For years I have had a wonderful image scanned from a very, very old French postcard, an illustration of a poisson d'avril. Never, nay, never do I locate it on my hard drive in time for the first of April.

But I did find the shot of the tie I plan, as a Piscean, to acquire one of these days. So this will have to do.

Aye, there's no fool like an old fool!

Legacies

I doubt if I was even twelve years old when my father, a minister of the Church of Scotland, passed on to me a central tenet, a conviction he held very strongly. "Good design matters, boy!"

Design was a timely topic in 1951, when the Festival of Britain ushered in the second half of a century promising post-war peace, the promise of prosperity and an underlying optimism.

Although the Festival venue was in far-off London, the message reached us in Dundee where the converted aircraft carrier HMS Campania was a floating mini-festival visiting many of Britain's ports for whose citizens the idea of a jaunt to London was as unthinkable as a voyage to the moon.



School-boy enthusiasm was easily aroused by the prospect of going aboard the giant carrier. Coming ashore afterwards I think I was a convinced 'mid-century modernist'!

Recollections become somewhat fuzzy after over half a century. Did my father ever actuall manage to own a Dieter Rams designed Braun hi-fi? The 'Snow White's coffin' model dates from 1956, by which time we as a family had emograted to the United States. It might well be that we merely drooled over magazine advertisements and catalogues. These objects of such elegance and refinement were, I reckon, beyond the means of a clergyman's family.

But for many, many years the Dieter Rams design ethos was a common bond between father and son.

Tempus f****it

The Paris Daily Photo site has a shot reminding us that today the clocks are to be put an hour forward. By chance the location is a café called les Editeurs, which is a mere hop skip and jump distant from the Hotel Louisiane where I stay when ever I'm lucky enough to visit the city.

With the café expressing the theme of publishing and with my hotel having been the favourite of literary luminaries... it must be clear that I am summoning up any and all the available talismans and harbingers of good fortune.

I shall need all the luck I can get! For the record, at the close of 'day one' on the Authonomy site Golden Dawn is ranked #3306 and has been commented by three well-wishers

Thanks, particularly to Keefie, for the support.

Golden Dawn

Posting on a Saturday? I used to do that from my desk, in my office overlooking the Abu Dhabi Corniche. But it's something quite new doing it en déshabillé from my flat.

It seems to me an altogether propitious moment for the upload of my novel manuscript, Golden Dawn, to the Authonomy website. It was, after all, written in large part at said desk in the Sandlands.

Here's the link for those inclined to read it.

Weekend Video

I have always been a fan of a capella voices. And I find the video I just discovered a real pleasure to listen to.

But the way this end result has been achieved... the connectivity spanning the globe to involve the participating singers... is truly awesome.

And I find it very fitting on this day... my first day with broadband at home! Well, sort-of-broadband... 805 kbps download, 649 kbps upload... More or less 16 Meg service, I reckon.

But a lot better than schlepping across to the local internet café!

Update: Steve Safran of the authoritative media news site Lost Remote has this to say about the video...

"This is breathtaking. Composer Eric Whitacre sent out sheet music for his all-voice composition “Lux Arumque” and asked people to sing parts on their webcam. The result is astonishing: 185 voices from 12 countries pieced together. If all Whitacre had done was mix the audio – that would have been a remarkable achievement. But the video puts this one over the top."

Weekend video

The video tip is thanks to my daughter whose music suggestions have a rejuvenating influence which is highly appropriate on the eve of the Equinox!

For the next three months the days, now longer than the nights, will end ever later and be ever warmer.

All very welcome after Monday's final snowfall.

Och aye!

As I have posted last year and the year before, in Munich St. Patrick's Day is a very ecumenical festival of Celtic solidarity, with us Scots involved mainly on account of the fact that we have the better music!

But this year the weather was lousy and it was no joy being kilted on the Leopoldstrasse watching the parade pass. And, anyway, there's a limit to the number of times one can thrill to the skirl of the pipes as they once again play Mairi's Wedding. Limited repertoire? Yup!

Believe it or not, today again there's heavy snowfall! At least we were spared that yesterday.

Okay, Scots wha' hae... an a' that!.

Spring will be a little delayed this year

Updated with image from the neighbourhood internet café. As soon as one of my clients pays an outstanding invoice I am going to order the fattest broadband pipe available! No luxury... a must!

So... mid-March and I just wish to note that it is snowing again!

Puzzled

I am not a stingy person, but I have learned to be prudent in respect of the expenditures I make. My circumstances are such that 'impulse purchases' are taboo. And yet... is price comparison, the search for the best buy, really the basis of my decision where to spend the next Euro and on what?

The question came to mind when on Saturday I considered buying a Levis denim work shirt. (Yes, they're stocking this classic once again after many years without it in their collection.) At EUR 69 not beyond my means and I very nearly bought it. Then I reflected... at home I really need a printer/scanner for working purposes, having done without for months and months. Months during which I have bought the odd shirt. But wait! The printer also costs EUR 69.

Consider shoes. I can easily weaken and decide to replace the Tod's I bought in 2005... around EUR 250. But for months and months I have been grumbling about the inadequacy of my 13 inch Sony analogue CRT television set. A new LG Flatron HD is on special offer this week for, yup, EUR 250.

So I think that for me it's not entirely a question of price. I suspect there's a learned inhibition about the acquisition of hardware, a recollection of times when buying a printer or a television set was a relatively huge investment, to be made only when absolutely essential.

How strange!

I should have known that an element of surprise was in store for me. The idea, agreed by Daddy and Daughter, was that the occasion of my seventieth birthday should be observed in absolutely lowest profile. Dinner for two was to be in Café Schwabing, my regular haunt.

But Jessi had conspired with her best friend, Dominique, (middle photo, left) to arrange the after-dinner presence of a few delightful people I have known for more than 25 years. Although how it can be that Natascha (middle photo, right, Dominique's mother) is still as cute as she was when I first met her (aged 19!) I cannot begin to fathom.

Back in the day Lenny (red scarf), Natascha and I all worked together on a film whose title is somehow most appropriate, The Neverending Story. And the handsome blonde lady in the middle, Isolde, writes scripts for neverending telenovelas. Captain Andy (top left) flies big Lufthansa jets to far-flung destinations; tail winds bring him back, understandably, to Natascha!

So if I look a bit thoughtful it is because Lenny and the others remind me that I should probably, in my seventy-first year, be just a bit less reclusive and enjoy more frequently the companionship of fellow travellers on the path through life.

As for the Daddy and Daughter twosome, it started with bubbly in a venue I should patronize more often, the rooftop bar of the Hotel Bayerische Hof. Just to continue the 'blast from the past' theme... I was amused to note that the bar and spa was styled by interior designer Andrée Putnam, who was part of the clique I ran with in Paris when I was half as old as I am today. Yeah, okay. No more maudlin, self-referential posts until my seventy-seventh. Promise!

I did note a severe weather alert for the UAE yesterday morning, and the photos on the web today also make me less disappointed that my visit didn't ake place. Schadenfreude? Yup!

The enthusiasm I expressed last Thursday in this post was, alas, premature. Yes, my client in the Sandlands was adamant that I should attend CabSat and translate his exciting new media project into a coherent business plan. But... this is a guy who is warm hearted but has his head in the clouds... he omitted to confirm the fee I would earn and failed to book the flights and accomodation! So I shall not be winging my way to DXB this afternoon.

This form of business incoherence would, I fear, dismay much more gravely one with no experience of how things all too often work in the Gulf. So... maybe next time, insh'allah.

But there are consolations, here in the Heimat!