1 Downer & Uppers for Pentecost

The downer of the day was that it was sunny and I had a) to go to work & b) dress up for it, though I did not have to show up before the afternoon, which allowed some quality time with Toño and a swim.



And there were more uppers.



Like there are rainbow flags all over the town. The have been there for weeks, but today I saw the first on a public bus (picture above). In a week, the EuroPride 2009 will be held in town and Zürich is really showing its colours. If you haven't done it yet, it's time to book your trip.

Toño did loads of things while I was at work. He bought the groceries and loads of flowers, and got himself a pedicure and a haircut (I so swoon over short hair). And as I type, Toño is in the kitchen preparing entrecôte double with white port wine sauce. Pentecost can begin.

3 in a row

I was listening to the radio when 3 brand spanking new songs came in a row, which touched a chord:

• Passion Pit- Folds In Your Hands (Manners)
• Maps - Let Go Of The Fear
• Phoenix - Lasso

Feel Good, Feel Better, Feel Wonderful*

I was a bit overhasty by calling it a bad day. Almost pure joy came only after I'd left the coalface.

Feel Good

Swimming was exactly what I needed. Our master shark is back from her sailing holidays off Sardinia and did not like what we did to our technique during her absence. Especially the last section of the arm stroke did not find her approval and she really concentrated on setting that straight.

Feel Better



Toño made a Mexican chicken soup for dinner with estragon sorry oregano to cure his cold.

Feel Wonderful

The new album Lotusflow3r by Prince arrived today. My favourite track so far is the cover of Crimson and Clover.



Arme Sau**

Only Toño is far from good, better and wonderful. A first sign was that he did not serve any wine for dinner, which is almost unheard of. He thought that he might have some fever. I've measured 39.4°C/102.9°F. I made him a thermos of fresh tea with lime juice, he dropped a couple of aspirin treupel and is now back in bed. No hanky-panky today :( as I said, only almost pure joy.

* just one of the fabulously funky tracks on Lotusflow3r.
** poor swine - this is how Toño refers to himself right now.

Want Some Steam?

I was far from well-adjusted today. Somehow everybody I encountered (with the exception of Toño & Mr.Mac) managed to infuriate me in no time. Unbelievable how many wankers can cross your way in a single day.

In an hour I can head for the pool. Today I really need it. I hope Katlin will be commanding some tough exercises. My boiler is well heated. Full speed ahead! Aye aye, Madam!

Waiting for Los Abrazos Rotos

I've just learned that we will have to wait until August 13, 2009 until Pedro Almodóvar's Los Abrazos Rotos will run in our cinemas. However, in the Romandy, it has been on show for almost a week. I might have to plan a trip to the west in due course.

Más información sobre esta película

The Tempest²

I just talked to my brother to find out how the farm survived yesterday's tempest.

The tobacco and gherkin fields are completely destroyed. Potatoes and sugar beets are severely damaged but might recover. He'd bedded the tobacco already twice. Now he might not find any seedlings anymore.

The Tempest

I fear the worst for our plants on the balcony. The hailstones were big and there were plenty of them...



By the way: violet is really bad and we're right underneath it.

I was on the phone with my mother and I could hardly hear her. I had to use the landlines. The mobile signal went just flat.

Weekend Wrap-Up

We did not have any specific plans for this weekend but somehow it ended up quite packed and entertaining.

Friday

I called Toño at work and he did not show any resistance to sign up for a movie and dinner. We had a date! Brilliant. I could even make him to sign up for Star Trek, although he had never heard of it (and he even lives in this galaxy). Well, he knows it now and he loved it (I dreamed that night of Chris Pine's underwear scene).

For dinner we went to the fish restaurant Bianchi. Toño had been there already for a business lunch, but I haven't and I had to know how it is. Bianchi is a Swiss fish wholesaler with an excellent reputation. Years ago, they were located in the centre of Zürich and I had to work their as an electrician for more than a month. I never had more space while commuting during rush-hour in Zürich's public transport system.

