SATURDAY NIGHT GERMAN ELEKTROPOP.

Relatively cool video from German electropop band Rheingold. They were a typical Neue Deutsche Welle band, a short-lived German music phenomenon (ca. 1976-1984) which can best be branded as the German version of New Wave, with some punk added for spice. Rheingold, consisting of Bodo Staiger (vocals, guitar), Lothar Manteuffel (lyrics) and Brigitte Kunze (keyboard) had a smash hit in 1980 with Dreiklangsdimensionen:





Kraftwerk is the only German "rock" band that comes to mind when it comes to ones having a degree of success outside Germany. Despite its use of synthesizers, electronic percussion and even computer-generated vocals, the band was never really a part of the NDW. They had a hit in the UK and the Low Countries with The Model, a single drawn from the 1981 album Computer World:





I guess I'm boring our handful of German readers to hell with posting these videos here, given that they were turned grey in die Heimat, but Verzeihung meine Damen und Herren, wir muessen die Angelsachsen doch schauen dass es so auch noch etwas anderes gibt als ihre Schlagers, nichtwahr?


MFBB.

DANISH INSANITY.

Read this during breakfast Monday morning, almost choked on my coffee. From the Flemish newspaper De Morgen, May 18, 2009:





Translation:

Copenhagen proposes arabic as third language on schools

The Copenhagen City Council wants, at the start pf the new school year in September, introduce arabic as third language, after English and on the same level as French and German [emphasis mine - MFBB]. The goal is to help the integration of youths of arabic origin by scoring good points, according to Copenhagen's vice-mayor.

"Arabic, which must be taught in all schools of the Danish capital, would then also be a part of the exam package" dixit Bo Asmus Kjeldgaard, who is also responsible for youth matters.

Ten per cent of the 31,000 pupils in Copenhagen's high schools speak arabic at home. Besides arabic, one can also choose Spanish as third language (afp/ka).

Madness.

Help the integration. That's right fuckface. Help the integration of blonde blue eyed Danes in Eurabia.

This very morning, my wife went with our youngest child, our two-year old son, to our regular pediatrist on the hospital campus in the middle of town. In the waiting room, where she spent quite some time, she was together with a.o. a muslim couple with a baby. The wife was completely shrouded with only the contours of her face visible. My wife told me that when it was the muslim couple's tour, only the man went inside with the baby - the woman had to stay in the waiting room. Yeah, just try to imagine that our dear pediatrist actually sees the kid's mother - wants to shake her hand!!! Worse, try to imagine the father is not present and the mother has to be in the same room with a western male!!! Naturally, that muslim asshole parasite had the GODDAM F*CKING TIME to accompany his wife and child to the pediatrist instead of working somewhere or making himself otherwise useful. In the meantime, the undersigned was hopping from chore A to chore B to chore C thru the day to complete the frikking working schedule - and I don't want to brag, but that working day ended at 23.50h when I finally managed to bag a small contract, peanuts really, but work for two men for one day, from a client in Denderleeuw, central Flanders. And... that client complained how Denderleeuw's town centre had become unsafe because of the sudden flood, over the past four years or so, of hundreds of immigrants from central Africa.


But I digress.

Oh yeah... one last thing...

Bo Asmus Kjeldgaard, Copenhagen's mayor, is a prominent member of the Socialistisk Folkeparti (SF), the Danish Socialist Party.

BUT... I suspect, that you suspected that already.


MFBB.

SUNDAY NIGHT MYSTERY: DUTCH BOATS IN A GALE (TURNER, 1801).

Beauty like on the painting below leaves me speechless.





Dutch boats in a gale, by Joseph Mallord William Turner (oil on canvas, 1801). I admit that I really don't give that much about the lion's share of Turners paintings. Too esoteric, colors too jolly, too out of focus (his engravings are another matter). Actually, I have often wondered how he got away with it in nineteenth century Britain. Turner, a romantic painter who acquired fame at a very young age (he had his first work exhibitioned at the Royal Academy at 15, and had his own studio three years later), became famous through works like Rain, Steam and Speed, Peace: Burial at Sea and Snowstorm. Dutch Boats in a Gale seems rather like the work of a Dutch Master. And indeed, the person who commissioned the work, the Duke of Bridgewater, seems to have wanted Turner to craft a work reminiscent of a painting by the Dutch artist Willem Van De Velde (1611-1693). The mystery deepens when we know that barely two years later, Turner also painted Calais Pier, which, apart from the pier in the corner to the right below, has practically the very same elements as the earlier work, but which is, from a technical point of view, of a lower standard.

Be all that as it may... enjoy it.



MFBB.