Pi speaking....

"Er ist ein so liebenswuerdiger Mann. Jedes Mal wenn ich ihn besuche, kocht er mir ein suedindisches Essen, ein vegetarisches Festmahl. Ich habe ihm einmal gesagt, ich aesse gern scharf. Ich weiss auch nicht , wie ich auf eine so dermassen dumme Idee gekommen bin. Das war gelogen. Loeffel um Loeffel Joghurt gebe ich hinzu. Aber es nuetzt nichts. Jedes Mal dasselbe. Meine Geschmacksknospen strecken alle viere von sich, ich werde puterrot, Traenen schiessen mir in die Augen, mein Kopf brennt lichterloh, und meine Eingeweide winden sich in Qualen wie eine Boa Constrictor, die ein Rasenmaeher verschluckt hat." (from Life of Pi, Yann Martel, 2001)

Volumes of "Les Miserables"

Who knew that there are more books than one of Les Miserables...haha. Bought Volume 2, part 3: Marius without realizing really....

Fridays

Every Frday I am frustrated and hurt because my so-called boyfried is going dancing with other women. he does not talk about it, keeps it quiet, and I always wonder why.....well, my idea is that he likes being so in dmand amongst women when he is out dancing Salsa....have lived with it for 2 years now...silly me.

Bruce Chatwin: Ueberlegenheit ueber die Tiere?

Bruce Chatwin sagt in seinem Buch Traumpfade (The Songlines, 1987): "Demokrit hat gesagt, es sei absurd, dass Menschen sich ihrer Ueberlegenheit ueber die Tiere ruehmten, die doch in den wichtigen Dingen unsere Lehrmeister seien: die Spinne im Weben und Ausbessern, die Schwalbe in der Architektur, der Schwan und die Nachtigall im Singen.
Man koennte diese Reihe endlos fortsetzen: die Fledermaus fuer den radar, der Delphin fuer das Sonar und, wie Ibn Chaldun sagte, die Hoerner fuer die Lanze." (p354, Fischer Taschenbuch, 1992)

(from Amazon, 2012)

Bruce Chatwin about Travelling

Bruce Chatwin sagt in seinem Buch Traumpfade (The Songlines, 1987): "Die Wuestenvoelker sind dem Gutsein naeher als sesshafte Voelker, weil sie dem Urzustand naeher sind und ferner von den ueblen Gewohnheiten, die die Herzen der Sesshaften verdorben haben."

Last Lines of Turgenev's "Father and Sons"

"Is their love, their hallowed selfless love, not omnipotent? Oh yes! However passionate, sinful and rebellious the heart hidden in the tomb, the flowers growing over it peep at us serenly with their innocent eyes; they speak to us not only of eternal peace, of the vast repose of 'indifferent' nature: they tell us, too, of everlasting reconsiliation and of life which has no end."

Mother Russia

Love from Rybinsk, Russia, upon Volga....

 ....beautifully Russian.....

Cake dream

"Fahrenheit 451"

Almost at the end of Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury writes:"There was a damn silly bird, called Phoenix back before Christ: every few hundered years he built a pyre and burned himself up. He must have been first cousin to Man. But every time he burnt himself up he sprang out of the ashes, he got himself born all over again. And it looks like we are doing the same thing, over and over, but we have one damn thing that Phoenix never had. We know the damn silly thing we just did. We know all the damn silly things we've done for a thousand years, and as long as we know that and always have it around where we can see it, some day we'll stop making the goddamn funeral pyres and jumping in the middle of them."

Together with a Man

Together with a man, do we see the world differently? Most of the time I am excited when I see him and when we do things and I am on alert and I don't stop expressing myself or saying what I think about what I see....that is all good.

What we should know about Ray Bradbury

Not only did he write more than 500 novels and stories, but also movie scripts, playes and poems.

I did not know that he wrote the actual screenplay of John Huston's Moby Dick (1956); he wrote scripts for Alfred Hitchcock ; he designed the interior of Spaceship Earth at Disney World. A crater on the moon is named Dandelion Crater in honour of his novel Dandelion Wine. Wow, what a legacy....

About Gorky

Simon Sebag comments in his book Young Stalin: " Gorky , later in life, would become the dictator's friend, shameful apologist, pathetic trophy and possibly victim." (p. 179)

Kurban Said

Kurban Said is another pseudonym of Lev Nussimbaum. He also wrote under the name of Essad Bey. He wrote "Ali and Nino" under the name of Kurban Said.