Back to the restaurant: It was a splendid experience and a positive surprise. The food was absolutely flawless and the flavours marvellously composed. For the wine, Toño went for a white Châteauneuf-du-Pape. As Toño did not know that there is something called Star Trek, I did not know that there are white Châteauneuf-du-Pape. However, the most positive surprise was the service offered, which was charming, attentive, highly professional and never into your face. Why is this so rare?

Saturday

In the morning, both Toño and I went for some sportive activities. In the afternoon Toño cleaned the residence while I took care of the groceries. I went to the city centre and was honestly quite shocked. When did it become acceptable for mothers to dress tartier than their already quite tartily dressed teenage daughters? There were plenty of those weird 'couples'.

For the evening we pondered various options (ranging from a romantic walk to getting shit-faced) and finally settled to pay this Sensation event from the Netherlands a visit. We had to dress in white, pay a hefty fee to get in, enjoyed ourselves for 4 straight hours on the dance floor and were amazed by the fantastic show. I reckon, the party was not sold-out, which actually left some space to dance. When we left, Toño remarked that there were a lot of breeders. I had to explain that this was not the White Party. That one was when we were in Mexico.

This is Toño and me on a crappy mobile phone picture:



Sunday

After only four hours of sleep I got up to make my mother a lemon drizzle cake, since we planed to pay my clan a visit later that day.

This is my sister examining my cake (she then asked for the recipe) and Toño mopping the floor:



Further, we wiped the courtyard, cleaned the manger, fed the cows and unloaded a cart load of hay.



Now we are closing the day by watching Billy Wilder's Sunset Blvd. on Arte.

#dailyexercise

A fortnight ago Toño suggested that we both could shed 4 kg (8.8 lb). Since I'm not exactly at the weight Toño has signed up to when he seduced me in December 2004, I happily agreed, took my first benchmark measurement in two years and went straight to the outdoor pool, which had opened an hour ago for the summer season, for some labs (1 Nm = 1' of latitude = 1852 m = 6076 ft ) in the cool water. Coming back from the pool I tweeted this deed with Ms.Mac's hashtag #dailyexercise.

Since then I actually my daily exercise with the exception of 3 days (mostly hangover related), which give me a rate of more than 5 workouts per week. At the time I met Toño I was at 3 times per week. So I reckon, when I keep the current rate up for a couple of months, I should reach the goal. However, so far, it did not show on the scales but I think some of the weight has already moved places.

I have a rather awkward relation to sport. It took decades until we started to like each other. Actually there are only two sports I really like: swimming and cycling. Both have the qualities that you can do them alone and they don't require significant coordinative abilities. It's the same movement all over again.

PE at school was a dreadful experience. I was the kid which was chosen last when a team had to be built. I can't blame them. I was and still am useless when it comes to team sports. And please don't give me a ball. The only sport I kind of excelled and was chosen first was orienteering. Because I was a boy scout, I knew how to handle a map.

It did not help that I had to go to PE with the girls with a few other boys for a couple of years, because there were far more boys in class than girls. Maybe I can sue the school for therapy to cure this damage.

When I was drafted for the army, I did not manage to get the minimal required points in the sports test. They did not care much for their own benchmarks and took me anyway.

Thanks to the boy scouts I then had my first positive sport experience when I was in my mid twenties. It's hard to believe but I reached a expert level in 'camp sport' and had to go to a course to the federal Swiss sport school. There I had my first real sports teachers who really deserve the job title. What they got out of my wicked body in just a few days was amazing.

The first sport I got into was cycling. Although I had a sever blow-back in 1990 when a bike of mine was stolen only 17 days after I bought it. It was anyway a bad evening. The film we saw I did not like (Pretty Woman) and the lad I was with did not want to cop off with me. Despite this bad start, I kept going and started to like it cycling. The trick was that I went for the hottest bikes and gear (2 more got stolen in the following years).

