The Capital Letter

So, after not mentioning the situation in Zimbabwe for a couple of weeks, I covered it very briefly in yesterday's catch-all blog post and whaddya know, today Zimbabwe turns up in the news and in my inbox.

The Zimbabwe in the news item is this one from Reuters, in which it is reported that Mugabe's ruling Zanu-PF party has used its two-thirds majority to force through constitutional changes. This is no surprise. Way back at the beginning of April, when the Zimbabwe election results were announced I noted:

Robert Mugabe's ZANU-PF party has, as Mugabe predicted before the election, won two thirds of the seats. In a remarkable piece of "luck" for Mugabe, this extends his majority above the threshold required to make constitutional amendments. Now, who would have thunk it? Isn't it remarkable that in the US, where countless millions are spent on pre-election polling, exit polling and so forth, the discrepancy between exit polls and final results could be a full 5.5%, whereas Mugabe, without funding for or access to such polling techniques, can pull an unlikely figure like two-thirds majority out of the air, and be bang on?

And, sadly, it seems I was dead right. Amending the constitution was exactly what Mugabe and his henchmen had in mind and that's now exactly what they've done.

Mugabe's ZANU-PF party used its two-thirds parliamentary majority to approve changes that will allow the government to nationalise white-owned farms, impose travel bans on "traitors" and re-introduce a second legislative chamber (Senate) that critics say will be packed with Mugabe's allies.

ZANU-PF argues the changes will enable the government to conclude its controversial land reform program to redistribute land from white farmers to the black majority, while a Senate will improve the quality of legislation.

...

The amendments will also give the government new tools against political opponents, allowing it to impose travel bans on Zimbabweans suspected of engaging in terrorist training abroad or who have called for sanctions or military actions against Mugabe's government.

Mugabe has repeatedly accused his domestic opponents of being in league with former colonial power Britain and hinted that his government might be a target for "regime change" by its western critics.

Grim. And you don't need to be able to think around many corners to be able to see how and why these constitutional changes might become problematic and could be abused for political ends. Given Mugabe's track record, I don't think that there can be any doubt that such abuse is exactly what he has in mind.

The second Zimbabwe-related item I got today was in email form. [Hat-tip to Rhonie]. I've since tracked down the source, namely SW Radio Africa. I include the text of the email here in its entirety for the full, shocking effect. Read it and weep.

Happy In Zim, Even Though.........

1. A Vienna sausage costs more than a three bedroom house cost 25 years ago

2. Fuel has increased by 59,000% in the last 18 months

3. If you want fuel you have to buy foreign currency on the black market (illegal) drive 120 kms, smuggle your cash through an international border, and fill a container. On return you have to pay duty in Zim $ on the fuel you have purchased but you are not allowed to take out sufficient Zim $ to pay the duty anyway

4. In August you are advised of the new minimum wages for July

5. Kariba Bream now costs $1,200,000 per kg which is double the price of imported Hake

6. Fees in Government schools are increased by 1,000% retrospective for 6 months, whilst private schools are restricted from increasing their fees at all

7. Colgate toothpaste in supermarkets is kept locked in a glass display cabinet otherwise it will be stolen

8. Reserve Bank officials enforce laws on illegal currency deals, yet the Bank uses illegally obtained currency to pay satellite television subscriptions

9. New Zealand butter is half the price of Zimbabwe butter

10. Water rationing is introduced four months after the end of the rains when the dams are already almost empty

11. A $10 note is still in circulation and is worth 0,05 of one US cent

12. A $10 note costs over $3,000 to print

13. Toilet paper costs more than $10 a sheet - so it's cheaper to use the notes

14. Banks charge 300% interest on overdraft but pay 0,001% interest on current account balances

15. It is cheaper to hand deliver mail than to use the postal system

16. Government knocks down houses when there is a housing shortage

17. It can take up to a year to renew a firearms licence which is only valid for three years

18. A replacement drivers' licence can take up to three years

19. Electricity Supply Commission is unable to send out monthly accounts, so estimates the usage - a previous average usage of $250,000 p.m. is estimated at $24 million

20. A monthly govt. pension of $135 00 will buy one small sip of Coke. But this is not an issue because you can't buy cokes anyway. Pensioners living outside our borders would receive half one US cent per month

21. ADDENDUM

An ordinary washer costs 20 to 30 dollars. If you are lucky enough to find a coin; drill a hole in it! Our largest coin is $ 5.

If you can find a 1 cent coin you can really "coin" it. It is even made of copper.

Do you think it might be time for change, by any chance?

There are so many things I would like to draw to your attention to, wax lyrical about, opine on, rant about and so forth, but so little time in which to do it. I'm currently going through the tortuous process of battling the German buraeucracy to take up a public sector job here in Germany and simultaneously trying to get a new residency permit and find a flat in a different city.

I suspect you'll have heard about German bureaucracy before. Believe me, it's all true. No details at this stage, I'm afraid (all in good time), but that's why things are a bit slow here on The Capital Letter in the last little while. Forgive me.

So, in lieu of a full-length, insightful post with cutting analysis and witty asides, allow me to provide a few links to the interesting things I would have liked to have blogged in detail about if I'd had time.

1) The German general election is getting closer. Two and a half weeks. The polls are showing Angela Merkel's CDU still with a commanding lead, though Gerhard Schröder's SPD are gradually gaining ground. There's an interesting article here, which looks at Schröder's chances. My money is on a so-called "grand coalition" of the two main parties at this stage, but I've been wrong before.

2) The New Zealand general election is also only two and half weeks away. The polls are showing a slim lead for the incumbent Labour party over National. I'm very pleased to see it too, not because I'm a big fan of the Labour government, but because I am a very big un-fan of Don Brash and the National Party he currently leads. Those polls also don't yet take into account the knock that National are bound to take in the course of what is proving to be a very bad week for the party and especially it's leader, following internal leaks of sensitive and damaging emails.

Unrelated to those emails, but similarly negative for Brash: as leader of the opposition, you know you must be doing something wrong when, three weeks out from the election, a British broadsheet deigns to publish a leader/editorial which amounts to an absolute smackdown under the headline Foot in Mouth Disease. Normally, you wouldn't expect much coverage of the NZ election campaign in the UK at all, especially not three weeks before polling day, but an editorial? And one which contains the line Don Brash, the aptly named leader of the centre-right National party ... Yikes!

3) Though Zimbabwe has largely disappeared from the news in the last few weeks, no news is not in this case good news. Just because you're not hearing about it on your television or in your paper doesn't mean the crisis has not deepened.

4) Have you heard about the Flying Spaghetti Monster and the Pastafarians? It's a spoof religion designed to show up the "intelligent design" movement for what it is, and it's most amusing. Today's New York Times has an interesting article about the movement which is worth a read. (You might find that that link requires free subscription. Sometimes it does. Sometimes it doesn't. Just give it a try.)

5) Finally, I've found an American article about the Lance Armstrong doping debacle that is balanced and presents both sides of the argument, rather than simply touting a blinkered, cheerleading, no-way-Jose kind of line. Tellingly, it's in the International Herald Tribune, a paper that is aimed at the overseas market. Make of that what you will. Definitely worth a read though. We want to believe him, but do we dare? [Hat-tip to M.P. Black].

Anyway, that's plenty for one post. Blog lite might unfortunately continue a bit over the coming weeks as I get myself sorted out in the new job and the new flat. So if I go AWOL at any stage, you'll know why: I'm doing battle with German "efficiency".

This will be my last post on the new All Blacks haka, I promise. It's not that important as an issue, I know, but it caught my interest enough at the weekend that I wanted to cover it thoroughly. And now, thanks to Russell Brown at Public Address, (from whom I pinched them) I can complete the picture by posting the words and their English translation.

Here then, in all its glory, is the text of the new All Black haka, Kapa o Pango:

KIA WHAKAWHENUA AU I AHAU!
Let me become one with the land

HI AUE, HI!!
KO AOTEAROA E NGUNGURU NEI!
This is our land that rumbles

AU, AU, AUE HA!
And it's my time! It's my moment!

KO KAPA O PANGO E NGUNGURU NEI !
This defines us as the All Blacks

AU, AU, AUE HA!
It's my time! It's my moment!

I AHAHA!
KA TU TE IHIIHI
Our dominance

KA TU TE WANAWANA
Our supremacy will triumph

KI RUNGA KI TE RANGI E TU IHO NEI, TU IHO NEI, HI!
And will be placed on high

PONGA RA!
Silver fern!

KAPA O PANGO, AUE HI!
All Blacks!

PONGA RA!
Silver fern!

KAPA O PANGO, AUE HI, HA!
All Blacks!

Love it! Excellent stuff.

In my Good news Saturday post yesterday, I mentioned the fact that the All Blacks have a new haka, called Kapa o Pango. As I said yesterday, I really liked it. I found it very impressive and suitably terrifying. I particularly liked the throat-slitting flourish at the end (see photo).



Anyway, as was to be expected, the new haka has attracted a lot of attention at home in New Zealand. The reaction seems to have been very positive, from what I've seen. For those of you who are interested, here are a few links with more details about and discussion of the new haka:

One News: All Blacks unleash dramatic new haka (Click on the related video link under the photo of Piri Weepu to see the Sports News item about the haka including footage from the match.)

Stuff.co.nz: All Blacks dance to different tune

Scoop.co.nz: Audio - Radio Live's Media Pack (The first ten minutes or so of this radio show features extensive discussion of the new haka).

Allblacks.com (The two relevant video clips are Relive the new All Blacks haka and Kapa O Pango - the birth of a new haka.)

Excellent stuff. I'm pleased for the players who were behind this new initiative that it has been so well received. Good on them! Just as well New Zealand came from behind to win yesterday, because if they'd lost, you know what it would have been blamed on don't you?

Fingers crossed for the people of Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi tonight - especially the residents of New Orleans who face mandatory evacuation - as Hurricane Katrina bears down. Katrina, now a category 5 storm (that's the highest possible rating), is expected to make landfall in Louisiana
Yikes! Sounds nasty and very, very serious. I wish all of those in the path of the storm all the best. May you be able to return to your homes as soon as possible, may your homes still be there when you return, and most of all may you be safe. You are in my thoughts tonight. Good luck and best wishes.

