This is it, located right smack dab in the center of the South German town of Singen, the Paradiesbaum:
In coming blog posts I’ll say a bit more about the various figures, like this one:
Hidden canals #5: Spanning the Röstigraben
Continuing the series, this is a very interesting snap for two reasons and three directions! The first reason, direction to the left, denotes where the German speaking half of Switzerland begins. The first reason, but direction to the right, denotes where the French speaking half of Switzerland begins. And the second reason, direction down under, is a hidden canal you cannot see!
But to prove there is really a canal here, as is my usual custom, I simply turn 180 degrees and take the following snap:
The boundary between the German speaking and French speaking sections of Switzerland is often known as the Röstigraben. Rösti (the Swiss version of American hash browns) is a famous dish in the German section of Switzerland, and Graben is a very old German word meaning moat.
The Old City of Jerusalem, from the Mount of Olives
The Old City of Jerusalem, with the bright golden dome of the Qubbat As-Sakhara mosque (also known as the Dome of the Rock) as seen from the nearby hill called the Mount of Olives:
The many stone graves are supposedly on a waiting list to be buried, and if you look hard enough you can see little pebbles on the top of them, which is a Jewish custom akin to putting flowers on a grave. Interestingly, nobody really knows where exactly this tradition developed or what exactly it means.
The amazing Chapel of the Ascension
Jerusalem is an amazing, amazing place. Just outside of the Old City, on the Mount of Olives, sits the Chapel of the Ascension,
This building, also called an Edicule, covers a small rock outcropping that the Christian faithful believe to be the right footprint of Jesus, etched into the stone as he ascended:
Oberwinterthur Crane
Continuing the series, this is a crane that I spotted in the Swiss village of Oberwinterthur,
Big silver girl in Zürich
This is an enormous, 20-foot-tall shiny metal statue of a girl, located in front of a hotel in Zürich:
FAKE: Royal Mail sentinals guard an English village
I’m continuing the series with this image of what looks like two mailboxes in the quaint English village of Welwyn Garden City. I transformed it using an incredible iPhone application called MRRW (“mirror”):
Just for the record: the photos I post are never in any way retouched or enhanced or changed – except for cropping.
But in this series of blog posts entitled FAKE I publish some rather interesting images I have enhanced in some way.
Pause powers performance
A friend of mine is an IT engineer-turned-HR-consultant, and he summed up leadership in a single word: SEXY:
- S = Strategy
- E = Empathy (for others)
- X = Execution
- Y = Yourself (know yourself)
My take on this, not his: S and X are up to you – but E and Y are what‘s in you and probably beyond your ability to significantly influence.
I‘m not a big fan of self-help books about leadership, precisely because E and Y are so out-of-reach, but recently a colleague at work put me on to a book written by a friend of hers. This is Kevin Cashman:
And this is his book, The Pause Principle:
In a nutshell, quoted from the book: The Pause Principle is the conscious, intentional process of stepping back, within ourselves and outside of ourselves, to lead forward with greater authenticity, purpose, and contribution. This book focuses on X (Execution) and not one of the SEXY attributes more difficult or impossible to control. In many ways it reminded me of the survivalist Ray Mears‘ advice if you get lost in the woods: don’t panic or take immediate actions but rather sit down, use your bushcraft knife and firesteel to make a fire and brew up a nice cup of pine needle tee; and only then think about what you‘ll do next.
FAKE: Face in the soup
I’m beginning the series with this image of a bowl of soup. I transformed it using an incredible iPhone application called MRRW (“mirror”):
Just for the record: the photos I post are never in any way retouched or enhanced or changed – except for cropping.
But this series of blog posts entitled FAKE I publish some rather interesting images I have enhanced in some way.
Harrod’s
This is, believe it or not, a snap of the world famous department store for the ultra-affluent, Harrod’s, although you can only see a very tiny bit of it, in the far, far center:
Interestingly, I stopped into the perfume selection with the intention of buying myself an expensive bottle of cologne. Money was no object – I was in the right mood, I had the money, and I fully intended to walk away with a little bottle of something famous from Harrods.
However, when I saw that every counter was covered with dozens of bottles, and that each and everyone one needed to be opened to smell, the barrier to selecting a cologne was so high that I walked away empty-handed.
I wonder if Harrod’s is aware of this usability issue? Or maybe (more likely) their customers really don’t care, and they just buy cologne fragrance unsmelled?
Vauxhall Tower
This is it, a close up of the world famous Vauxhall Tower, located just across the street from the MI6 building and home of British Intelligence,
Bubble architecture – 6
The French have finally done it better!
Continuing the series, this is the bubble enclosed railway station of King’s Cross in London,
As you can see from my blog post here, this attempt at bubble architecture falls considerable short of what the French were able to achieve in Strasbourg, a masterpiece.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: as global warming causes temperatures to rise, we’ll see more and more examples of this, just like frogs boiling to death in water that is very gradually heated.
Storks surfing the golden wave
I thought this was one of the most amazing snaps I’ve taken of storks to date, framed in front of a massive hill of yellow blooming canola:
Elgg through the trees
I thought this snap of the Swiss village of Elgg was rather artistic, shown here through the blurry trees:
It’s not about the Albanian’s!
Every year there is a street festival in Winterthur called the Albanifest. Here’s a snap, but it really doesn’t do the festival justice:
In fact, the Albanifest is the largest yearly street festival in all of Europe! There are well over 100 stands from local restaurants, dozens and dozens of temporary halls for music and dancing, and it’s visited by well over 100,000 people!
Interestingly, I originally thought this festival was to honor the population of Albanians who live in Switzerland. In fact, it’s name honors this fellow:
That’s St. Alban, one of the patron saints of the city of Winterthur!