Surprisingly, it was the army that helped me to get into swimming. Here in Switzerland, when you serve in the army, you have to go to periodic repetition courses lasting 2 to 3 weeks. A way to get out of the uniform is to go for voluntary sport in your off-duty time. I don't like running. But one year we happened to be close to various pools, which I tested. There I swum the first time for longer than half an hour.

This experience motivated me to get contact lenses. Without glasses or contacts, I'm blind as a mole. This was the start of my thing for swimming. After I made it a regular habit (up to 10 km per week), I signed up for a crawl course in 2003. A year later, I met Toño in this course :) The swim team is still together. We practice every Thursday evening and like to party together from time to time.

That's me and Toño in matching speedos:



Why this effort, since the time I took my shirt off on a dance floor is over? I work in an office. But humans have still the genes in them from the time they were hunting mammoths. We have to move ourselves, to feel comfortable. We just have to overcome the lack will power. But I think it pays off. Like I haven't been as horny in a long time as in the last couple of weeks.

Red Thai Curry

Normally when we make Thai food, we go for a green curry. But today Toño wanted a red curry. I did not mind and got him the ingredients. This is what he made out of it:



Spicy food makes it rather difficult to choose an appropriate wine. Toño proffered a Casa Castillo Pie Franco, 2005, Jumilla. This wine is made of old Monastrell grapes, and hence could parry the hotness of the curry.

There is a strange thing with food, not only hot food. Five minutes into eating my right nostril starts to run. It is very unpleasant and annoying for the fellow guests at the table when one has to grab a handkerchief five minutes into eating.

My Baby Is Back

When I turned 30 I gave myself a present in form of a wristwatch. I went for an IWC Mark XII, which costed the equivalent of my then monthly salary. Nevertheless, it was one of the purchases I never regretted.



A couple of months ago, I brought my watch for a complete maintenance and service, covering an overhaul including a new wristband to the watchmaker. You have to do this with mechanical watches from time to time. However, I did not expect to wait 2 months to get it back. They had some redundancies, was the excuse I heard from my neighbour who works at the place, things are a bit out of order. The luxury industry is not what it once was. It's time that the tide changes.

However Toño had to make a remark only a family oriented Latino can think of. Obviously the service on my precious watch was as expensive as the watch I gave my mother to her last birthday. He kind of questioned my priorities.

... lives down our street

Toño somehow never managed to see Casino Royal and had been nagging me for ages to get this film. Toño's wish is eventually my command and I finally gave in and showed it to him. He actually quite liked it (though he was not that impressed by the beach scene, I however loved the parkour sequences at the beginning). The film reminded me that I haven't heard this song in a while...



Daniel Craig made its line "My hair is Blonde!" finally true. Now Toño claims that he is allowed to see Quantum of Sausage... Qui vivra, verra.

Johnny Come Home

Last Sunday, I was in the mood to read. I grabbed Jake Arnott's latest novel Johnny Come Home from the shelf where it had been collecting dust for almost three years.



I have no idea how it could remain there so long. I loved Arnott's gangland trilogy, consiting of The Long Firm, He Kills Coppers and truecrime, which was the sophisticated fusion of gangsterism, show business, politics and gay culture. I particularly liked that they were without this coming-out or coming-of-age thing that is often involved when there is a gay storyline. The gangster boss just happened to be a bender and nobody dared to mess with him because of this (if I recall correctly).

Whatever, I started the book on Sunday and finished it yesterday. It has turned out to be a page turner. The Guardian review covers my thoughts quite good. For the once who just want the synopsis:

It's 1972 and as the dreams of the sixties give way to anger and political unrest, the charismatic anarchist Declan O'Connell commits suicide, leaving his boyfriend Pearson and fellow squatter Nina to try to make sense of what has happened. Enter Sweet Thing, a streetwise rent boy, who has an uncanny hold over glam rock star Johnny Chrome; and in the wings lurks Detective Sergeant Walker of the newly formed Bomb Squad, who knows more about O'Connell than anyone ever suspected. The course of all their lives is about to change forever -- for better and for worse.

