooner than later! But McCall Smith shows only the bright side of life and avoids all serious matters. Which is not a critisism at all. I just don't like the reviews of Gaile Parkin's book that say 'Mma Ramotswe fans will love this book'. They might, they might not.

A nice way to spend an evening or the secret of Ramen

Just by chance we bought The Ramen girl at Sainsbury's last weekend. What a lovely surprise!

The film stars Brittany Murphy (Just Married, Sin City) as the American Abby who gets somehow lost in Tokyo when dumped by her boyfriend. She finds herself again while training to become a Ramen chef in a local Ramen shop. Her sensei is a cranky old man who doesn't speak English. Abby doesn't speak Japanese. Eventually, despite the cultural clash she learns how to put passion and spirit into her cooking and her life.

But see for youself:

Last year, when we stayed in Malaysia we used to eat at Ajisen Ramen regularly. We loved it. Went there twice a week sometimes. A shame that there isn't Ajisen in Frankfurt or London. But we have Mosch Mosch in Frankfurt, another Japanese noodle restaurant. Delicious! And they cook Ramen as well.

Ideas for Christmas presents - part 1

One cannot start early enough thinking about what to buy for Christmas. And since one can buy Lebkuchen and Christmas biscuits and Marzipan Kartoffeln already, we figured we could start with publishing our ideas (and whishes... ;-) ).

Last weekend, while browsing books at Foyles we found this treasure:

Arctic: Jan Vermeer
by Frieda van Essen

Amazing pictures! You can get an impression here. This is one of his photos of Spitzbergen in the book (I stole it from his homepage.):

Jan Vermeer is an exceptionally gifted photographer. And - luckily - he published another awesome book: Antarctica: Jan Vermeer by Frieda van Essen.

The books do not only display pictures, you also learn something about the history of the polar regions. And since the Arctic and the Antarctica are facing rapid changes due to our lack of responsible climate politics this books might make a nice Christmas present. Even an investment for the future. In 50 years time you could show the pictures to your grand-(grand-)children and tell them about a beautiful but then vanished (or at least rapidly shrinking) world.

Cool fruits

Fancying square tomatoes or peaches? How about this?

It took Chinese farmer Gao Xianzhang from Hebei province six years to create this pears. The pear grows in a plastic mould to get its shape. Cool idea.

Which superheroe are you?

Little D. is kind of

Superman

She is mild-mannered, good,
strong and loves to help others.

75% Superman
70% Hulk
65% Batman
65% Green Lantern
62% Robin
55% Supergirl
55% Wonder Woman
50% Iron Man
40% Spider-Man
30% The Flash
25% Catwoman

T. is more of

Spider-Man


He is intelligent, witty,
a bit geeky and has great
power and responsibility.

75% Spider-Man
70% Hulk
65% The Flash
60% Green Lantern
55% Robin
53% Supergirl
50% Catwoman
50% Iron Man
45% Superman
43% Wonder Woman
30% Batman

Click here to take the Superhero Personality Quiz

But before you wish too much remember:

SUPER POWERS, SUPER PROBLEMS!

Spiderman alive

On our eight weeks trip to Malaysia last year, one of the buildings we fell in love with are the Petronas Twin Towers. We admired them - but that's where we stopped.

Not so Alain Robert, who calls himself the French spiderman: he just climbed the Towers. Yesterday, he climbed to the top of one Tower. The Towers are 452m high. Robert did it without using a rope, just with his bare hands. He has climbed over 70 skyscrapers before and this was his third attempt to conquer the Petronas Towers. Here you can find the BBC article and a nice video.

You can find more Reuters fotos here. Alain Robert is 46 years old and according to his website he suffers from vertigo and is disabled up to 66% due to accidents. Little D. suffers from vertigo as well, she feels dizzy just by looking at the Reuters pictures. Must be a different kind of vertigo.

Some news

A lot has happenend since the last post.

T. will leave exciting, beautiful London and our lovely London flat with the nice landlords behind and will move to Oxford in October. We already found a nice flat there. Not as nice as the London one, but a little larger. Oxford will be exciting as well, maybe in a different way.

Little D. is living in Frankfurt since May this year. For work reasons as well. And let's face it: Frankfurt is the loveliest and most urban city in Germany. For some, Berlin might be the choice as their favourite German city. Not for us. Ok, Berlin has the Berliner Philharmoniker with Simon Rattle, also some history and a nice dialect. BUT we have a concert hall, where Simon Rattle and his Philharmoniker will visit (23. Sept., Alte Oper), we have Appelwoi, the most charming dialect (which we actually can speak) and the only skyscrapers worth mentioning in Germany. Applewoi is kind of a local drink in Frankfurt and Hessen, made of apples, kind of a light wine, which you can drink pure, mixed with water or mixed with lemonade. Applewoi with lemonade will out you as non-local. It is not the real stuff. All in all, Frankfurt is our home, even if London is our favourite city. Through all the sad living-apart-for-2-years-thing there is a nice side to being in Frankfurt again. (Not to mention my local bakery, a 2-min-walk away, and Müller buttermilk for breakfast.)

The recession in Germany is over now. We wonder if it might come back after the election of the new government by end of September.

The old fashioned 100-Watt-light bulb was burried today. From now on, Europeans have to buy energy saving light bulbs instead. This seems such exciting news that it was on the news every day for the last week. Seems we don't face any other urgent problems. What is the melting of some Greenland claciers compared to the loss of the 100-Watt- light bulb? Lucky you, if you did some hoarding on 100-Watt-light bulbs as many people did. And many of them told proudly on TV that they bought 100 bulbs in advance to never live without that beautiful warm light. Yes, what does climate change really matter as long as you have this warm light in your house?