English Food Trucks
Well, I’ve only ever been to England a handful of times, so I am no expert. But each time I was there I remember being very impressed by the food trucks that park close to office buildings and provide lunch for the workers.
I spotted this one in Welwyn Garden City – just north of London:
And what’s always impressed me the most about these trucks is the large selection of things you can order:
Yes, there is a Platform 9-3/4!
The last time I was at the King’s Cross railway station in London was not that far after the 7/7 terror attack, and I believe this was some time before the Harry Potter movies. In the first Harry Potter movie, we learn that the Hogwart’s Express calls at King’s Cross, but at the very magical platform 9-and-3-quarters,
Since then it’s been on my bucket list to visit King’s Cross and look for what I could find.
Well, I was recently there – and it turns out that the great marketing forces in the universe have taken full advantage! They have recreated this track, and – at least when I was there – there was a long, long line with children waiting to get their photo taken, as this snap shows:
Just next to this “platform” there is a Harry Potter store, and the queue just to enter the store was filled with hundreds of people and in fact it snaked outside of King’s Cross station!
St. Pancras Crane
Continuing the series, I thought this was one of the most unusual cranes I’ve ever captured to date. It was located at a construction site near the famous St. Pancras International railway station, in London:
Rook’s Close
I liked this sight in a local village just north of London, because the street sign says Rook’s Close, and the mailbox reminded me of a rook:
To be honest, it also reminded me a bit of a Dalek, but thankfully most Daleks are not red.
Early summer in Rapperswil
British Intelligence – just letting me know that they know
British Intelligence, also known as MI6, recently gave me a call on my mobile phone! In case you are wondering why they would do this, here’s the story.
In one of the last James Bond movies to star Pierce Brosnan, The world is not enough, James Bond blasts out of the MI6 building on the Thames River in London on a high speed boat,
So on a recent trip to London I was eager to see the real building, which is located in the center of London on the Thames River at a place called Vauxhall Cross. Since there were no “do not photograph” signs I walked all around the building and took lots of snaps! And . . . I was able to confirm my sneaking suspicion: it turns out that the building is set so far back from the Thames that it would have been impossible for James Bond to blast out and land in the river.
It’s a pretty impressive building from the side:
And it’s even a bit more impressive from the front:
Anyway, I was so impressed that I texted a snap to my father on my Swiss mobile phone.
I think that was the magic moment that set everything into motion, the text message to my Dad.
About 2 minutes later I received a call. We don’t need to go into details, essentially one of the worst Swiss German accents I’ve ever heard. I think the main point was just to let me know that they knew. And by the way, I’m also guessing that they really didn’t know: I’ve had a number of run-in’s and encounters with real spies in my life (one of whom remains a very good friend, and one a Russian KGB officer who taught me how to make pickled cabbage), so I’m very sure if they looked in the right databases I would have been speaking to them face-2-face.
Of course, it piqued my curiosity as to the history of this place (Vauxhall Cross, not the MI6 building). It dates back to the 13th century to a man named Faulkes who had a big house in this area. People called the house Faulke’s Hall which eventually morphed into Fox Hall which eventually then became Vauxhall.
Making nonsense without content look good
At first glance, this graph I spotted on LinkedIn looked pretty interesting and worthwhile:
Appearances can be deceiving, because when you begin to read the entries, you realize just how much nonsense they contain. My favorite is the traditional “energy” that is described as “long, sitting meetings with endless discussion.” Yeah, right.
Amazing things visitors to Las Vegas never see!
Zillions of tourists come here every year – but they spend their time on The Strip and they never see some of the wonders that Las Vegas has to offer.
More or less in the center of this sprawling city is a small public park called The Springs Preserve with various hiking trails, and the park tries to re-create the native Las Vegas desert landscape that was here before humans settled the area – or better put, as humans first started to settle this area.
One of the amazing things you’ll see are a few ancient water pumps like this one shown here. This is not a reproduction! In fact, these pumps are over 100 years old, and WATER was the original reason that Las Vegas got its start.
French influence – or just a good idea?
Saigon is a frustrating place for me in many ways. Knowing the French history, as I walk through Saigon my eyes are drawn towards French-looking things, and I ask myself whether they are coincidences – such as a coffee shop with a French name, named so only because it sounds posh, as this example shows with two such French-named coffee shops next to each other:
or truly part of the French legacy (such as the system of Arondissments used to district the city).
Here is a case in point:
As I’ve written about before, French traffic signals are some of the best design traffic signals in the world. Is this just coincidence, or a vestige of the French legacy? Here is a similarly looking traffic signal in France,
No excuses – just plain ugly
I love Switzerland! I moved here years ago, and I’ve never looked back. The people – the culture – the various dialects of a language known as Alemannic (a more evolved version of High German) – there are a lot of things to love!
I’ve also tried my best in this blog to showcase Swiss artists, such as this blog of Seven Magic Mountains shows:
Well, some things I’m not going to defend – or even try. Visitors from long haul flights arrival in Qatar tired and cramped and jet-lagged, and as they de-plane the last vestiges of their good spirits and energy are violently exterminated by a hideously ugly monstrosity that awaits them – a work of art so grotesque that it is worse (if you can believe it!) than the many cases of French bubble architecture:
This hideous monstrosity is called the Lamp Bear, and its the creation of a Swiss artist, whose name I will not mention to protect his reputation. After all – perhaps this was the result if his patrons refused to properly remunerate him.
The amazing thing is that this artist’s website is full of truly incredible visual art. Which perhaps goes to show you: unless you are Michaelangelo (and you probably aren’t because he is dead) then if you are a visual artist please don’t dabble in sculpture, much less Statue-of-Liberty scale sculpture.