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Every city needs a claim to fame. The biggest, the tallest, the smelliest. There's no importance attached to whether, objectively, it may not be the proudest thing to hang your hat on. Whether its the biggest banana, the fattest resident, the heaviest operable tumor, municpalities seem ready to exclaim records no matter how lame sneering outsiders may deem it. Laying claim to a superlative is above all else a collective self esteem issue.
I, for instance grew up near a town called Tirau that had the biggest corrugated iron sheep in the world. Then to keep it under control they had to build the biggest corrugated iron sheep dog. The residents soon realised that sheep dogs are close to useless without proper instructions so they built a corrugated iron shephard to reign in the dog. The corrugated iron shephard is actually on church land and has that bearded Jesus thing going on but it's unclear whether the shephard is Jesus being a shephard or it's a coincidence or some none too subtle church marketing. I guess its irrelevant because I reckon either way he's the biggest corrugated iron shephard, the biggest corrugated iron Jesus, or the biggest corrugated iron Jesus dressed as a shephard in the world.
With the Petronas Towers Kuala Lumpur had the tallest building in the world for almost a decade. Buildings. Plural. There were two of the monsters. That's a genuine bona fide record. And then along came those Taiwanese misers with their Taipei 101 some 200 feet higher.
To the consolation of the KL residents they still have the world's largest free-flight walk-in aviary. It's not as prestigious when you have to qualify it like that but a record's a record.
It's not a bad way to spend half a day. If you like birds. And I like. Birds.
Everything is in order: the Flamingos are pink and the pelicans are white. Perhaps the parrots aren't quite as adept at swearing as one would hope but they give some sass with enough taunting. The hornbills, described pretty much by their name, are one of the star attractions along with the hawks who, unfortunately despite their residence in the world's largest free-flight aviary, are cooped up in depressingly small cages. And the Parrot Kiosk neither has parrot on the menu nor waiters that are parrots, which is misleading.
As you know, monkies aren't birds, but they roam the grounds as well, stealing bird food and playing with themselves in time honoured monkey fashion.
And if passive birds being birdy aren't entertaining enough for you, then the bird show at the amphitheatre has lorokeets riding bicycles and doing maths which was why I personally made the trip to KL.
If you had to choose, I'd imagine the average resident of Kuala Lumpur would prefer to stick with the Petronas Towers instead of downgrading to an open air aviary but sometimes you have to play the cards you're dealt and a whole bunch of birds under netting is now KL's hand. As long as they don't build an oversized corrugated iron sheep dog.
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September 14th 2008 08:41
Aachen is a salutory lesson to all who deride tax breaks, earmarking and low level government bribes to attract or retain business in their region.
In Roman times while Paris was still just a stinky little island Aachen was a spa town chic and hip before Spa (just down the road) was the spa town to be seen in.
Then in 768 the Charlemagne king of the Franks – that’s right, Franks as in France – their king set up camp in Aachen building a palace and the Palatine Chapel. While he was here he united the entirety of western europe and expanded the Holy Roman Empire. His political and economic influence spread throughout the what is now the European Union. His power was vast and when it was challenged he waged wide ranging wars through surrogates. He was the Haliburton of the 8th Century.
By the time Charlemagne died in 814 he had made the city the centre of the Holy Roman Empire that stretched (notionally at least) from the Caucasus to the Atlantic.
Yet 10 centuries later, while its erstwhile Frankish rival Paris had become the City of Lights, Aachen was known for not much more than its considerable quantities of prositutes and its spas mainly attended to attempt to rid the bathers of syphilis, a classic chicken and egg situation. Why? It had everything going for it: the city is a stone’s throw from Belgium and France; it’s kind of pretty and Charlemagne built some impressive buildings.
The Palatine Chappel still stands. It was the site of Frankish and Germanic coronations for around 600 years and still the home of Charlemagne's body. In the cathedral treasury you can see and absolute shed load of bling and Charlemagne‘s bones contained in various gold appendages to shape of the specific bone. Clever.
And on the old foundations of Charlemagne’s Palace, the seat of the Holy Roman Empire, is the neo-classical town hall, the Grashaus. It has frescoes and crown jewels and all that other impressive stuff.
But what fascinates me about Aachen is how it could go from the centre of an empire to an also ran. It’s lovely and historical and easy to visit but it’s not Paris or Rome or Istanbul. It’s not even Berlin.
Then I was watching some guys on television talking about fallen empires and corrupt decadent imperialists collapsing under their own weight and it all became clear. The immutable truth: with a generous off-set, the ploughing of tax payer money into capital works to produce private profits and some governmental underwriting of corporate risks, Aachen could’ve been the next Paris. Instead, it is abundantly clear, some communists, or worse socialists, or worse Democrats, or worse neophyte who didn’t subscribe a particular pundocracy point of view, spent money on things other than growing the corporations who could've made themselves money.
When Incorporated Armoury Limited complained of a contraction in profits in the great depression of 1143, the muncipality of Aachen did nothing. When Looms R Us couldn’t refinance its debt in the Flemmish credit crunch of the late 1600s, those paper pushers in the mayor’s office sat on their hands. When Carbolic Smoke Balls and AAMAT (Aachen Asbestos Mines and Tar) issued profit downgrades in the 19th century the city hall cheque book was nowhere to be seen. And where did those fine companies go? That commercial slut Paris of course, who had her legs open offering up the Louvre for the Armoury, the café industry to Carbolic, and some suspiciously extravagent boulevard redevelopment projects to AAMAT.
