Jobs in Hip-Hop

Apart from the obvious reaction to this little joyride (which of course is: "hey, that was our tax money you hosed up the wall - but then, what's new?"), let's stop and think about the recorded reason for this grant.

To the more gullible, a continuing justification for the trip - nobody has yet leapt to the defence of the reported 'chilling out' in Hawaii, Fiji, and Paris - is the quite reasonable notion of eventual jobs in hip-hop. One at a time, then.

Hip-hop is now regarded as being 25 (some would say 30) years old. That's a long time for any musical genre, and it shows. According to Nick Crowe (hat-tip to Dennis Dutton at Arts and Letters Daily),

"change is the only option left for a form once built on innovation, but now characterised by self-limiting dogma and paucity of ideas".

And that change, oh heavenly irony - is coming from.... po' white trash like Eminem. The article mentions "the state of emergency in hip-hop". Hmm: if this was a stock, I'd be selling.

So, it seems that the creative side of hip-hop is dying. And that this could have been discerned by a few minutes Googling by the grants advisers. But they're just bureaucrats (even if closely related to the applicant). What about those 'jobs'?

Any sort of artistic endeavour is generally driven by passion. Characters and storylines that rumble around the head until they have to be let out. Fingers that twitch around figures, riffs, patterns, sequences on any musical instrument you like. The need to adopt personae - masks - and parade around as not-oneself. The urge to make visible, in some medium, an inner vision. And early hip-hop was no exception.

Funnily enough, there tend not to be advertisements for 'jobs' in all this. Think how Marquez, JWM Turner, Tom Waits, or Peter Jackson got started. Not by answering ads. It was that pesky inner passion.

Sure, there are 'jobs' around art of any sort. Roadies, managers, ticket-clippers of all kinds, equipment, material and chemical propellant suppliers, groupies, lawyers, marketers, copywriters, security - the list is long. And they can occasionally be found (at least the more legal ones can) in the press, in specialist magazines, and on the tear-off tabs of hand-written sheets of paper on pinboards anywhere.

But, here's the catch. These jobs are generic and contractual. It's the film industry's MO: get the idea, script it out, assemble a company, make a team, make the film, disband the team. It's not a job as much as a series of projects. Anyone in or around these industry groupings knows that. And you tend to be invited in - head-hunted. And that's for the inner circle.

Further out - the security guys, roadies are just strong backs. Groupies, ditto, plus weak minds. Equipment suppliers, they're specialised retailers. Chemical suppliers, they're hoping to stay well under the radar, and that clients don't lab-test the marching powder for purity. Lawyers, marketers, as one artist, Robert Cray sang 'You can tell me a boat full of lawyers just sank' - enough said.

These 'jobs' are everywhere and nowhere. So: 'Jobs in Hip-Hop'. Generic, short-term, contractual, insecure positions, if you're not the artist(e). Bit like supermarket shelf-fillers, really.

If you are the artist(e) - why pick a genre so obviously flaring and dying? Why not create an entirely new one? Why not let those restless urges out on a world always eager for the next big thang?

Inside tip: don't wait till you see it advertised. It'll be waaay too late then.

So, where's the next kilowatt gonna come from?

Project Aqua - a large scale hydro generation proposal - has had - lovely irony this - it's plug pulled. Now, against a backdrop of increasing power demand and static generation capacity, folks are now asking the obvious: what's going to keep my business and my home a-hummin'?

A quick survey of the options:
Large-scale hydro: bzzzt - Aqua was to have used the last major resource that could be easily tapped. It had a high head and good flow, hence high energy potential. What's left tends to have one or other, not both, characteristics. And Aqua was in easy country geologically speaking.

Small-scale hydro: Maybe. But the same Byzantine processes of resource consent are needed, irrespective of project scale. Higher fixed cost equals higher running cost. And there will be a lot more generation points needed.

Geothermal: Maybe. That's if underground heat generated by vulcanism doesn't turn out to be a taonga, or be a major part of some taniwha's sustenance. And there's resource consent too...

Coal: probably. Although the Gummint doesn't like this turn of events: Govt Resists Coal Generation Option. Still, the vast lignite fields in Southland have to be a starter. The spectre of Kyoto is rather diminished these days, now that Russia has refused to ratify it. Oh wait, we stupidly signed up already? Sigh.