My beloved All Blacks obliged me this morning by providing today's good news: in a hard-fought nail-biting test match at Carisbrook in Dunedin, they beat South Africa 31 - 27. It was an excellent match, with both teams battling hard throughout. But it was a little bit too close for my tastes, with the All Blacks having to come from behind with only a few minutes to go to secure the win. However, a win's a win, and it means that as long as New Zealand win next week's match against Australia, they'll have sewn up the Tri Nations Series. Excellent.

Match reports are here (Planet Rugby), and here (NZ Herald).

Also, much to my surprise as I'd heard nothing about it in advance, the All Blacks cracked out a new haka. Apparently it was written especially for them.

The All Blacks performed a new haka on Saturday before the Tri-Nations Test against South Africa on Saturday.

The new haka is called Kapa o Pango and was written for the team by Tikanga authority Derek Lardelli of Ngati Porou, and will be the second haka for the team alongside the traditional Ka Mate.

Captain Tana Umaga said: "We want to add to the team's tradition of haka with this new one. We have a lot of players from a lot of different cultures and haka is one of the things that brings us together.

[Source: sport.virgin.net. More detail available at Ireland Online.]

I liked it. A lot. It's longer than Ka Mate, more demonstrative and more intense. Excellent stuff.

UPDATE: There's an excellent analysis of yesterday's test match in today's Scotsman on Sunday. Worth a read.

Remember my post a few days ago about Germans reserving sun-loungers with their towels? Remember how I said that a legal eagle had looked into it and found that a towel-reservation is not legally binding and that you'd be well within your rights to remove a towel and claim the lounger for yourself? Well, I didn't factor in the threat of violence. Check this out:

German pensioner attacks woman over poolside chair

BERLIN: An elderly German grew so attached to a poolside deckchair that he attacked a woman who moved his towel to another lounger.

When the 76-year-old pensioner returned to his favourite spot at a pool in the central town of Bad Endbach, he was enraged to find the woman, 29, had moved his towel to an unoccupied lounger so she could lie down next to her mother.

The other chair was just the same "but he didn't want to use that one," said a police spokesman in nearby Marburg.

When abusive language failed to shift the woman, the furious senior citizen got physical.

"He tipped the chair over and her with it," the spokesman said. "She couldn't believe he went so far over such a trifle."

[Source: Stuff.co.nz. Hat-tip to Nestles for the link.]

See?!? You might just want to weigh it all up before you go unilaterally moving someone's carefully placed towel-reservation. Does the knowledge that you are legally in the right and the satisfaction of getting a comfy sun-lounger outweigh the potential threat to your health from an angry German pensioner with his nose out of joint? Your call.

Ladies and gentlemen, we have an election on our hands! This morning, the highest German court, the Bundesverfassungsgericht (federal constitutional court) ruled in a majority seven to one verdict against the legal challenges from two MPs, one from the Social Democrats (SPD) and on from the Greens. This removes the final hurdle, allowing the planned early general election to go ahead on September 18th, i.e. in less than four weeks' time. Though this decision does not come as a huge surprise, this is the first time since Chancellor Schröder announced his intention back in May to hold early elections that we have actually known for certain that they will go ahead.

Deutsche Welle reports:

An early general election in Germany will take place on Sept. 18 after the country's constitutional court judges on Thursday threw out complaints challenging the constitutionality of an early poll.

Germany's highest court on Thursday gave the go-ahead for an early general election, removing the final hurdle to the September 18 poll.

The federal constitutional court ruled seven-to-one to reject the complaints of two lawmakers who had argued that Chancellor Gerhard Schröder's deliberate loss of a parliamentary no-confidence to bring the poll forward by one year violated Germany's Basic Law.

"The complaints are unfounded," the court's vice-president Winfried Hassemer said. "We have come to a clear decision."

This decision will be popular with the electorate, the vast majority of whom wanted early elections to be held and consider them both necessary and a good idea. But, from what I've read in the lead-up to this decision, I suspect that there will be considerable complaints from constitutional lawyers, who see the Schröder's deliberate loss of the vote of confidence as a farce and the court's decision as a perpetuating a worrying precedent first set in 1983 of the constitutional court kowtowing to the wishes of the leading politicians of the day.

But at least now we know it's all go.

So, I see that French sports newspaper L'Equipe has broken the big story which can surely surprise no one who actually knows anything about cycling: re-tests of Lance Armstrong's urine samples from the 1999 Tour de France show traces of erythropoietin (known as Epo) - a banned performance-enhancing drug which increases oxygen-carrying capacity of red blood cells. Surprise, surprise!

The thing is, back in 1999, even though Epo was banned, there was no reliable test for it. The athletes knew this. A reliable test for Epo was brought in at the 2000 Olympics in Sydney and has been in use ever since. Hence, it is also no surprise that back-dated tests on Armstrong's samples from 2000 onwards turn up nothing. In other words, it looks very much like Armstrong - just like other cyclists in the peloton - was using Epo while he knew he could get away with it, and stopped as soon as he knew he would get caught. No surprise there. Or at least none to me. Other cyclists and big-wigs in the cycling world such as Jean-Marie LeBlanc, Hein Verbruggen, Jan Ullrich et al are all going through the motions of being shocked, disappointed and concerned, but in reality they know the score. They know as well as everybody else that much of the professional cycling peloton uses banned substances much of the time. They know that there was always every chance that Armstrong was too, like everyone else, but just hadn't been caught yet. The consternation and shock is all just for show. That lot will be the ones who are the least surprised of all.

Anyway, surprised or not, this is going to be big. There's much more to be said about this issue yet. There are big question marks, for example, over the way the French laboratory has handled the release of the test results. There is almost certainly enough doubt to ensure that Armstrong will escape any official sanction through the courts because of a lack of evidence. But in fact it's bigger than that. This is about Lance's legacy. This is about America's and the world's desire for a whiter-than-white, faultless sporting hero who overcame all the odds to succeed in ways that nobody ever imagined possible. Anything scandalous which shakes the world's confidence in that mythical status and image will be big.

Want to know my prediction for how this will pan out?

1. No court action or official sanction will be able to be brought against Armstrong.


2. Everyone in France will claim that they knew that all along (I mean, how could un Americain be that much better than all the Frenchies for so long without cheating?) The French will feel vindicated and smug and will pretend that this means they can discount the whole era Armstrong. (Along the way, they will conveniently fail to recall that their own national hero and five-times Tour winner, Jacques Anquetil, won all his races fuelled by, at the very least, banned amphetamines).


3. Some people in the non-French cycling community will say they are shocked, some will say they are not surprised and suspected it all along, but deep down they will all know that even if he did use banned substances, Armstrong was not alone in doing so, and was still considerably better than all the other cyclists of his generation. For them, this might take some of the gloss off it all, but it won't erase the whole of Armstrong's achievements.


4. The American Armstrong fans, most of whom - as far I can tell - don't actually know anything about cycling, or care about cycling, will dismiss this as anti-American, anti-Lance, French witch-huntery and jealousy. They will ignore any evidence put before them, highlight and make a big deal out of every question mark and discrepancy and delude themselves into believing that their hero really is the faultless Mr. Perfection they desperately want him to be.


5. Lance himself will maintain his innocence no matter what happens. Since he will never be convicted of anything, or officially sanctioned, he will be able to keep up the same story he's stuck to all along - just as all the other cyclists pretend they don't take drugs either. His reputation will take a big hit in Europe but much less of a hit in America. He will still go on to be Governor of Texas. He may even become a Senator one day. He will surprise everyone by turning out to be a Democrat, not a Republican. (When that happens, remember that you read it here first).

I could be wrong on some of those, but I doubt it.

Just by way of example of how this is all going to pan out, today, a day after L'Equipe ran the original story, we have Michael Wilbon in the Washington Post in denial about the whole thing, Tour de France director, Jean-Marie LeBlanc reported in the Guardian as feeling "let down" by Armstrong, Armstrong himself apparently saying on his website (though I can't verify that because it is currently down): "I will simply restate what I have said many times: I have never taken performance-enhancing drugs" as well as labelling L'Equipe's investigation as "tabloid journalism" and a "witch-hunt". 

The best analysis I've seen of the affair and of L'Equipe's motivations so far is this column in the Guardian by Richard Williams. Short on hysteria, long on cool analysis and historical fact.

But it's all bollocks if you ask me. Regardless of how this ends, Lance Armstrong will still be a great cyclist and a role model. Perhaps not the spotless one we might have been able to believe he was up until now, granted, but a role model nonetheless.

So Lance Armstrong apparently used performance enhancing drugs and won doing it. So what? So did Jacques Anquetil. So, with almost absolute certainty did Eddy Merckx. So does much of the professional cycling peloton at any given time. Sure, they are smart and well-advised and know when to stop and what other masking concoctions to take in order not to be caught out. Only occasionally does someone slip up and get caught. That's not because they're the only ones doping. It's because they're the only ones who messed up, got their timing wrong and got caught. 

So really, it's a level playing field. In a bunch of professional cyclists, most of whom are using illegal substances to go faster for longer, Lance was consistently the fastest for the longest. That makes him a great cyclist. A 6 year-old positive B sample doesn't change that in the slightest, to my mind.

Sure, it would be nice to believe that we live in a world where almost all professional athletes are honest and their athletic achievements are natural and their own. It would be nice to believe that the doping cheats who get caught and vilified are the only ones not playing by the rules and are the rotten exceptions in an otherwise utterly honourable field. And it would be nice to believe that Lance Armstrong was the king amongst all those flawless athletes. But that is just not the way it is. That is not the way it's ever been either. And I seriously doubt that, especially when winning means so much in terms of pecuniary gain for all sorts of interested parties, that is the way it will ever be. To believe otherwise is, in my view, to delude oneself utterly.

To put it all another way: so apparently Lance used banned substances? Gee, what a surprise! Who'd a thunk it. So what?

