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My Corona Diary December 2020 - 2021


Nasiadai
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A memory from pre-Corona times.

An AIDA cruise ship from the Italian shipping company Costa Crociere has moored at the new Hamburg cruise terminal. I make my way to the port of Hamburg because I want to take a look at the scenery.
Of course, I'm an idiot and forgot my camera.

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A long queue of people is waiting in front of the check-in hall.

They all want to get on the ship for an exciting trip, according to the motto: party, animation and club holidays.

In past decades, cruises were considered stiff, elitist and expensive. But then "the AIDA" came along as a club ship modelled on the very popular holiday clubs like Club Med. Today, a cruise is affordable for the average wage earner.

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I borrowed the pictures from the internet. The rights holder will get over it.

Around the corner towards the quay is an open-air café. It is fully occupied.
To one side is a musician with his guitar and a semi-automatic drum kit or rhythm machine and two speakers.
His feet are in brown boots, he is wearing blue jeans and a warm tight-fitting Norwegian pullover. His open guitar case lies in front of him.
He plays and sings songs, hits and sea shanties that we all know.
I stop some distance away and listen, because the lad plays and sings not badly at all. He not only plays the chords and harmonies skilfully, but also melody runs and solos.
He is playing a song that made a big appearance in a movie with Harrison Ford 25 years after it was written.: “Der einzige Zeuge" or “ Witness".
On the threshing floor, in a barn with the Amish people. From an old car radio - if I remember correctly - Sam Cooke's song "What A Wonderful World" (1960) is playing. The couple, who is about to fall in love with each other, tentatively and carefully begin to do a few dance steps to the rhythm and beat of the song. He smiles at her in love, stretches his arm towards her, she hesitantly grasps his hand and slowly they begin their first, still awkward dance steps. An unforgettable scene, wonderfully and skilfully staged by director and cameraman.

Actually, this song comes from the high school milieu, but Sam is mainly pursuing interests outside of school:

"Don't know much about history
Don't know much about biology

Don't know much about a science book
Don't know much about the French I took".

The one sitting in the last row, in the last pew, knows only one thing well: that he is in love with his girl.

"But I do know that I love you
And I know that if you love me, too
What a wonderful world this would be"

This song begins with a suppressed "I". I suspect that most love songs begin with "I"; they number in the hundreds. This is also true of German love songs. From "I Can't Give You Anything But Love" to Cole Porter's "I Get A Kick Out Of You" to Roy Orbison's "I Can't Stop Loving You", the ego dominates, and from there it's only a small step to conceit and male egotism. Ricky Nelson boasts in "Travelin' Man" about his conquests in Mexico, Alaska and Hong Kong and with a "Fraulein" in Berlin.

Let us walk a little in thought in the dense forest of love songs.
Let's do a quick brainstorming of what spontaneously comes to my mind.

In part, erotic desires are also openly expressed.
Muddy Waters makes no ado about it: "I Just Want To Make Love To You".

The "Sixty Minute Man" advertises himself with the lines
"Well if your man ain't treatin' you right
Come up and see your Dan
I'll rock 'em, roll 'em all night long
I'm a sixty minute man".

Sarah Vaughn promises in Gershwin's “The Man I Love”: “I’ll do my best to make him stay”.
In more demure times, sexual openness in the hit songs was at best involuntary. "Darling, I'm never lonely / Whenever you're inside". Now the chastity belt is loosened. "Juicy Fruit" is no kiwi.

And the bravado tenor makes unequivocal offers:
"Satisfaction Guaranteed" (1973) or "Save Your Love For Number One" (1985).

Women only occasionally remain unbaptised. The Temptations speak of "My Girl", John Denver "My Sweet Lady", Jose Feliciano leaves it at "Hey Baby" and Hank Williams at "Hey Good Lookin'". But the majority of the women have names that have gradually become almost an encyclopaedia. In fact, when looking for names, new parents turn to current Grammy Award winners and Grand Prix winners: Aura Lee, Betty, Carol, Caroline, Claudette, Clementine, Diana, Donna, Ginny, Jeannie, Jenny, Josephine, Laura, Leah, Lucille, Lucy, Margie, Maria Elena, Mary Lou, Mona Lisa, Nadine, Peggy Sue, Ramona, Samantha, Sheila, Teresa, Virginia.

These are joined by more detailed characterisations: Betty Blue, Dede Dinah, Little Lisa Jane, Little Lucy, Long Tall Sally, Sad Lisa, Skinny Minny, Sweet Caroline, Waltzing Matilda. Here and there one comes across a polite form of address, a full name or both: Miss Molly, Sweet Georgia Brown, Miss Annabelle Lee.

Since the days when wishing still helped, the first thing that matters is the outer, the woman's outward charm, and the man's curiosity, the male gaze, as one can call it.

