zu Guttenberg

I was asked today what the English felt about the Guttenberg scandal and I had to admit I did not know. I had not heard it mentioned on the radio nor had I read any English newspapers this week. All I could do was give my own opinion, which I do again now.

Since the majority of my readers outside Germany are in the USA, UK, Singapore, Thailand, Macau, Cyprus and Egypt I wonder too what they think. To be sure it means little in the scheme of things to them.

The first question I asked myself concerning the plagiarism was, why had the university of Bayreuth not discovered the faults in his dissertation?  It was first completed in August 2006 and the university then had to evaluate the work which they  did by passing it and by giving him excellent marks and his now defunct Doctor title. So what did they do in the evaluation? Why did they not see the "mistakes" he made and return his work for correction? Surely the person or persons responsible for the evaluation in the university should now be called to question. If this is an example of how little university's check dissertations then how many other Doctors are saying to themselves, "there but for the grace of God, go I!"

That up to now Guttenberg has cut a fine figure and excels in selling himself is without question, one only needs to look at his web site to see that. Has it permanently damaged his image in Germany? Not at the moment, the majority of the public stand behind him, which just goes to show what a good job he has done in selling himself. 

As an outsider living in Germany I ask, who was the whistle blower and who paid him or her? Why has it come out now, when the work was first published in 2009? Strangely no newspapers are asking these questions. The opposition parties, without exception have all jumped on the band wagon to call Guttenberg a lier and a cheat and to demand his resignation.  To my mind those who live in glass houses should not be the first to throw stones, but then I, thankfully, am not a politician.!

VOLUNTEERING!

Have you ever volunteered for anything? I have, on more than one occasion, but more on that in a minute. Can our society survive without volunteers? And how do we motivate people to volunteer in the first place? I am particularly interested in the latter as I have to motivate one member of my English conversation class to volunteer to act as the class spokesperson.  

Just Googling the word volunteer shows how important these people have become in our world. Students and fully trained adults, volunteer to serve in Third World countries in all sorts of jobs and I have discovered that people can even volunteer to serve for short times instead of a holiday, paying for the privilege. I am not so certain I can be so altruistic as to do that, at this time in my life, but if I were younger I would choose to go with VSO (Voluntary Service Overseas) or some such organisation. In fact I have discovered that there are more organisations placing volunteers than you can shake a stick at! Our society would certainly lose a lot if we did not have these volunteers.

I joined the Army as a young man, so one could say I volunteered. Certainly the training sergeants always remarked when the going got tough, "If you can't take a joke you shouldn't have joined." And when they needed some dirty job done they asked for volunteers, "You, you and you!" On the basis you volunteered to join so you volunteered for every job going. Official wisdom amongst the soldiers was that one should never volunteer!

I volunteered recently to participate in the FIFA Women's World Cup Football Competition which takes place in Germany this year. At the time I was also asked if I were prepared to help out at the U20 Women's World Cup Football Competition which took place last year.  I said yes as I felt if I said no they would never consider me for the main event. I never regretted it, but gained in knowledge of how FIFA is organised and also gained in experience of what actually takes place in a football stadium, never having been to a first class football match, up to that moment. They selected me to be a Team leader of volunteers. It was not a purely altruistic reason why I joined. I joined for my own personal development and to enhance my experience of life at an international sports event.  

So how do I motivate one of my English students to volunteer to be the class spokesperson?  I can't offer them any form of incentive, like you get to watch a first class football game, or you get to wear a FIFA T-Shirt, so if I cannot persuade one we might have to draw straws! 

My Volunteer Team Bielefeld 2010

BOOKS AND THINGS

Today my new Arabic Language book arrived. :-) I needed a new one because Hanna and I have booked ourselves in to go back to Krefeld to continue our Arabic language study after almost a year away. Do you like books? I love them. In fact I should not really be allowed into bookshops any more, for I find a book bargain one of the hardest things to resist. 

When I was still living the gypsy life and moving every 18 months or so, I would throw away books as well as quite a lot of other "unessential" things. Who decides what is unessential? 

