Bucolic Bayreuth

 Just got back from a two-and-a-half hour walk in the forest and surrounding villages here in Bayreuth. After an overcast morning and early afternoon the weather turned gorgeous around 4pm, so I got shod and headed off. I had no real game plan, deciding instead to go where my feet took me. My priority was to compose a nasty letter to a concert promoter who had ripped off a colleague of mine just the other week, so the only thing I needed was enough distance in front of me to find the right turn of phrase and not invoke a law suit.

Before I set off I took a couple of pictures of the view from my bedroom window:

…just in case anyone was wondering why I like it so much, here. And here's one of the little lane where I live:

I wandered through the forest just behind the house for about an hour, eventually coming out on a country road which led to a horse club. Some of the denizens were out in the field:

So I wandered on, passing through a village called Cottenbach where I got into conversation with a lady standing at her gate. Not much can happen in that village as she seemed reluctant to let me go. There was a wonderful group of renovated farm buildings which a number of families appeared to have bought up and renovated in the style of the period it was built. A large part of the garden was an enormous playground for the children with slides, paddling pools, wendy houses and tree houses, swings and sand pits. It looked wonderful. Centrepiece of the ensemble was a large dovecote which also featured on the sign they'd painted, announcing their Bauernhof. It looked like a little piece of paradise. Add the weather to that and you don't get much closer to nirvana without breaking the law.

After about mile I reached the outskirts of Bayreuth and was greeted by Gasthaus Kolb, an institution among the public houses and inns of the town. Armed with my book I decided to sit down for a few minutes for a well-earned libation:

That's a glass of dunkles Hefeweizen, in case you were wondering, and is the closest you'll get to nirvana etc etc.

Back at the house I found an e-mail from Mrs. Fingers, informing me we're going to have to get the council to defumigate the communal areas of our building as the loony woman's cats, rabbits, dogs and birds have basically turned our living space into a seething agar plate of potential disease. And that on the day that newly-elected Emperor Flanby of France appears to have got the absolute majority he needs to turn the country into the socialist pigsty he and his Parisian intelligentsia, aided and abetted by the press, want to inflict on the people. There's fun in store, I tell yer…

Pity I just had that one beer.

Northern Bavaria. Garden of Earthly Delights.

Yes, I'm still here. Just arrived this afternoon after a remarkably simple journey: everything on time from Toulouse to Munich, no wait of any import for the rental car, an easy trip north to Bayreuth and everything subsequently open enabling me to food shop and get my mobile phone and internet connections up and running. Germany c. 2012 bears no relation to Germany c. 1987 when I first moved here as a horny music graduate, aiming to bestride Fräuleins and Faust in that order. Shops closed - literally - religiously at 5pm and Saturday was Merthyr Tydfil on a Sunday after 12 noon. Germany has become a little more cosmopolitan since then but the essential values remain, and they need to be applauded. I saw something wonderful this afternoon: in need of a pee, I stopped at a service station just north of Nuremberg. I parked next to a car with the registration H-UR xxxx. Seeing as number plates in Germany can be customised for no more than €10, I found it strange that someone should have accepted a computer-generated plate that almost described him/her as a whore. Unless…Beside the car was a very good-looking young lady in a scanty dress who was, in anyone's book, lasciviously eating a banana and looking in my direction. OK, I'm really not bad-looking, but I'm no spring chicken and it certainly wasn't my rental Opel Corsa that had turned her head, so…maybe I missed my chance. And…that's another thing that happens to you at this age.

I remember in Koblenz in 1987 that there was a famous lady of doubtful virtue in the town whose number plate was KO-DM 400. KO was the Koblenz prefix (still is) and DM, for those born after 2002, stood for Deutschmark. Actually, if you were born after 2002 you really shouldn't be reading this blog, but still. She basically drove about in her own advertising hoarding. She was nicknamed Dolly Parton, presumably for her singing ability. And her ability to stand by her man. Right.