Nuclear: useful as a straw man to draw the impassioned bile of greens, and worth suggesting for the sheer sake of the ensuing spectacle. But chain-yanking aside, not, I think, a serious starter.

Wind: definitely possible, established in the Manawatu, but has already drawn NIMBY's in Christchurch (the sole generator, at Gebbie's Pass has had a rocky history, and the owners are still trying to quieten the gearbox, ferchrissake), and in Wellington, where a proposed Cook Strait facing wind farm got the evil eye from locals. The problem with wind is of course storage: power has to be used there and then (it does, after all, move rather quickly down them wires). So unless it's used to (say) pump water up into a hydro lake while the wind is blowing, it is rather useless for baseload generation, and by the same token, cannot be relied upon for peaks. And at around 0.5mW per tower, you need an awful lot of whirligigs to make even a modest amount of power. And then only sometimes.

Gas: maybe. Although we did seem to tear through the last major gas field we found rather quickly, no? The form of generation is here the major determinant: doing the gas jet under boiler, to steam - to turbine - to generator - to transmission, in a large centralised station, is not the most efficient usage of the potential. Dispersed generation - say via Stirling cycle technology like WhisperTech, is a better bet. That's big in the UK right now, especially for remote, isolated or small-cluster users. Watch this space.
Similarly, fuel-cells are another technology to watch.

But hey, there's another possibility! In the article, one of the NIMBY's down on the Waitaki river had this to say:

"there is a real head of steam developed for protecting the Waitaki River from such developments."

Quick: back up a turbine and generator, and hook 'em up to the grid!

Guns baaad. Explosive belts Gooood.

NZ Pundit reports on the, shall we say over-egged, response to kid-size guns. Note the rapidity and ferocity of the condemnation. The key line in the Parents' Centre quote runs like this:

"[the advertisement] sent a clear message to kids that it was OK to kill".

So I expect an equally vigorous affirmation from PC (cor, the coincidence...) for an American parent's commentary about Hussam Abdu - you will perhaps recall Abdu's 15 seconds of fame recently on global TV.

"If a bunch of men pressured some girl out of having an abortion the clever cheese-and-cracker set would be speechless with moral outrage.

Well, this is the new peer pressure in the Middle East.

And, it seems to me, bullying a kid into self-vaporization and murder is worse than teasing a girl into an eating disorder."

Teaching kids to kill - themselves! Shockingly unsupportive of kidz rightz. Let's hear it, Parents' Centre! Let's hear it, Minister(s) for Child, Yoof and Fambly! (Who is it, this week?)

I personally won't be holding my breath...

Lord Carey, retired, religious, and controversial

Lord Carey of Clifton has put in a religious-dialogue context, many of the issues surrounding our fragile co-existence with militant Islam. Huntington gets a mention. Ralph Peters' shadow lies over Carey's analysis of the various failures which have led Wahhabi-influenced Islamic cultures to their present pass.
And while the good Lord urges (what else?) more dialogue, the overall strategy on the ground is more in line with what the good Captain of USS Clueless has thoughtfully outlined for us.
My recent OE has hardened my own confidence in the merits - scientific, technical, creative-wise - of 'our' culture - culture is, after all, as any MBA can regurgitate, 'what we do around here' - nothing more. I'm a techno type, and I don't see too much of that in any other civilisational model - as the quip goes, 'there's no (fill in the blank here) way to fix a car (or a computer)'.
We're living in a 'climax community' - we're the old, great trees (think of the glorious old-growth rimu in Waitutu forest) and that takes maintenance. Like lopping off the odd strangler fig vine at its roots. You can't do that by talking at it.
But back to Carey's speech. He's evidently offended a few tender lilies here and there. Well, boo-hoo. He has a backbone, unlike invertebrate Spain and is unapologetic about that. We could use a few more Careys (and Warrens) out this way.

Nostalgia for Lost Jobs

As usual, Virginia Postrel has a great link:Would you really rather be a miner?
The argument, heard often in tandem with a vaguely anti-capitalist or anti-globalisation bleat, is that those awful (fill in the blanks) have stolen our Jobs.
Which were Ours, you see, by - well, by what right, exactly?

