I will teach Muffin how to play Ski Jump

As I suspected, the carnage on the slopes did not stop, it was just not reported at the time and the details are now filtering in.

An Irish man hurtled off a Piste at high speed and killed himself - and a teenage girl sledger impaled herself on a tree.

I won’t even mention the 54 Hamsters who were abandoned outside a pet shop in Graz. Yes – I know – these can hardly be counted as skiing accidents – but I am trying to make my case by boosting the numbers.

I really like winter but I think I am going to have to stop reading the Austrian Times. Cate is committed to going skiing next year so I have about 10 months to get into shape and get my affairs in order before judgment day on the slopes.

On Saturday we encountered our most unhelpful waiter to date – and there is a lot of competition for this title.

We upset him immensely by sitting at a table which was reserved and he told us – when he eventually came near us – that he needed the table in 30 minutes.

He then gave us menus and that was the last we saw of him. He sailed past every five minutes or so but studiously ignored us and we eventually left.

We went to the Bagel café near Bobby’s and ordered (you guessed it) Bagels. After a while they told us they didn’t have any plain Bagels and would Sesame Bagels be OK.

Sure we said – we are so hungry we would eat a Duck bagel.

After a further wait they said that they didn’t actually have any Bagels at all but would cook some. We said sure – and while we waited we had a frozen Muffin.

A report in the Austrian Times (where else) says that Crack Luftwaffe fighter pilots were scrambled in a UFO drama over German airspace.

Does this mean that the Luftwaffe has grades of pilots. Crack, Not So Crack, Barely Average, Awful?

Why would not all pilots be Crack pilots? Perhaps most of them have died on the ski slopes in Austria and they have had to lower their standards.

Anyway – they weren’t very good as they didn’t find the UFO so they may as well have sent the Awful Pilots.

I tool Jura back to Lefkowitz and left him with Christian. As you can imagine it was a difficult parting and Christian had to prise my fingers from around Jura’s chubby little jowls. Christian says that if there is anything wrong with Jura (which shows the level of confidence he has in me) it will take ‘few days’ to get it fixed. I bet!

So I had to go down to the basement and bring up Gaggia. Well you can imagine what this was like.

So – let me get this straight – I was left wrapped up in a box for six months and now you want me to make coffee again? Because what? Namby Pamby Prissy Wissy widdle Jura is bwoken - oh how sad!

So Gaggia is now sitting on the kitchen bench scowling at me. I have managed to squeeze out one cup with difficulty but I am not confident that I have its full support and would not be surprised if it explodes and kills us all.

I may have mentioned before that I really love my iPhone. It does all the things that a Handy should and much more besides. One of the really cool things about iPhones is that people develop Applications for them and they can be downloaded from Apple.

There are free Apps and Apps that cost something – most cost about €0.79 which is not much at all. You can’t buy half a Krapfen for that here.

There are thousands and I have downloaded a few useful ones. One not so useful one is call Ski Jump and it’s a game where you send a tiny little man down a Ski Jump and see how far you can get him to jump.

It’s not as easy as it sounds as you have to manipulate him as he flies through the air. Most of the time (even on beginner level) my Ski Jumper ends up in a heap in the snow and has even landed on his bum – which I am sure is not possible in real life.

After some practice I achieved a jump of 130 Metres – which I thought was pretty good. So I thought I would upload it through the IPhone to see how this jump compared with others which are being conducted by thousands of wastrels out there.

Well, it wasn’t in the first 1,000. The longest jump on the day was 160 Metres set no doubt by a 12 year old in somewhere like Minsk. I was too depressed to look.

So I will continue to play Ski Jump but will not bother to look on line. I am planning on teaching Muffin how to play but will not tell her all the tricks or else she will certainly beat me.

Koalas get thirsty too

There is a heat wave in Australia at the moment and animals are dying of thirst. In South Australia it has reached + 42 degrees – which is really hot.

The picture is of a Koala that came down out of a tree and into a house to get a drink of water – and stayed to have a bath.

I rang the man from Jura today and the prognosis is not encouraging. He says I have to take Jura back to the place I bought it from so that they can examine its innards. I will have to drag the Gaggia up from the basement so that we have a coffee machine. The prospect of being without espresso coffee is simply unthinkable.

Gaggia works just fine but it is a lot more work to make coffee. However, I can’t watch Jura continue to suffer so will need to do this quickly. I hope we don’t have to put it down as it is still very young.

I am going to Stadtpark tomorrow to take some pictures of the ducks and to convince myself that there really is no longer any ice. Does this mean that winter is over?

