While you read why not listen to my album ‘Electro Baroque‘ (all tracks are also available on iTunes using the link here)? Classical music using modern instruments:

or if you prefer to listen to my electro/techno album ‘Studio Valiumm‘ here are the videos (also on iTunes using the link here):

More info about my music is at the dedicated website www.TRANSFORMATES.com

This week I would like to introduce you to a little village on the German Alpine Road called Bayrischzell. It is very close to the Wendelstein Mountain and is often used as a base for people visiting the mountain or as a stopping off point for travellers along the German Alpine Straße. I have to admit I have a special affinity towards the Wendelstein because I can see it from my Bavarian bed – cloud permitting. So you will see it feature regularly in my blog. Bayrischzell is on the opposite side of the mountain to my bed which gives me a chance to see my bed-friend from a less familiar vantage point.

On the day I took the photographs below I approached the German Alps from the direction of the Austrian Tirol (more on that in a future blog). In addition to having lots of splendid peaks the area is full of pretty (and on a hot day very refreshing) streams many of which are good for paddling like the one below.

Like the mountains these streams have been in existence for millions of years. I am often fascinated by the shapes and patterns created as a result of erosion by the flowing water. The stream in the photograph below has cut into the rock face creating some really interesting structures.

The route I took over the Austrian border towards Germany passed through a valley which pointed all the way back to my beloved Wendelstein. In the picture below you can see the mountains gradually parting to reveal its magnificent 1,838 meter high peak.

Further along the valley in the direction of the Wendelstein I came to a junction which was the German Alpine Straße. On the opposite side of this junction was Bayrischzell. One of the first things that strikes you when you visit the village is its beautiful fire station. Just take a look at the photograph below.

I have never come across a fire-station with such beautiful frescos on the walls. The following two photos show close-up views of a couple of areas from the frescos. The first is the emblem of the local fire brigade (Feuerwehr).

The second photograph from the fresco is of a countryside scene including a milk maid and cows (with cow-bells of course – if you would like more pictures of cows with cow bells you can find them here)

To the right of the fire station a road leads into the village and past the old catholic church. Of course the Wendelstein is never far from view as shown in the next photograph.

The church has a long history. Although it was built in its present form in 1733 the altar and tower are from its period as a monastery dating back to 1075 (around the same time that the village of Duggleby was first recorded in the Domesday book – more on that here). Both the outside and inside features of the church date back to the early baroque period. Inside the church are also several beautiful frescos and Rococo stucco works from the 18th century.

As I was admiring the church something caught the corner of my eye. At first I thought it was a bird but I quickly realised it was a person gliding across the sky having presumably jumped off the Wendelstein.

There are a number of ways of getting up and down the Wendelstein but I have to admit the travel guides had not mentioned paragliding as one of them. For those interested in more conventional forms of transport there is the Wendelstein Rack Railway, the oldest rack railway in Bavaria and one of only four in operation in Germany. The train leaves from the station in the village of Brannenburg and takes 20 minutes to reach the peak (and 30 minutes to come down). From Bayrischzell there is also a cable car which was built in 1970.

There is of course another way of getting up the wendelstein; you can walk all the way. This is something the Bavarian King Max II did in three hours and as a result in 1858 a tree was planted in Bayrischzell to commemorate his royal achievement.

After going up the mountain why not relax upon your return with a visit to the village cinema? There is a really pretty cinema which, when I visited, was decorated with beautiful hanging flower baskets.

If the cinema is not your thing then there are plenty of cafes and restaurants to visit like the one below.

For special occasions every Bavarian village needs to have its own bandstand. However few have a mountain backdrop as impressive as the one below.

Hopefully I have managed to wet your appetite for paying a visit to this beautiful part of the world. Below I have included a Google map so you can easily see where Bayrischzell is in relation to other towns and transportation routes.

Servus

Chris Duggleby

PS. For those interested in finding out more about the Oktoberfest (including lots of photos and a useful Bavarian-English dictionary) the ‘official’ site can be found here.

Now prepare for an uplifting experience! 

