Hello Rustic Churll and Kalashnikov Man!
Trust you are both well. Not sure if you have been in contact with The Nanaimo Nicotinoid or not but I mentioned to him that as far as the NRBC is concerned, will need to be two weeks after October 19th, if you want my august presence, as Cora Lee and I are both volunteering for the VWF, until, and including, the 27th. However, don't worry about scheduling otherwise if it suits others.
Let me know about when to pick you up at Beziers! Bring a copy Pnin and you can have your choice of Romani babes! Cheers to you both, IL Conduttore!
Hi Dennisovitch and Captain Barnacle! Thanks for tip on Le Chat Noir. I'll impress Coriandre once she joins me. I did pass along your regards to Timo. He said you still owed him €200!
Didn't actually turn out my bedside light until almost 2;00 am so was not up until 8:34 am this morning for an Instanto delicioso. Opened the shutters, gazed out upon my pastoral idyll and then zapped a large bowl of butter bean concoctione to provide energy for ride ahead. Answered a few messagios before lubing/suiting up. Locked the door at 10:45 am and once I'd acquired one of Sputnik's great-great-great-great grandchildren I set off making for Fontès. Had high hopes of doing 60+ km and had a rough route in mind, having played around with Googel Maps, plotting various villages, ones that I already knew and others I hoped to add to my ride knowledge banks.
At the top of the hill I exchanged "Bonjours" and smiles with another cyclist, roughly my age. Most younger, lycra-clad, carbon fibroids barely deign to acknowledge me so I've taken to scattering handfuls of lethal looking upholstery tacks on the roadway if I see any such elitist pompoids approaching. I spit on their arrogant spit!
At about this point the road changes name and Route d'Adissan leads almost directly north towards Péret. Since village is nestled into the hillside it is a very picturesque scene indeed. Not to mention the ever-present vineyards. "The base of Languedoc wine production is obviously the vineyards. Some of these make their own wine and sell their produce directly. These are called private wine producers. Others form part of cooperative wine producers. Today there are 1198 private wine producers and 152 cooperative wine producers in the Languedoc region." Almost without exception each village that I have ridden through has a cooperative facility, not to mention the plethora of private wine producers. Most of the intersections I've encountered, whether on main roads or tiny country lanes, either driving or biking, from very day I arrived, often sport as many as four as a five signs announcing the direction to different "domaines".
Switchback after switchback with no end to them in sight. However, the grade wasn't all that steep and I was able to negotiate the entire climb in 2nd, albeit using my my lowest gear there. Really was a delight and I wondered, as I plugged onward and upward, if the 2013 Tour had actually traversed these roads. I saw quite a few chalk/spray paint markings on the road surface at different points and could imagine the zany spectators dangerously close to the riders, waving and shouting in their faces!
Had never taken this approach to Neffiès before so was pleased to have a better mental map of the village and then, in a flash, understood which hill Dennisovitch had been referring to when he described some of his many rides. Not looking forward to tackling it form this side but plan to attempt the ascent over next few days now that I have some idea what i"m up against!Had about 33 km on the clock when I left Neffiès so I knew I was about half-way through my intended ride. Made for the outskirts of Roujan and then took the D125 towards Vailhan. Wanted to explore beyond where I'd last ridden, past L'Auberge du Presbytère, an old stone presbytery (17C), overlooking a tiny lake, Lac des Olivettes. Once there I soon discovered that the string of other lakes here are man-made, created by the large dam built across the narrow valley not far from Vailhan itself. Going was quite easy here as road ran on a level course as it followed the edges of the reservoir, so I kept going, hoping I'd see a sign for Faugères, the destination I had in mind when I'd planned my route this morning. Little did I realize, at the time, that I was too far east to be able to make it to Faugères, at least not knowing these untraveled roads.
By the time I lost sight of the water the grade had increased considerably and I kept thinking, hoping, that it would soon level off. It did not and I had to say to myself, over and over and over again, "Just one more corner!" Kept going at a slow, steady pace and based on the hillsides I could see off to my right I figured I was nearing the top of whatever Everest I happened to be scaling. Fortunately, I was cycling in the shade for a goodly part of the climb as by this time I was worried about the level in my camel pack. Furthermore, never encountered a single person or car, other than someone parked by the roadside as I started the initial climb, so it was rather spooky being so isolated, not really knowing where I was or where I was going.
Thought I was heading in right direction, at least, so I pressed on, coming to Montesquieu and once out of this slightly larger village, saw the sign for Gabian and I knew I was home-free, more or less. Had a pretty good idea where the road would lead me, relative to Roujan so I quite enjoyed this "Tour" descent. Here, however, the switchbacks were much tighter than out of Cabrières and I was glad there was no traffic as I needed to encroach on the oncoming lane for most of the corkscrew bends!