Ruth over at Chaos Theory posted this gem and I've shamelessly pinched it.

The Pre-Conceptual Scientist

Ruth reckons it reminds her of most politicians and environmentalists. Can't argue too strongly with that, though I would add opponents of environmentalists to that list as well. Isn't it amazing how you can reach completely opposite conclusions from the same data, depending on what you're looking for?

Terrifyingly enough though, there is actually more than a grain of truth in this for almost all the scientists I've ever met. Not so much in the disregard-all-evidence-to -the-contrary aspect of it, but certainly in the decide-on-the-conclusion- before-doing-the-research sense. Either way, I reckon the cartoon is dead funny, exactly because it is so true.

And since we're on science and pseudo-science, make sure to check out this Onion article on the new theory of "Intelligent falling." [Hat-tip to Russell Brown]. Biting satire at its best. You gotta love it.

Thanks to regular commenter Kiwi in Zurich, who, as the nom-de-web would suggest, lives in Switzerland (though not, in fact, in Zurich, go figure!) I now have an eye-witness account of the floods to share with you. And thanks to Kiwi's husband, Maesi, I even have photos of the effects of the flooding in their home town to share. You won't get any of this stuff on the news websites or in the paper. This, for the first time ever, is a BerlinBear scoop!

Kiwi in Zurich writes:

This morning when I headed to work the road to the railway station was under a rather large puddle of water, but nothing that I couldn't and wasn't able to deal with. At least in the sense that I tried to jump it, landed in it (this white boy just can't jump), shook the water off my suit pants and shoes and headed to the station where the train was replaced by a bus.

Thanking Swiss efficiency I made it to the office without much delay and got on with the day.

Later in the morning I received a call from a rather distressed Maesi (who much to his and his students’ disappointment was at home as school was closed because of the flooding.)

Apparently the town alarms were ringing because there was a chance that a dam further up the valley was in jeopardy of breaking. Maesi was already downstairs in the cellar in the dark with all the rest of the inhabitants of our apartment building trying to remove stuff to safety. (All Swiss buildings have nuclear bomb shelters, that also substitute as storage space, in the bottom of them. ... why do they have bunkers? Well, in a phrase, one day they will say 'I told you so').

He called me again after the contents of the cellar were relocated to the apartment and let me know that the dam was secure and that he was going to head out and take some photos (see attached). I couldn't quite believe it when I saw the photos. For those of you who are yet to visit us and haven't seen it, Stansstad is dissected by the Luzern-Milan autobahn, is surrounded by Lake Luzern on two sides and a mountain on the other. Apparently as a result of all of the mountain run-off the lake had burst its banks and flowed into a good deal of Stansstad, both directly and through the now completely dysfunctional storm-water system.

Arriving in Stansstad this evening I found that one side of the railway subway had been transformed into lakeside and the other had become something of a cross between a canal and an extension of the lake. Figuring there was no alternative, standing outside the local post office I took off my shoes, socks, dropped my suit pants, donned my gym shorts and waded into the morass. The water went up to about my knees and was only improved by the thin layer of oil floating on the top. I had visions of a smoker carelessly throwing a ciggy into it and causing a raging inferno and me swimming under the surface, holding my breath for a fantastic length of time and saving two orphaned children while maintaining the appearance I just stepped out of the hair salon. Fortunately the most exciting thing was Heidi at the post office seeing me, albeit briefly, in my boxer shorts.

And seriously now, five people as well as two fire fighters have been killed by the floods and land slides. Current estimates of damage are around 600 million NZD. Large tracts of central and Eastern Switzerland have been ravaged but we are all safe and dry and the rain has stopped in the meantime at least. Let's hope it stays that way.

Thanks again KiZ and Maesi for the extra details and the photos. They are much appreciated. It's great to be able to flesh out the story and put a slightly more human perspective on it. Most of all though, I'm very glad to hear that you two are ok. Like you, I hope it stays that way.

The big news here in Germany today is the flooding that is going on down south Bavaria, as well as in Austria and Switzerland. German authorities have said that the situation in parts of Bavaria is worse than the big floods in 1999. Given that that was, at the time, described as the "flood of the century", this is clearly a very serious incident. As yet, thankfully, there have been no deaths in Bavaria. The Swiss and the Austrians, however, have not fared so well with six deaths reported in Austria and Switzerland. The weather forecast for southern Germany is for further heavy rain in the next days, so things could yet get considerably worse.

Deutsche Welle has the full story from the Bavarian perspective.

BBC News focusses its attention on Switzerland.

German news magazine Der Stern has an astonishing series of photos of the flooding, such as the one on the left. You can find them here. The captions are all in German, I'm afraid, but the pictures rather speak for themselves.

Let's hope that it doesn't get too much worse before it gets better. It looks like enough damage has been done already.

Oh man, how does Germany do it? How does a country of just 80 million people produce such weird news stories so frequently. This one though, aside from being weird, is also tragically sad and, frankly, pretty disgusting.

Expatica reports:

WUPPERTAL, GERMANY - Police in Germany Friday said a 54- year-old man watched television in his living-room next to the decomposed body of his wife for more than a year - because he loved her so much.

The 53-year-old woman apparently succumbed to complications from chronic alcoholism in April 2004. Her body was found on the floor next to the living room sofa after the landlord summoned police on a hunch. An autopsy revealed no indication of foul play.

The husband said the two had spent their happiest times together in front of the TV set and he could not bear to part with her.

Police waived criminal charges, handing him over to psychiatrists for counselling.

If you ask me, this story is just desperately sad. OK, so that guy clearly has a big problem and needs help. It sounds like he's needed help for quite some time, and it's a pretty sad commentary on society that it took a year for anyone to even notice that his wife had died. At least he's getting some help now. Better late than never.

But, I have to wonder this: It's all well and good this man saying he could not bear to part with her, but what I want to know is how he could bear to be around her corpse for a whole year. I have no direct experience with this, but I imagine that after a year a corpse that has not been embalmed gets, well, pretty whiffy (to put it mildly). How did he handle it? Can your sense of grief and loss be so strong that it can overwhelm your sense of smell?

As I say, weird, revolting and very, very sad.

My SiteMeter stat counter tells me that shortly after I went to bed last night, my 15,000th visitor stopped by. It was someone from Leicester in the UK. He or she stayed for three minutes. Whoever you were, welcome! I hope you liked what you found.

I'm told that SiteMeter undercounts visits. Maybe, who knows? I certainly know that the tBlog stat counter overcounts because it currently tells me that I've had 45,011 visitors, which is patently nonsense.

None of it really matters, of course, but it is rewarding to see so many of you stopping by to read my drivellings and takes on the world. You're all welcome, as ever.

Remember the Piano Man, the mysteriously silent, piano playing chap I've blogged about on a couple of occasions before? Well, he's gone home. To Germany no less. (The weird and wonderful ones are always German, have you noticed!?)

Apparently his condition improved, he started talking, said he was from Germany and that he wanted to go home. So he's gone. The only problem from the point of view of inquisitive members of the public such as myself is that, because of patient confidentiality, the hospital which was treating him is not able to release any more details than that.

BBC News has the story:

A national newspaper reported on Monday the man finally broke his silence, stated he was German, and flew home.

West Kent NHS and Social Care Trust would not comment because of patient confidentiality but the German government confirmed he was Bavarian. The man, who was said to be an excellent pianist, was found on Sheppey in April and taken into care.

On Monday, the German foreign ministry said the 20-year-old man flew home on Saturday. He has not been named by officials.

The health trust said the patient had been discharged following a marked improvement in his condition but the rules regarding patient confidentiality meant there would be no further statement.

I would so very dearly love to know more! I'm pleased for the Piano Man that he seems to have "come around" and that his health has improved. That seems like a happy ending, especially since it was only a couple of weeks ago that staff at the hospital were saying that they thought he may never be identified.

I shall keep my eyes peeled for any further info in the German newspapers about the Piano Man, but by the sounds of things, we ought not to be holding our breaths. That might be all the detail we are ever going to hear.

[Thanks to Miss Behaviour whose eagle eyes spotted the story and passed it on without delay]

Way back in April I blogged about exploding toads here in Germany. Well, here's another amphibian-related post. According to Nova - ScienceNow, there is a species of frog in the US which freezes every Winter, completely, only to thaw out again once the warmer weather comes in Spring. The species in question is apparently the common wood frog. I'd say that for a common frog it has a pretty uncommon ability.

Click on the link below to watch a 4 min 25 sec video of this frog with a freezing trick. It's weird and amazing and definitely worth the click. (The link should give you a choice of Quick Time, Real Video and Windows Media and high or low connection speeds.)

I missed the boat on this story by more than a week, but I couldn't let it pass without at least devoting some attention to it, even if it is very belated.

Last Saturday, August 13th, the former Prime Minister of New Zealand, David Lange, whom I've blogged about before, passed away after a long illness. He was 63. While his death took no one by surprise, it is nonetheless sad to see the passing of the first politician to really capture my interest and imagination, especially at what is these days a very young age.

The New Zealand online news website Scoop has lots of coverage, commentary, reflections from friends and colleagues, as well as video from the public memorial service which was held in Auckland yesterday.

In addition, the following obituaries are all worth a read.

The New Zealand Herald.

The Guardian.

The Independent.

It's an indication of how important a political figure Lange was that the big UK broadsheets also published obituaries of him. That is by no means a given when a New Zealand politician passes away. Developments in New Zealand on rarely figure in the British newspapers.

Two more David Lange links: Russell Brown at Public Address has managed to get his hands on the audio of David Lange's speech at the Oxford Union, arguing the proposition that "Nuclear weapons are morally indefensible". The audio link is here. Have a listen, it's entertaining and impressive stuff. A secondly, check out the Wikiquote David Lange page. There are some real gems in there. My personal favourite has always been this one:

When asked: "Prime Minister, I wonder if we might have a brief word..." by a journalist, Lange replied: "Wombat."

I actually met David Lange once. I was seven. It was 1983 and he had recently become the leader of the Labour party, but was not yet the Prime Minister. It was a Saturday and I was helping my father move offices. (Thinking about it now, I'm pretty sure my Dad must just have been getting me out of my Mum's hair for an afternoon, because I can't have been that much help with the office move, being seven and still very little, but that's beside the point).