Incredible as it may sound, but traffic to this site has increased since I started posting pictures of porn stars, of which the posts' titles contain keywords easily identified and located on any sub-human council estate. It's turned into a bit of fun: how many people can you tempt to your domain with a facile turn of phrase? It's remarkable, but the current crop really seems to have struck a chord in Indonesia, that pious archipelago where someone threatened me back in 1992 for smoking during Ramadan. Forgive me if I don't return any time soon.

Back to Germany. The most abiding memory I will ever retain of this country is the fact that, if you keep your nose clean, the country will see you right. I can't put it any better than that. The German Pension Insurance spends half its working life making sure I know how much I'm due should I decide to stop work tomorrow, tracking me down wherever I may be hiding before exhorting me to produce more documentation which may increase my financial entitlement. I've linked these suitors up with my French employers who should now, if there is any justice in this world, decide to accord me a Fred Goodwin-sized monthly income coupled with a weekly threesome with Deauxma and Jemma Jameson. As long as it's not with François Hollande and Angela Merkel I'll be happy. My most recent trip to the Toulouse tax office only reinforced my convinction that the French tax body is one of the most fantastic organisations in the world: I have never, repeat: never had a bad experience with these people. It really seems to be a question of 'Do as you would be done by'; treat them with respect, flirt with those attractive, well-preserved forty-somethings and you will leave the building with a glow of satisfaction. That's another good thing about France: the forty-somethings still look fucking good, so make sure they know you appreciate the effort they've made; they'll love you for it. Life's a game, and it's still a lot of fun, even at my age. Possibly the only one left at my age.

I've waffled on for so long I've forgotten what kind of picture I should put at the bottom of this post. What the hell, it'll probably feature tits in some form. Let's see: Germany, Tax, Happiness, Car Park Tricks. I'll see what Google comes up with…

This second picture is not of a car park meter, but of a prostitutes' tax meter in Bonn. They have to pay €6 a night for using public streets. Worth a look on the internet. Made by Siemens by the way , you know…

Bayreuth 2012

It's that time of year, again. The time when I sit in a departure lounge in Toulouse Blagnac Airport, waiting for a flight to Munich before jumping in a hire car to drive to Bayreuth, where I'll be spending the whole summer. Wall-to-wall Wagner is never a bad thing; the quality of the music never palls and spending ten weeks of the year in a pastoral environment where nothing wakes you at night is a joy. In Toulouse, meanwhile, we've discovered an epidemic of fleas; the loony woman upstairs with her zoo has basically infested the whole building. She admitted it was her animals but offered nothing in the way of an apology, just suggesting that we try drowning them. Yes, they truly walk among us.

Anyhow, we'll be boarding soon and I've only got 15 minutes of free wi-fi, so I'll use the rest of it trying to find a suitable picture.

Do we not like that?

Reading Le Figaro online the other day I was struck by the fact that every article is open for comments. This is a far cry from the British press which seems to cherry pick access to expression on its more inflammatory articles, presumably fearing that many of those opposed to uncontrolled, third world immigration and the ever-ambient terrorist threat might actually be able to vent their spleen from time to time. No such problem in France, but they keep dissenters under control differently…

One of the more intriguing details on internet comments threads is seeing how many recommendations each comment gets. This is useful for taking the temperature of a particular subject. On French newspaper websites you'll never find this function; I'm sure they think it smacks of populism. Bearing in mind how recent talk radio and phone-ins are, here, and how resistant to giving the people a voice the broadcasters were (It's worth reading the autobiography of eminent French phone-in radio host, Jean-Jacques Bourdin) it's maybe no surprise that the country's august dailies draw the line at a sort of online street protest, looking down their nose, as they do, on any form of demagogy. Before voting in François 'Flanby' Hollande, one of the most demagogical presidents of all time, but that's another story.

So, the message is: Read, but Don't Touch. A bit like what you do when confronted by large breasts in a textualised tee-shirt.