Journal Entries
Gasometer?
Posted Jan 22, 2018
Remember gasometers? There was a huge one right in the line of view from the main entrance of my school. As a school-leaving prank one year, the "big boys" climbed up it and wrote "Y-PHRUNTS" in huge letters, legible from the school. Very daring 
. Well, I suppose it was more original than the eternal hoisting-teachers'-cars-on-to-the-roof, or removing-all-the toilet-doors-in-the-girls'-loos.
On checking out the satellite picture on Google maps, I think they have removed that actual gasometer.
But some have been put to original uses. We went to see one on Sunday. It has been gutted and given a new coat and the inside is lined with a huge panorama of ancient Rome. You climb up a scaffold-type structure in the middle of the room, and can watch everyday life in the year 312, just after Constantine had taken over. You can then descend 5 levels, one at a time, and you see the scenes from different angles; the lighting progresses through day and night (with a day lasting about 10 minutes), there are accompanying noises (crickets and cicadas chirping, cocks crowing, and in the daylight hours the sounds of work - horses' hooves, hammering, stonemasons chipping away, a huge bull being sacrified to Jupiter and making quite a din about it, cats, dogs, sheep., human voices.)
The picture is printed/painted/drawn* onto a huge canvas which lines the walls of the huge cylinder. Unfortunately I couldn't look until I had descended to the second last level, as I felt quite ill at the great height from the top of the scaffold. (I remembered MMF and me cowering well away from the edge at the top of the Maintower in Frankfurt, he also suffers from vertigo)
Some of the disadvantages of the static panorama were that
- shadows did not change direction as the day progressed, or even disappear at night
- clouds did not move across the sky
- well, nobody moved at all really - individuals creeping round corners, or enormous crowds taking part in processions or watching building work going on.
But, despite that, because of the immense detail and the sheer size of the thing, you could still spend a good hour just looking at it.
Part of the exhibition is also devoted to the gasometer itself. Its history (built in 1912, half a million rivets, all hammered in by hand), its technology, its output and input. The rusty steel outer plates have been replaced by mirrored panels and the great cylinder is - literally! - shiny and new.
http://www.gasometer-pforzheim.de/
* they used various media to touch up the photos and paintings to make it look like one big picture.
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Latest reply: Jan 22, 2018
Hedgehog? J S Bach? Vincent van Gogh? Richard the Lionheart?
Posted Jan 11, 2018
On Monday evening we were just leaving to go out at about 6 pm. It was already dark, and as I went to get in the car, my husband was staring at something in the drive: a hedgehog was edging its way along the edge of the house. It has been fairly mild, if wet and windy, lately, but surely that shouldn't be enough to wake a hedgehog from its hibernation at the beginning of January?
We haven't seen it since. I do hope it's all right.
We have been out quite a lot these last few days, due to cultural pursuits. At the weekend we went to see the exhibition about Richard the Lionheart in the Museum in Speyer. They have a claim to him because he was actually tried in Speyer on his way back from the 3rd Crusade, having annoyed the Holy Roman Emperor and his erstwhile buddy, Philipp II of France. The locals claim that he was then imprisoned - albeit for a very few days - in the local Trifels castle. I refuse to believe this, and there is no mention of Trifels in any of the historical writings emanating from the UK. It is only ever mentioned in German articles on the subject.
(It's in the Wiki entry, but I suspect some German put it there)
Anyway, fascinating stuff, even if you had to concentrate on several different threads whilst sorting things out in your mind. Like walking the 101 dalmations on individual leads.
Next up in the way of exhibitions is one about the Etruscans in Karlsruhe - having read about it, it is like a breath of fresh air after the convoluted history of the 12th century. Etruscans lived in Southern Italy, were eventually overtaken by the Romans, end of. However, no doubt the exhibition will prove that they were more complicated than that.
We also went to see a performance of Bach's Christmas Oratorio (not all six parts, but a good selection). I would have been singing in that, except the rehearsals were between Christmas and New Year and I couldn't get those days off work. Because I knew all the singers and because Bach is, well Bach, I was welling up for most of the time, and was pleased to see what a brilliant choir I sing in. I was also reminded what the audiences go through in our concerts, sitting on those hard pews. I had thought of taking a cushion, but then I thought that, because it was a very modern church, the seating would be more bum-friendly.
