Oliver Twist

Roman Polanski's Oliver Twist is a Must See movie. This high praise no doubt derives to a large extent from the quality of his epic original script, to which he does justice atmospherically, if not by the letter (there seem to be some substantial abridgements towards the end). The feeling of doom is permeating, and yet, the goodness of the more complex characters often surfaces and eventually wins. While Dickens' gets the credit for developing some of the most complex characters in literature that I know of, the cast certainly deserves the same for an extraordinary rendition. The boys deserve special mention: They do not fall one jot behind their world class adult acting partners! The Artful Dodger has an incredible screen presence, for instance.

Some hacks say that Polanski's Oliver Twist is altogether too contemplative - they obviously suffer from Great Expectations disappointed. To that I say that quality does not always need to be spectacular.

It's the breakfast, stupid!

The discoverer, or host, as he prefers to see himself, of LSD, Albert Hofmann has celebrated his 100th birthday three days ago. Since he lives in the region, he was in the media quite a bit. There is also a Symposium ongoing in his honour. It is incredible to see how a man of 100 years is more vital and intellectually inquisitive than most people half his age! So I guess it's only natural to wonder whether this might have something to do with experimentations with the object of his discovery? No, we're told: It's in the breakfast. Hofmann always has two whisked raw eggs mixed with Birchermüesli for breakfast. Yuk!

New host

If you read this, then it means that my site has successfully moved its abode to Hostorama, a competitively priced hosting service with a user interface that even I can understand.

His Steveness

While other corporations are struggling to keep their plattforms just barely operational with urgent & critical security patches, Apple has done it again: It's powering ahead with its innovation-empowering plattform transition to Intel chips, ahead of even its own ambitious schedule, thriving on well above expectations sales, churning out innovative new software along the way. And, incidentally, giving its shareholders reason to gloat also.

There's just one minor thing that I am not happy about: MacBook Pro. What a monster of a mouthful compared to the sleek Powerbook! Mind you, I don't have the slightest issue with the laptop as such (I'd take one in the blink of an eye), it's just that I don't see why Apple should drop such a powerful name. Jobs remarked in his show that "we're done with Power", obviously referring to the demise of the PowerPC chip (not the Pope). But I think that us not-so-geeky PB users have long forgotten about what piece of silicon actually runs our machines, wouldn't you agree?

Wemme's het ...

Und schon wird die Reihe mit dem Schönenbucher Sprachkurs fortgesetzt!

Wemme's het und vermag ... cha me 'ne Geiss ha.

Bedeutung: "Wenn man es hat und vermag, dann kann man eine Ziege halten." Diese ungewöhnliche Redewendung wird in der Regel in Reaktion auf eine übermässig aufwendige Anschaffung angewendet - ich höre sie also relativ oft.

Etymologie: Völlig unklar, insbesondere da Ziegen als Nutzvieh gelten und gerade in bäuerlichen Kreisen kaum als Luxusgegenstand betrachtet werden.

Edinburgh

Unfortunately, my short trip to Edinburgh has already come to an end & I am back home again. However, I enjoyed the trip down Memory Lane immensely! It was almost as if I'd been living there just a fortnight ago. Well, the place has changed a bit alright, but only for the better. The Capital of Scotland has certainly gotten its act together!

The Clubhouse proved to be the perfect location for my stay. Bang in the middle on 100 Princess Street with a spectacular view of the Castle & the Mound right from my large room, which cannot be said to be overpriced at £60 per night, and that's including tax, breakfast & dinner. I was very pleasantly surprised about the quality of the food at the restaurant, which is also available to non-members & highly recommended: There is no way you can have a good three course dinner for just £18 overlooking the Castle anywhere else! The only minor complaint I'd have is that I was served a (nice) fish course with an ordinary knife instead of a fish knife, but that's to show how good it was. Also, the choice of side dishes might be a little more imaginative. But it's certainly better than the London Clubhouse. What's not so good just now is the internet connectivity. But they're holding off investing in a wireless LAN because apparently, the whole of Princess Street will be converted in one big wireless zone within a few months, so that seems to make sense.