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STOP PRESS!! Have you tried the YouTube Playlist featuring all of my compositions for the TRANSFORMATES? Here it is:

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This week I think most of the Alpine journalists have gone on holiday (well we do have 26C this weekend) so exciting local press articles are a bit thin on the ground. The only thing that caught my eye was an article entitled ‘Call a Kondom’ in the Süddeutsche Zeitung (for our German readers it is here). For the non-german speakers this has nothing to do with finding condominiums in Munich. It describes a ‘Alternative Delivery Service’.

Call a Kondom is the description given to a service offered by the managing director of a Bavaria Petrol service station in Giesing, near Munich. The boss of this establishment, Thomas Piduch, found that he was regularly getting visits from taxi drivers who had been asked to pick-up supplies of urgently needed articles for local residents and hotel guests. He decided to cut out the middle man and now offers his ‘Alternative Lieferdienst’ (= alternative delivery service) directly to consumers. You can order any of the articles normally stocked in the service station including toilet paper, disposable underwear, other ‘personal’ items and various alcoholic beverages, ranging from Dr Pepper to Champagne. These are then promptly and discretely delivered to your door (I think this means ‘Call a Kondom’ is not written on the carrier bag). Service times are from 10:00-20:00 Monday to Friday (well this is Germany!). Apparently he already has had a number of very satisfied clients.

Now let me introduce this week’s cultural item. I would like to share with you something  that I picked up from a japanese singer when I lived in Taipei; I like to refer to this as my unforgettable asian infection. ‘Infection’ is a very moving song which is typical of the quality and emotional offerings of this beautiful Japanese singer/songwriter. Sadly, here in the west we know too little about some of the excellent artistic products coming out of Asia. Having lived and worked in a number of asian countries I hope I can help to rectify this by introducing some of my personal ‘discoveries’ to western audiences.Therefore I have added a fan page for Onitsuka Chihiro the Japanese lady who wrote and sang the song Infection. I have also managed to find some videos of her work to wet your appetite. Most of the lyrics are in Japanese but this does not detract from the power of the music and her lively performances. The fan page can be found here.

The final subject for this weeks blog has a medical flavour (sorry but I spent a very formative part of my youth in the Bacteriology and Virology Department of the Manchester University Medical School). One of the big themes in modern medicine is multiple antibiotic resistance which is rapidly spreading among the killer bugs found in our hospitals. Recent work indicates that this resistance is transferred between the killer bugs in hospitals and the harmless bacteria found in soil. If you would like to read more about this revelation please refer to my article which is here (but be warned the article mentions the potential role of bacterial sex in this process).

Well that’s it for this week. Regular readers probably thought that last week’s blog featuring my collection of assorted tree fungi photos was the pinnacle of web-based excitement and intellectual stimulation. I hope that my Japanese infection, soil bacteria (and their intimate exchanges) and the ‘Call a Condom’ service also live up to your high expectations. By the way if you missed out on the tree fungi they can be found here.

It is time now to watch the Bavarian sun go down and pack my bags for the weekly trek to blighty. Enjoy the week (and watch out for those nasty bugs – especially the Hantaviruses – more info on them here)

Chris Duggleby

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STOP PRESS!! Have you tried the YouTube Playlist featuring all of my compositions for the TRANSFORMATES? Here it is:

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In this weeks blog I would like to bring to your attention a number of interesting subjects emanating from the alpine region. A couple of the articles are related to traditional alpine sports which I believe justify wider international coverage. I have also prepared two articles about animal health issues with serious implications for humans. Another article deals with nutrition and consumer health, and the last item relates to an important development in Bonn which could help other nations in their struggle to raise additional tax income.

This is rather a lot for one week because we had extremely good weather in the alps last weekend. Good weather meant that I had no excuse not to do some exercise and trek up the mountain a couple of times. This prevented me from providing an update to the blog last week. I was however able to write a couple of articles adapted from the local news which are included in the summaries below. This weekend it is raining again!

Sport in Bavaria

1. Fingerhakeln

Do you know what Fingerhakeln is? I was surprised to hear that my son in Vienna was unacquainted with this sport. However if you take a look at the video’s attached to the article you will see the impact this sport has on a participant’s middle finger. Since my son is a programmer his middle finger comes in quite useful for his job. Therefore any injuries to this digit could seriously impact his earning potential.

It is quite difficult to describe Fingerhakeln in words (although I have tried to in the article) so I do recommend that you take a look at the videos. By the way, in the video fingerhakeln is not what the two men joined by their necks are doing on the floor; this is another traditional Bavarian sport.