We were finished for the afternoon and were about to head home. We went down in the lift and walked out of the lobby on to Queen St., Auckland's main street. From a few metres away, someone called my Dad's name. We turned around and I was stunned and very impressed to see that it was someone I recognised from the television.

I knew exactly who this man was. He was unmistakeable, not least because of his enormous girth. David Lange was calling out my Dad's name! Wow!

Anyway, up came David Lange, shook my Dad's hand (I found out later that they knew each other from university days) and said hello. My Dad introduced me and he shook my hand and said hello to me too.

I was little. He was huge. And he was famous. And he knew my Dad. And my Dad knew him. Suffice it to say, I was impressed! Until, that is, in the course of chatting with my Dad for a few minutes, he shifted and stood on my littel seven year-old foot. It wasn't just a passing weight shift either. Not noticing that he was standing on my foot, he stayed there and kept chatting for a few more minutes.

I was too awed and too fascinated by the fact that David Lange was chatting to my Dad to dare to disturb the conversation to ask him to get off my foot. So I just grinned and bore it and waited for him to move.

Eventually, he did and goodbyes were said we parted ways. My Dad took my hand and we headed off down the street with me saying excitedly "Dad, Dad, did you see that? David Lange was standing on my foot! Honestly, the whole time you were talking, Dad, he was standing on my foot!" My Dad wasn't quite as impressed by that as I was. He didn't seem to understand the momentousness of it all. But then, he wasn't seven, so how could he be expected to get it?

Here is a news story which will warm the hearts of anyone who has ever been on holiday to somewhere that is a popular destination for German tourists, like for example Mallorca, or the Costa del Sol.

If you've been to one of those places, the chances are high that you were sharing the beach or the pool area with Germans who loved to lie in the sun. And if that was the case, then the chances are high that by the time you made it to the beach or the pool area - even if you were up early and headed down straight after breakfast - all the sun loungers were taken. Furthermore, it is likely that the sun loungers were not all taken with actual German bodies but rather German beach towels, carefully spread out to mark the territory.

If you're anything like me, you may have a) been rather frustrated by this, especially since the actual Germans often don't turn up to lie on their sun loungers they have claimed until much later in the day, and/or b) wondered how on earth they do it?!? How do they claim all the sun loungers before you make it to the pool every morning, no matter how early you get up?

Well, I have some good news for you: German lawyer Ralf Höcker has looked into it and discovered that a towel-on-sun-lounger-type reservation is not legally binding and you are completely within your rights to remove the towel and take the sun lounger. Seriously, it's true.

Good news for all those holidaymakers who have woken at dawn in an attempt to beat the Germans to the best-placed sun loungers: the act of securing the possession of any form of poolside or beach situated furniture by way of a strategically deployed towel is not legally binding.

The legal revelation will come as a blow for all those German tourists who believe that the draping of a towel is enough to secure possession. And it will hit them harder still to discover that it was one of their own countrymen who discovered it.

"A British tourist would be quite within their legal rights to ignore the reservation implied by the towels if there is nobody there," said Cologne-based lawyer Ralf Höcker, the author of the New Dictionary of Popular Legal Errors -- the follow-up to the first volume which spent 20 weeks on the German bestseller list last year.

He did, however, advise a diplomatic approach to dealing with a towel covered chair and stressed that there were no grounds for removal if the lounger had been hired officially.

Höcker, who runs a law firm that represents celebrities including supermodel Heidi Klum, has spent the best part of 20 years trawling through obscure books on Spanish and German law in his research into rules which people believe to be legal but are in fact not.

Read the rest of this Deutsche Welle story here.

Well, there you have it. Remove the towels, take the loungers, and sun yourself on holiday with all the confidence in the world that you're in the right. But good luck explaining that to the angry German who thought his or her sun lounger was safely reserved from the crack of dawn!

OK, this is in relatively poor tase, but it is funny, so I had to share.

Click on the photo below to see Saddam Hussein play rock - paper - scissors, in court no less. If you have an ounce of humour in you, you'll be splitting your sides.

Saddam says: Paper!

[Hat-tip to regular commenter Cufflinks for the link.]

Morris G. Cat

Hello, my name is Morris G. Cat. I am Mr. and Ms. Bear's new kitten. The G., apparently, stands for Garages, which Mr. Bear thinks is hilarious, but seems lost on most people, as it is on me. Mostly though, I get called Womble, or Kitten Boy, or Boy Wonder. I don't really mind what they call me, to be honest. As long as they keep bringing on the kitten food and the cuddles, I'm as happy as Larry (though no one yet has called me that).

I am 3 months and 2 weeks old. My father is a British Short Hair. My mother is a European Short Hair/House cat mix, though Ms. Bear suspects there might have been some Siamese in there somewhere, based on my sleek Asian-looking face. As you can see from the photos, I am mostly black, though some patterning shows through the black and I also have tufts of white on my throat and my stomach, and just a hint of white about my eyebrows.

I like: lounging, galloping, playing, standing on my hind paws and using my front paws to bat things away like a bear (Mr. Bear says this is very apposite, though I don't know what he means by that), scratching, eating, jumping on top of the television and trying to catch the moving things behind the screen with my paws, and jumping around on Mr. and Ms. Bear when they are lying in bed. But most of all I like cuddles.

I like it here in the Bear Lair. The Bears give good cuddles, provide lots of food, are good at kitten games and, best of all, they pretty much do whatever I want them to do. I hope I can stay here for a long time.

I'm so glad to have alert readers. It makes coming up with this stuff so much easier. The material for this post was brought to you by regular commenters Kiwi in Zurich and M. P. Black, and by Scandinavia, which provides the setting for both of these cool stories.

First up, a truly weird story from Sweden that was brought to my attention by Kiwi in Zurich. It's short and sweet, so I'm going to include it here in full, but if you're interested in checking out the source, you'll find the story here.

Sweden's innovative new library

Aug 17, 2005

It is hoped a Swedish library project that allows people to "borrow" a human may provide useful insight into those with different beliefs, sexual orientation or lifestyles.

The Malmö Library Library in southern Sweden says the Living Library project will enable people to spend time with others they hold prejudices against, in the hopes of altering their preconceived notions.

The library says the 9 people available for loan this weekend include a homosexual, a Muslim religious leader, an animal rights campaigner, a journalist, and a gypsy. Members of the public will be able to borrow them for a 45 minute conversation in the library's outdoor cafe.

Well, the word unorthodox springs to mind. I wonder if it will get much take-up, and if it does, whether or not it will work. I think it sounds like a cool idea, and I think that if I were at the library anyway and this initiative came to my attention, I might well want to loan a human for a chat. It'd certainly be an interesting, unusual experience. And you never know, one might just learn something new. From that list, I think I'd start with the Muslim religious leader and move on to the gypsy, both of whom I'd be very interested to hear more from. I wonder though if there are systems in place to prevent the "humans on loan" from just being abused or otherwise lambasted by lenders who have something other in mind that the people who set up the programme? I hope so. Anyway, interesting stuff, I reckon.

Also interesting stuff, and fitting just nicely with the whole BerlinBear vibe I'm cultivating on this blog, is this next story which M. P. Black brought to my attention. It seems that scientists in Norway have managed to track the swimming patterns of a female polar bear and were quite astounded to find out how far she swam.

Scientists have tracked a tagged polar bear swimming at least 74 km in just one day -- and maybe up to 100 km -- providing the first conclusive proof the bears can cover such giant distances in the water.

Bears often roam thousands of kilometres in a year in search of prey such as seals and there has often been anecdotal evidence of prodigious ursine swims, with bears turning up on remote islands or across wide bays.

However, previously there had been doubts about whether the bears had walked over ice part of the way or hitched a ride on an iceberg. "What's new this time is that we have data showing how long the bear was in the water," Jon Aars, a researcher at the Norwegian Polar Institute, said on Friday. "This is the first time that such a long swim has been documented by satellite telemetry for polar bears," the institute added.

The female bear, equipped with a satellite tracking device, entered the water on the east of the Norwegian Arctic island of Spitsbergen early on July 20, swam northeast and re-emerged on the island of Edgeoya a day later. A sensor on the bear's collar sent different signals when it was in salty sea water compared to on land or on ice. "This is an astonishing swim," Aars said, saying it showed that polar bears could in many ways be classified as marine mammals -- a group including whales and dolphins.

Aars said the bear, dubbed "Skadi" after a Norse goddess of snow, had probably swum closer to 100 km (62 miles) since the bear almost certainly did not swim the 74 km (46 miles) between the two points in an exact straight line. The bear covered the gap in about 24 hours, giving an average speed of 3-4 kmh -- about as fast as a person walking.

Read the rest of this story (spoiler: sadly, it turns out her cubs have died) here.

Go Skadi! I'm impressed. Though BerlinBear has also been known to roam for miles in search of prey (more likely to be kebabs, beer or chocolate than seals in my case!), swimming up to 100km in one day is definitely not on the cards. I'm knackered after just a few lengths of the pool, hence the ultimate respect for a bear who can put back at least 74km in a day. I just hope that the trip turned out to be worth it for her.

Thanks again to the astute readers. Any other readers who come across stories that they think would go well on my blog, feel free to drop me a line. My email address is in the right hand sidebar. You can't miss it.

Q: What is the best thing to do with left over ice cream or ice block sticks when you've finished with them?

A: Well, obviously, the best thing to do is to collect 15 million of them and, umm, build a boat out of them. Ideally, build a 15m long replica of a Viking longboat. No, seriously, check it out:

A replica Viking longboat made out of 15 million ice cream sticks has been launched in Amsterdam harbour.

The ship was painstakingly glued together by former Hollywood stuntman Robert McDonald and two friends - a job that took two years. The sticks were collected by children all over the world. Mr McDonald is claiming the world record for the biggest boat made that way. He hopes to sail the 15m (50ft) ship across the Atlantic. The ship carried a crew of 20 on its maiden voyage.

