Friday 20 July 2012

Vorsprung Durch Technik


I mentioned yesterday that I have been spending quite a bit of time in builder's merchants recently, but I have not seen these T-shirts sold in German hardware stores which ingeniously solve the universal problem of 'builder's cleavage', when some bloke comes around your house to fix the plumbing or whatever, and you are forced to suffer his poor choice of working trousers.

The world of snooker overcame this problem years ago, by making extra-long waistcoats for when the player is leaning over the table to take a long shot, and even invented upside-down spectacles for when you have to rest your cheek on the cue. As usual, Germany is way ahead of the rest of the world when it comes to what is known these days as Construction Industry Solutions.

It doesn't seem like a year since H.I. conducted her Summer School, but it is - the first one begins next week.  This is one reason why the replacement Volvo was needed urgently, as I have to transport her, some huge easels, books, materials and a load of light refreshments to the rural village hall on monday.

I have bought a number of books by the aforementioned John Aubrey since last year, and have come to the conclusion that the old 17th century gossip is following us around.  He was closely associated with the church where she carried out the restoration or reinstatement of the medieval Doom Board (you can be taken straight to it by clicking on this link), and now I find that he was also related to the Long family, who were the local dignitaries of the village where her summer school is to take place, and whose ostentatious but beautiful tombs are sited in the church next door.  He describes  a female Long as a 'kinsman', and relates how she came upon her own apparition ('as if in a mirror') whilst out walking one day, and died shortly thereafter.

I think I now have pretty much everything that Aubrey wrote in book form, but the only one to have been published in his lifetime is the latest - a rambling and somewhat silly series of accounts concerning all things supernatural, including magick, apparitions, knockings, premonitions, etc. etc.  It is this very book which caused a contemporary to describe him as 'maggoty-headed', which I thought a bit cruel until I read it.

In those early days at the dawn of science, anything that could not be ascribed to God was blamed on the Devil, and you could take the boy out of the Wiltshire countryside, but you could not take the Wiltshire countryside out of the boy.

As I write, there is a serialisation of the diaries of Samuel Pepys - a contemporary of Aubrey - on the radio, and he has taken a boy to Tower Hill to see a comet which is supposed to be hanging in the heavens.  Normally he went there to witness executions. The boy says that comets are ill omens, and Pepys replies that it is a comet, not a curse.  The beginnings of science.  Pepys could not be described as a likeable person, but what a service he did us by writing down every sordid detail of his life, never expecting it to be published.

Anyway, what has this to do with builder's arses, I hear you say?  Not a lot.


14 comments:

  1. I'm too ignorant to comment on Aubrey or Pepys but I do like the T Shirts.

    I recall Audi taking out double page spreads in the broadsheets which started in English with, 'We have received a lot of requests from the English regarding the exact definition of Vorschpung durch Technik' and then the rest of the two pages were in very technical German.

    Who says they don't have a sense of humour?

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    1. I have a theory about the German sense of humour: All our jokes depend on the last crucial word of the punch-line coming (ideally) last. The German system of structure usually means that one has to say the crucial word first, as in - 'Orders I was only carrying out'.

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  2. One interesting detail that Pepys wrote in his diary was the wage he paid to his maid (I've forgotten how much it was). Later Dr Johnson made the same notation in his diary, and the two figures were exactly the same. Proving, I suppose, that inflation is a very modern idea.

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    1. It definitely is, Cro. Growth is not the same as stability, though the price of imported wine fluctuated wildly between the 16 and 1700s. The South Sea Bubble is just what is still going on though. Read Swift, and marvel that he drunk wine which cost about £15 a bottle, even then. I have just been invited to an online auction at Christie's, where a load of Mouton Rothschild is on offer, but - somehow - I don't think I will be buying - even for investment.

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  3. it took me a while to realise...........
    I guess wouldn't be surprised

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    1. Yes, you have to raise your eyes upwards a little, unlike the rest of us sad hetros.

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  4. I just LOVE those T - shirts. I think that every builder, electrician, plumber etc. should be given one as standard ! .......especially those that are working outside your compact yet adorable apartment !!!! How's that going and are you getting used to the noise ?

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    1. Damn - I had just had 4 straight hours not thinking about it, and you mention it...

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  5. Yay verily. Another interesting post Tom, thanks.
    I've spent the week in a leaky tent reading about the strange marriage of Lord Byron and Annabelle Millebank (?) so your stuff about plumbers' Tshirts and Samuel Pepys is most refreshing to me.

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    1. I say unto thee that a friend of mine is just sailing to where Byron coughed his last, as we speak. I still fail to make the connection between Byron's Milleband and T-shirts and Pepys though, let alone the refreshment.

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  6. The work on the Doom Board tympanum is amazing and wonderful. What an awesome project. But those men and their t-shirts are quite a come down. I am astounded thinking about the train of thought that took you from one to the other ;-)

    Hope you find that Volvo you need soon.

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    1. There was no train of thought, Broad, and (keep up for God's sake) I have already got the Volvo. Ok, I know it is boring that I write about it 6 times before I change the subject, but you could at least read one once. I don't blame you, having said that. Volvos are fucking boring cars - which is why I have had so many. I like a quiet life.

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    2. I'm chagrined :-( But I've caught up now ;-). Volvo's may be boring, but I'm convinced they are addictive. Hope you got a good deal ..

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    3. I know they are addictive - I've lost count of how many I have owned. £850 - utter bargain which I am hoping will give me at least another 70,000 miles of carefree motoring, but I'm not going to bet on it.

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