If you want to understand more about Fingerhakeln the article, and the embedded videos, are here

2: Ochsenrennen

Rather than write a separate article on this Bavarian sport let me describe it here. Try to imagine a land were people like to race with each other on the back of four-legged animals. Now try to imagine this in a place where there are not many horses (and the dogs are pretty small). In this place there are lots of cows and because of the plentiful supply of grass these cows are big and very strong.

These cows are the ‘Ochsen’ or to use a slightly more westernised term “bullocks”. Whereas fingerhakeln did not require much equipment (one finger to be precise) bullock racing requires a bullock. Therefore it can be considered a kind of ‘Upper Class’ alpine sport – a bit like horse racing in England. Although horse racing is often called the sport of Queens you will not find a single Queen participating in the alpine bullock races. Here we just have lots of well-built chaps dressed in traditional Lederhosen. In this respect it is quite similar to Fingerhakeln.

The reason I am introducing you to Bullock Racing now is that today we have the big Münsinger Ochsenrennen (‘Rennen’ is the German word for races). This is a huge event not dissimilar to the final of the Champions League in Football or the Grand National horse race in the UK. Rather than trying to explain all the details of how these brave Bavarian men and their trusty steeds battle it out on the alpine prairie why don’t you take a look at the video. Here come the Lederhosen Jockeys!

27th August update: STOP THE PRESS! I may have accidentally mislead readers with my comments about not having any Queens at the Ochsenrennen. If you take a look at the yesterdays photos from Münsing (courtesy of today’s Süddeutsche Zeitung) you will see on photo number 3 that we do indeed have a Princess participating in the Bullock Races; Jockey number 4 is indeed a very pretty Bavarian girl appropriately dressed in Lederhosen. Do not let it be said that Ochsenrennen is not an equal opportunities sport. The photos can be found here.

Animal Health Articles

The first of these articles describes how a polar bear caught herpes off a zebra. Fortunately this is not a particularly common occurence due to the fact that in the wild polar bears don’t tend to shack up with zebras. This is especially fortuitous because rather than simply picking up an unpleasant cold sore one of the infected polar bears died from the equine herpes virus.

This infection was instigated by humans. We placed the Polar Bears and Zebras much closer together than would be the case in nature and facilitated the transmission of the disease between them by ……………

…… to avoid any further deterioration in my repetitive strain injury I will not duplicate the gory details of what happened here. If you would like to find out exactly how the polar bear got herpes from the zebra please read my article which you can find here.

The second animal article this week is also a story of an animal tragedy caused by humans. Sometimes we think we are being kind to our pets but in reality we have the opposite effect. Find out how an old lady faces a court accusation of cruelty to her Pekingese dog and discover the other unpleasant things she threatened to do (to the vet) here.

Human Health and Nutrition

Since it was invented in Taiwan bubble tea has become very popular around the world. Scientists in Germany have carried out research into the ‘Bubbles’ and have come up with some potentially serious findings. If you, your friends or family like to enjoy a drink of bubble tea it will be worth reading about what these scientists have discovered. My bubble tea article can be found here.

Taxing ‘Financially Remunerated Romantic Activities’

Since this is a family blog I am trying to avoid the use of words which some of my readers will consider unsuitable for those members of the family who are not yet 21 years of age. I have therefore invented a new 4 letter ‘F’ word. I think the grown ups will know what I mean when I write about ‘Financially Remunerated Romantic Activities’ (or FRRAs). In Bonn they have introduced a tax during 2011 for FRRAs and recently the time arrived to determine whether this tax had been a success or not.

This article will explain the situation and also describes a fantastic innovation: a self-service FRRA permitting machine. No wonder this country leads the world in technological inventions (well at least as far as FRRA permits are concerned). Read more about these fiscal (and the associated physical) advances here.

Well that is all for this week. Please let me know if you have any feedback on the content or choice of articles I have presented. I am considering starting up a movement to get Fingerhakeln and Bullock Racing included in future Olympic Games. If you are interested in supporting this ‘Lederhosen Olympic Sports Initiative’ please let me know.

Happy Hakeln!

