Modern mobile phones have a lot of profiles with different settings. My phone also has a “flight mode”, which so far I understood was to be used on a plane without switching the phone off completely.

Last week I heard the following announcement for the first time on two easyjet flights: “Mobile phones have to be switched off completely, they are not allowed to be operated in flight mode”. Now am asking myself of course, what the flight mode is for. Do you have to use it in a competition like “phone throwing”?
Another announcement I did not know was the one directly after touch-down: “You may now use your mobile phones but you have to switch them of again before leaving the airplane until you have reached the terminal building”.

Switching phones on and off seems to be a new way of keeping nervous passengers occupied.

Generally I think that the “real” French cuisine is principally overrated. Of course this is different with top-range restaurants and French chefs have influenced their colleagues throughout the world. But the avarage Frenchman likes to feed on Entrecote frites or even consumes horrible dishes like baguette filled with French fries. Worst are those restaurants that want to offer a good cuisine and utterly fail.

Of course I am lucky enough that the French seem to “smell” my opinion and make every effort to confirm my prejudices. Last week in Toulouse it happened again: out 10 meals mine was first forgotten and only was served after asking for it.  The “Noisettes d’Agneau” turned out to be fat old mutton.
After dinner the drink outside in the evening at 11 (in mid-November!) compensated for the meal.

Even for Toulouse it is quite unusual to sit outside on 15 November in the sun with 18 Celsius. Usually it is not really cold at this time of the year, but often very rainy.

As you can see, again I was travelling for a project meeting and was quite surprised to find a relatively untouched old town in this city.

Quite noticecable was the French red brick architecture, which I did not expect down there, even if there are true French magfificent buildings.

Otherwise Toulouse is a very busy and very young city. No wonder, with just over 500,000 inhabitants there are about 110,000 students in town.
Also the very small lanes in the old city are very busy, surely also as even the smallest lanes have not been converted into pedestrian zones, so all kind of traffic is squeezing through.

Toulouse of course is known for its Airbus plant, which I was able to visit on Friday. Unfortunately taking photographs was not allowed, I therefore am not able to present images of the A380, of which I have seen a few under production.

Whoever thought that they cultivated an individual style or has thought that Fins are dull should look these images of an exhibition in Helsinki.

(via kid37)

There is a good sentence decorating one of our men’s toilets in the company:

To own a bog brush
is a sign of richdom.

To use a bog brush
is a sign of culture.

My experience with public toilets indicates, that a richdom of culture does not count for much.

On 11 November is St. Martin’s Day, where in many German areas people traditionally eat roast goose. We had it as well (on the 12th however) in the classic German way served with red cabbage and potato dumplings.

After long years I have been in my native town Lübeck again holding a talk and giving some consultancy to the local university.

My remembrances of Lübeck are mixed. I only lived there until the age of seven, but regularly visited the town until the death of my grandmother at the end of the eighties. My very first conscious impressions and remembrances are connected to this town. Like remembering the room in old barracks (now barracks again), where our family lived with four people in one room, living and kitchen area only separated by a curtain from the sleeping area. The playing in ruins and how a flying piece of roofing cardboard nearly broke my nose. Remembering how I literally ate from the wall due to lack of calcium. The trip by bus to the other side of the town to visit my grandparents. Holidays with my grandparents and without the rest of the family.

Seeing Lübeck again gave me appropriate mixed feelings. The town felt strange and yet oddly familiar, it was ugly and beautiful, old and new. Horrible buildings from the sixties side by side with wonderful Gothic brick buildings. The town seemed somehow undecisive whether to place its bets on modern or historic times.

In any case, Lübeck currently seems to be a big building site, scaffolding or cranes at nearly every corner, station, Holsten gate, town hall. This short visit for me was not only an excursion into the province, but also into the remembered dtsle air of the Sixties and Fifties.