When I was 12, before yet another move, my mother made me get rid of my fleet of AIR-FIX WWII aeroplanes which hung from the ceiling in my room. Each one had been lovingly made and painted by me. She complained they collected dust, but my 12 year old brain never saw any. So I took them all up to the 4th floor of the block of flats we lived in at the time, cut holes in the fuselages, stuffed these with cotton wool, impregnated them with lighter fluid lit them and threw them off one by one, to die a glorious death on the concrete 4 floors below.

I remember well too, discovering at the same time (aged 12) my parents version of "Lady Chatterly's Lover" by DH Lawrence between the sheets in the linen cupboard which fortuitously was just outside the bathroom. When home alone I would take it and lock myself into the bathroom to read it. Strangely like my aeroplanes this book never made it to the next place we moved to.

Books, before a move, were discarded in a more inglorious fashion by throwing them in the dustbin! Today it seems a sacrilege to do such a thing, rather like Hitler burning books which people should not read. So now that I am settled and do not intend to move my humble abode, I keep every book and lots of other things as well.

I believe each of us go through phases in life, as adults just as much as children. The phases in my life are mirrored in the books I have. They say that ones home is a window to the soul. Well a home without a book is to my mind a soulless home. So there are books on; riding; mountaineering, that is rock climbing and snow and ice climbing; shooting and hunting with guns; survival; ocean sailing; the history of seafaring; cooking; world history; military history; teddy bears (I collect them) travel; photography; poetry; Shakespeare; English literature; opera; music; encyclopaedias; Arabic and Arabic history; and religion to name but the most important to me still.

Some of my books are very special, like the three books I received as prizes at school for doing well in geography, biology and the German language. Or the 2 books on riding given to me in Salzburg where I learnt to ride. Or the Koran given to me by a friend in Cairo. In fact I have two copies, but this one is very special as it not only contains the original Arabic plus English translation, but the phonetic version, just in case you do not read Arabic but want to read the Koran aloud in Arabic. Others are old like the very large 150 year old copy of the Bible and the St James version of the Book of Common Prayer. 

Then there are the many novels which lie three deep on my shelves. Here my taste is eclectic. I read Maeve Binchy as avidly as Alexander Kent. In fact I am reading her book "Firefly Summer" at the moment and loving every minute of it. The book I read before that was "Hitler, a Study in Tyranny" by Alan Bullock, which I found interesting and enlightening. My next book to read will be the German version of "Sorry Columbus" by Heinke Sudhoff about the discovery of America before 1492! 

I dare say that a younger modern person might tell me that I no longer need the space for all these books.With an iPad in my hand I would have the whole library of Alexandria and every other library for that matter at my disposal.Tthis may well be true, but it is the sheer pleasure I get in owning a good book that can't be beat by an iPad..

KARMA

Do you believe in "fate"? Is there a plan for our lives? Or are our lives governed by our individual "KARMA"? Without getting too deeply into religion, I believe that we are all given a free will to chose what happens and so each of us is personally responsible for what happens in our lives. Both good and bad. I do believe in "cause and affect", that is to say our choices and the actions we take causes reactions and affects, either in others or in circumstances that surround us now and in the future. My father, for example was born in a Monks town in England and died in a Monks town in Germany. Coincidence or his Karma?

Past events have a bearing on our now. If WW II had not happened I would not exist for example. (see About Me for why.) I believe also that certain events and circumstances in families repeat themselves. My great great grandfather was illegitimate, so was I; I had to quickly get married too, to prevent a recurrence of this "karma"!

My German grandmother had a great influence on my early life. She was proud to have been born in Hamburg, a city she loved. She would tell me stories of Hamburg, "the gateway to the world" as it is still known, because of its deep water port. Small boys love pirate stories and she told me of the infamous German pirate Klaus Störtebeker. When I was about 10 or 11 she gave me a navy Captain's hat with gold braid on its visor. I lived in this hat and could be found playing sailor  with a hula hoop with old fashioned pegs on it which represented the wheel of my clipper ship. When she saw me thus, and asked what I was doing, I replied that, "I was sailing around the world, from Hamburg the gateway to the world!" My own "Karma" was perhaps decided  that day.