Inheritance? Nope, that's the British Royals.
Guaranteed by the Government? Nope, that's the French, and nobody's buying their stock at the moment. Government's money comes from?? S'right - us Evil Capitalists (EC).
Provided by Family, Tribe? Maybe - if there is an underlying EC somewheres in there - think Ngai Tahu. If not, then when the somebody-else's dime which must be propping the whole show up runs out, so do the jobs.
Threats of violence? Maybe. For a while, and if you're running a mafia or gangsta type op, then that 'while' can be generations. But standover specialists aren't exactly your basic patent-filer types: real innovation comes from free spirits, as a glance at Peters' yardsticks may show. No profits, no surplus to intimidate others into giving you a cut of, no parasites. And where do those profits come from? EC's, again.
Technology? Sure. But all those wagon-wheel and arrow makers of yore seem to have become aircraft engineers, farmers become biologists, miners become mobile phone account managers. Look in the papers - how many of those job titles existed even 20 years ago?

Having just finished Evan Eisenberg's Ecology of Eden, I'm inclined to think that these 'Lost Jobs' reveries are another instance of the 'expulsion from Eden' myth which he dissects so well. Like, there never really was an Eden, so there's no place to go back to. But the nostalgia stems less from this than from the inability to accept that our own reality (Eisenberg's label is the Tower - exemplified by the large cities - largely human-created but containing an essential wildness of their own) is part of nature/world/universe, too. And part of our human nature (when circumstances permit, see Peters again) is simply to create stuff that never existed before.

So the Our-Jobs-Have-Gone moaners seem to have quite a lot in common with the Let's-keep-feeding-people-into-the-industrial-shredders anti-war protesters.

Yes, they (Jobs, tyrants) are gone.
No, they aren't coming back any time soon.
And really, do you all want to go back into that factory, or down that hole? Or, into that shredder?

Al Quaeda to Europe: "Grease up. Bend over."

Hard to know where the Spanish capitulation will take Europe. Nowhere nice, that's for sure. Spanish, and by osmosis, European foreign policy can now be dictated by remote control. Lee Harris has likened the situation to inviting a Vampire inside the door.

The conversations will now go like this:

AQ: 'We've arranged to have a little reminder of 3/11 - you'll be able to tell by the large columns of smoke and the absence of a familar landmark - unless of course you agree to (fill in the blank)'

Spain or other hapless EU member: 'But of course. Jump - how high? We'll see to it right away.'

The sad joke is that the landmark will vanish in a puff of smoke and another few hundred lives, anyway. It's the classic stand-over trope from all those gangster movies - the enforcers, even though they have their percentage of turnover, always manage to break something on the way out, just to show who's boss.

Dr Seuss has a classic cartoon on the subject here.

But nobody should be laughing. As Yogi Berra said, it's deja vu all over again.

The first concrete step towards Eurabia

Robert Spencer, writing in WorldNetDaily, notes without glee that
"al-Qaida has adjusted Spain's foreign policy with a bombing".

Hat-tip to LGF.

Comments about Spain

Mark Steyn usually has thoroughly amusing yet pointed observations. This one is no exception.

Lee Harris is another one of those wise guys: he runs a thought experiment here past TechCentralStation readers. A quote:

"If a foreign agent is permitted to interfere at will with the internal affairs of a nation, then that nation no longer possesses national sovereignty -- a fact that can be immediately grasped in those cases when the foreign agent is another nation state."

Ralph Kinney Bennet is pessimistic. The opening quote says it all.

"Shall I tell you what the real evil is? To cringe to the things that are called evils, to surrender to them our freedom, in defiance of which we ought to face any suffering. (Seneca)"

Wisdom

Tricky concept. I seem to need large doses of this in times of uncertainty, and there are a few people I keep returning to for their latest efforts.
Victor Davis Hanson, for a cold-eyed look at the world around us - latest I've found is here.
Robert D Kaplan (recent Atlantic Monthly article), whose view of humankind is a needed antidote to all those damned idealists: dark and irrational passions lie deep in human nature. Think religious fanatics, berserkers, the 'creedal passion periods' that Huntington points to in American culture, the taniwha worshippers of our own little NZ, the cargo cultists of the South Pacific, the list just goes on and on. To the extent that real power is thus exercised, and that power always, always matters, this side of us cannot be glossed over or rationalised away.
Evan Eisenberg, author of The Recording Angel, shows a marvellous touch with this now out of print trawl through the co-evolution of jazz and records. I'm currently reading his Ecology of Eden and rather like his juxtaposition of the Mountain-Eden and the Tower-Technological Man. So far, anyway.
William Rees-Mogg , who co-authored with James Dale Davidson The Sovereign Individual which not coincidentally (in my edition's preface) has a telling reference to the (not exactly quoted) 'vulnerable steel and glass symbol of commerce - the Twin Towers'.
Which may lead on (but not tonight, more Eisenberg to digest, after a good steak, a passable shiraz and a glorious sunset viewed from the Southern tip-head mole at Greymouth) to a rumination about canaries in coal mines.