"It's a dream come true. It's truly worth all the hard work," said Mr McDonald, quoted by Reuters news agency. "I never want to look at glue again. I don't think I will be in a hurry to look at ice cream sticks again."

The 45-year-old, from Jacksonville, Florida, is president of the Sea Heart Foundation, an organisation which runs projects for children in need.

[Source: BBC News]

If you're interested in the project as a whole, check out the Sea Heart Viking Ship Project website.

I'm afraid it's been blog lite around these parts for a couple of days. I've had lots to do and very little time for blogging. I haven't even had time to respond to all your comments. And today is not likely to be any different either. Apologies to those of you who are hanging out for your next Bear fix. I hope to get a chance to have a crack late tonight or tomorrow.

There's so much to cover that has happened in the last couple of days too: the New Zealand Aussie Rules team has won the International Cup; Ms. Bear and I have acquired a new kitten; former New Zealand Prime Minister David Lange, whom I've blogged about on several occasions, has sadly passed away; the Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza strip has begun in earnest; George W. Bush has continued in his bellicose ways, this time vis-a-vis Iran; Japan has finally apologised for its War Crimes in the Asian region (only 60 years too late); and I still haven't had a chance to turn all your contranym suggestions into a post. There's no way I'll be able to cover all of that even when normal service resumes, but I'll have a crack at covering at least some of those things.

In the meantime though, I shall leave you with a link to a story which is excellent news. Yesterday, in Helsinki, representatives of the Indonesian Government and of the Free Aceh Movement (GAM), signed a peace deal to end nearly three decades of hostilities in the region that was so devastated by the Tsunami in December of last year. BBC News has the details.

Also worth a read is this op-ed piece in the International Herald Tribune by the Indonesian President himself, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.

After a couple of weeks of hiatus, Good news Saturday is back. This week's installment is a piece of news which is close to my heart as a linguist. Via the Globe and Mail comes the good news that the U.S. government has increased funding to save dying languages by means of the directorate of Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences at the National Science Foundation.

No one here speaks that

Washington — Every two weeks or so, the last elderly man or woman with full command of a particular language dies. At that rate, as many as 2,500 native tongues will disappear forever by 2100.

David Lightfoot is helping spearhead a U.S. government initiative to preserve some of these dying languages, believing that each is a window into the human mind that can benefit the world at large.

“If we are going to lose half the world's languages, that endangers our capacity to understand the genetic basis of language,” said Mr. Lightfoot, who heads the directorate of Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences at the National Science Foundation.

The foundation recently joined the National Endowment for the Humanities in the effort to preserve languages.

The project has awarded $4.4-million to 26 institutions and 13 individual scholars to investigate the status of 70 languages that are believed to be endangered and to help preserve them. The project is now asking researchers to apply for additional grants, with the expectation that at least $2-million a year will be available.

Some experts say there are up to 10,000 different languages left in the world; others put the estimate thousands lower, depending on how many are characterized as dialects of another language.

Read the rest of what is a fascinating article here.

In my book, any government or private initiative which takes steps to save endangered or dying languages is a good thing. We know from experience, for instance with Irish Gaelic in Ireland and Welsh in Wales, that active fostering and sufficient funding of endangered languages can reverse the trend and bring about considerable upsurges in the numbers of speakers (and learners) of a given endangered language.

In other words, the sort of efforts the article is talking about can actually work. I am pleased to see that the U.S. government is investing money in attempting to save as many of the endangered languages to which America is home as possible. It seems to me a very worthwhile investment indeed in preserving a piece of America's rich cultural and linguistic heritage. And that is good news indeed.

Courtesy of my good friend Harry Bandit, here are two top laughs to end the week on a high note.

First up, for those of you who thought that vegetarians had no sense of humour, check out this series of amusing vegetable vignettes. [pdf file]

And secondly, for those of you who think that being a native speaker of English is nothing but a blessing, check out this video which has plenty of incontrovertible evidence to the contrary. [wmv file]

You've gotta love the French!

Readers of this blog know by now that both New Zealand and Germany are seemingly bottomless sources for weird and wacky news. This one, though, comes not from Germany nor New Zealand, but from the United Kingdom. This story from the Guardian is a couple of weeks old, but it has just come to my attention today and has lost none of its amusing wackiness in the meantime.

You see, at a wildlife park in the UK, a macaw named Barney has been relegated to a private cage and can now only be viewed on special request. The reason for Barney being hidden away from the public? He swore at a vicar. And the mayor. Oh, and two police officers.

A parrot with a remarkably coherent line in invective has been given a private pen at a wildlife sanctuary, after swearing repeatedly at distinguished visitors including a mayor, a vicar and two police officers.

Barney the five-year-old Macaw can now be seen only on special request, like the British Library's collection of erotic books, in case he rounds on potential donors or gives a dreadful example to visiting children.

Trained by a previous owner who had a dislike of authority, he initially appeared to be a potential draw at the Warwickshire Animal Sanctuary, Nuneaton, because of his vivid blue and gold plumage and habit of saying "Thank you, big boy," when given a digestive biscuit.

But his other side was revealed when a civic party came on a tour of the sanctuary and Barney spotted the mayor's chain and a woman vicar's dog collar.

Instead of the Benedicite ("Oh all ye fowls of the air, bless ye the Lord"), he told the mayor: "Fuck off," before turning to the vicar and saying: "You can fuck off too."

The sanctuary's owner, Geoff Grewcock, 55, said yesterday: "To their credit they didn't take offence and laughed it off - and luckily so did two policemen who were told: "And you can fuck off, you wankers."

The parrot is thought to have kept up its skills, since its owner - a retired truck driver - emigrated to Spain three years ago, by watching TV after the 9pm watershed.

[Source: The Guardian.]

It's hard to express quite how amusing I find this story. Not only do Barney's flurries of invective appear to be absolutely coherently formulated, but I am also tickled by his choice of "victims". It seems pretty obvious how his former owner viewed the Church, Civic authority and the "Thin Blue Line". You've gotta laugh.

It's not often that I just post a link without any commentary, but it's been a long and tiring day and I just can't summon the energy or the presence of mind to whip up anything more substantial this evening.

Besides, this one speaks more than eloquently for itself. Prepare to be amazed, or not, depending on your grasp of history and knowledge of U.S. - Middle East relations.

Juan Cole - Fisking the War on Terror.

[Hat-tip to Hard News and No Right Turn. (I saw it on both of those blogs and can't remember where I saw it first.)]

And with that, I bid you all good night.

Today is the 60th anniversary of the dropping of an atomic bomb on Nagasaki, killing more than 73,000 people. After Hiroshima, Nagasaki was the second Japanese city to receive the nuclear treatment in just three days. Nagasaki remains the last time that a nuclear bomb was detonated in a combat situation, for which we can all be thankful.

Meanwhile, both Iran and North Korea are actively pursuing nuclear weapons. The six-party talks with North Korea were adjourned today for three weeks, without an agreement having been reached. And the E3's (Germany, France and the United Kingdom) ongoing negotiations with Iran over the nuclear issue appear to be on an ever more precarious footing.

Given all of that, now seems like an apt time to recall a debate held at the Oxford Union on 1st March 1985 on the resolution that this House believes that nuclear weapons are morally indefensible. This debate pitted the then Prime Minister of New Zealand, David Lange, against the Reverend Jerry Falwell. Much to New Zealanders' pride and atonishment, Lange wiped the floor with Falwell and brought the house down, receiving a standing ovation in the process.

[Incidentally, David Lange, now 63, is currently in very poor health and had to have the lower part of his right leg amputated just last week. All the more reason to draw this remarkable speech to your attention at this point. I know I have mentioned it on this blog before, but it is so apt today that I think it bears revisiting.]

There follow the opening salvos of David Lange's address to the Oxford Union, which I have borrowed from Public Address:

Mr President, honourable members of the union, ladies and gentlemen … in fact if I could greet straight away - because I understand there is a direct feed to the White House tonight - if I could greet the President of the United States, who is of course of the very genesis of the proposition we are debating tonight.

A quote in Time magazine last year, an assertion by the President of the United States that nuclear weapons were immoral; his avowal reiterated in January this year in a statement over the space initiative known as SDI. And there again, he asserted that this system of the nuclear stare-out can not be sustained morally.

May I say to the honourable gentleman who preceded me, there is nothing of what I am about to say which has been conditioned in any way by my meeting with the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom yesterday …

[Laughter]

I did not meet her yesterday …

[Laughter and applause]

I am meeting her on Monday. But I know the apprehension that he feels at his constant fear of being summoned to that carpet …

[Laughter]

I also feel a considerable sympathy for the members of the opposite side, who have this extraordinary sense of destabilisation at the imminent prospect of peace breaking out.

The character of the argument, sir, is something which I find regrettable. So I can say very simply that it is my conviction that there is no moral case for nuclear weapons. That the best defence which can be made of their existence and the threat of their use is, as we have heard tonight, that they are a necessary evil; an abhorrent means to a desirable end.

I hold that the character of nuclear weapons is such that their very existence corrupts the best of intentions; that the means in fact perverts the end. And I hold that their character is such that they have brought us to the greatest of all perversions: the belief that this evil is necessary - as it has been stated tonight - when in fact it is not.

And I make my case against nuclear weapons the more vigorously because I distinguish between them and all other forms of coercive or deterrent power. I've got no case to make against the policeman's truncheon. And the people tonight who have argued that you must go to the ultimate in force every time you seek to embark upon it, is of course a surrender to the worst of morality.

I accept, and do not wish to be heard arguing here against any proposition that the state must arm itself with military force to protect its citizens against aggression or to defend the weak and the helpless against aggression.

But I do not accept that the state must for those reasons arm itself with nuclear weapons. That is a case I do not easily or lightly make in Europe where governments have held it their duty to arm themselves with nuclear weapons. I do not doubt for one moment the quality of the intention which led to that decision or that series of decisions.

