( Cut for the arachnophobic -- MACRO PICTURE OF SPIDER UNDER HERE )

Today, I went to the smaller island in the lake where there is a Benedictine nuns' convent that has been working nearly uninterruptedly since the 8th century.

( Cut for Bavarian postcard subjects )

Internet love letter to a blogger.

Warning: the blog itself is EXTREMELY NSFW, text-wise!

Cultural appropriation is what they yell in the (sometimes painfully) Politically Correct circles on tumblr when somebody adapts style element that are associated with some sort of underprivileged culture.

For example:

• White people should not wear dreads -- this hairstyle belongs to the black culture, so it's appropriation (Warning: NSFW image ( Read more... )

Der Spiegel finally deigned to translate an article about the escalating protests in Stuttgart for its English online edition.

Seems their translators were just working on it, and nobody was intentionally obtuse, as I suspected. Now you can read it all for yourself.

Warning! They open the article with the picture of the injured old man I had ( Read more... )

In Stuttgart, which is a notoriously peaceful city of industry, engineering, productivity, technical innovation and annoying attention to details (suburbs are home to the headquarters of Mercedes Benz and Porsche, both), an unholy alliance of conservative politicians and a few big businesses (among them Bilfinger Berger, the large construction ( Read more... )

One of my favourite photographers of all time finally has a web site!

This is what may be his most generally known work:


( Read more... )

(As to have one Urquhart-free post today:)

While The Island is groaning (rightfully so!) about Greenland having stolen the gulf stream (What does it want with it, thaw out all its Eskimo mummies like the ones from Qilakitsoq*??), the effect that all this has on the landscape is very pretty**ducks from all the snowballs the Brits start hurling at ( Read more... )