Chris Duggleby

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STOP PRESS!! Have you tried the YouTube Playlist featuring all of my compositions for the TRANSFORMATES? Here it is:

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In order to maximise the time available to enjoy the good weather in the mountains I will be keeping this week’s blog short. I have however spotted a couple of thought-provoking items in the alpine press (well actually one wasn’t strictly from the local press but I spotted it in the plane on the way over from London).

The first article concerns a debate that is raging about whether we should be carrying out experiments on extremely dangerous……………

To avoid duplication why don’t you take a look at the article. Here is the link.

The second article will hopefully be of interest to readers from both the US and Europe (and Asia). It concerns the potential killer’s that can be found in our cellars and garages. In addition to discussing what these killers are the article has some tips from the professionals on what to do to minimise the risk to yourself and your family.

The link to this article is here.

To avoid subjecting you to too much sensory deprivation with so many text-based articles here are some photographs I took of butterflies during my trip up and down the Schwarzenberg mountain this afternoon. Hopefully it will provide a little light relief from all the stuff about killer diseases. We are surrounded by lots of nice things – we just need to open our eyes.

Have a great week,

Chris Duggleby

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STOP PRESS!! Have you tried the YouTube Playlist featuring all of my compositions for the TRANSFORMATES? Here it is:

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Well surprise, surprise the weekend has arrived and the Alps are blessed once again with…..rain.

So my weekly offerings to you are going to be somewhat text orientated. This, however, should not be seen as a disappointment because I have found some rather interesting items to share with you which should stimulate some thought and debate (just in case you get a little tired of the olympics or even the rain).

Now the 2012 olympics have formally started I have decided to give this week’s blog a sporting focus. I am dedicating three separate articles on my website to three very different sporting activities: boxing, swimming and skating. However, these are not the classical versions of these sports. My three articles describe some very different approaches to these subjects, one which will probably provoke some deep emotional feelings and two which are rather more light-hearted.

Boxing to Survive

Let us start with the more serious, emotionally charged article. You can open this directly by using the link to my Alpine Press section which is here.

This article describes a cartoon comic style book which has recently been published by the German illustrator Reinhard Kleist. Generally we would expect a book full of cartoons to be somewhat light in nature and perhaps humourous. I think it is safe to say that this book is quite the opposite. It has some of the most depressing, frightening and painful illustrations you could imagine. The book uses cartoons to tell the story of a jewish boxer Hertzko Haft (known in the USA as Harry Haft) who was imprisoned in the Nazi Concentration and Mass extermination Camp in Auschwitz. He was forced by his prison guards to ………….

Well if you would like to find out more why don’t you click on the link above. This will save me having to repeat myself. However one word of warning; if you want to be cheered up…..read this article on another occasion.

Night Time Swimming in Bavaria’s Lakes

If you have read the article above you may well need this one to calm your nerves and remind yourself that there are some more pleasant aspects to life on this planet. My second article this week can be found using the link here.

I came across the original German story written by Sophie Kobel, a beautiful young lady who writes for Jetzt.de. We have something in common; a passion for night-time swimming in the lakes in and around Munich. Actually I have to admit that for me the passion started when I used to manage a company in the Austrian Lake district. During the summer months I would finish work in the evening to take off to a lake high in the mountains. Here the clean air and crystal clear water was so fantastic that I had to force myself to go back down the mountain and spend a few hours in bed before the next day’s work began.

Sophie tells the story of her own experiences with her young friends when they go after-hours swimming in the lakes and streams around Munich. If you would like to learn more about what she gets up to (and where) please follow the link above.

In-line Skating in the Nude

I have to admit that this article has a slightly humourous dimension to it. I think many readers will appreciate that our Alpine friends can sometimes have a slightly liberal attitude when it comes to wearing (or not wearing) clothes. This is the land of the Frei Korper Kulture (FKK or Free Body Culture) and this ‘culture’ is not just restricted to the bathing areas referred to in the article above.

Some of our neighbours have an advanced form of FKK that I would describe as FKS or Frei Korper Sports. This article describes how someone was apprehended by the local gendarmerie for practicing in-line skating in his birthday suit. Clearly there may well be a very logical explanation for this occurrence – perhaps this was a professional sports scientist who was trying to assess the amount of drag on the body created when you wear clothes. Obviously for such a scientific experiment you need to set the base line (in other words calculate the drag when no clothes are involved). To avoid causing embarrassment I would recommend that next time he considers using a wind tunnel for his experiments. He should not have been surprised that skating in the ‘altogether’ through the Dachau Industrial Park would attract more than a little attention (although it was midnight). More information about this unusual sporting development is available in my detailed review under the link here.