Andalusia is a front line

Tacitus has a thoughtful piece on Spain which echoes Mark Steyn's piece in the Australian yesterday. Essentially, because Spain was the site of the 1492 explusion of Muslims from the Iberian peninsula (known to history as the 'Reconquista' - the Re-conquering), it has been, is, and will be always in the sights of Islamofascists. And that's quite irrespective of the government of the day, its policies, its attempts at appeasement or indeed any actions.

I'm reminded of Tim Burtons 'Mars Attacks', where the negotiations between Earth and the Martians come to this point: Earth: 'what would you want us to do?' Martians: 'Die'.

As Mark Steyn notes in his piece, there's a sentiment-for-sentiment quote from Hezbollah to the same effect:
"We are not fighting so that you will offer us something. We are fighting to eliminate you."

Today we are all Spaniards

Mark Steyn has a typically comprehensive article about the Spanish atrocity. Just read the whole thing (RTWT).

Carl Zimmer is blogging!

CZ is a journalist who has that enviable knack of making science interesting and topical, without mushing it down to a lowest-common-multiple in the process. It's a rare gift (grits teeth at this point). I first struck his writing in 'At the Water's Edge' - a marvellous trek through macro-evolution, which for me answered most of the 'but where are the intermediate forms?' questions. There were eight-fingered fishy things, a clear exposition on how genes could simply experiment with physical forms, the eternal question (much beloved by fellow apes who are still inclined to miraculous explanations of their origin rather than accept the bleeding obvious) of how eyes could have evolved, and so on.

He (CZ) is also responsible for 'Parasite Rex' - which is very useful for terrifying the squeamish, is not to be discussed at meal-times, and which contains perhaps the best explanation I've seen for (and a typically gorge-raising possibility for fixing) Crohn's disease.

As well as his own website, he also blogs over at The Loom.

Speaking as one with 65% fish genes, I thoroughly recommend these works. Look out too for his latest: 'Soul made Flesh'.

A thoughtful look at 21st century empire

There's such a lot of heat and so little light in the now rather enervated debates on world politics in the blogosphere. This piece is a welcome, energetic addition to that debate: Bobbitt

Back again at last, having figured links...

The blogging silence has been for two reasons:
1 - new job, settling in, sales to chase and implementations to do. Demanding - a lot of learning, new business relationships, new products and technologies. The initial 'deep-end' feeling has subsided somewhat now (I'm a fast study in techo stuff, being male - heh).
2 - the shock of coming back to little, young, empty, slow NZ took fully one month to work off. Not that, as I walk dogs down a practically deserted 10k of beach, I miss the terraced, 5 storey London that we worked in. But....

The ceramic we purchased in Barcelona has turned up, and in one piece! Thanks to the seller, who organised the coffin-maker to make a special box, and to FedEx. Ain't global transportation wunnerful?
It's still moving around as we figure how best to display it (and tie it down: NZ isn't known as the Shaky Isles for nothing).

Oh, linking. Here's a typically "I've thought it all out and here it is" fabulously detailed post - who else could? - on the new Iraq constitution: Steven Den Beste

Jan 17 - homewards bound

We farewell Anne and Doug - thanks guys for a marvellous time. The mood evaporates somewhat as we wend our way slowly through AA's queues, and totally as the TSA unpacks our bags - they've spotted the two air nailers I picked up at Home Depot, plus the bag of video cable fittings and other metal bits. Well, the nailers do look like guns, and the fittings might look like bullets. But it doesn't help us in terms of timing for the flight, because we suspect our names are then passed down to the personal check, and it's 'spread em' time. Very politely. 'I'm going to touch you briefly with the back of my hand'. Hey, I paid Florida sales tax too! Couldn't you linger? But what with all this, we make a 3.20pm flight at 3.23. 'Where were you?' We refrain from noting the obvious - that we were being felt up by TSA spooks. And so to LA. Great kinetic scuplture at Tom Bradley terminal. Terrible coffee - we've been spoiled. Then the long flight back. Then the lost baggage at Auckland. It's only a flagpole for a flag we bought on the Keys. But really!