Jake Arnott's fifth novel, The Devil's Paintbrush will come out by the end of this month. It is set in Paris in 1903, and deals with an encounter between disgraced former British Army officer Sir Hector Macdonald and the occultist Aleister Crowley. It's ordered.

I ♥ Water

I ♥ water. I ♥ to drink it. I ♥ to look at it (the bigger the water the better), I ♥ to stay under it (happy when it rains), I ♥ to swim in it (this is how I met Toño), and I ♥ to take a dip in it.



Have a great weekend and enjoy all the water you can get.

100 Random Travel Facts

I'm in a strange list mood and I travel quite a bit. Hence, here are some things that come to my mind when I recall my trips:

1. If I get homesick it's first because I deliriously miss Toño.


2. The second reason is, I like hard-crusted Swiss bread.


3. My first trip abroad (lasting more than a few hours) was with my parents to Venice when I was 12.


4. This was the only holiday trip I made with my parents (they are farmers, they don't do holidays).


5. On the trip to Venice, I slept the first time in a room with an air condition.


6. I caught a terrible cold because the chambermaid set it to the maximum level and we did not notice it.


7. On the trip to Venice, I'd slept and eaten for the first time in a ***** hotel. I'd never seen so many waiters around a single table before.


8. The Piazza San Marco in Venice was flooded.


9. On the way home, I ate my first Lasagne. It was a mind boggling experience.


10. The worst food I'd ever eaten was a pizza in India. Cardboard would have been more palatable.


11. The second worst food was Sandwich Chaud au Poulet in Quebec, Canada.


12. However, in Asturias (Spain) I dicovered Cidre de Glace (ice cider), an extordanary speciality from Quebec.


13. In order to do this, I had to pretend that I'm a journalist writing about cider.
    


14. I usually spend about 168 hours (7x24) per year on planes.


15. In 2005 I was on 41 planes.


16. My first flight ever was to Canada when I was 15 to the World Scout Jamboree.


17. Two of my fellow boy scouts played Alphorn over the Atlantic.


18. 4 hours before landing in Canada they run out of Coke and two hours later out of all other soft drinks.


19. In Canada I had my first jet-lag. A dreadful experience.


20. In Canada I discovered that I had some bullets of an assault rifle in my luggage. Airport security did not find them *uff*. My brother had left them in the bag, which I took with me. I threw the rounds into the next trash bin.


21. Two years later, my brother took the same bag on a trip to Australia. Again, there were some rounds in it. At the stop-over in London, they were discovered and he was questioned for two hours.


22. In Canada, I played cricket for the first and last time. I never managed to ball anywhere close to the wicket. I hated cricket.


23. Many moons later my then Kiwi boss taught me the laws of cricket during several trips to India. Since then, at least watching is kind of fun.


24. On the first morning in the camp in Canada, our Alporn players waked us at dawn with their instruments.


25. On the next day, the Scots next to us took revenge with their bagpipes.


26. In Canada I played Golf for the first time. However, after the fourth hole we had to shortcut to the 19th because we run out of insect repellent spray. I lost two balls until then.


27. In Canada I saw the first bears in wildlife. A mother and a cup were crossing the street in front of our bus.


28. In the Kolima region in Siberia I saw the first bear face to face while I was walking across a glacier. I did the wrong thing and run. The bear did the same, luckily in the other direction.


29. During this, my former flatmate Tigresa was fast asleep in our tent.


30. On the Kamchatka Peninsula I saw fresh (less than half an hour old) foot prints of a bear in the snow. I could comfortably put my shoe into the foot print.


31. On Kamchatka I saw a bear defecating while we were landing with a helicopter. The poo was still warm when we reached it.