This is very disappointing for us (although probably not for the Austrians) as we love the cold weather – and are really glad we are not in Adelaide at the moment.

It's off to the sewers for me

I hadn’t checked on the ducks for a few days – (Doctor’s orders) but we went through Stadtpark on the way to dinner on Friday and all the ice was gone – I mean all of it – the water is entirely clear of ice!

Most of the ducks were congregating in two large groups on the snow in the park.

I just don’t understand any of this and it has only served to increase my duck anxiety factor.

Where has all the ice gone? Sure it has been warmer for the last few days but I am talking just above zero – it is hardly tropical – and there has been at least some snow most days.

And why now that the ice has gone are all the ducks leaving the water and sitting on the snow?

Of all the weird things in Wien I think the ducks are the ones that worry me the most.

We went on Saturday to Mariahilferstrasse to buy me a coat. I have six coats but I need a really good coat for all those times we go to the Opera and Balls so that we when step out of Billy Benz I look the part.

This was not successful – but – we found Cate a magnificent leather coat. It is made out of shearlings which I understand are sheep that have been only partially shorn – and was made in Italy.

It I absolutely gorgeous and makes her look like Anna Karenina. Cate has trouble finding coats but this was the first coat we saw in Peek and Cloppenburg (and the last of its kind) and fitted her perfectly. It had also been discounted by €800 Euros which was very exciting as this reduced to mark up to – oh - about 800%.

To complete the Anna Karenina look she also bought a hat made out of dead rabbits. This will be a perfect companion for my hat made out of dead rats.

I remain without a long coat but will bask in the reflected glory of Cate’s coat. When we arrive at the opera she can tell people that I am her gardener and I can carry her coat for her when we get inside.

She will certainly look the part in Moscow next week and may end up running off with one of those Russian Ogliarch-thingies.

We went to Fabios which was not as good as last time but was more expensive. I had not thought this would be possible so did not take a bank guarantee this time. I have left my watch and Cate’s jewellery as security for payment and will redeem them when the bank loan comes through.

I also finally bought my electric frying pan at Saturn. These are not very common in Wien but I like to use them and needed to replace the one that detonated while it was filled with Rogan Josh. Rozalin found many electric fry pans on the Internet for me and I was just about to buy one of these when some popped up at Saturn. I will report on its efficacy at a future date.

Jura is giving me some problems and is doing things that are not described in the manual.

When it is turned on it noisily squeezes out a few drops and then wants to be rinsed. (In this respect it reminds me of some small dogs I see in Landstrasse).

It also does this at various times during the day. I have changed the filter and cleaned it with the appropriate tablets but it is still wobbly and I may have to contact its mother to see what is wrong.

She lives in Switzerland and, according to the website, is keen to hear from me. I somehow doubt that very much.

I have booked tickets to go and see Melissa in Paris in March and am staying at a hotel in Montmartre. I usually stay with Melissa but want a quiet space to study German and write.

There will also be much exploring and Melissa and I are really hanging out to visit les Egouts (the sewers).

Last time I as there we went to the catacombs and saw all the skulls –fantastic fun.

I also hope to visit some cemeteries and Melissa says there are some medical museums where they have body parts in jars. If anyone would know about these it would be Melissa.

Kevin from Cranville wine racks in the UK has reported that my rack has been returned to him – rather the worse for wear. Apparently the global resources of DHL were not able to track someone who lives in the middle of Vienna – even though they have my handy number.

It seems that I am more elusive than Harry Lime.

Good news – as far as I can tell there has been only one fatality on the ski slopes in the last week. I am not sure why we are down to only one for the week – it seems remarkably low - I will investigate further.

I am afraid that this article in the Austrian Times comes under the ‘Only in Austria’ heading:

“A car left in a short-stay parking zone for two years may stay there forever after clocking up a 21,000 Euro bill.The second hand Fiat Uno - worth just around 5,000 Euros - was left in the city centre of Graz when the two Romanian immigrants who'd been using it were arrested and deported.

The owner - now living in France - has refused to settle the bill and local laws mean the car cannot be towed away because it is not blocking traffic.Now city officials are to declare the car park a construction site so planning rules mean they can move the motor to a scrap yard.”

There is not much I can say about that – except that it demonstrates perfectly the tenacity of the parking police and the inflexibility of the bureaucracy.

I haven't heard from Annie for a while and assume that de Bortoli have delivered another 60 dozen which she and Jim are sampling to make sure that they are not poisoned.