Surprise Friday Blog for Merisi

You know I don’t usually Blog on Fridays – but today is an exception just because of the sheer joy of being in Wien in such brilliant weather.

Sissi just loves it and is bounding all over the house and did another runner this morning down the stairs when Cate was leaving for work.

One has to very careful when the doorbell rings – she goes out there at about 100 kph and usually goes down at least four flights of stairs – the record is six.

She is almost impossible to catch on the way out. Only one man has succeeded. I opened the door to two guys who had come to do something and Sissi bolted. As she hurtled past them - one of the men bent down and scooped her up. Poetry in motion. He was clearly an athlete.

It may have been Thierry Henry.

To celebrate Wien, life and cats I offer you some more Duck pictures (there have been discussions recently about Mallards and Ducks – I am of the view that if it looks like a Duck and quacks like a Duck – it is a Duck).

This has been confirmed by Maalie who says he is a Biologist and whose hero is Richard Dawkins – that’s good enough for me.

And a final word on Beetles

The following extracted from usenet; posted by Ken Cox.

God: And here’s the next species, one I’m
particularly proud of...

Adam: Beetle.

God: Excellent. Now here’s another...

Adam: Beetle.

God: No, you just named the last one “beetle”.
This one is quite different-look at the pattern on
the wing cases, and the shape of the antennae...

Adam: Beetle.

God: Well, OK, though they certainly look different
to Me. Now, the next species is-

Adam: Beetle.

Tom Cruise could do that job!

Steph slipped a video into her Blog and it has ruined my last 24 hours. This is revenge – watch at your peril Nom Nom Nom Nom Nom Nom Nom

It was sent to me by my son who sometimes has too much time on his hands.

The weather is just fabulous here at the moment and to celebrate this I took some photos from the Terrace of the Wien skyline. Where is the Katzenschutznet? I hear you ask. The answer is – still there – but I took these photos from the second Terrace which is netless – which means that we cannot leave the door open or Sissi would bound off into the distance.

You will be pleased to learn that the remaining tree on the Terrace (the first one died within a month) is still alive despite the ferocious attacks rendered on an almost daily basis by Sissi. It does not look well but in a mangled, scraggly way it is a picture of courage and tenacity.

It’s hard to describe – its looks like something that has been trapped in an elevator for three hours with Sarah Palin while she reads excerpts from her autobiography. I have provided a photo. I cannot imagine it surviving winter but will encourage it as much as I can from in front of the fire.

Merisi has suggested that I may have bought Horse meat at the Fleischerei. This makes sense – it certainly looks like it could be Horse meat (not that I am an expert). The cats are eating it. I have refrained thus far from asking them if they actually like Horse meat as I may be greeted with a resounding Nay (Groan!)

There are many things I don’t understand in this funny old world.

One that intrigues me is that Rupert Murdoch is cross with Google for what he says is ‘theft’ of the content of his newspapers. Rupert is developing a plan to make people pay for online content and is thinking of cutting off Google (which it is possible to do) from aggregating his content.

This makes sense – except that no sane person is going to pay for content unless there are really, really good reasons. For example, the Wall Street Journal has a model whereby subscribers pay for content – and the Journal is the ONLY newspaper in the world for which this model works.

Now if we accept that Rupert is a smart man – and he has made a lot of money by developing some of the very worst newspapers and TV stations in the world – what is his plan? Does he know something that no one else does? Is there a master tweak that can be made to the Internet that will suddenly have people clamouring to throw money at Rupert so that they can read the excruciatingly gruesome sludge that he turns out on a daily basis?

Or does he just not understand the Internet and that newspapers are doomed?

People apparently pay to watch the FOX news channel. I have trouble with this concept but it is apparently true. But then it’s not news – it’s entertainment. 70% of the content is opinion by far right wing commentators such as Bill O’Reilly, Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck, Greta van Susteren and others. The ‘news’ itself is just a collection of dross such as car chases, drug-crazed celebrities, politicians with their pants down, two-headed goats and endless attacks on the Obama administration.

But you can understand people paying for it if they are of that particular persuasion. It panders to the Loony Right and tells them exactly what they want to hear. But these are people who believe in Creationism, have been abducted by aliens at least once, hate the government and just know that H1N1 vaccine is a means by which the Marxists in the White House can implant computer chips into their bodies.

This is not the audience for online content. Most of them – if they can read at all – will never do so online – and if they ever did will certainly never pay for it.

I am really keen to know what Rupert’s plan is. If anyone out there knows – please tell me.

Another thing I don’t understand is that Tom Cruise is coming to Salzburg and “hotel managers have promised him a private prayer room when he comes to the province this week. Sepp Schellhorn, head manager of the Hotel Seehof in Goldegg, Salzburg, said he would go as far as setting up a prayer room for the devout Scientologist to make his star guest happy”.

I’m guessing Sepp doesn’t know much about Scientology. Who does he think Tom would pray to? Is there a Head Thetan?

Not that I would deny Tom the right to do whatever he wants with his time, energy and money. His beliefs (if he actually holds them) are no crazier than those of many other people.

Being a cynic I sometimes think that Tom is a Scientologist because the more you pay the higher you can climb up the ladder to whatever it is at the top. I mean – do you think Tom would mess about with a bunch of Scientologists if he could be – say – the Archbishop of Canterbury by making a really sizable donation.

And by the way, I have seen the Archbishop of Canterbury being interviewed by Richard Dawkins – and believe me – Tom could do that job - and would great in the really cool hat.

Is it worth the risk?

Rathaus Christmas Markets

Good grief! It’s almost Christmas. How did that happen so quickly?

The Christmas markets started a few weeks ago and we will visit them soon. These are generally places where you can buy an amazing of array of arts and crafts - and of course masses of overpriced crap – but they do serve excellent alcoholic drinks and the lights are nice.

Unfortunately – as with everywhere else in Austria – you have to hack your way through dense clouds of smoke so it is impossible to linger. Cate and I will scuttle through a few of them just to have a look.

Still – as the Austrian smokers on various sites I visit say – “if you don’t want to experience smoke – don’t go where there are smokers”.

Sound advice indeed. Now let’s see – that leaves our apartment and the Flughafen – we might go there for Christmas and watch the planes taking off and landing.

As I said last year – it is an amazing sight for someone new to Europe to see a city lit up like Wien is at Christmas. Of course we are old hands now and this is our second Christmas – but we are really looking forward to it.

After my wood acquiring expeditions over the last few weeks Billy is just a mess and there is sawdust all over the place.

I can take him to my local Tankstelle (which is a few kilometers away) but the vacuum cleaner there is asthmatic and would not suck the skin off a rice pudding.

Theoretically I should be able to vacuum Billy in our garage – except that I have examined it from top to bottom on more than one occasion and there is no power outlet.

I just do not understand this. There are all sorts of motors and electrical boxes to drive the hoists – so what happens when they need to repair these. Or indeed – when they clean the garage as they do regularly – what do they use for power?

After pondering this problem for a while I have come up with a tentative solution. The garage is next to the Müllraum (rubbish room) which has a power point. I can run an extension lead from there along the footpath into the garage – a distance of about 15 metres.

I am now in the process of doing extensive risk analysis. This is important for me as I tend to bring out the worst in electrical things.

There are endless possibilities for electrocuting and/or incinerating dogs and children and I need to weigh these up against the benefits of having Billy clean again.

On balance I think it’s worth the risk so will probably have a go in a day or two. You may read about it in the Austrian Times buried amongst the other gruesome stories of the untimely demise of local citizens (for example this week “Cyclist's frenzied axe attack on pensioner”).