32. We negotiated for this helicopter flight were held in the middle of a roundabout. The negotiations took 2.5 hours.


33. This was my first helicopter flight ever.


34. I've never been in another helicopter than a MI8.


35. Also in Siberia I saw a dead bear. Actually I smelled it twenty minutes before I saw it. I still have got a tooth of that one.


36. On the same trip, we were interviewed by the television, because we were the first tourists travelling to Siberia with a private local travel agent (it was still the Soviet Union)


37. On the same trip, I drank ethanol for the first time.


38. I also saw the skates Lenin was using when he was exiled to Siberia.


39. I saw my first non-poisonous snake on a school trip. Our teacher caught it with his hands.


40. The next snakes I saw in Siberia, a place I did not expect to see any snakes at all.


41. I saw my first poisonous snakes Kazakhstan. One of them I spotted in a field where we had our tents. My tent mate denied me to take my shoes into the tent. I almost died of fear when I had to check them on the next day for any inhabitants.


42. On Kamchatka, I drove to the crater of a volcano in a tank.


43. On Kamchatka, I was told that the flight back was postponed by a week due to lack of fuel.


44. I then bought some smoked salmon and drunk a bottle of vodka, which the salesman offered because he never had a Swiss customer before. There is photographic evidence that I then tried to teach my dead and already smoked fish to smoke a cigarette (not that I remember this).


45. Thanks to bribery, we got a flight three days later.


46. The first money given was rejected because the dollar bills were not clean and new enough.


47. At the bottom of the stairs to the plane we had a fistfight, because we bribed more than others and were given access first. The ones who bribed less did not liked this. There were no boarding cards.


48. The flights from Moscow to Kamchatka and back were my shortest and my longest domestic flights ever. It lasts 9.5 hours and covers 9 time zones. So to Kamchatka it takes half an hour and back it's 18.5 hours.


49. I've been 12 times to either the Soviet Union or Russia.


50. Of those, 8 trips were to Siberia.


51. Of those, 2 trips were in Winter.


52. I was twice to the coldest village on Earth.


53. I was naked in the snow with Toño at around -50°C/-58°F to cool down from a banja (Russian sauna).


54. I've spent 3 times a week on a river and was 2 times hiking for a week in Siberia without meeting anybody.


55. For the hiking sections we always bought a reindeer as emergency supply and named it Shashlik. Though we never had to slaughter it.


56. I never travel to such places without a diver sport towel.


57. We forgot our passports in the hotel in Irkutsk while travelling further east on the Trans-Siberian Railway.


58. In summer 1988, I won a dance competition in a discotheque in Tajikistan.


59. I sat in the audience when Moscow's Bolshoi Theatre went on strike on March 9, 1995 for the first time since 1776. The ballet did this to get their director Yuri Grigorovich re-installed, who had resigned because of president Boris Yeltsin.


60. In 1995 I spent three months in Moscow, learning Russian with a private teacher.


61. I heard the song Barbie Girl for the first time in a hotel in Mongolia.


62. In Mongolia, I rode a horse for about 100 km.


63. About one kilometre before our destination, my horse stepped into a mouse hole while we were at full gallop. I have no idea how I did not break anything while falling with the horse.


64. I've broken 5 bones but none abroad, though 3 of them while skiing or snow boarding in Switzerland (the rest while cycling to the pool).


65. I have used to have a good night sleep. In Mongolia we were sleeping in tents and had a small bus for our cook. On the first night we had a thunderstorm and everyone was fleeing into the bus. Everyone but me. They could not wake me up.


66. I do not like to travel in the wilderness without a cook. A cook is a necessity for such an endeavour.


67. On the Mongolia trip, our cook slaughtered two sheep.


68. In Karelia, I did not sleep the first night on a canoeing trip because my arms hurt so much from rowing all day.


69. In Karelia, I swam through white water rapids.


70. In 1996, I cycled from Moskow to St. Petersburg


71. In London I shared the bed with the girlfriend of a friend, who slept on the floor.


72. I made my first trip to the U.S. of A. before I was drafted to the army and was not yet allowed to drink there. I always had to wear a suit when I wanted to drink. They never asked for an ID when I did this.