Young Stalin

Reading Young Stalin by Simon Sebag and what sticks to my head is that Koba or Soso (as he also was known as) was very enigmatic, charismatic, ambitious morose, malicious, self-conscious, "using any means if the ends justify them". (Young Stalin, 2007)

Strange Encounter

A Malayian business man asked me if we should study China together because him being Chinese he would not know China well. He were Westernized as I was, having been educated in Malaysia and England.

Blood Brothers

This was good, but not really my cup of tea, I must admit. Too much quarrelling and negative energy for me.

Zafon and Mozart

Without reading Ruiz Zafons' The Shadow of the Wind, I would never know about Mozart's The Abduction from the Seraglio :)

He said it again

He said it again by saying: " It's so easy to love you and I do..." :)

"Women are like an iron..."

Carlos Ruis Zafon in his novel The Shadow of the Wind (2004) writes: " The trouble is that man, going back to Freud [...], heats up like  a lightbulb: red hot in the twinkling of an eye and cold again in a flash. The female, on the other hand, heats up like an iron, slowly, over a low heat, like a tasty stew. But then, once she is heated up, there's no stopping her."

Columbian Olympic team leaving from Heathrow

These guys were leaving from Heathrow on Tue, 07th August 2012. I sneaked up on them like a paparazzi.....

Games underway

And now the Games in London have kicked off....wow, what a buzz.

Travel Card Cover

I was eager to have this one which is why I grabbed the free-bee, which I normally don't pursue....

London for dummies...

Blackfriars Rail Bridge

Found that worth keeping

Reading Orwell

Sometimes reading Orwell's 1984 gives me a chill as it reminds me of so many things...blast from past in East Germany.

"A Party member is required to have not only the right opinions, but the right instincts. Many of the beliefs and attitudes demanded of him are never plainly stated, and could not be stated without laying bare the contradictions inherent in the Ingsoc. [...] But in any case an elaborate mental training, undergone in childhood and grouping itself round the Newspeak [...], makes him unwilling and unable to think too deeply on any subject whatever."  (George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four, 1949)

London is getting fuller and fuller

Having been in the City on weekdays after sun set, I realized how full London actually is. Cueing to get on teh Tube is the most annoying thing and the zick-zack walking because there is this endless stream of people, and nobody is really nice or considerate. Everybody is just pressing on.....



My First Pimm's

On the 5th July 2012....was ok....

Sherlock Holmes

"My name is Sherlock Holmes. It is my business to know what other people don't know"
(from "The Blue Carbuncle" of The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by A. Conan Doyle, 1892)

Heimat laesst gruessen; der idyllische See nahe dem Elterhaus; idyllic lake near my childhood home...Kyritz, Germany (north of Berlin)

360 view of Central London

http://the-shard.com/views/360.html............

(Urban Peek)

Rain, Rain, Rain

This rain is getting on peoples'nerves, and there is nothing one can do about :) Wettest April and June in UK weather recording history.

Merkel- Iron Chancellor

Hopefully Angela Merkel stands her grounds and does not allow further bailouts. Why should Germany pay for the other countries' Dolce Vita??????????????

Roald Dahl Story The Visitor (1965), 2.

"The sheets and blankets on the bed looked as though they had been slept in by twenty-five unwashed Egyptians on twenty-five consecutive nights, and I tore them off with my own hands...." (page 271, Penguin books Best of Roald Dahl, 1983)

Roald Dahl Story The Visitor (1965)

"Each stick had its own little ivory label above it, saying Sibelius, Milton, King Farouk, Dickens, Robespierre, Puccini, Oscar Wile, Franklin Roosevelt, Goebbels, Queen Victoria, Toulouse-Lautrec, Hindenburg, Tolstoy, Laval, Sarah Bernhardt, Goethe, Voroshiloff, Cezanne, Tojo..." (page 267 of Best of Roald Dahl, 1983)

Jamie Oliver and Notting Hill

Jamie Oliver opens a shop-hang out-cooking store at Notting Hill Gate. They offer cooking lessions :) I may try one.......with the girlfriends.



Quote about Americans

Dahl's short story Man from the South, set in Jamaica-written in 1945, quotes:
"The girls were English girls from the hotel. The boys I did not know about, but they sounded American....[...]. 'Of course dey are Americans. Who else in the world is going to make as much noise as dat?'" (from The Best of Roald Dahl, 1984)

Treasure Box

What is in the box? we had a little treasure hunt here at work....almost did not dare open this beautiful little chest.