Nope, it wasn't.
Finally, on Monday, the day of the hedgehog incident, we went to see "Loving Vincent". We had won tickets - to be redeemed at any cinema - to see the film, so 
. The only problem was finding a cinema which was screening it! I shall comment in the "What films have you seen recently" thread.
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Latest reply: Jan 11, 2018
TC's NaJo 2017
Posted Nov 1, 2017
This year, although I could continue on matters German and local to me, I thought I would jot down a few reminiscences from my childhood.
The internet is, admittedly, inundated with Things-Aint-What-They-Used-to-Be forums, and we baby boomers seem fairly hypocritical really, exploiting the modern medium and then dissing the modern world - picking the raisins out of the bun, so to speak.
As people seem to go off the Journal if a new journal is started every day (I thought that was the original idea 
<scratcheshead>
, I shall concede to the masses and incorporate everything in an entry.
The A-number will follow in the next post.
But now for a short description of an idyllic 1950s-1960s childhood.
Although this won't be entirely chronological, I will start with a description of where we lived when I was really small. They say that no one can remember before their 2nd birthday, but I have some very very clear memories of where we lived in North London until I was just short of my 4th birthday.
We had a black labrador called Sally. We had quite a large garden at the back of the house (a semi) with a huuuuge Victoria plum tree growing at the side. My father made a swing for me to swing from the branches of that tree which seemed to me to be high up in the sky.
I think the swing may have been a simple board on two ropes (although my father never did that sort of thing by halves - it would have been planed, sanded and varnished) but, as I was only 3, it more likely would have been more like a cage or a box with holes for legs for a child of that age.
The plums from the tree were huge and abundant, but I can't remember eating them.
I have looked up the place on Google Earth - it has changed, of course, since then.....
We moved away in 1959.
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Latest reply: Nov 1, 2017
I told you so
Posted Oct 2, 2017
There has been an issue with rendering this post, please contact the editors.
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Latest reply: Oct 2, 2017
Liverpool Oratorio
Posted Oct 1, 2017
We went to a performance of this last night.
It is not much of an oratorio really, except that it is sung by a choir and soloists, but it's not based on a biblical text.
It was written by Paul McCartney, and is a story of a boy of about the same generation as him, born in 1942, a drop-out and general good-for-nothing, who has a few spiritual experiences and marries a girl who seems to have connections with the "other side". He drinks, she gets pregnant, they argue, she runs off, nearly gets run over and when she does recover (thanks to the spirits from the "other side") they pull themselves together and head into the sunset for a happy end.
It would make a nice ballet, but I can't see it performed as an opera (although they make operas of anything these days). Anything would be better than men in suits and ties singing the words of these down-to-earth people.
Can't fault the performance, but I've never heard the work before, so nothing to compare it with. The part of the boy's choir was taken by the chamber choir of a local girls school - they were the best when it came to understanding what they were saying.
The music didn't sound very English - more American, with touches of Gershwin and Copland, if anything, especially the use of brass and percussion.
When the project started back in the Spring, I would have joined the choir to sing along, but 30 September was marked in my diary as a date for the choir I sing in, so I couldn't. As it turned out, the date was then cancelled (long story, no need to go into that here) and I could have sung with them all along. However, the choir didn't have all that much to do, and so I didn't miss much.
This was a one-off performance, and when I asked if there were programmes, I was told, sorry, no, and given a sheet of paper with a synopsis and a commentary on.
Apparently, they had prepared a 40-page programme which included the whole libretto and much more information, but the printers didn't have it ready on time. So much for German efficiency.
At least my father went to his grave still under the impression that the Germans were hard-working and efficient.
And, as usual, there seemed to be people there who had spent an awful lot of money to sit and cough and sneeze. Can't understand why they don't stay at home and do that. It would be much cheaper for them and not spoil the evening for others who had spent equally great amounts of money. Behind us there was a woman (from her conversation, she seemed to be an experienced concert-goer, possibly even a critic for some local publication) with a bevy of young girls who had obviously never been to a concert before. They spent much of the time talking and giggling, and she had to explain a lot of things to them "They're only tuning up - it hasn't started yet".
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Latest reply: Oct 1, 2017
You can call me TC
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