73. I drunk my first White Russian in a restaurant called Blue Lagoon on Key Largo on that trip.


74. Later that night a boy called me Crockett because of my silver jacket (it was the 80es).


75. I was carded in a gay club in Pittsburgh when I was already older than 30.


76. We jumped a long queue in front of a club in Brussels, because an Austrian friend of mine shouted "We are from Switzerland!" to the bouncer.


77. I lost 10 kg (22 lb) after a spring break shopping trip to New York. All the clothes I bought I could give right to charity.


78. I did not see any other white boys when I visited relatives of Toño in South Central Los Angeles.


79. Legend says that when you take a bath in the Lake Baikal you will reach 100 years of age. It was so cold, when I was there, that I only dipped my foot. If you ever see a lonely walking foot, it might be mine.


80. My most useless business trip was to a nuclear power plant in Germany where I had nothing more to do than to press 1 button.


81. In a hotel room in Brussels I confessed to a friend and he confessed to me that we kind of like the Earth Song.


82. I somehow managed to catch a flu in Mexico this April.


83. I slept with Toño in the bed of a Hollywood celebrity.


84. I never got seasick, although I sail a lot. *touches wood*


85. I was once coerced to carry water for 1.5 hours by an old woman when I visited a Russian monastery.


86. I once stranded in Dublin with an Air Lingus ticket, although it was Ryanair that was on strike.


87. The highest altitude I've ever walked/climbed to is the Thorong La Pass at 5416 m (17,769 ft) in Nepal.


88. For this trip, my lugged weighted only 12.5 kg (including mountaineer boots).


89. I crossed Chechnya and did not even notice it (1988 in a train to Baku while I was asleep).


90. In China it was cheaper to buy socks than to give them to the hotel laundry.


91. In Syria, a Bedouin wanted me to marry his daughter.


92. In Syria, I ate my first club sandwich.


93. I went to Palm Springs to my my first Quinceañera. To prepare for this, I watched the film Quinceañera (which has a nice gay side storyline).
    


94. I've never been to Berlin and kind of regret it.
    


95. I got quite wet when I drove in a 15 year old convertible from New York to Washington and it was raining all the way. I tried to plug the biggest holes in the roof with tissues. But they just soaked up and then dropped.


96. I love the sea but I loath sandy beaches. The sand gets to places where I just don't like to have any sand.


97. I saw the sea for the first time in Venice.


98. I swum the first time in salty water in the Caspian Sea.


99. Despite all the travelling, I've never crossed the equator and have no idea how it feels like when the sun shines from the wrong side.


100. My first trip with Toño was to Lausanne. We did not sleep much.
     

News Addiction Top 10

I'm addicted to news. If I enter a hotel room, I first switch on the telly and tune it to CNN. And at least the first hour of the day is dedicated to reading newspapers (with a mug of coffee Toño brought me to the bed).

I'm subscripted to quite some newspapers and magazines. Here I tried to put some of them into an order. The main criteria was whether I would miss them, if they would not be delivered any more (1: I would jump off a cliff - 10: hums the Great Song of Indifference)



That was easy. Toño works for Vinum (Europe's Wine Magazine), hence it helped to pay the bills if you would also subscribe to it (available in German, French & Spanish). Occasionally, Toño models also for the magazine. It would also help to pay the bills if you ordered a warship. In that case, you would have to send the email too me.



BUTT is a pocket-size, quarterly magazine for and about homosexuals, founded in 2001, published and printed in The Netherlands, available world-wide. I have never read anything alike. It is packed with interviews with the broadest range of homosexuals. They questions don't stop at the waistline. Despite of that it is full of adds of luxury brands.