Long run into Gabian, longer than I thought it would be, but steady downhill for most of the way so my legs were pleased. Once through Gabian, I thought I recognized some of the landmarks and when I rode past Le Chateau de Cassan, I recognized both he name and the impressive building itself. I had noticed it on my fateful drive from Bèziers. All the pieces of the ride map puzzle fell into place and I was soon entering Roujan. Since I had about 65 km on the odometre by this time I thought I'd shoot for 70+ km.
Today's ride stats:
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/370913380#.UiiBdfRmMvk.email
[Today's weight: 80.2 kg = 176.811 lbs, post-ride]
Wasn't particularly hungry so beavered away at The Diaries, munching on a banana and having a java. Around 7:00 pm felt peckish so zapped the last of my kartofellage/merguez melange and made a mixed green salad, topped with Carrefour's finest Le Rustique Camembert, reading another few chapters of Gods & Beasts, as I enjoyed my simple but delicious fare.
Cheers, Il Conduttore!
Pics: biking gear at the ready: growing collection of empties!
Hello Italy, et al! Are you alive and well or have you entered a convent? No news is good news, I trust! Let me know how you are feeling if you have a nano/nana-second! Fondestos, Love and Cheers, Patrizzio/Dad!
Patrick,
thanks for pictures and day-entry from you dairy. have an impression!
Sure the rest of the NRBC would be interested to read it as well!Hi Gents, I will not available for the last weekend of September and First weekend of October. Otherwise, I maybe able to offer to host the meeting. Cheers, Moe
Are we still going with Sundays? I am available Sep 15
for a Sunday and then the following weekends are in the air, but I'll go
with the general consensus.
Hi Corinne and Patrick,
Hope you had a good weekend and all has gone well with your travels so far.
Enjoyed the BBQ and will try your marinade for the chicken.
Thank you for your card and tea towel. It is a lovely colour and a nice reminder of Canada. We were actually looking at them when we were over in Canada ourselves.
Enjoy your continued travels and hopefully we shall see you some time in Canada sooner rather than later. Love from Gudrun and Stephen
Yes Nana...where are you and where are all the pictures you promised!!!
Pat,
Early morning at Trevino fountain. Before leaving for Venice. More later Love to all C
Gee thanks for proof of life Mom!! Lol
ALERTS TO THREATS IN 2013 EUROPE From JOHN CLEESE
The English are feeling the pinch in relation to recent events in Syria
and have therefore raised their security level from "Miffed" to
"Peeved." Soon, though, security levels may be raised yet again to
"Irritated" or even "A Bit Cross." The English have not
been "A Bit Cross" since the blitz in 1940 when tea supplies nearly ran
out. Terrorists have been re-categorized from "Tiresome" to "A Bloody
Nuisance." The last time the British issued a "Bloody Nuisance" warning
level was in 1588, when threatened by the
Spanish Armada.
The Scots have raised their threat level from "Pissed Off" to "Let's get the Bastards." They don't have any other levels. This is the reason they have been used on the front line of the British army for the last 300 years.
The French government announced yesterday that it has raised its terror alert level from "Run" to "Hide." The only two higher levels in France are "Collaborate" and "Surrender." The rise was precipitated by a recent fire that destroyed France's white flag factory, effectively paralyzing the country's military capability.
Italy has increased the alert level from "Shout Loudly and Excitedly" to "Elaborate Military Posturing." Two more levels remain: "Ineffective Combat Operations" and "Change Sides." The Germans have increased their alert state from "Disdainful Arrogance" to "Dress in Uniform and Sing Marching Songs." They also have two higher levels: "Invade a Neighbour" and "Lose."
Belgians, on the other hand, are all on holiday as usual; the only
threat they are worried about is NATO pulling out of Brussels ..
The Spanish are all excited to see their new submarines ready to deploy. These beautifully designed subs have glass bottoms so the new Spanish navy can get a really good look at the old Spanish navy.
Australia, meanwhile, has raised its security level from "No worries" to "She'll be right, Mate." Two more escalation levels remain: "Crikey! I think we'll need to cancel the barbie this weekend!" and "The barbie is cancelled." So far no situation has ever warranted use of the last final escalation level.
Regards, John Cleese, British writer, actor and tall person
And as a final thought - Greece is collapsing, the Iranians are getting aggressive, and Rome is in disarray. Welcome back to 430 BC. Life is too short...
Cra Cra Van Cra Cra
Also, just something interesting for Hemingway fans:
http://www.openculture.com/2013/09/18-books-ernest-hemingway-wished-he-could-read-again-for-the-first-time.html VL by the way, for that Hemingway link, all of the books on his list are available free as text and...AUDIO! : ) VL
Hi Corinne and Patrick,Hope you had a good weekend and all has gone well with your travels so far.