Exploring London

Horsenden Hill was our destination on a warm summer evening. The sun was slowely setting in a red colour, promising another fine sunny day the day after. Horsenden Hill is located between Greenfod and Perivale, West of London.

Hyde Park

Hyde Park after 6pm, after work can look like this on a warm, sunny evening. Lots of tourists, lots of cyclists. The grass patches were packed with people as well.

Fatherland-The Book

"Zurich was more beautiful than he had expected. Its centre reminded him of Hamburg. Old buildings clusteredaround the edge of the wide lake. Trams in a livery of green and white rattled along the front, past well-lit shops and cafes. The driver was listening to the Voice of America. In Berlin it was a blurof static; here it was clear. 'I wanna hold your hand,' sang a youthful English voice. 'I wanna hold your ha-a-and!' A thousand teenage girls screamed." (from Fatherland by Robert Harris, bestseller in 1992)

The Great British Suburb

Heading West from Notting Hill Gate, it takes 25min to Northolt. This is really not London anymore.

It is the 'Great British suburb'. Residential, endless streets of small terraced houses, dirty, intimidating youth, reckless drivers, rushing pedestrians. But at night it is quiet-good night sleep guaranteed; when you have quite neighbours. Sometimes I can hear my direct neighbours watching TV either as early as 8.30am or late at night....oh,well, telly-most essential gadet in Britain.

Kensington Gems

Strolling Kensington and seeing all these little shops, is taking your mind of off things-that's for sure! And it makes one hungry! Notting Hill and Kensington have been very buzzy in the last few months; perhaps more tourists explore the area as it is Spring. Hoepfully soon I can move back in here.....

All Good Russian

I am still fascinated by all Russian. This one caught my eye....a samowar

Henry Miller quotes

Sometimes he leaves quite philosophical quotes, quotes which make sense.
For example: "You live in the fruites of your action and your action is the harvest of your thought."
(Tropic of Capricorn)

A little bit of Holland in Kensington

Locals may know this little pancake place on Kensington Church Street. If one is hungry (after work) for pancakes, sweet or savory, make your way there: it is easy to find and the food fills you up. It's not the a 5-star-place, but cosy where girls can go naughty :)

Henry Miller on the Tube

“…but when she felt the thing slipping out of her she nearly went crazy. ‘Oh yes, oh yes, do it, do it!’ she gibbered, and with that I really got excited, I had hardly slipped it into her when I felt it coming, one of those long agonizing spurts from the tip of the spinal column.”

This is how  Henry Miller described a good f*/;\           in 1939

Menschenskinder……….luckily my book has a cover so nobody can see what I am reading and smile about…

Henry Miller and spinning heads

"We are the last decimal point of sexual calculation; the world turns like a rotten egg in its crate of straw. Now for the aluminium wings with which to fly to that far-off place, the bright country where Apis, the father of fornication, dwells." wow, and now my head is spinning ....because of him, Henry Miller...whoelse...from Tropics of Capricorn

Love and Quantum Physics

This is a nice idea and I read it in the book "Random Acts of Heroic Love" by Danny Scheinmann. Very good read. Makes you cry in the Tube, btw. Anyway, here is relationship explained and Quantum Physics terms:  "Not every collision will make an electron change its spin-an electron can have many affairs,.., but not all will be significant. If, however, the electron is profoundly affected by another electron it will become entangled with the new partner."

Another one from The Bone People

(p293 of Penguin Books, 1986.)
"Pig ignorant old Australian bastards should get back where they belong. To their dead-hearted, deadbeat offal-catering country. Not parasitise here, littering up Godzone."

From the Bone People

Travelling on the Tube a lot nowadays, I am reading, reading, reading. The Bone People it is at the moment, by Keri Hulme. This paragraph I find worth remembering:

"But wait here a little longer, think a bit more. You are involved with two strangers, different and difficult people. Your are different and difficult yourself, but strangely enough, you all get on well together. To the extent that there can be real fight, and forgiveness and renewed friendship after.
To what end, my soul?
Remember how horrifyingly painful it was when you and the family broke apart? So much so, that a brief meeting with one member is enough to put you in despair. The pain is back. Be wary. Keep it cool friendship. Look out for the child by all means-it's the least you can do as a human being-but don't let them get too close." (p250 of Penguin Books, 1986.)

Big freeze in Germany

These days we had -20C at night. Siberian temperatures, brrrr. But we survived, paying an enormous gas bill. Berlin, Germany.