The Economist does not precisely coincides with my point of view, but at least it has one (which I prefer to the so called nutral). It's an authoritative weekly newspaper focusing on international politics and business news and opinion. The paper is excellently written and covers the world we live on. The leader of the pack!



Monocle is a global briefing covering international affairs, business, culture and design. This basically covers all my interest. And the editor-in-chief is a good looking, dressed and groomed homosexual who used to live in Zürich.



FANTASTIC MAN is the gentlemen's style journal from the editors of BUTT. According to this bi-annual fashion magazine life begins at 30. Targeted at a more mature group of readers, FM's aim is to re-invent the 'gentleman's style journal'. The magazine contains, as the name implies, interviews and fashion features with inspiring men and interesting personalities. It features men in clothes rather than models in fashion.



Yes, I'm one of this frigging pinkos who read this lefty WoZ. It has the only sport section I actually flip through.



The Zürich daily NZZ is brilliant when it comes to foreign affairs, science (Wednesday's) and Feuilleton (which is a rich mine for electronic music). However, the others sections are complete bollocks.



Le Menu is a cooking magazine published by the Swiss dairy farmers, which explains that there are few recipes without any dairy products. We mainly subscribed to it for its well assorted internet data base with almost 5000 recipes. We can search the data base at work for what we would like to have for dinner, print the recipe and pick up the ingredients on the way home. Very convenient indeed.



The Tagi is the other of Zürich's dailies. I mainly read it for the gossip and to be able to keep up with the small talk at the coffee machine. Though its supplementary magazine on Saturday is usually quite entertaining and Constantin Seibt, Switerland's best quill-driver, writes for them.



Is there any good Sunday newspaper in the world?

If we run out of trees and oil-based ink, I'm to blame.

Mexicanisation

Our residence has gotten a bit more of a Mexican touch. Toño's sister Chilo gave us two pieces of flowery embroidery with crisp and clean flower patterns.

A table runner for the drawing room with alcatraces:



Drapes for the kitchen with buganvilias:



Added Later
If somebody would had told me 5 years ago that I will ever have flowery embroidery with crisp and clean flower patterns in my splendid apartments (and actually like it), I would had beaten the living daylights out of him. I've kind of changed a bit.

Airborne Spooks?

This weekend there might had been even more people who'd been following Clive Owen's footsteps. On the factory roof in front of my office window, I spotted this crashed unmanned aerial vehicle:



I smell industrial espionage. Should I report this?

Planting A Hot 2009

The chilies are planted.



This Summer will be hot again. We have got a habanero from the Maldives, tiny bastards from Mauritius, and the must-have chili Peri-Peri a.k.a. African Devil.

Tigresa's Bagel Deli

It's supposed to open in June and the homepage is also still under construction. However, I dared to follow in the footsteps of Clive Owen* and managed to get a glimpse of the blueprints:

In a month or so, this will be the fabulous Bagel Deli of my former flatmate Tigresa. Based on the blueprints, the location and knowing Tigresa, I predict a flabbergasting dining experience. I'll keep you posted.

Added Later
Obviously they were not up for perfection and Tigresa had no other choice but to pull back from the project.

* Yes, I have a not so secret crush on him.

Lecherous Retail Therapies

Today, coincidentally and independently, both Toño and I spent a middle fortune on the carnal satisfaction of our personal fetishes.

Toño is a vine aficionado and had been conceiving the desire for a temperature-controlled wine cabinet for quite some time. Finally today, he ordered an ostentatious wine cabinet for our drawing room for up to 133 bottles with 3 distinct temperature zones:

• one in the centre for maturing wines in ideal conditions (10-14 °C)
• one at the bottom for chilling (6-10 °C)
• one at the top at room temperature (16-20°C).

Meanwhile, I got myself a brand-spanking new fork for my beloved GT Zaskar LE bike.



I bought my Zaskar LE in August 1998 after I'd spotted it at Cycle Shark. It was love at first sight and I just could not sleep any more until we were united. It was purely a dick-driven decision since I owned already a titanium hard-tail with similar characteristics (light, strong, stiff, tight, agile, extremely fast).