And I freely acknowledge that that decision is pursued in good conscience with the honourable intention of preserving the life and freedom of the people of Western Europe. Because those governments are faced with the close presence of an alien and relentlessly oppressive regime and obviously feel it their duty to prepare for their own defence by membership in what for most governments' policy now is straightforwardly a nuclear alliance. That is an assessment I understand and I do not come here to argue for any proposition in favour of unilateral disarmament.

And if I make that acknowledgement, I must then deal with the argument that it is the intention which determines the moral character of the action. My contention is very simply that the character of nuclear weapons is such that it is demonstrably the case that they subvert the best of intentions. And the snuggling up to the nuclear arsenal which has gone on with my friends on the opposite side tonight shows at what level of sophistication and refinement that subversion takes place.

There is, Mr President, a quality of irrationality about nuclear weapons which does not sit well with good intentions. A system of defence serves its purpose if it guarantees the security of those it protects. A system of nuclear defence guarantees only insecurity. The means of defence terrorise as much as the threat of attack.

That is just the beginning. I would strongly urge you to read the rest of Lange's argumentation as to why nuclear weapons are immoral.

For what it's worth, I concur. Nuclear weapons are immoral. And I don't just mean in the hands of so-called 'rogue states' such as North Korea or Iran. I mean full stop. I mean in the hands of the governments of Russia, France, Pakistan, India, Israel, the United Kingdom, China and the United States. It is completely beyond my comprehension, now that the Cold War is over, that there has not been more progress made on nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament.

I would echo the words of the mayor of Nagasaki, Iccho Itoh, who today called for a global ban on nuclear weapons at a memorial service for the victims of the Nagasaki bombing. I'm not holding my breath, but I would love to live to see the day that nuclear weapons are consigned to the history books.

I see today that NASA's Space Shuttle Discovery has finally returned safely to earth, landing in California rather than Florida (as originally planned) due to inclement weather. Well, that is a relief for all concerned, especially after in-flight maintenance was required to repair damage to the Shuttle's heat shield.

I am reminded of a conversation I had last week with a long-lost friend from my school days. Having not seen him or heard from him for some seven years or so, I discovered quite by chance that he was living here in Berlin and we arranged to meet up. It was as if not a moment had passed. But that is beside the point. The point here is that when the conversation came around to the Space Shuttle flight and my scepticism about the benefits of being an astronaut, this friend of mine, quick as a flash, came out with the following:

If you absolutely had to be one of these, which would you rather be: an astronaut, a Chinese miner, or a Russian submariner?

He was fooling around, of course, but it turned out to be something of a prophetic statement. In the course of the week since he asked there have been, on the one hand, a dramatic rescue of the crew of a stricken Russian submarine and, on the other, two serious incidents in Chinese mines, one involving the deaths of 14 miners in a gas explosion, and the other involving 102 miners trapped and likely to die after a coal mine was flooded.

At the time, given that I had to choose one of three professions on offer, I plumped for being a Chinese miner. This was based on the theory that although several thousand Chinese miners die every year in accidents in what is the most dangerous mining industry in the world, I figured that probably there were hundreds of thousands, if not millions of miners in active duty all over China. This meant, so my reasoning went, that even though there were a lot of deaths, the statistical chances of coming out alive were probably better than on a spacecraft or a Russian submarine. I cannot prove that: it was just a hunch. But after this week's developments, in which the Russian submariners and the astronauts have emerged unscathed while the Chinese miners have not, I'm starting to wonder if I should perhaps revise my choice.

Of course, in reality, there's not a snowball's chance in hell of me doing any of those jobs, so it is neither here nor there, but it was an interesting train of thought over a few beers.

So, if you absolutely had to be either a Chinese miner, a Russian submariner or an astronaut, which would you choose?

You may recall that way back in mid May, I blogged about the mystery of the so-called "Piano Man", a tall, blonde man in his 20s or early 30s who was found soaking wet in a suit with all the labels cut out in Kent in England in early April. Since he didn't speak at all, staff at the hospital where he was being cared for gave him writing materials and he promtply drew a grand piano. So they led him to a piano, at which he proceeded to sit down and play for hours on end.

A few days after that story broke, there was speculation that the Piano Man might have been identified by a Polish mime living in Rome. However, that seems to have been a false dawn, because it was reported in The Independent yesterday that British authorities still don't know the true identity of the piano man and are beginning to despair of ever finding out who he is.

The story of the man found wandering near a remote beach in Kent with the labels cut off his dripping wet evening suit excited imaginations the world over. From Stockholm to Vancouver, calls flooded in suggesting names for the silent enigma that was Piano Man.

Now, four months later, the mute blond virtuoso remains in a psychiatric hospital in Dartford. His carers said yesterday that they believe that he may never be identified.
...
Staff at the West Kent NHS Trust are still sifting through a list of more than 200 names provided during a welter of publicity about the case when it first became public in May.

Camera crews from Germany to Japan descended on bemused citizens of the Isle of Sheppey, where Piano Man was found, as news of the talented musician in a wet suit spread around the globe. But despite a number of promising leads, ranging from suggestions that Piano Man was a French street musician to a Czech concert pianist, nothing has come to light which has given the patient a nationality, let alone a name. A source at the West Kent trust said: "We have discounted a lot of the names and continue to look at those which remain. But there is no obvious lead - we haven't had someone bashing down the door saying, 'This is my son' or 'This is my brother'.

"Given the enormous amount of publicity about Piano Man we think it surprising that someone who knows him has not come forward.

"It is possible that his family lead an isolated existence and have not seen the stories but we have to prepare ourselves for the fact that we may never know who he is and that he may be with us for a long time."
...
Psychiatrists do not know why the man, who continues to shrink from any stranger, has not spoken a word for four months. Diagnoses of his condition initially focused on post-traumatic stress disorder but it is now thought he may be an autistic savant. Sufferers of the condition can display extraordinary but highly specific talents, such as drawing or mathematics, while at the same time remaining withdrawn or uncommunicative to the point of remaining silent.

The removal of labels from clothing can also be associated with autism.

Officially the trust will not comment on the young man's treatment beyond saying that his physical health remains good. But it is understood he is showing increasing signs of rapport with a small number of trusted carers.

Read the rest of this story here.

Now, as when it first broke in May, I find this story fascinating, disconcerting and odd in about equal measure. The suggestion that he might be an autistic savant is a new one, but it would seem to ring true. Either way, it is weird that, despite all the publicity, no one has come forward to "claim" him as a member of their family. I hope they eventually find out who he is, both for the Piano Man's sake and for the sake of whoever might be missing him. If and when they do finally identify him, I'll be sure to let you know.

The photo part of yesterday's edition of Sunday pop quiz was solved correctly within about 15 minutes of my posting it by Joe Hendren. As Joe rightly guessed, the photo was of one of the horses that form the statue atop Berlin's Brandenburg Gate. Specifically, it was the one on the far right in the photo below, though I didn't expect quite that much detail.

Up close, and from below, the statue looks like this:

From a little further back, so that you can see the statue in its entirety, it looks like this:

The Brandenburg Gate, one of the symbols of Berlin, has long and interesting history. The Berlin Senate website explains in detail:

The Brandenburg Gate is the trademark of Berlin. The main entrance to the city, surrounded by the wall for thirty years, was known throughout the world as a symbol for the division of the city and for the division of the world into two power blocs. Today's international visitors to Pariser Platz come to re-experience this first gateway to the city, and to enjoy the long-denied freedom to walk through this magnificent work of art and look at it up close.

It was built as the grandest of a series of city gates constituting the passages through the customs wall encircling the city at the end of the eighteenth century. It is the only gate which survived, because it constitutes the monumental termination of Unter den Linden, the renowned boulevard of linden trees which led directly to the residence of the Prussian kings until the destruction of the city castle. The entire construction and ornamentation of the gate reflect the extraordinary importance it was granted by its builders. The architect selected as the model for his design the Propylaea in Athens, the monumental entry hall of the Acropolis. Just as the Propylaea led to a shrine of the Ancient world, this gate was to represent the access to the most important city of the Prussian kingdom. This reference to Antiquity made it the structure which founded the Classic age of architecture in Berlin, an epoch which brought the city its sobriquet "Spreeathen" ("Athens of the Spree" -- Berlin's river is called the Spree). The most important sculptor in Berlin during this period carried out the accompanying agenda of visual explanation. The Brandenburg Gate is crowned with a quadriga depicting the goddess of victory, "who brings peace", marching into the city. The relief on the pedestal portrays her again with her attendants. Personifications of virtues like friendship and statesmanship are represented, along with symbols of arts and sciences, because they make a city like Berlin bloom in times of peace. Reliefs with the exploits of Hercules in the passages allude to the time of the wars and the subsequent period of reconstruction, during which Friedrich II made Prussia into a European power and laid the foundation for flourishing trade and crafts. The gate thus is also a memorial for the king who died a few years before its construction.

The Brandenburg Gate is not only a symbol of division and reunification; it was also the site of many other events in German history, a history characterized by so many peaks and troughs. In 1806 Napoleon marched triumphantly into Berlin and carried the Quadriga away with him to Paris as a spoil of war. In 1814, after the victorious conclusion of the wars of liberation, Schinkel replaced the oak wreath on the goddess' scepter with an iron cross, changing the figure's interpretation from a courier of peace into a goddess of victory. In 1933 the National Socialists marched through the gate in a martial torch parade, introducing the darkest chapter of German history, ultimately leaving the city destroyed and Germany divided.

It was in front of the Brandenburg Gate that Ronald Reagan, then President of the United States, made his famous appeal to Mikhail Gorbachev in 1987:

There is one sign the Soviets can make that would be unmistakable, that would advance dramatically the cause of freedom and peace.

General Secretary Gorbachev, if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, if you seek liberalization: Come here to this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!

I understand the fear of war and the pain of division that afflict this continent - and I pledge to you my country's efforts to help overcome these burdens.

Prophetic words, as it turned out, that would come true just two years and five months later. Nowadays, you can walk right through the gate unhindered, and thousands of tourists avail themselves of this opportunity every day, as this photo shows:

The statue atop the Gate, of which the horse in my pop quiz photo forms a part, is known as a Quadriga. Like all Quadrigae, it consists of a chariot drawn by four horses and is modelled on the Triumphal Quadriga, a Roman or Greek sculpture which is the only surviving ancient quadriga. The Triumphal Quadriga was originally erected in the Hippodrome of Constantinople and is now in St Mark's Basilica in Venice.