Do you want to be Paris or do you want to be Aachen? Exactly. This is what you become when you don’t spent public money for private profits.
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Bruges
Lucky Luke In Bruges
You don’t have to do much in Bruges. The town itself is the reason to visit. It just has to exist and you just have to make it there. But if you aren’t an etre kind of person and you need an activity to do then here's a few options. This isn’t so much a You Must Do This In Bruges list as a If You Need Some Shits and Giggles or You Have the Restlessness Of a Five Year Old And Your Girlfriend’s Having a Nap at the Hotel and You Need to Kill Some Time Then This Will Occupy Your Time List. So try:
1. Walking from the train station (Stations-Plein) to the central square (the Grote Markt).
It’s not that far but because of the winding medieval streets and the propensity of most major mapping companies to leave off smaller laneways that look temptingly like carriageways you should divert down, the sub-intelligent barely able to breath unassisted morons who compete on the Amazing Race can get from Dehli to San Francisco quicker than I can walk the kilometre from the station to the square.
Bruges
2. Onze Lieve Vrouwekerk
On Mariastr. is a church with that awe inspiring standard of Fuck You We’re the Church architecture predominant in the days when Christianity was the Gordon Gekko of economy, religion, and gubernatorial politics. Also, it has Madonna and Child the one that isn't Guy Richies. It's one of the few and perhaps only of Michelangelo’s work outside Italy.
3. Catch a Shark in a Canal
It looks filthy in those canals and its not really classic shark habitat, but if you could catch a shark in there and prove it to me with a photo, it would settle a bet.
4. Frites met Bier
It’s not unique to Bruges but everyday spent in Belgium or Flanders more specifically should involve some eye wateringly strong beer and chips lathered with mayonnaise. De Halve Mann is recommended.
5. Hieronymous Bosch paintings
There are a few Bosch paintings in the Groeninge Museum. You don’t have to be a huge fan of his works but he’s a hometown hero and just to say you’ve been out looking at works by Hieronymous Bosch works sounds cool.
First rule of travel writing: don’t talk about travel writing. Second rule of travel writing: lists are in multiples of five. Top Five. Top Ten. If you’re a high end glossy: Top Twenty. But with all the maverickism (is that a word?) of McCain, cop this – a Top Six. And number six:
6. Sniff it
Don't apply the nose in a sad old man in a coat with nothing underneath siddling up to the young woman way, but give the olfactory senses a good work out in Bruges: it smells old. It smells like the middle ages. It’s probably the stagnant canals and mouldy brick work but it’s still quite an incredible thing.
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Oktoberfest, the beer drinker’s pilgrimage to Mecca; a vague and mythical monolith like the first visit to Disneyland for a child. I remember my one trip to Anaheim as this whirlwind of anxious darting from place to place, gulping up the sensory orgy and running around like a madman before the day descended into long queues, tantrums, excessive consumption of sugery beverage, and of course, after that Space Mountain piece de resistance, a spew.
And this was my Oktoberfest too
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It's that time of year again! Time to celebrate sieges.
The budding chemist and incompetent meteorologist, the Bombing Bishop of Berend failed to take wind into account during his assaults on the walls of the hardy city of Groningen, the Netherlands' northern capital. The Gronigers stuck it out inside the walls and observed the tragi-comic Berend bombing both them and scoring toxic own goals until 28 August 1672 when the siege broke and the Bishop returned to Munster to resume his priestly pastimes
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I am not in a position to comment on the utility or interest of this event from an artistic point of view. I don’t understand the aims, techniques and concepts behind the works. Apparently with contemporary art that’s not supposed to matter. What’s supposed to matter is provocation of particular – perhaps any – emotions. But it doesn’t provoke in me any particular emotions precisely because I don’t understand the aims, techniques and concepts behind the works. Emotions are elicited because of the background or an event or in raw random situations when there is no understanding of the reasoning behind it, yet when the situation is confected, when the situation isn’t raw or random because its been constructed sole to elicit an emotion, how can you have that emotion with an understanding of its aims, techniques and concepts?
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Whale's eye...and body
In the stairwell at Cockle Bay Wharf in Sydney there is a whale hanging from the ceiling. It is unusual and slightly unsettling. For a start it seems to be too small for a proper whale. It's only about the length of a Camry. And - weirder - it is transluscent, as if its mother bred with a jelly fish. Jelly Whale seems no sillier name than Sperm or Humpback
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Never had a city just by its name held such promise. The Big Apple, Gay Paris, The Windy City all seemed in adequate when place alongside The Twerp. Surely this was to be an exciting time. I had an image of a city a bit like a girl in a Freddy Prinze Jnr movie: nerdy at first by virtue of a sidelining by elder sister Brussells, but when you figuratively take of her glasses, she magically becomes quirky, likeable, sexy.
Stone Cowboy - Rhine
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Munich
Munchen is not all beer and sausages. Sitting so closely to Austria and Switzerland in the southeast corner of Germany, they are quite partial to schnaaps and struudles too
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Does anyone else have problems uploading images from a Mac?
I shrink re-size the picture, convert it to .jpg, then use insert image, browse for it, then click upload image. The computer then thinks about it for about a minute and then says 'No Image Selected
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