Hanna got this plant yesterday from Manuela. We did extensive researches, but did not find out how it is called. Looks like a rose but is none. Anybody out there with a suggestion?

With this glaring heat in the city hardly anybody sits inside the pub, even with the live music being played there. Nearly all search for the shadow outside in the fresher air. At the edge of the beer garden a couple is drinking their beer. Nothing unusual, no special clothes, she is wearing a jeans jacket and dark sunglasses. Her age is hard to estimate, somewhere between 40 and 60 possible. Estimating the age of a woman is hard today, best is to say nothing, otherwise you are insulting a 40-year-old woman in judging her at 60. One of the reasons of course is the lack of usual clothes worn by an age group, just as mothers and daughters often freely change blouses, skirts, trousers or even shoes.

Everything looks normal, even that the man is looking younger than her is not uncommon today. And yet, the image seems wrong, something is looking out of place. But nothing sticks out at the first glance. When she is lifting her beer with two fingers, just as you would do with a wine glass, then it becomes clear what is not as you would expect it: she reaches for the glass with white gloves, just as those worn by butlers in black and white films. It nearly seems as if she is disgusted by something, maybe by herself for drinking alcohol or similar.

What makes her wear the gloves? Is she oversensible, has she neurodermitis, something which is not that common in her age? Is she afraid of catching bacteria like Monk in the TV series? Monk however would not even touch such a glass. Or is she afraid to show her hands as youthful as she dresses? Hands tell your age.

Yesterday evening accidentally I zapped into the award ceremony for the Cabaret Price of the Bayerischer Rundfunk (Bavarian Broadcasting). The main price went to Volker Pispers, who is a real political cabaret man (not a so-called “comedian”) with a strong sense of black humour – which is only natural having studied English and catholic theology….

He also proposed a solution to the overageing society and to thr problem of financing pensions: pensions should be paid in cigarettes and booze, then pensioners will have lots of fun and die earlier!

Yesterday our friends Elisabeth and Börje have arrived from Stockholm for a week. Hanna had planned a BBQ dinner and had invited Adelheid as well.

Unfortunately Hanna has caught a summer cold and has to stay in bed with fever and other symptoms. I stepped in and went to Hamburg a day later. We had a nice evening, unfortunately without Hanna.

Somehow it is true that old people in their senility turn into defiant children again. To avoid a visit they already agreed to they suddenly feel bad, call on the day they should come, say their circulation is weak and that the nurse had already been there.

If somebody then suddenly turns up at their place, they carelessly just say they did not want to come.

How I hate these announcement, especially on Fridays: “Due to the firebrigade being on action on the tracks in front of us the train will be diverted via Stendal resulting in a 60 minutes dely in Berlin.” (Normal duration of the trip: 90 minutes).

On the other hand it is good that there are alternative routes and that you do not sit in a station or on the tracks for hours. And in the end it was “only” a 35 minutes delay.

On Wednesday President Bush visited Angela Merkels constituency. For this purpose the old Hanseatic town of Stralsund was blocked by police and everybody had to stay inside and keep the windows shut. No shops were allowed to be open. All was guarded by nearly 13,000 police. Only invited guests were allowed to play the East German people being happy after unification to now feel the Western freedom.

Well, it is common knowledge that U.S. Americans, probably Texans especially, love amusement parks like Disneyland. It is really wonderful: payed extras perform a flawless world. However, what do you do if no hanseatic park is at hand? Obviously, you create one. The normal world is locked outside or in their houses and then you hire some extras for the visitors. The number of 13,000 park guards seems to be a bit excessive, however.

The last days I was at work again in Hamburg after several weeks of illness. The very first two days I had a project meeting, which on one hand is a bit exhausting but it prevents you from falling into a normal routine immediately.

The project is DIFUSE which is funded by the European Commission in the context of the Innovation Programme. The contract with the Commission was signed on 26 June so that the project could start on 1 July. The project web site will go online these days. As the project just had started, the meeting was the kick-off meeting. Apart from content oriented work, these meetings also help to get to know each other, therefore a common dinner is not useless. This dinner we had at the River-Kasematten in Hamburg, a popular location near the port.

As you can see, I had some fun as well, usually you talk about everything aprt from work on these occasions. I am really felling better obviously!

Photos: Copyright M. Schofield

Usually I do not like to do anything in one place with 999,999 other people, not even the fashionable “Public Viewing”. Therefore the “Fan mile” here in Berlin, where hundreds of thousands watch football, is a no-go for me. Nevertheless we watch football in “public yesterday.

We went to the Turnhalle across the road. Turnhalle is the German word for gym and it really had been a gym as part of a school which will be converted into luxury flats. The gym Die Turnhalle has been converted into a Café/Bar/Restaurant/Lounge and has a very nice athmosphere.

To watch football they put up a large screen. 200-300 people create some sort of football ground feeling. It was fun, today we will go there again for the final.

German Railways offers bikes for rent (Callabike), which seems to be accepted very well. Started last year as a pilot, the offer was resumed this summer and extended to several large cities in Germany-