Author: Alan

Contract Enforcement

This is an interesting situation and an educational point on the enforcement of contracts:

“If they don’t comply with the contract … we can do whatever we want with these aircraft, whatever the hell we want. Maybe we’ll give 10 planes to Cuba or to China so they can study the technology,” Chavez said. “We could give them away and buy aircraft from China or from Russia. … We don’t need any U.S. imperialism,” he said. A U.S. defense official said there had been no communications with Venezuela’s government about any sale of F-16s to other countries, but he noted that U.S. laws on foreign arms sales were “quite strict” regarding third-party transfers.

Via the Unabrewer.

New CBC Afternoons

Interesting to read that my old pal from Halifax days, Kelly Ryan, is reviving her radio host career started twenty years ago when she did CBC Halifax’s weekend wake-up show. Once I goaded her into referring her co-host as “L-7” and “four corners” based on the Flinstone’s beat poet episode of another twenty years earlier. I think she got into news not long after that. Kelly has had some grim national radio news reporting jobs like 9/11 and the Picton mass murders. With her sense of humour, I have high hopes for this show.

I am a little more concered with the Globe’s report on what will happen with the CBC Radio 1 11 am to noon slot:

The new programming will kick off in the late morning, before local noon-hour shows, with host Jian Ghomeshi’s The National Playlist, which will feature musicians, actors and politicians debating their favourite songs. Listeners will also be able to call in to kick songs off the continually evolving play list. CBC is billing it as an iPod play list debated nationally every weekday.

Gee – Jian is going to rate songs…like he has for about 3 years now in unending repeats. Nice pandering to the iPod bubble, too. I have low expectations but it is nice to see, at least, that the Ghost of Peter Gzowsky Past may have less air time.

Knut Travels South to Freising, Bavaria

Freising, Bavaria, Germany. A quiet little town dozing on a crisp Sunday morning, an excellent place for a stroll – and a few beers. Why Freising? For a beer lover, it has the obvious advantage of being the home of Weihenstephan, which claims to be the oldest brewery in the world, and that obviously makes it stand out from other Bavarian towns. Combine this with it being just off the runway of Munich international airport, and it really makes sense. So, if you have a few hours in transit, go straight for the arrivals hall and look for the sign pointing you to buses. Bus 635 takes you to the Freising railway station in 20 minutes, and it runs all day.

First a stroll through the largely empty streets. The cathedral dominates the highest hill, with views of the rural landscape surrounding you like those shown above. Click for a bigger version of the view. There is surprisingly little noise from the airport, more some from the church bells. Downhill again, zigzagging through the old town with picturesque homes and shops that look pricey, but, this being Germany, they are all closed on Sunday. I enter the main square, and the sun is warm enough to stop at a café with tables outside and where the sign tell me I can have a glass of Franziskaner Weisse. The waiter promptly bring me this, and I sip my beer enjoying the Sunday quietness. The beer, an unfiltered hefe, is a proper representative of its kind, no doubt about that, and it tastes good. Still, it lacks some bitterness and freshness that I seem to recall from the bottled version. It is one of Roger Protz 300 beers, but I don’t know if it deserves such a rating. There is a church next to the main square, with the sounds of music from the organ and the congregation singing their hymns drifting out to me and a few other customers not attending the service. (I believe there are others inside the café having brunch, too.) A plaque on the church wall commemorates the heroes of Freising from World War I. (Well, Norway was neutral in WWI, so we don’t have much to boast about!) I fish out my book (the new one by PD James, bought on the airport that morning), and order a Spaten Helles, also in the Protz book. I go for a small one, as I feel I should have some lunch soon. This beer is not a beer to die for, a rather flat and boring brew. It may be the victim of the 7 minute law, so I will try the bottled version if the occasion arises.

I ask for the bill (amazingly I’ve managed to get by using my rusty school German), and aim for the Weihestephan brewery, which is well signposted. This is a brisk walk uphill again, past a beer garden closed down for the winter and through parts of Weihestephan Technical College – the brewery is a part of this complex. On a Sunday, the brewery is closed, but I aim for the brewery tap, which is bustling at lunchtime. I find a seat in a vaulted cellar, and order a Hefe Weisse, which is much better than the one I had earlier. Properly served, and nice to sip while I study the old fashioned menu, heavy on roasted dishes. I go for the Brewer’s Plate, which include sauerkraut, roast pork, smoked pork, potato dumplings, liver dumplings and deep fried onion rings. With beer gravy. I finish with a draft pils, which is the best beer of the day. A very aromatic beer, as far removed from Becks and its clones as possible. Lots of taste from both the malt and the hops. Lovely.

I have to get back, but not before buying a souvenir pack of 6 of their beers to take home. I even bought a bottle of beer liquor especially made for the restaurant. Have your tasted it, sir, enquires the barman when I ask for it. I tell him no, and he kindly pours me a shot. It does not taste of beer at all – a very sweet drink which reminds me of a coffee liquor. But now I have to hurry. A 15 minute walk back to the station, hop on the bus – and I am soon back in the crowd of Flughafen Franz-Josef-Strauss again. I doze off as soon as I sit down in my airplane seat.

Next stop: Bratislava

Brent Doesn’t Fear

I was listening to Brent on CBC Radio’s last remaining good show, Go, this morning and he played “Don’t Fear The Reaper”…again. I checked the old notes for his musical choices that I kept when he was on CBC Ottawa and didn’t see that he played the Blue Oyster Cult classic but he did play it on that afternoon show he did right after the lockout, though only a cow bell-less cover.

I am starting to think he obsesses about the song. I also am starting to think that it is the seminal piece of art from the 1970s. There may have been better tunes but there was not a better 70s song. Compare and contrast, class.

Shakespeare Image

Seeing as I am up now, I might as well take a swing at those who say this picture is not Shakespeare – because you know I know plenty about this stuff. You know I do. Auntie Beeb reports:

Dr Tarnya Cooper, 16th Century curator at the National Portrait Gallery, said: “We believe that Shakespeare left Stratford-upon-Avon following the birth of twins in 1585. One possibility is that he joined a travelling theatre troupe and it is very unlikely that in 1588, Shakespeare would have been able to afford a costume of this type.” She said the painting has not been looked at in a systematic way before. “But the painting has fuelled the kind of Shakespeare in Love theories of the 21st Century, of a beautiful young man with a sensitive and passionate face, of a character with an incredible emotional range,” she said.

Because you know actors never use costumes and painters always paint the financial truth about their subjects. Look – I know there are a lot of 16th century textile experts among you so I don’t want to cause a flame war over this. I’m just saying.

One Killer App

Ian says that wikipedia and Google are the new killer apps. I say no way. I say email is the only killer app in that it does what it promises and is useful to anyone who comes into contact with it. The web, conversely, fails in many many ways…but even saying that is not getting it. Is there any other industry and activity which lacks any real critical analysis of its downside? The teflon effect of the Internet is likely its greatest success.