Jan 15/16 - Florida Keys

After a leisurely start (breakfast, more Folgers coffee) we swing (well, crawl at times, remember those Florida drivers) down the Miami freeways, onto US1 and the Keys! The Keys are really a cross between a railway embankment (put down in the early 1900's by one Henry Flagler right down to Key West, then blown flat by the Labor Day hurricane of 1935 with attendant loss of life), and natural coral islands. The Keys divide the Atlantic and the Gulf of Mexico, and have an Atlantic-side reef to protect them (well, until the next big storm surge - the 1935 event had 15-18 feet tides and an average land height of maybe 6 feet...).
So there's an air of devil-may-care and laid-back-ness about the Keys: certainly there are a lot of folk who have bought a boat and gone charter-fishing there. Ernest Hemingway and all that imagery, too. We have a poke around, a sun-soaked lunch, more of a look (searching for sailing hires - not many on offer) and finally a sunset Key lime pie (local delicacy, like a deliciously bitter cheesecake, needs a lot of beer to wash it down) and of course the aforesaid sunset. Which slides right into an inconveniently placed Key further down. Bugger.
Then off to our accommodation, which has raccoons on the ground outside. Fat raccoons, from thoughtless guests who feed them. On Dunkin' Donuts, evidently. We refrain. The raccoons yowl away for a while, we sit out on the balcony, and a delicious scent from outside vegetation steals through the room - gardenias, perhaps. We make vague, alcohol-propelled plans to buy a boat (with a sail) and move down here.
The next day, we locate a sailing hire down at Mile Marker 82, and an Enviro-tour which goes bird and manatee watching. The Mile Marker system is very sweet - all addresses are prefixed with the Mile marker (MM) so you can see that 85430 will be between MM 85 and 86. Very logical and useful. A slight quirk, MM's on the Keys run from Key West (the end). Well, they have to start somewhere. So going down the Keys (accommodation is around MM95) is a quick study in subtraction. Or using a calculator.
There is a correlation between driving and type of vehicle that, although we laugh it off at first, gradually really does become apparent. Ford F150's house the legendary flaky drivers, it seems. US1 is all single-lane, so it's very easy to get stuck behind a raised drawbridge, someone who knows they have to turn right somewheres around here (to within oh say 10 miles) and goes 20mph to check every street sign, or the aforesaid F150. And it's literally the only way in or out of the whole 118 miles of Keys - a scary thought if evacuation really needed to happen. However, mostly the traffic rolls right along at the predominant speed limit of 45mph.
Our Enviro-tour isn't, as it turns out, in a woven flax corracle with a sail, with a SNAG captain (or captess) who sings to the fishes. It's in a 30ft Boston Whaler with a 225hp Merc out back, Captain Reed at the helm (favourite sound bite "hang on back there" as he slams the throttle right forward), making around 35mph on the water. Well, we do have some territory to cover. And the Merc is enviro, being a four-stroke. We see manatee grass but no manatees, skates and sharks and lots of fishes. And birds, who take over certain mangrove clumps and not others. Note to diary: birdshit en masse really stinks the place up. No wonder every public building through Europe is festooned with upward-pointing spikes (laid out in collated strips, like nailgun nails) to discourage roosting. We idle through narrow little backwaters amongst mangroves and islands in an ultimately unsuccessful but hugely enjoyable search for the elusive manatee.
Back at the lodge, we have arranged a one hour sail on a Hobie cat, so I take Doug and Anne out on a very laidback cruise. Mild onshore breeze, so we can reach out to sea, tack away up the beach, sail right back. There's no jib, just a mainsail - the way a catamaran can go in even a moderate breeze leads me to suspect they've had to chase one or two right out to the reef in the past. We just pootle about, staying out of the way of powercraft, and generally having a great time. So I have to buy a sailboat fleet and move to the Keys, now.
On the Enviro-tour, we have spotted a decayed-looking drinking hole (Papa Joe's) which promises a better sunset. So once back onshore, we head there and await the sunset with a beer. Or two. It sets behind land (again! but by now we don't care) and a backdrop of power lines which serves as a good metaphor for the Keys - power poles marching to a vanishing-point, water and pelicans everywhere, good bar music from a real live entertainer (taking time out from fishing charters, probably) and good company. A sunset movie, naturally. And a long afterglow with underlit jetstream cloud overhead. Why isn't every day like this?
We trail back up US1 and witness a truly dopey piece of driving by (what else?) an F150 inhabitant. He's trailing a 25ft boat, going at much less than the speed limit, accumulating a respectable tailback behind him. And when he gets to the passing zone - he (you can't make this stuff up) stays in the fast lane, forcing everyone to pass on the wrong side.... Just as well Hemingway wasn't in the tailback. Mr F150 would have had his two brain cells plastered all over the inside of the cab once Ernie drew alongside.

