Beautiful AND Useful

I thought about Cro's post 'using the valuable antique breadknife". I use a few things which haughtily believe that they should be standing cherished in a vitrine :-)
Here is my lovely Sheffield Grapefruit-cutter-set:

The case is made of brown reptile-skin (maybe not allowed to be sold today) - inside beautiful off-white silk and a funny little device in dark-blue velvet to keep the knife in place. The knife has a Faux Bone handle, the slim spoons are Silver Sheffield and of excellent use even if you don't cut the grapefruit before, because they have little 'teeth' on one side.
But I do cut the fruit - always.
I, then being very young, was so impressed when at breakfast they served us the cut grapefruit in Gosford Hall Inn - a beautiful listed hotel in Cumbria (now 350 years old), - we were there in 1976 - coming back from Scotland in our old blue Merc (1969 with tail fin). Coming home (to Mainz then), I cut a grapefruit every day myself.
I don't know when the grapefruit-cutter was made - maybe around 1940 or the beginning fifties?
Anyway: they are beautiful AND useful - thus I use them.
Every morning.

In Olden Times, When Wishing Still Helped...

This morning I woke up (early as usual) and thought about fairy tales.

- Those I liked - the funny ones as "The Town Musicians of Bremen" (and that not only because I come from Bremen - no, even as I child I thought that their motto "You can always find something better than death!" might come useful some day :-)
- Those I disliked - the sad ones as "Little Brother and Little Sister" (even the beginning is heartbreaking!)
- those I had mixed feelings about - as "The Frog King, or Iron Heinrich" - I remember that I utterly detested that blackmailing frog ("..but if you will love me and accept me as a companion and playmate, and let me ... sleep in your bed" - hahaha), but was very much impressed by the fidelity of the Iron Heinrich ("Heinerich, the carriage is breaking apart!" "No, my Lord, the carriage it's not/ But one of the bands surrounding my heart...") and that I thought it just, but very strict of the King to say "What you have promised, you must keep".
I internalised that, (if necessary I forgo of my golden ball, if the price is a disgusting frog in my bed - till today I am unwilling to listen to their croaking that they are beautiful Princes under a spell) - and do only promise what I can keep.
And expect others to do the same.
Which shows that I am still very naively believing in fairy-tales :-) - but, on the other hand, have a streak of pragmatic realism too.

What really interests me: which were your favourite (or disliked) fairy tales? 


If you want to read them again:
- "The Town Musicians of Bremen" http://www.pitt.edu/~dash/grimm027.html (great for old age optimism - after a little shock in the beginning)
- "Little Brother and Little Sister" http://www.pitt.edu/~dash/grimm011.html
- The Frog King, or the Iron Heinrich" http://www.pitt.edu/~dash/grimm001.html

Thank You All, My Blogger-Mates!

I know that this year I was a bit unproductive in the blogger-world (I had a lot of other things on my plate, sorry).
But I want to thank you all for making my life richer: by reading your blogs, smile, getting ideas (thank you Elaine for the tip about the Christmas book - you see: I've got it!), lending an ear.
I hope that at least December will see more input of mine here.

The Agony of Choice, Mr. Karl Lagerfeld

Yesterday I saw this "KARLBOX" presented in the KaDeWe in Berlin. Hundreds of beautiful colour pencils, crayons and pencils. For the astronomically modest price of 2.500 Euro. 
Ridiculous. 
Every real artist - Rachel, Tom and Cro know that of course - needs good 'tools', and they have their price, but even a layman as I know that you mix most of your colour hues yourself - with a lot less pencils than those 72 in my Faber Castell Artists' Watercolour Pencils box. 

When I stand in a drugstore in front of a shelf of 100 cream jars all promising everything under the sun - and we all know that in the end it all comes down to oil & water! - it happens that I walk out of the drugstore without buying anything. 

An overload of choice, scientists found out, stands in no correlation to happiness - it produces - and do I really need a scientist to tell me this? - STRESS. 

So: it is nice to have choice. But not too much. 

Because the most important 'things' you can't buy anyway: creativity and discipline and talent and inclination to work really hard for success. (And a little pinch of luck). 

The funniest thing, Mr. Lagerfeld, is, that YOU prefer BLACK. 

Which reminds me of a passage in a German children's book, König Mauzenberger: eagerly the King (Cat) mixed all the beautiful colours he had in his new paintbox. The result: 

Karl's Black. Single-coloured, monochrome, plaincoloured BROWN. 

Highway to Hell - Bavarian Style

Dear You, 
it's Monday - and Halloween - so here's a little uplift -from Bavaria :-) 

Berlin in Five Minutes - SWEET!

Dear You, 
You came over by aeroplane to Berlin. You are in a hurry, maybe you have to attend a conference - so there is not much time for sight-seeing?
Here is my sweet solution!
In 1918 the family "Wilhelm Rausch jun." started to produce chocolate for their "Private-Confiserie". .  Just follow your nose - the scent of chocolate - and lots of people - hurry to the Gendarmen-Markt in Berlin Mitte. Open the door to the biggest chocolate shop paradise of the world.
And here you can see (almost) all important buildings in five minutes -  created in chocolate!

The Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gedächtniskirche:  

The Reichstag:  

 The Berlin TV Tower: 

The Brandenburger Tor:  

But be careful and don't overeat, 

though you might be tempted (this is only a little snippet of the truffle section): 

The results of too much indulgence you see here - the Berliner Bär could not resist! 

“When you are a Bear of Very Little Brain..."  

Patience... Solitaire...Banana Solitaire...

I'm not blessed with it. PATIENCE , I mean. 
At the moment I take "Patience" - that's how we call your "Solitaire" - literally, and try to learn the game.  
For a long, long time I regarded it as an utter waste of time - the voices of my late parents urged me to do "something meaningful" instead.(I still have difficulties to watch TV in the afternoon!). 
But better late than never I try to free myself.  
I take small steps, patiently. On my own.  
Though Bananagrams, which, after Amelia Bullmore (wonderful DCI Gill Murray in Scott&Bailey) mentioned it in an interview, I ordered impatiently (the English version of course - and please don't laugh at my humble attempts) is even more to my gusto: 

“Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves" as our poet Rainer Maria Rilke said in "Letters to a Young Poet". 

I'll try. Have BUNCHes of them. Questions BANANAS!!! 

144 files for a Bananagram Solitaire. 

PATIENCE!! (Otherwise you go bananas)

I believe In Kissing

When I was in Vienna in August, I lost my pink Pashmina - in a tram, (well... after visiting a Heurigen(Wine)-Lokal, with son and daughter-in-love). And as hard as I tried: I didn't get it back. 
So sad, because I loved it very much, it had the perfect Pink. 

"I believe in pink. I believe that laughing is the best calorie burner. I believe in kissing, kissing a lot. I believe in being strong when everything seems to be going wrong. I believe that happy girls are the prettiest girls. I believe that tomorrow is another day and I believe in miracles." Audrey Hepburn 

Me too!

Ambiguity of Entertainment

Well -- I am not insensitive to deafening silence... :-) 
AND I see myself more being cheerful than nagging about Nobel Prizes in Literature.
So when I came back from the Museum für Fotografie - this time I had seen photos by Helmut Newton - such beautiful women he photographed! - I hummed a little meaningful tune, it went like this:  

"Don't follow leaders, 

    watch the parkin' meters.  

Tra-la-la, tra-la-la, 

Rum-tum-tiddle-um-tum."

Knut, my little red Fiat 500, stood outside on the street - sulking, because he is very, very rarely moved. The son of our caretaker grinned broadly when he saw me: "You'll move it?!?" he chuckled. 

"No", I said. 

"Why?" he asked. 

"Because I have found such a perfect parking place". 

Now he ponders if I meant it. "The Ambiguity of Entertainment", that's it.   

Yes: There's always Something...naked...

In Germany we say: "With a tear in the buttonhole". You say "With a tear in the eye" - ours might come from the parsimony of 1 tear in the buttonhole of a suit - a more manly version of showing feelings :-) 
This morning a Berlin radio moderator announced the winner of a competition - prize: a voyage to Cuba with the whole team - task: the chef has to come to work stark naked. (No place for a buttonhole or a tear). Winner: a doctor who will come nude to the surgery - and work that way - all day long. 
That doctor volunteered - argument: "As a dermatologist my patients have to undress in front of me too - so it's only fair." 
Aha. 
I hope that the few doctors I have will be able to pay their travels with the money they earn from us private patients (One handshake: 150 Euros, in combination with a smile: 250 Euros). 
Why the tear in my buttonhole (or on the Gaura on my balcony - took a photgraph yesterday - it is still raining - but isn't it lovely?) 
Well - at the moment I have lots of work to do. That's why I'll change the style of my posts - at least for a while - to shorter impressions. 
As the sign on German phone boxes in the Sixties urged: 
"Make it brief!" (Haha - I :-) - anybody knocking at the glass door?) 

There's always Something...

Dear You, 
Fire on the roof of the Europa Center in Berlin yesterday - thank God nobody of the 1500 people who work there was hurt. 
The building is 103 meters high and was built between 1963 - 1965. As a pupil visiting Berlin with my classmates we all thought it the highest fashionable store we'd ever seen.  
Yesterday I came from the Museum für Fotografie, where they show an excellent exhibition by Bernard Larsson: "Leaving is Entering" - with photos from 1961 - 1968. Then I saw the smoke and grabbed my smartphone (NO, not the Galaxy Note 7 :-) and took some pictures. 

What people bemoan most: the huge Mercedes-Star on the "Icon of City West" doesn't turn around anymore (if you try hard you might see it middle-left) - it is ten meter high and turns around 1,9 times in a minute, never stopped since 1965, when the Center was built. 

PS: But today all is fine: it turns again.  

Grateful

L' été c'est fini ... 

... and I feel thankful for such a lovely, lovely solitary summer! 

Here a part from George Herbert's poem 'The Flower' 

...And now in age I bud again, 

After so many deaths I live and write; 

I once more smell the dew and rain, 

And relish versing: O my only light, 

It cannot be 

That I am he 

On whom thy tempests fell all right.