And Who’re These People?

Skip the textual content and gimme the Nude Celebs Photos photographs!

Welcome, Lemmings! Let’s go on a tour of southeast Germany, because it appeared to my jaded sensibility in August 1999.

First we decided to go to Germany. Only then did we even start to resolve what sort of thing we needed to do in Germany. But even this was difficult by communication issues in late-evening, half-asleep phone calls, by the quantity and intensity of other distractions, and so on. Here’s the most important extract from these careful deliberations:

“North or South?”

“Oh, whichever you want.”

“No, actually, whichever you want.”

“Oh well . . . south then.”

[thinks of a spot in the south that is definitely large enough to have an airport] “We may fly to Munich.”

“Ok.”

And thus Munich it was — whereupon I instantly thought of enticing locations to the west, equivalent to Freiburg, and questioned why I hadn’t advised either starting or ending at Stuttgart.

Thus it can be a loop starting and finishing at Munich. We deliberate — if “What about blankety-blank” / “Mmm, good” counts as planning — numerous attractions from there. Constrained by various impossibities and dislikes, we ended up spending more often than not in a very orthodox tour, looking at the kinds of worthy artifacts that Baedeker, the Blue Guide, Nagel and Michelin would reward, somewhat than actually doing something. (That’s center age for you.) But, in our reasonably staid method, we managed to get pleasure from ourselves. Or a minimum of I did; I hope the others did too.

The opposite pages (linked to at the foot) have more photos of this or that place; this page has the odds and sods.

German guesthouse style (yes, there ought to be a coffee-table book about it). Left: the head of a wild boar, as photographed within the staircase of an in any other case sane and normal constructing. (Another resident of the building was about as spooked to encounter me photographing it as I was once i noticed it first.) Middle: chair upholstered by anyone surreptitiously practising hangul. Right: just what you want 24 hours of the day: a vending machine providing a choice of beer, beer, coke [ugh!], beer, beer, beer, beer, beer, beer, beer, beer or beer.

And those are about the one photographs of this form that you’ll see on any of these pages. The trouble is, the digital camera only has direct, in-your-face flash (high-quality if you are Weegee, cheesy for most other functions), and also it only has computerized focusing . . . and half the time there isn’t enough gentle for it to be able to focus.

It’s no help in any respect that, even without a viewfinder, I know completely properly that, say, “1m” can be positive. The digicam mustn’t have manual focusing whilst an extra — that ability may perplex Joe Q. Normal in the showroom. (Cf the kickstart on a motorbike.)

Ok, Ok, I was just too lazy and incompetent to try to take interesting footage indoors.

Being outdoors, as I was, it wasn’t too much hassle to take pictures of buildings, folks, and automobiles. But I’m wary of photographing folks with out their permission; and photographs of individuals taken with their permission all to simply grow to be wooden. (And I’m too lazy to ask for permission.) So we’re down to buildings and automobiles. The buildings are on different pages. Vehicles, which as a rule are just one species of avenue furniture, are principally right here.

Years ago, a minor pleasure of a visit to Germany was seeing (and being caught behind or overtaking) varied oddball vehicles that were little exported. Messerschmidts, Goliaths, Goggomobils, that sort of thing. Amongst the BMWs and Mercedes, I wished to find a plebeian-wanting car. There were only a few contenders, though I did spot a Goggomobil. The real beetle is now less widespread than the millennium bug (a Golf with a rounded physique); here is a very jolly example of the former.

Here’s in regards to the closest you may get: a Trabant (or “Trabi”) from the DDR. But unfavourable snobbery is as chic as common, boring old snobbery — although more fun, and cheaper. (How a couple of Czech instance with leopardskin seat covers?)

You would possibly as nicely go the entire hog and get pleasure from ultimately sybaritic (and sexist) tastelessness. Never journey anywhere with no nubile nude feminine.

Ok, yet another little automotive. This one is known as “smart” (the small “s” makes it one degree cuter). They’re very small and so they’re cute — so why are they virtually unknown right here in Japan?

Beer is a vital a part of a lemming’s trip in Germany.

Even for those who keep within the cities, you’ll be able to see wildlife. This handsome chap was a fellow-tourist in central Munich.

The proper bourgeois lemming should tell all and sundry about his car — after all, he has little identification without it. Well, it is a Ferrari Testosterone, um no an Alfa Romeo 156. I believe the engine was 1.6 litres however I didn’t open the hood, let alone poke round with a ruler. Very comfortable, if just a little dangerously straightforward to speed up to and cruise at 170 km/h (nonetheless authorized in Germany, after all). (And who are these folks? Sorry, nothing personal on any of those pages.)

Any feedback? Corrections? Write to me (Peter Evans), or tell the whole world.