Of course, I drunk too much during the stay, especially when I joined Paul's stag party, which I will not be indiscreet about. I noticed a marked change in the beer offering however: Most people seem to be drinking bottled foreign beers (mostly lagers) instead of the tasty local Ales. That is something I cannot understand at all: Lagers are mostly tasteless anyway, and in bottles they're definitely more expensive also. Very odd - let's hope it's a temporary marketing induced fad.

So, after meeting the guys on Friday night, going for a fun round of Curling on Saturday afternoon, followed by Dinner and a late (or early) night out, I woke up to a sunny Sunday morning, having a cooked Scottish breakfast with the aforementioned view. Thereafter I went on an extensive walkabout with a stop at the Castle and down the Royal Mile to the Scottish Parliament, where I took advantage of a guided tour since I've never seen it before. Apart from the fact that it cost about ten times more than planned, it is a really fascinating & smart building complex which fits in very well with its sophisticated surroundings of Holyrood Palace & Salisbury Crags (pictures to follow). I like it a lot.

Then on to the National Gallery of Scotland where I saw the Turner in January exhibition of watercolours. I am increasingly taken in by Turner, having recently heard a fascinating report about The Fighting Temeraire. Back to the Club to have dinner and on to the Jolly Judge to have a quiet pint by myself and read Friends, Lovers, Chocolate. Had I known that the Jolly Judge has an open wireless LAN and is blogland, I'd have posted from there, of course!

Speaking of McCall-Smith's latest book (is it? - no spoilers, don't worry): I finished it on the way back, having started only on Friday. I love it & recommend it with gusto! It is really hard to describe, but I think the author goes a long way in sketching the unagitated, yet disciplined civility mixed with a rather moralistic trait that is Edinburgh. And then go and read Ian Rankin's Inspector Rebus stories ... there's an entire universe of crime in such a small, guarded place! Incidentally, there was an intriguing article in the FT Magazine, speculating on the reasons why British authors are featured so disproportionately highly on the Index Translationum. "English can be earthy when it chooses to be, high-flown when it cares to. It is one of the few languages in which one can swear like a German and make love like the French."

The Auld Reekie

I am signing off from Switzerland tomorrow way too early in the morning: The plane to Frankfurt leaves at 0605h ... hopefully! But all should be well, it's going to be Lufthansa. Well, we'll see. In Frankfurt, I'll have some lounging to do (the iPod is fully charged), and then onwards to Edinburgh, where I haven't been for far too long. The plan is a business meeting and Paul's stag do ... looking forward to that! And yes, I am taking the camera! I'll be staying at the Edinburgh Clubhouse for the first time. Eventually I should be touching down in BSL again at 1750h on Monday. See you then (or earlier, depending on time & connectivity)!

Aper aber häl

Nach Monaten ohne Schönenbucher Sprachkurs gibt's heute wieder mal eine Fortsetzung der Reihe!

Dr Neumattwäg isch aper, aber häl.

Bedeutung: Dieser Ausdruck bezieht sich - der Jahreszeit entsprechend - auf den verkehrstechnischen Zustand einer Strasse oder eines Weges. Ein Weg, der aper, aber häl ist, ist frei von Schnee, aber spiegelglatt.

Etymologie: Es wird angesichts der bekanntlich umfassenden humanistischen Bildung der Schönenbucher kaum erstaunen, dass der erste Teil des Ausdrucks aper vermutlich vom lateinischen apertus (offen) stammt. Die Etymologie von häl ist mir allerdings unbekannt - Tips werden gerne entgegengenommen.

Artstübli II

To be completely honest with you, I am a bit surprised to find a second issue of artstübli, the virtually glossy Swiss design magazine the first issue of which I discovered in May. But not only did they bring out another issue - apparently a print edition is under consideration, and there will even be a non-virtual, i.e. real world exhibition in Basle from February 20 to 26! Could be interesting! But they will really have to come up with an RSS feed for their site, ere their notes will forever go undiscovered in the spam filter trash ...

Wohlstandsverwahrlosung

Isn't that a wonderfully German word, which would be translated to something like wealth waywardness? Especially if it refers to one's place of residence, as per this article in BaZ. Hooray to the garden gnomes!

I wonder what gave rise to this article about Schönenbuch, which I think is portrayed fairly well in its outstanding mediocrity. Fortunately our mayor is a man of the world: He grew up partly in Pratteln (some 10km from Schönenbuch, and worlds away), where many of his school buddies were Italian immigrants ...