"Ain't She Sweet" was first posed as a rhetorical question in 1927: "Ain't she sweet? See her walking down the street / Now I ask you very confidentially, ain't she sweet?"

All styles of music are open to love jesters. In one of the best-known rock'n'roll numbers, an unrestrained Little Richard describes his love madness:
"I got a gal, named Daisy /She almost drives me crazy / She knows how to love me / Yes indeed /
Boy you don't know / What she's doing to me / Tutti Frutti, all over rootie (five times) /
A-wop-bop-a-loo-lop a-lop bam boo".

Incantations are meant to ward off disappointment: "Don't Ever Leave Me", "Don't Gamble With Love", "Don't Be That Way", but in the end many end up as cuckolds. Little Richard's "Lucille" and Chuck Berry's "Maybelline" turn out to be hussies. Andy Williams' "Butterfly" nibbles on many blossoms, yet he remains in bondage to her. Pat Boone weeps female infidelity with one of my favourite songs "Love Letters In The Sand".

Ok ok I stop here.

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Back to my musician.

In the meantime, while my thoughts have been wandering a bit, my musician is now playing and singing Hamburg songs, songs that sing and praise the city of Hamburg, its harbour, the Reeperbahn and St. Pauli, the Michel - this beautiful baroque church that stands on a hill high above the port and guards and protects it.

Many songs are among them that were composed especially for a movie and are known and loved throughout the German-speaking world. Most of the Hamburg, St. Pauli, harbour and sailor songs were written from the early 1920s to the end of the 1960s.

But it is clear that composers, singers and musicians do not stop singing about this city and writing new songs.

A very special song about seafaring, about a boy, hardly older than 14, 15 years, that he now sings and plays “Junge, komm bald wieder” "Boy, come back soon". It is one of the songs that has burned itself into the soundtrack of the hearts of all Germans. Everyone knows it, everyone can sing along. The record or CD is available in every music box in a Hamburg pub or bar or Kneipe.

Many of his listeners sing it and hum along.

Released at the end of 1962, this song has been sold many millions of times and played even more often on the radio. This song was sung to success by the Austrian Freddy Quinn, of all people. Quinn was the most popular and successful German-language pop singer of the 50s and 60s.

The lyrics of the song are about worries of a mother whose son has secretly gone to sea: "I worry, worry about you. Think of tomorrow too, think of me too." The text consists of the six-part refrain, beginning with the title line. It is first at the beginning and is repeated twice, the second time a choir sings, at the end the refrain is partly spoken by Freddy. The rest of the content is dealt with in two four-line verses in which the son's point of view is described: "I still know what mother wrote me, ... I sneaked away when mother was asleep. When she woke up I was on the sea. The first letter said, "Come back soon.""

 

Junge, komm bald wieder … Boy, come back soon, that's what all my Thai friends and their families are asking me.
They know this song, they know the lyrics.

Junge, komm bald wieder … Boy, come back soon, hums and sings and hopes a pack of innkeepers in Pattaya to whom I am tributary. Especially some expensive gogo bars on Walking Street and Soi Buakao.

Junge, komm bald wieder And of course, quite a few girls keep asking me on Facebook: Junge, komm bald wieder … boy, come back soon - when??? We are already looking forward to your lady drinks.

Let us listen to Freddy Quinn and his Junge, komm bald wieder Boy, come back soon.
The song begins with a wistful accordion riff, the concise musical motif of this song. It is its overture, so to speak.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WhdfB2ITgjo

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8 hours ago, Nasiadai said:

I have done some research. The water temperatures in the North Sea range from 8 to a maximum of 12 degrees.
Happy bathing and swimming.

Done some research = Click the link I posted haha. 

“The water temperature right now is at least 8°C and at most 12°C.

The seasonal average water temperature is between 8.9°C and 12°C (see water temperatures of the North Sea in may).”

Is that bathing temperatures or Wine Serving Temperatures?

Serve red wines slightly cooler than room temperature, between 62–68 degrees F (15–20 °C). Generally speaking, serve white wines slightly warmer than fridge temperature, between 49-55 degrees F (7–12 °C)

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From my trip to the Hamburg cruise terminal and my memories and comments on a series of old hits and pop songs back to my Düsseldorf garden and the little happiness it offers.

This spring of 2021 is far too cold. Now in May, temperatures barely exceed 13, 14 degrees, at night between 6 and 8. With temperatures like these, there is hardly any spring fever.

The fruit tree blossom is also two to three weeks later this year than the long-term average.

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Here a flowering apple tree

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Hopefully there will be some thick juicy apples in autumn

My spring flowers have all blossomed: the daffodils and tulips, the crocuses and snowdrops.
Instead, uninvited weeds such as my favourite, the dandelion, are in bloom.

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I use a hoe and a hand shovel to get to grips with the weeds.
I pull them out with stump and handle. That's exhausting work for me.