Jan 14 - on the Inland Waterway and Cuban coffee

An early start to make a boat trip down the inland canals system into the downtown Miami area. The trip is very good: a bit of commentary about the houses of the rich and famous, passing under many bridges, waiting for others to open up (which they do very satisfactorily to W's engineers mind, and a movie to record the fact), past lots of rather dire condo-type blocks, and also a lot of very classy ones.
But the main impressions remain of the sheer size (we travel down perhaps 1/3 of Miami's total length), the amount of construction, and the general affluence. We don't really try to get to downtown - shops are the same anywhere - but have a good Cuban meal and discover Cuban coffee. Black, quite sweet, very strong, quite addictive. Two cups are in order. And T-shirts.
Back on board, back up the same waterway, but on the other side of the boat it's all new. The inland waterways extend pretty much right up the coast, and we pass two major ports: Fort Lauderdale (cruise ships, ro-ro vessels and oil tankers) and Miami (in the distance, at least 10 container cranes, lots of activity to judge by the semis with containers backed up right over the bridge into the port area). A great day.

Jan 13 - Miami

Early start, as we check out, very last tube trip out to Heathrow, where AF has actually delivered the luggage! We grab it and head for our plane. Timing is tight but Ok in the end. 9 hours in the air, Ernest Ranglin on the MuVo, good meals (we're flying BA this leg). The plane goes on a great-circle track from UK to Canada, then down the eastern seaboard of the US to Miami. M sees lots of snow in Canada as we overfly. They're having big storms, low temperatures.
Not in Miami, however, which is a comfortable 25 C, with low humidity. We get our bags (lots of queueing, but our NZ passports get us waved through once we get to officialdom). We mill around Terminal B for a while till we hook up with Doug (Host #1) and then circle around for a further while till Anne (Host #2) hoves into view. Then freeway travel with light traffic and minor examples of the fabled crazed Florida driving only, out to Lauderhill (north of Miami) and relaxation and lots of catching up.
The house is a large suburban one, with a swimming pool out back, lots of palm trees, a canal with ducks, snakes, toads but (we are slightly disappointed to learn) no 'gators - there's a grill out at the road end to keep them out. There was a iguana some time ago in the back, and photos to prove it. And fireants, until they got treated. So we plan tomorrow's excursions in relative safety, predator-wise. With great Folger's coffee.

Jan 12 - Air France - The horror, the horror

We visit the Zweigart factory for a look-through, have lunch with the directors, then off to Stuttgart airport (an exhilarating motorway trip in the trusty Audi - our host has bucked the Merc fixation) - where the AF horror starts. We had (at CDG pPaaris transfer desk) swapped our flights to earlier ones back to London, to allow us more time at CDG with that dreadful changeover. They (what else) fubar'ed both the original and the replacement flights at that point. Our efficient (German, of course) AF people at the desk sort this out, but it takes about 20 minutes and much dark muttering by three people. We hear the word 'kaput' more than once - never a good sign.
But Paris-bound we are, and duly arrive at CDG, and the inevitable bus.
Just imagine, you build an airport, taxiways, parking bays, runways, terminals, cargo and baggage areas. Each terminal has many gates, each with an airbridge. So far, so standard. But at Paris CDG, you do not let actual planes near the airbridges. In fact, you don't equip many of the gates with actual dockable airbridges, but terminate them in stairs to ground level. Instead, there are three rules of operation:
1 - keep those planes away from the gates by parking them a kilometre or so away
2 - transport everyone everywhere (plane-terminal, terminal to terminal) by bus, one planeload at a time. This guarantees bottlenecks, as there's only one bus allowed per plane, so it has to wait for the last passenger
3 - express incredulity and pained surprise when planes are missed and luggage goes astray
It seems fair to assume that this model of airport operation will not be emulated by other airports which want to have a future. And in our limited experience, it certainly isn't - most others exhibit reasonable standards of efficiency, cleaniness and punctuality. Including Mulhouse, but then it has Swiss and German exits which exert a benign organising influence. So there's the obvious answer to CDG: shift it to Strasbourg and let it imbibe the German attention to detail. With a fast rail link to Paris, it wouldn't even take longer.
We eventually make it to Heathrow and, quelle surprise, Air France has left all our luggage in Paris. They offer to forward it to our hotel. No thanks, we are going to Miami the next day. Monsieur, we can forward it there for you. Ah, but when? Not trusting AF to find its ass with both hands, we arrange to personally pick it up at Heathrow (different terminal from our Miami trip, of course, Sod's law) rather than trust it to AF's by now highly questionable stewardship. A last Picadilly then District tube (costs 3.80 instead of the rip-off Heathrow Express at 25.00) to Victoria and our hotel. What a day. But it's our last night in dear grimy tired London. Sniff.