Berlin's quadriga is perhaps the most famous quadriga in the world and was designed by Johann Gottfried Schadow. It's quite a sight, as I hope my photos convey. The Brandenburg Gate is a must for your Berlin tourist itinerary.

Do you ever get the feeling you're in the wrong place at the wrong time? That's the feeling I had when I read today that New Zealand recruitment companies are set to come to Germany later this year to attempt to recruit staff to make up for the shortfall in the skilled labour market in New Zealand. As Homer Simpson might put it: D'Oh!

Don't get me wrong: I am very much enjoying living in Berlin and I am here by choice. I am here because it is the place that Ms. Bear and I need to be at this point in time. And though there are visa and residence issues to contend with, it is all going swimmingly. But it is terribly frustrating finally to be coming to the end of my studies and looking to start my career and be living in a country that is crippled by high unemployment, while my country of origin currently has the lowest unemployment rate in the entire OECD and is struggling to find enough skilled workers to fill all the available positions. From a purely selfish point of view, it's almost enough to make me wish it were the other way around!

Expatica has the story which triggered this little bout of "woe is me":

New Zealand, which has a chronic shortage of skilled workers, is looking to Germany to fill the gap, a recruitment company announced Friday.

Immigration Placement Services said a number of regional development organizations, recruitment companies and the Department of Labour's Immigration Service would launch a campaign in October for skilled migrants at an employment expo in Bonn and Potsdam.

A statement said Germany - which is struggling with economic restructuring, 5 million unemployed and high taxation - had a surplus of skilled labour, particularly in engineering, construction, industrial sectors and trades and could ease the chronic skill
shortage affecting many sectors of the New Zealand economy.

The expo - to be held on October 10 in Bonn, Germany's former capital, and two days later in Potsdam, outside Berlin - is being organized by the Central Placement Office of the German Federal Employment Service.

Read the rest here .

As I say, it is very much a case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

A slight change of pace in the Sunday pop quiz this week. Or rather, I'm introducing a new facet. This week there are two pop quiz questions: the tried and tested mystery photo on the one hand and a language question on the other. Good luck!

Here goes:

Pop quiz 1, Hotshot!

Below is a close-up photo of an object here in Berlin. What is it? (And for the smart-alecs amongst you, I know it's a horse. What I am after is more specific information about this horse and where it might be.)

Pop quiz 2, Hotshot!

There are some words in the English lanaguge which mean their own opposite, i.e. they possess two or more meanings, of which one means the opposite of another. An example is the verb dust, which can mean 'to remove dust', as in he dusted the flat from top to bottom. But dust can also mean 'to apply dust', as in the detective dusted for fingerprints.

Such words which mean their own opposite are known as contranyms, or antagonyms.

Other than dust, name two further contranyms in English.

I was very sad to hear yesterday evening that the British Member of Parliament and former Foreign Secretary and Leader of the House of Commons had died after collapsing while hill walking in Northern Scotland. Cook was just 59 and his death will mean a huge loss to British politics and public life.

Robin Cook was one of my favourite politicians. He was intelligent and witty, a splendid speaker and fearsome debater. Moreover, he was that very rare thing in modern politics: a politician with principles which he stuck to and which he was prepared to make personal sacrifices in adhering to.

The death of Robin Cook not only deprives the Labour Party of one of its greatest figures, it will also diminish the House of Commons.

The former foreign secretary was one of the very few MPs - on either the back or front benches - who demanded attention when he spoke in the chamber.

His piercing intellect and ability to go to the very core of an issue, combined with a devastating ability to take his enemies to pieces was never better displayed than during the debate on the Scott report into the arms to Iraq affair during which he flayed the Conservative government.

The Commons witnessed it again just two years ago when he delivered his resignation speech after quitting the cabinet in protest at the war on Iraq.

[Source: BBC News.]

The resignation speech mentioned in the above quote is one of the most impressive political speeches I have heard. It was convincing, hard-hitting and powerfully delivered. What's more, as developments in Iraq have shown us since then, Cook had it exactly right. You can read the full text of his speech here.

Perhaps it is something of a consolation that Robin Cook died quickly, without prolonged illness, while doing an activity he loved. I think that is probably a way in which, given the choice, most of us would like to pass on. And yet, at just 59, Cook's passing came too soon and too suddenly. It has robbed his electorate and his country of a talented politician and statesman and that is a crying shame.

For more coverage on Robin Cook, try these links:

Cook, founding member of the awkward squad [The Times].

Obituary: Robin Cook [BBC].

Robin Cook: An outstanding parliamentarian [The Observer].

A man of high principle - Both prickly and brilliant [The Independent].

As you go about your regular weekend business today, take a moment to reflect and remember the victims of the world's first atomic bomb used in a conflict situation, which was dropped on the Japanese city of Hiroshima 60 sixty years ago today. Some 140,000 people were killed by the bomb and its aftermath. Spare a thought for those victims, and their families and loved ones who survive them, and for the survivors, the hibakusha, exposed to huge doses of radiation on this day 60 years ago and still living with the after-effects.

To mark today's anniversary, a great many services of remembrance have been held in Japan and in many other places around the world. That is only fitting given the huge number of casualties and victims of the bombing, the momentousness of the occasion and its impact on the further development of world history and international relations.

In the words of Kofi Annan, the Secretary-General of the United Nations: Today we are all Hibakusha.

As I've documented on numerous occasions on this blog before, the Germans are delightfully eccentric. They do and say, and buy and sell, some truly weird stuff sometimes. But this one might just take the cake. A crafty and very entrepeneurial Bavarian couple have set up a business with a difference. A big difference. They run a holiday service for teddy bears in Munich. No, really, they do!

Deutsche Welle bears witness (boom, boom! Sorry, couldn't help it):

Teddy bears are hard workers. Whatever you're going through -- illness, exams, unrequited love -- your teddy is always there, ready for a cuddle. Their quiet stoicism deserves a reward, say German entrepreneurs Christopher Böhm and Elke Verheugen. And they've got just the thing -- a nice, relaxing vacation in the Bavarian capital, Munich.

"Often, bears or other stuffed toys have gone through a lot," Böhm said. "They've been squashed, their ears have been chewed, or they've got a small tear along a seam. A vacation is a great opportunity for those button-eyes to see something different for a change."

For a fee, Böhm and Verheugen will host your favorite toy in their Munich apartment for a week. And there's no need to worry about Teddy's wellbeing during his stay.

The couple have worked out an action-packed itinerary that includes sightseeing, game evenings, a visit to a beer garden, and a mini language course to become acquainted with the local lingo.

Other activities are chosen according to the bear's personality, and include things such as fishing, golfing, painting, or for the more adventurous type, bungee jumping and paragliding.

A photo album documenting your bear's vacation is included in the price, which ranges from 99 euros ($122) for bears from Germany, to 149 euros for toys travelling from overseas.

Can you imagine the looks that Böhm and Verheugen get as they take their teddy bear charges paragliding, or line them all up at a table in a beer garden? It defies further comment really, doesn't it?

You gotta love those crazy Germans!

The big news item here in Germany this week is the truly shocking story of Sabine H., of Frankfurt an der Oder, and her role in what is thought to be the worst case of infanticide in German legal history. But even as further details about this story come to light, there remain more questions than answers.

Deutsche Welle has the details of this terrible case:

The woman suspected of killing nine newborn babies found buried in eastern Germany confirmed on Tuesday that they were her children but cannot recall how they were killed, officials said at a press conference.

The 39-year-old, identified only as Sabine H., was arrested on Sunday on suspicion of manslaughter after police found the nine bodies in flower pots and a fish tank in Brieskow-Finkenheerd, a village near the Polish border.

"She says she can't remember how they were killed because she drank heavily when the contractions began," prosecutor Annette Bargenda said at a news conference. The mother is suspected of giving birth to each of the infants and then killing them one by one between 1988 and 2004.

The woman told police that in every instance, she had given birth to the children without any assistance or other people being there. The father of the children, who divorced the woman earlier this year, didn't know that she was pregnant, the woman claims. The couple also have three children aged 18, 19 and 20.

The ex-husband, who was not named, is a professional who spent long periods away from home on business. He is said to be horrified by the news.

There are so many questions here that it's hard to know where to begin. Questions like: How can it be that a woman can carry nine babies to full term without anyone ever noticing that she is pregnant? How can her (now ex-)husband, who is said to have been the father of all nine babies, not have had the faintest inkling of what was going on? How did her parents or siblings fail to notice that something was amiss? How did this escape the attention of her doctor? Her neighbours? Or, if it's not possible that nine pregnancies can escape everyone's attention, who is not being entirely candid when they claim to have known nothing?

But there are even more fundamental questions than that which remain unanswered. What, for example, could possibly drive a woman who does not want any more children, or knows she cannot handle any more children than she already has, to become pregnant time and time again? Why would she not use contraception? Why would she not give her unwanted babies up for adoption? Or why would she not, as is possible and legal in Germany, have deposited her unwanted babies anonymously in a so-called "Babyklappe" (baby flap) at a hospital, where they would be cared for and then put up for adoption, no questions asked? Why would she not seek help of any kind, either for her child-related problems or for her alcoholism?

And there are questions that this case throws up about society in general too. Could these nine deaths have been prevented? Who, if anyone, has failed Sabine H. and failed to do their duty? What does it say about the communities in which we now live that a woman could be so isolated and so desperately in need of help and not even attract the slightest attention from her family, her neighbours, the authorities, anyone?

It may well be that many or all of these questions remain unanswered. Only time will tell. For now, all Germany can do is gape in shock and horror and shake its collective head in disbelief that such a tragedy, such a set of nine tragedies, could occur in its midst, while apparently no one was watching.