Back in 1998 RockShox had just released their revolutionary RockShox SID (Superlight Integrated Design) fork. Unfortunately last winter, my SID fork reached the end of its lifespan and could not be retrofitted. In other words, its tubes were fucked up beyond all recognition.

Blessing in disguise, SRAM (which bought RockShox) has just completely redesigned their SID collection. I went for the SID Team which weights just 3.27 lbs / 1485 g. The price jump to the SID World Cup was a bit too steep ($300) to save further 0.05 lbs.

Nevertheless, I just want you to know that we are not to blame if the economy does not kick-start and does not get its titties in a twist in due course. I wish you a randy Spring weekend.

It's a Pen…It's a Plane…It's Me

Thoughtful Mr.Mac has brought me this cute & lovely plane-like pen with my Christian name Urs all over it from an arms trade fair:

Topless Backside

I can't help it. IMHO the Dior add on the back cover of the Springtime 2009 BUTT is just too sexy.

Healed!

I've just been released from my quarantine. I'm allowed to mingle again (and go to work). Many thanks for all the support!

My GP was very safety-conscious. All consultations had been via phone only.

Having a Flu

Something with travelling has getten completely wrong. First, I happen to be a regular at the Taj Mahal Hotel in Mumbai, which becomes suddenly a high risk destination and then I catch a flu in Mexico.

Everything started on Wednesday, April 22 in Guadalajara when I had to rush to the loo right after opening my blue eyes early morning. Moctezuma's revenge! I did not trust that turkey sandwich at Sanborns in the first place. Whatever, I popped a couple of Imodiums. Problem solved. I did not hear of Moctezuma again.

However, in the course of the day I started to develop a fever which rose to 39.2°C/102.6°F the next day. Besides of fever, I felt rather weak, had body aches, and a severe head ache. Typical flu symptoms. I did not worry much, stayed in, sipped tea and sent Toño out partying to get sufficient rest myself. In the course of the next two days I also developed itchy eyes, runny nose, and a cough. However, the fever never went that high again and I was not worried at all. It's just a flu and all it takes is some patience and lots of tea to flush it out.

On Friday, I received a text message from a colleague: Beware of the Swine Flue! That's how I learned that there might be a problem.

The next day Toño and I travelled back to La Huacana, where I visited a doctor on the following day. The GP convinced me that I need to go on antibiotics. Those helped within 36 hours. All symptoms besides the cough were gone. On the cough, I'm still working.

On the day I went to the doctor, my mother called when it was still pitch-dark in La Huacana, commanding us to travel home immediately because there is this dangerous flu in México. It took a while to explain to her that I'm in no position to travel because I'm down with flu.

A few days later I shocked her again by answering her question about the whereabouts of Toño that he is sitting in front of the house with some neighbours singing backed by some guitars. Being in La Huacana is like being in a Bollywood film. People do spontaneously break into song and dance.

And yes, people were still mingling in La Huacana despite the clear and present flu danger. I even had to go to a baptism when I still had fever after not showing up to a wedding was not well received. We only started wearing those masks when we reached the state capital Morelia.



Now I'm back here in Switzerland which is still bathing in paranoia. My GP ordered me to stay home until at least Thursday.

Saving Mankind or Trees?

The Swiss Federal Office of Public Health has published three pictographs which are supposed to prevent the outburst of swine flu in Switzerland:



The authorities want that we wash our hands, that we hold a kleenex in front of our face whenever we sneeze or cough and that we dispose the kleenex correctly. However, did the government give any thought on the collateral damages of such a behaviour?

Son de tierra caliente

Well, a daughter of Toño's paternal grandmother's sister dropped by and one thing let to the other...



No, Toño is not dancing this son with the daughter of his his paternal grandmother's sister but with a daughter of his father's girlfriend. Well, if I'd got it right...