Black Forest - Jan 11

Our marvellous host has a drive through the BF planned. We had always thought of it as an enclave or pocket, but it is absolutely huge: around 180k long and averaging 50k wide. We drive into the middle, to Bad Griesbach and (what else) a little local restaurant with local delicacies. But first, a small bush walk, to an abandoned dam which holds special memories for our host. Very rustic (dam was for a fishing lake) and quiet. And rainy. So we retreat to a lunch of wild venison (hirshragout) which is really gamy and marvellous. Then a schnapps - firewater, made from a cherry base. The first slug lifts the top gently from your head, the second (although you're technically meant to knock it all back in one swallow) gently stirs the brain cells with a long-handled silver spoon and the third... well you can't feel it.
The BF drive continues: there was a hurricane (150-200k winds) several years ago which simply flattened parts of the forest, and the processing industries (a lot of them, all over - the BF is a huge wood resource) are still working through the bulge in log supplies. Most of the region is well roaded: there are bush tracks for the logging, and the whole area is intensively managed or at least kept an eye on by rangers, compartment by compartment. The extent amazes us, even in the 200 k's or so we drive. Snow on the tops, pine forest (black trunks, dark interior, hence Black forest) on the steeper slopes. Then all of a sudden, on gentler slopes, a consistent pattern emerges: cultivated land, orchard trees amongst this, then a village in a hollow by a stream, more fileds, back into forest over the ridge tops. Many, many villages. Intensive cultivation, with no fences. Very neat and orderly, even to the extent of sealed narrow roads through the fields for the farm equipment, all open to the main roads.
It's all very Swiss/German postcard, and there is a whole lot of it. No wonder this area was coveted by the kings of yore. The weather as we drive through is not great - mist, rain, if it was colder there would be snow over the tops. But we like this: it gives a sense of how 'black' the forest must have seemed in older days, when bears, wolves and other carnivores roamed, the damp crept everywhere, the fire burnt lower and cabin fever set in. This is Brothers Grimm territory, no doubt about it. Again, this experience is not the usual touristic one: which is evidently limited to a selected few pretty villages, and a brief swing through some trees somewhere along the line. We really feel we've seen the real, hard-working, orderly Germany. And to cap it off, we take a short-cut through the cultivated fields on the way back to Sindelfingen (after stopping in at a fish ponds back in the forest, to buy some smoked trout for dinner), and it's like driving through the farmers' private territory. A 2.4m sealed strip, cultivated to within a metre or so each side, park-like trees dotted around. No fences, no stock (all is kept indoors except a few sheep). An absolute delight. And we have trout, more good wine, and cheeses for dinner. Ans see a totally delightful little film that is shown every New Years throughout northern Europe: Freddie Frinton's 'Dinner for One'. FF was English, but this is a rare treat, around 50 years old, very slapstick/music hall influenced. We'll try to get a copy somewhere along the way.
There's no doubt that the fabled German fussiness is there: nice smooth railbeds for the trains, orderly fields and forests, sealed roads down to farm lanes, beautiful machinery (the factory we see is spotlessly maintained and every cable and pipe has it's place), but what's missing from this stereotype is what we've seen: the humour, the earthiness, the sense of judgement in architecture, and the delight in nature (those monks and their ceiling paintings of which we have many photos). This won't be our last trip to this area.