So this is all for this week. If the weather improves I may be able to get my photographic team back into action (Pink Lips and RISKKO are starting to suffer from vitamin D deficiency). I hope you find my three alternative sporting articles interesting. It not, there are certainly a few other sporting activities underway at the moment.

Have a great week,

Chris Duggleby

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STOP PRESS!! Have you tried the YouTube Playlist featuring all of my compositions for the TRANSFORMATES? Here it is:

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Bad Weather Therapy: Good Coffee, Cakes and Plan Your Vacation (with a nice smelling book)

Much of Europe is currently suffering under unseasonal levels of rain and the Alps are no exception. However sunshine is on the way and you might be thinking of popping over to Munich or visiting Bavaria soon. So in order to wet your appetite I am embedding a nice little video this week which highlights some of the great things you can visit if you come over (don’t worry there is not a single picture of either myself or RISKKO in this video – so you can put down the tranquilizers).

In this 15 minute video you will find pictures of the wonderful castles, palaces, and other famous buildings this region has to offer. There are also some shots of BMW World for the car enthusiasts and a quick overview of some of the famous shopping districts. It is all set to a soothing piece of Beethoven so you can have a nice little relaxing drool (perhaps with some Black Forest gateaux and a Rudesheimer coffee – for the uninitiated I have even added a video on how to make a Rudesheimer Cafe and a recipe – be careful not to burn yourself on the spirit!).

 

Here is the Rudesheimer treat ( 調製德國露迪斯海姆咖啡 make RUDESHEIMER COFFEE ):

and the Rudesheimer recipe (kind thanks to Asbach.de),

Place three sugar cubes in the original Rüdesheim coffee cup, add 4 cl of well warmed Asbach Uralt and set alight with a long match.

Stir using the long Rüdesheim coffee spoon to dissolve the sugar and allow to burn for about 1 minute. Fill the cup with hot coffee to about 2 cm under the rim.

Top with whipped cream sweetened with vanilla sugar and sprinkle with dark chocolate flakes.

Additional suggestion from Asbach.de: heat the Asbach Uralt either in a container suitable for microwaving at 600W for one minute, or simply in a casserole.

Making e-books smell right

All of us who were brought up in the pre e-book era will remember the smell of old books when we used to fumble through classics in the library or in a second-hand book shop. Even new books have a very characteristic smell which reflects a combination of the treatment of the paper, the ink, the adhesives and in some cases the leather cover.

As we move over to e-books, those of us who rely heavily on our tactile senses feel somewhat deprived. Yes you can buy a leather cover for your e-book reader to try to recapture some of the ‘old book cover’ feel but what about the smell?

Well the publishers Steidl, working with the Wallpaper Magazine and the perfumery expert Geza Schön have tried to address this sensory gap for true classical book lovers. They have even enlisted the help of Karl Lagerfeld to help them design the linen cloth based binding for their creation. What they have come up with is a bottle of ‘book smelling’ magic hidden in a ‘cut-out’ book (resembling the way people used to hide pistols in their bibles in the wild west).

This little creation is called Paper Passion Perfume and if you are interested you can find it quickly using your internet search engine or here. Of course if you partner has a real passion for books you might even consider spraying some of this magic potion on your chest (unless your partner is one of those people who reaches for a book to put them to sleep).

Health Scandal “The worst incident in the history of German transplantation medicine”

Finally I have added a new article to the Alpine Press section of the website which may be of interest to those who are concerned about health issues. This article describes a scandal which has appeared in the last couple of days in the German press. It relates to liver transplantation investigations. The german authorities are investigating whether a senior doctor in a clinic in Göttingen may have falsified medical records to ensure his patients get to the top of the waiting list for donor organs. In a world in which we have too few donor organs for serious medical problems the idea that someone might be able to ‘fiddle’ the waiting list is clearly abhorrent. The link to my english explanation is given below.

Happy reading,

Chris Duggleby.

Link to Alpine Press article: How can I get a human liver – without waiting? (Try Göttingen) – German Transplantation Scandal “Livers for Sale”