burgen und bunker

Having decamped early, H and I packed and headed along the Moselle first to the well-preserved village of Beilstein, whose untouched charm is sometimes compared with Rothenburg ob der Tauber, and is dominated by the ruin of Castle Metternich, one of the holdings of the noble house of prince-electors and also the namesakes of the sparkling white wine (Sekt) Fürst von Metternich.
Later on, we continued to the town of Cochem, settled since ancient times by the Celts and Romans and with its first documented mention in 886.

Towered over by an imperial castle (Reichsburg Cochem) whose immediacy was already confirmed by the mid-twelfth century, the residence was sacked by French forces during the War of the Palatine Succession (der Plälzischer Erbfolgekrieg) in 1688. The compound lay in centuries in a state of disrepair until purchased by a Berlin businessman in the late 1860s and rehabilitated in the Gothic Revival style of the day, though true to the original form.
Not a day to spend in an underground bunker even if tours had been available, but maybe something to see next time—there lies in an unassuming neighbourhood a formerly secret safe—der Bundesbankbunker, disguised by two houses above it that contained a reserve of fifteen billion mark banknotes that the West German government could put into circulation in case of economic disruption from the Eastern bloc. The money never needed to be used.

the art of the title

Having a good deal of other credits to his name, film title designer Maurice Binder (*1918 – †1991) is best known for his signature, iconic opening sequences for sixteen films in the James Bond franchise (see also), beginning with Doctor No in 1962 where the gun barrel perspective and silhouette montages first appeared. Below is the introduction of the 1977 The Spy Who Loved Me—probably Binder’s finest and most imitated vignettes, featuring Carly Simon performing the power ballad “Nobody Does It Better,” which premiered in London on this day.

entlang die mosel

Underway for a local excursion for a few days, we headed to our first overnight destination, secure but still cautious that the camping set and those who run campgrounds are among the most conscientious about hygiene, shared spaces and consideration for one’s neighbour—and indeed everyone was adhering to the rules set forth and all activity was chiefly in wide open spaces with ample distance apart, other than this manky swan that was keen on showing off his ballet moves, and managers, as ever, were studious about taking the information of the guests in case of the need to do contact tracing.
En route, we stopped at Burg Thurant overlooking the village of Alken on what’s referred to as the Terrassenmosel (the terraced Moselle).
The double castle of slate and stone dates from the thirteenth century and was a condominium with lands claimed by the archbishoprics of both Trier and Köln—with a line running through the structure to designate each side, and to this day is still a private joint residence of two families.
After getting encamped on an island in the river outside of the town of Hatzenport, which looked at first to be more crowded than it turned out to be with the outward facing shore lined with trailers and awnings set up for longer term occupants but were still vacant—these Potemkin villages were common at all the sites who were seeing as expected a lot less business—we visited the ancient town of Münstermaifeld, dominated by a massive minster (from the corresponding Latin for monastery), the Franks having arrived in the area centuries after the Romans vacated and built the church around the ruin of a Roman fort.
Our last site for the day was a hike to see Burg Eltz (previously) from a distance and marvel at the well conserved castle, one of the few on the left bank of the parallel Rhein river and still owned and lived in by members of the same family—the thirty-third generation since its construction in the 1100s, with some of the wings (there are several branches that own the castle jointly, an arrangement called a Ganerbenburg where no single line is responsible for the upkeep alone, and also a tactic by an overlord to prevent vassals from becoming too powerful ) open to the public with treasure and art on display.

time out of mind

Though the phrase time immemorial may sound beyond the reach of history or record, it is a phrase coined (temps immémorial) to satisfy the legal burden of proof of ownership—for both moveable and immovable property, with the First Statute of Westminster, which codified English law in 1275—including other pithy prescriptions like “No Maintainers of Quarrels shall be suffered,” that decreed that time immemorial extended back to the beginning of the reign of Richard I (see previously here and here), ascending to the throne on 6 July 1189, very much as it was a matter of record and in living memory. Lands enjoyed in an unbroken chain of custody since then required no further proof of ownership. Noting that the full expression was conditional, “time immemorial, or time whereof the memory of man runneth not to the contrary,” common law was amended in 1832 to be sixty years.

6x6

télévision œil de demain: a prescient 1947 short about the future ubiquity of screens

zeus mode: alternative phone casings featuring accessories including a built-in stun gun

harvey wall-banger adjacent: click on grid mode to see how these cocktail ingredients compare—via Nag on the Lake’s always excellent Sunday Links

corona cosplay: understanding Americans’ aversion to wearing masks—via Duck Soup

we’ll celebrate once we have a reason to celebrate: revisiting (see also) Fredrick Douglass’ 5 July 1852 speech

ipertesto: Agostino Ramelli’s sixteenth century bookwheels recreated by modern designers

eagle-eye cherry

Though not always able to vouch for the headliners and the juxtaposition of the competing stages would make it sometimes a tough choice, we are very much enjoying this 90s fantasy music festival generator (see also)—via Things Magazine—these posters containing clickable elements that let one sample the acts and imagine them in back-to-back sets. These are random pairings but what bands that you had not thought about in some time from that decade would you enlist for your summer venue?

voyage, voyage

As an evangelist of the temperance movement, on this day in 1841—capitalising upon the extension of the Midland Counties Railway, Thomas Cook (previously) organised the excursion to bring a group of anti-drink campaigners from Leicester (presently under restriction of movement) to a teetotaller demonstration in Loughborough, some eleven miles distant with Cook himself acting as steward and chaperone to some five hundred individuals willing to pay a premium to have the arrangements sorted out. Some four years later, he took parties on journeys to Liverpool and Scotland—this time not busing-in out-of-state agitators, finally cementing his reputation soon after as a tour agent with one-hundred and fifty thousand journeying to the 1851 Great Exhibition in London followed by a continental grand tour of Belgium, German and culminating in the 1855 Parisian Great Exhibition.

freëst

My auto-correct function believes the superlative adjectival form of free is the double rather than triple e version favoured it seems by others, and while I would probably avoid either and employ more and most free—say nothing of wee or twee—there are probably instances where it would be useful (I use soonest in the right context often enough, my phone suggests it), it does seem somehow orthographically lacking somehow, as if one had not arrived at free‧er or free‧est and was instead conveying some archaic verbal form. What do you think? With all this talk of e’s, it’s interesting to draw in the suffixes –or as the actor and the object –ee as the receivee, expanded from the legal nomenclature of donor and donee in mentor and mentee and all its permutations, or denoting the empathised champion of the transitive action, as in trainee, abductee, insuree or purgee.