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Here are a few pictures from last year.
You can clearly see my paralysed right arm hanging down without function. The left hand has to do all the work.

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I work two to three hours a day. It is hard and exhausting for me with my paralysis, but it is good for the body and the muscles. It is like applied physiotherapy, only much cheaper and more effective.

to be continued ...

 

 

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Whitsun 22 May to 24 May 2021 - a disaster weather-wise.
Last night, Saturday 22 May, the "Tagesschau" (TV news at 8 p.m.) on German TV reported on relaxations in the Corona pandemic. Innkeepers are allowed to open again at Whitsun. A short report was shown about the outdoor gastronomy at the St. Pauli Landungsbrücken in Hamburg.
Here in Hamburg harbour yesterday there was a strong and very cold wind and at best 11 degrees - and that on 22 May! It is terrible!

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People wear winter clothes because of the cold and the wind!

These are pictures from the "Tagesschau" of 22 May.

 

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The world, science and the public are talking and discussing about global warming.
All I can say about this spring and early summer 2021 is that we are not experiencing warming,
but the world is heading towards a new ice age.

Greetings from a shivering Nawhgab

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  • 2 weeks later...

Aa view of the sea of blossoms in May

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We have been putting up nesting boxes for many years.
Every year in spring, from the end of March / April, they are occupied by pairs of titmice.

Here is a nest box hanging in a cherry laurel tree.

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This wooden nest box is occupied for the first time. I think a pair of siskins or a wren is nesting inside.
For the last two years I have been desperately walking around my garden in April with this nest box, holding it high in the air with my left arm, waving it around and shouting: "Dear robins, siskins, wrens for this nest box I ask no rent, no lease. It is free this year. Yet this prime property is safe, comfortable and in a prime residential location like a Manhattan penthouse flat on Central Park or on the Thames in downtown London!"
Now finally it has worked! I am happy!

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The days in May after the Ice Saints --- Waiting for Summer

The month of May was unanimously too cold. Compared to the long-term average temperatures, this May was about 2.5 degrees too cold, according to the meteorologists. But then on 24/25 May the weather changed. It is hard to believe: a powerful high-pressure area moved from the British Isles towards Central Europe and Scandinavia, dominating our weather until today, 2 June. Blue skies, sunshine and temperatures from 22 degrees to 26 degrees today, 2 June. Who would have thought that?
A small miracle has actually occurred. Something really good has come from Britain. None of the usual lows with thick grey clouds and rain as usual, no Harris bombers bringing death and destruction, no new even more dangerous Coronavirus variant, but warmth and sunshine. So you see, British people, there you go!

The wait for summer is over. It's here and it's delighting us with summer temperatures, blue skies and sunshine.

 

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Human life is full of waiting:
We wait on different levels, in different forms, with different kinds of consequences and burdens. Every one of us knows waiting, which is why it can be said succinctly: Waiting is an everyday experience and waiting is one of the most elementary and most frequent mental experiences. And waiting is also a complex event that is influenced by many cultures.

*  The landlords of Pattaya are desperately waiting for guests; guests with a bulging travel fund, thirsty and eager to drink, spendy like a Saudi oil prince, buying lots of ladydrinks and horny like the neighbour's dog, so that every day all barmaids are barfined.

*  Mr Parky (a very special friend of mine, a local expat living in Pattaya) is waiting for Jimi Hendrix and the good Lord.

*  Mr Baldylocks (a friend of mine from Pattaya) is waiting for the chemical industry to develop a hair restorer that will turn his current bald head into a thick tropical rainforest.

*  Vpi78 (an American acquaintance) is waiting for a medical miracle. Maybe it will grow back all the teeth he has lost in the last decades. Natural "third teeth", so to speak.

*  I am waiting for the end of the Corona crisis and that in late autumn I can escape from the horrible Teutonic autumn and winter and return to my lonely beach and Jomtiem in Soi Welcome.


We see, man is a waiting creature. One connoisseur succinctly asserts,
"All human wait, and in the fullest sense of the term, only human wait."
Waiting is generally understood as future-oriented dwelling in view of a certain expected end of a - short or long, pleasant or unpleasant, voluntary or prescribed - period of time.
So: whoever waits is expecting something, e.g.
the tax assessment from the tax office, the end of the Corona crisis, the new Rolling Stones album or the conversion of Mr Buffalo Bill to a peaceful and polite board member.

I greet you from the sunny and warm Stoffeln beer garden in Düsseldorf.

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For about the past 5 or 6 years progressive generations of Wrens have been nesting/breeding on my balcony behind the A/C Compressor, they have a brood flee the nest and then later the offspring are back to lay their eggs.

Some have been rather brave, hopping on the table etc, in fact one took a walk just inside the apartment. 
it is rather therapeutic having wildlife on your Balcony in the concrete jungle. 

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