Meanwhile, an SPD politician and Interior Minister for the state of Brandenburg, Jörg Schönbohm, has really thrown the cat amongst the pigeons with the, to my mind, far-fetched suggestion that the former GDR (East Germany) was principally to blame for the tragedies, as Expatica and Deutsche Welle both report today:

Brandenburg state interior minister Jörg Schönbohm blamed the legacy of communist East Germany and a "forced proletarianization," saying it had broken down societal structures leading citizens to turn a blind eye to violence and suffering.

"This unbelievable indifference is what strikes me the most," Schönbohm said in an interview in Wednesday's Berlin daily Der Tagesspiegel. "I cannot understand how no one saw that this woman was in a critical situation and needed help. What were the parents doing, the neighbors?"

The remarks met with criticism by some East German politicians, with Eckhardt Rehberg in the neighboring state of Mecklenburg Vorpommerania warning against a "one-sided judgment against the actions of an entire population".

The chairman of the new breakaway political grouping Left Party, Lothar Bisky, said such comments reflected outdated Cold War rhetoric and noted West Germany also had its share of serious crimes. [Deutsche Welle]

To my own surprise, I find myself inclined to agree with the Left Party's take on this. (Otherwise I find the Left Party, its politicians and its far-left, populist policies pretty distasteful.)

Schönbohm's thesis is hampered by the twin facts that on the one hand most of the murders occured after reunification in 1990, and on the other crime and criminality were not significantly higher in East Germany than in West Germany. Instead, Schönbohm's comments smack to me of an attempt to turn an horrific crime into an opportunity to score political points in the lead-up to an election. He appears to be using a paraphrased version of the slogan "Communists will eat your babies" to differentiate his centre-left party (SPD) from the Left Party (which is further to the left and is partly comprised of the PDS, the party which rose from the ashes of the ruling communist party of East Germany - the SED - after reunification). That, to me, is completely inappropriate in this case, and I'm pleased to see that he is being called on it.

Just a couple of weeks ago I noted that the German election campaign had got off to a positive start, without the personal attacks and smear tactics which are being employed with alacrity by several different parties in the New Zealand election race.

What I wrote at the time was this:

It stands in stark contrast to what I've seen so far of the German election campaign, which seems to have all the parties focussing largely on the major issues, rather than getting into gutter politics. I say so far advisedly, as that positive focus may well change as we get closer to the election here. Time will tell.

As it turns out, the caveat I added was somewhat prophetic. The heat has been turned up in the campign here in the past week, and sure enough, things are getting personal, as Expatica reports.

Trailing in the polls, German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's Social Democrats (SPD) are sharpening attacks on conservative challenger Angela Merkel in a bid to provoke her into making more rhetorical gaffes.

"Merkel is not very stress resistant," said an SPD election strategist quoted by Der Spiegel magazine, adding: "She's going to come under increasing pressure in coming weeks and then she's going to start making mistakes at public appearances."

A reasonably competent public speaker as long as she sticks to her text, Merkel does not compare with Schroeder who frequently abandons written speeches to turn up the volume and heat of his oratory.

Merkel's most recent blunder was in a carefully watched address to parliament earlier this month where she called for a coalition of her Christian Democratic alliance (CDU/CSU) with Schroeder's SPD.

Amid jeers from government benches, a red-faced Merkel repeatedly corrected herself and underlined she had meant to say the CDU/CSU and Free Democrats (FDP).

The Chancellor, Gerhard Schröder, has saught to capitalise on this perceived weakness on the part of Angela Merkel immediately, by publicly demanding not one but two televised leaders' debates. He even went so far as to suggest that if Merkel were 'not up to it' then he would be happy to debate on his own if necessary. However, Schröder's advances have been rebuffed, and it is reported in today's papers that there will indeed be only one debate.

But it's not only Angela Merkel who is in the firing line for personal attacks. The leader of the Free Democrats (FDP), the openly gay Guido Westerwelle, has copped some flak recently too.

Most stunning of all has been an anti-gay slur - widely quoted in the German media - by another SPD leftist, Ottmar Schreiner.

Schreiner is quoted as having called the leader of Merkel's likely FDP coalition partner, Guido Westerwelle, 'Dr. Schwesterwelle' ('Sister-welle'). This nickname for Westerwelle, who recently outed himself as gay, has been known for years to insiders but never before been quoted in public.

None of this, as yet, is a patch on the nastiness and underhanded attacks we've been seeing in New Zealand politics recently, such as the short-lived If you vote Don Brash, You're a Bloody Idiot website which sent the right-wing NZ bloggers into a fit of conniptions and countless other examples from both the left and the right. However, the German election campaign is still young and there's plenty of time for it to sink to New Zealand-like levels. I hope it doesn't, but I'm not holding my breath.

Barnaby M. Cat

*25.03.2003 † 03.08.2005

So long, Little Mister. To say that we will miss you is not even to scratch the surface of the heartbreak that we feel.

This post is something of a public service announcement for those readers who are based in New Zealand and interested in politics (I know there are a few of you at least!)

A good friend of mine at the University of Auckland is involved in the organisation of a Pre-Election Foreign Affairs Forum in a couple of weeks' time on 16th August. It's free and it looks very interesting indeed.

Here is the press release in full:

PRE-ELECTION FOREIGN AFFAIRS FORUM

The Minister of Foreign Affairs, Hon Phil Goff and spokespeople from six other parties will outline their vision for New Zealand’s foreign policy during a pre-election forum.

"A range of foreign policy issues will be strongly debated during this election campaign," says Mr Goff. "Whether New Zealand's nuclear free legislation should be gone by lunchtime and whether combat forces should be sent to Iraq are just two of the controversial issues that separate the major parties. The NZIIA forum will allow parties to put their cases with the opportunity for the audience to ask its questions directly to the party spokespeople."

Gavin Ellis former editor-in-chief, The New Zealand Herald will chair the forum.

"The opening salvos in the foreign policy debate were fired well in advance of the announcement of election day," says Mr Ellis. "It was a clear indication that New Zealand's external relations will form a significant part of the campaign for major parties. This debate could well be the foreign affairs centre-piece of the election."

Almost all parties in parliament will be represented at the forum.

Each speaker will have time to outline their party’s message before addressing questions from the floor.

"Security of our nation is one of the first responsibilities of any Government," says Dr the Hon Lockwood Smith, National Party spokesperson on Foreign Affairs and Trade. "It depends on our international relations. It's great to see that the NZIIA is helping New Zealand see how the major parties are handling this."

The New Zealand Institute of International Affairs (NZIIA) is hosting the forum, which will take place at The University of Auckland library lecture theatre (B28) on August 16 from 6pm to 8pm.

"This forum will be an excellent opportunity to introduce anyone interested in New Zealand foreign affairs to the NZIIA," says Dr Jian Yang, chairperson, Auckland branch NZIIA and Political Studies senior lecturer The University of Auckland.

The forum is free and open to all.

Any queries should be directed to Bryce Wakefield at The University of Auckland on phone: 373 7599 ex87953 or email Bryce Wakefield .

Sounds good to me. By the time this forum rolls around, the election campaign will be in full swing, meaning that a chance to hear what the foreign affairs spokepeople from seven different parties have to say has the potential to be very interesting indeed. Were I in Auckland, I'd be there with bells on.

No one even got close to solving this week's Sunday pop quiz. Lindy was the closest with her guess of Schloss Charlottenburg, but only in the sense that the photo was indeed part of a palace, or Schloss in German.

The photo was in fact a very close close-up of the front of Schloss Sanssouci, in Potsdam, just to the South-West of Berlin. The centre dome is adorned with the palace's name written thus: Sans, souci. That's what you could see in the photo. Don't ask me why that comma is in there, as I have no idea.

Wikipedia has this to say about Sanssouci:

Sanssouci (French "without cares") is the Palace and surrounding Park built in Potsdam, Germany by Frederick the Great, King of Prussia. He lived and kept his court here for some forty years. The Sanssouci Palace itself was built between 1745 and 1747; Voltaire once stayed there. The audience chamber with its numerous fine paintings, the extensive library, beautiful gardens, the great fountain, and the statue of Frederick the Great make the site especially remarkable.

A number of other palaces and sites are also part of Sanssouci, including the Neues Palais (New Palace) built in the late eighteenth century in imitation of the Versailles Palace.

Together with other palaces and related sites in the Berlin area, Sanssouci is a UNESCO World Heritage Site

Another site, LocationSite adds further detail:

The king spent much of his time here, and his round table talks with international greats were famous in their time. Voltaire, for instance, lived in Potsdam for three years and often attended dinners at castle Sanssouci. The name Sanssouci (French for: without sorrow) was supposed to remind Friedrich II. of his blissful days of youth, before the responsibility and duties of being a king weighed him down. The picturesque little residence and the extensive park surrounding it are an especially beautiful sight in summer when the park is in full bloom.

The grounds surrounding the palace - known helpfully as Park Sanssouci - are truly stunning. When the quote above says extensive, it really means extensive. Quite apart from mile after mile of lovely walkways through the gardens, Park Sanssouci also contains no fewer than three further palaces (for guests, you know dear), a windmill, a Chinese teahouse, faux Roman ruins and numerous other exquisite buildings. It's quite a package and highly recommended as a tourist destination if and when you visit Berlin.

Anyway, this weekend I visited Sanssouci with friends over from the UK for a few days. The weather was lovely and we wandered around the gardens for several hours. Here is a sample of the photos I took.

Schloss Sanssouci viewed from in front of the grand fountain

Above and below: The palace viewed from halfway up the stairs. You cn see the miniature greenhouses which line the terraced approach to the palace on both sides

The front and centre of the palace up close

The grand fountain, viewed from directly in front of the palace

One of the other palaces in Park Sanssouci. This one is known as the Neues Palais (New Palace)

The so-called Orangerie, a palace for guests of the King to stay at. (Tough life, wasn't it?!)

The windmill in Park Sanssouci

As you can see, it's all prett impressive. There's much, much more to it than I've been able to show here, but I trust that gives you a nice little taster. I count myself lucky to have such a beautiful spot for both Summer and Winter walks so close to where I live. I really ought to take advantage of it a bit more than I do.