37 years later I found a run down 16 1/2 ton steel ketch in Finkenwerder, Hamburg named KARMA.

Yacht KARMA 1995 in Kiel Fjord

Me and KARMA off the Coral Coast of Australia 2000




I bought it and eventually did sail it around the world from Hamburg. You will find a German version about the adventures I had on this 4  and a half year epic at http://www.karmasailing.de/Weltumseglung%20Teil%201.htm


If there is sufficient interest in the English speaking world I'll  post an English version as extra pages to this Blog. Just let me know.

So I'd say I fulfilled my own "karma". I'd be interested to hear of the "karma" in your life, or your thoughts on this aspect of life.

EGYPT

I have very mixed feeling about what is happening in Egypt, Tunisia and Yemen right now. On the one hand I am afraid of what might become of these countries, better the devil you know, than the devil you don't. What many people in the West fail to understand about Arabic nations is that they have never had a democracy. They are all Fiefdoms of one sort or another and have always been so. It has taken us in Europe over 400 years to arrive at the democracies we have. For us to impose democracy on the Arabs in the case of Iraq is wrong. So on the other hand I am now hopeful that as it would seem the democratisation of Egypt, Tunisia and Yemen is coming from within, it may work.

Cairo

I spent time in Yemen and Egypt on the way through the Red Sea during my circumnavigation.  So have first hand knowledge of these countries.

On the first occasion I was in Egypt I got stuck in Port Tawfiq, Suez with a broken gear box and ended up staying 4 months there, before I was able to continue. After my experiences I just had to learn the language, which Hanna and I did by going to a language school in Cairo three times.

 Each time it was an adventure par excellence. The school was in the northern part of the city and we had a flat on the 14 floor with two balconies which gave us great views in two different directions.

This is one looking north.

Cairo is one of my all time favourite cities. It never sleeps and there is a constant hustle and bustle even late at night. Hanna and I love to hear the call of the Muezzin calling the faithful to prayer. Our block of flats was served by a small mosque next door and the Muezzin came from Aswan and even today I think he was one of the best I have ever heard. 



Our Muezzin

El Quba where our flat was has no hotels or tourists and on our first trip out from there it took us some time to find a taxi  that was prepared to take us back. The first one we stopped refused on the basis that tourists had no business there! In fact we were not tourists, we were "Taliban" and had ID cards to prove it. These allowed us to get into all historical sites and the Egyptian museum at students rates. "Taliban" is Arabic for two students.

On another visit  we missed being blown up by a bomb in Khan al Khalili by 24 hours. Where we had stood the next day French tourists were blown up!

I have found that in all the Arabic countries I have visited, Yemen, Egypt, Morocco, Jordan and Syria the people to be extremely friendly and hospitable. In Egypt, through our teacher we were introduced to the upper class intellectuals and only in all the other countries have we had social contact with the lower classes. They all have one thing in common, their friendliness and hospitality.

My thoughts at this time, therefore, is with our many Friends in Cairo, may they stay safe and may the changes that are about to happen, bring them peace, prosperity and perhaps a proper democracy.

Sunset over Cairo

Photos of the day.

It was a cold day here, but I took the time to take a walk with the camera.

Going somewhere?



A view from platform 1 of the main railway station in Mönchengladbach.

Two smart cars?

Some blue reflections of the old goods station.

Lost bottle?

One of the many building sites in the city.

RECIPES

While looking for a recipe for parsnip soup in a "Delia" cookbook which used to belong to my mother, I came across this photo of me in a former life time. How can they be so irresponsible and give someone so young, so much responsibility, I ask now some 43 years later?

I didn't find a suitable recipe, so will have to improvise. The majority of parsnip soups I have found recipes for are curried. Hanna is not so fond of spicy food, while I love Indian and Thai food, so my parsnip soup should not be spicy. I shall make a parsnip soup with garlic and vanilla and add grilled tiger prawns as a garnish. What do you think? Will it work? I'll let you know.