There is an entire pool at Flickr dedicated to artistic and interesting manhole covers. Neat-o-rama curated a little preview. Japan seems to have some of the more unique and elaborate examples and there is a lot to discover from all over the world, but I am ever excited to go on an urban safari through a new German community and collect more local symbols and crests.
Thursday 14 March 2013
Monday 3 December 2012
jobbing or come-uppance
Following the template of job security safety nets already in place in Austria and Norway, the European Union social services commission will put forward, within an obligatory framework, a mechanism to hold the problems of high unemployment among young people to account.
Thursday 16 August 2012
water closet
Meanwhile, in Kรถln marketers are promoting an item similarly off the grid, called the pocket urinal for gentlemen and ladies. This sort of tetra-pak receptacle was originally developed for construction workers and gliding enthusiastic who cannot easily leave their posts, but has been endorsed by the city for Carnival time and other festivals when too many revelers are less willing to hold it or wait for one of the too few bathrooms. This too is a clever idea but not nearly as ecologically kind nor inexpensive—relatively.
Monday 23 April 2012
synaxarion or by george!
Though Germany is one of the few places not wholly under the patronage of Saint George and Germany has another event to mark on this day—the anniversary of the enactment of the Reinheitsgebot, the Saint Day has universal recognition and usually falls (the feast can be preempted by Easter) on a strange amalgam of celebrations that are as varied and involved as his cult and veneration. Aside from beer, literature is also synthetically celebrated on this day, due to it being the anniversary of Miguel de Cervantes’ death and the anniversary of both William Shakespeare’s birth and death (though this coincidence is a bit contrived because of subsequent calendar reforms)—books are a traditional St. George’s Day gift.
Sunday 31 July 2011
crawlspace or urban spelunking
Via the superlative BLDGBLOG, Der Spiegel (auf englisch) reports on a persistent mystery that’s been buried and forgotten in locations all over Bavaria. There are hundreds of discovered ancient stone passageways tunneled into the earth, mostly impossibly narrow and tight, in farmers’ fields, under churchyards and in towns, that have been described with such creative names as Schrazelloch ("goblin hole") and Alraunenhรถhle ("mandrake cave"), because locals believed that they were the mines of dwarves and oubliettes of elves—since no one can really say what the purpose of these articifical caves were.
Saturday 19 February 2011
ich habe noch einen koffer in berlin
Thursday 8 July 2010
im urlaub
Wednesday 19 May 2010
alsatian
The little villages were amazingly picturesque--one in fact won award a few years back for being the "cutest" town in France. This cuteness did not fade, however, and probably gets better with age and spurs on the competition. The last town we stayed in, Neuf-Brisach, right on the German border was really embelmatic of the whole region--one that switched nationalities and allegiances five times during the last 150 years. It is a former garrison town, balustraded by imposing ramparts, and really impressive looking from a strategic perspective. Though very much in contrast, it reminded me of the last place we visited during our last visit to France--to the site where the armistices were signed in the Forest of Compiรจgne.
catagories: ๐ซ๐ท, ๐️, ๐ณ️, food and drink, travel
Sunday 15 November 2009
some people call me Maurice
H and I took a short trip on a lazy Sunday to nearby Coburg. Usually, I have to hunt through the city center to find a unique manhole cover to take a picture of, but in Coburg, every one had a depiction of the crest, an image of St. Moritz the city's patron. It had been years since I had been in Coburg and had never managed to see the town itself, only the fortress on the hill where Martin Luther was kept under house-arrest and finished translating the New Testament into German. Queen Victoria and Prince Albert cohabitated there for a time as well, and the whole city is drenched with seated and dethrowned royalty. There's row upon row of fantastic art deco buildings and a sackful of little castes knocking about--including one that looks like a transplanted Buckingham Palace. Albeit, there were some notorious things that went along with that hertitage as well, but it seems that sometimes city's forget and maybe appreciate the reminder that they are not some historical backwater. Even our fair village was founded by Holy Roman Emperor Charlemagne as a gift to wife, and who's ever heard of Wickedawesomestadt?