Enjoyed the BBQ and will try your marinade for the chicken.
Thank you for your card and tea towel. It is a lovely colour and a nice reminder of Canada. We were actually looking at them when we were over in Canada ourselves.
Enjoy your continued travels and hopefully we shall see you some time in Canada sooner rather than later. Love from Gudrun and Stephen
Pat,
Some very good cycling over the past two days. We did the Penticton
to Naramata run yesterday which was a great trail recently graded. Could
have got away with narrower tires. Today, we went along the Summerland
side up to a wonderful trestle bridge complete
with train lines and crossing a huge canyon. Orchards teeming with
apples and grapes both days. Our relatives, Ed and Pat are both in
tremendous shape and Pat rides at least as well as me. They are both
still competing in mountain bike events. It's very interesting
eating with them in the trailer park where everyone is so friendly - a
much older crowd but I can see the appeal.
I must say that the people in
Penticton seem as friendly and we've enjoyed our stay here. The olive
oil man probably wouldn't get employment here.
Perhaps he is a relative of the older man we met at the U-Pick
strawberry patch in Richmond.
The only drawback has been that Sylvia,
now that she has seen what her sister-in-law is riding, wants a lighter
model herself. Off to dinner with them and another
couple at the trailer. I'm taking along a couple of Parallel 49 Red Eye
lagers which Ed loved when I took him one yesterday. Ray
Early morning at Trevino fountain. Before leaving for Venice. More later Love to all C
Gee thanks for proof of life Mom!! Lol
No doubt!! Nana you could smile!! Love you though and Mags is counting your return by yowling ever 3
hours during the night. I am not getting a lot of sleep and mags is
eating through food faster then you will be home. xx
ALERTS TO THREATS IN 2013 EUROPE From JOHN CLEESE
The English are feeling the pinch in relation to recent events in Syria
and have therefore raised their security level from "Miffed" to
"Peeved." Soon, though, security levels may be raised yet again to
"Irritated" or even "A Bit Cross." The English have not
been "A Bit Cross" since the blitz in 1940 when tea supplies nearly ran
out. Terrorists have been re-categorized from "Tiresome" to "A Bloody
Nuisance." The last time the British issued a "Bloody Nuisance" warning
level was in 1588, when threatened by the
Spanish Armada.The Scots have raised their threat level from "Pissed Off" to "Let's get the Bastards." They don't have any other levels. This is the reason they have been used on the front line of the British army for the last 300 years.
The French government announced yesterday that it has raised its terror alert level from "Run" to "Hide." The only two higher levels in France are "Collaborate" and "Surrender." The rise was precipitated by a recent fire that destroyed France's white flag factory, effectively paralyzing the country's military capability.
Italy has increased the alert level from "Shout Loudly and Excitedly" to "Elaborate Military Posturing." Two more levels remain: "Ineffective Combat Operations" and "Change Sides." The Germans have increased their alert state from "Disdainful Arrogance" to "Dress in Uniform and Sing Marching Songs." They also have two higher levels: "Invade a Neighbour" and "Lose."
The Spanish are all excited to see their new submarines ready to deploy. These beautifully designed subs have glass bottoms so the new Spanish navy can get a really good look at the old Spanish navy.
Australia, meanwhile, has raised its security level from "No worries" to "She'll be right, Mate." Two more escalation levels remain: "Crikey! I think we'll need to cancel the barbie this weekend!" and "The barbie is cancelled." So far no situation has ever warranted use of the last final escalation level.
Regards, John Cleese, British writer, actor and tall personAnd as a final thought - Greece is collapsing, the Iranians are getting aggressive, and Rome is in disarray. Welcome back to 430 BC. Life is too short...
Cra Cra Van Cra Cra
My
preference is either Sunday, September 22 or Sunday, September 29. The
stars will be aligned on both those dates. I like the idea of having the
meeting at Misha's. Surely there couldn't
be a more appropriate place to discuss Anna Karamazov!--Kurt
2011 Paul Mas 'Vignes de Nicole' Chardonnay Viognier
In 12 years, Domaines Paul Mas has become a reference in the Languedoc.
Old World wines with New World attitude is the essence of their
character. The Chardonnay and Viognier grapes for this blend were
fermented separately, with the intention of maximizing
the characteristics of each in the final wine. The Chardonnay spent 4
months in oak prior to blending. Dry, delicious, fuller bodied with
mango, pineapple and vanilla characters, fresh acidity and a long
finish. This wine would work well with creamy chicken
or fish dishes or accompany lightly spiced Asian food.
The key to any
relationship is to understand clearly what the other person wants. This
is true whether that person is a spouse, an employee, a boss, or a
friend. It is a task that is made more difficult by the
fact that many people don't truly understand what it is they want, or
have many wants that contradict or compete with each other.
But that
difficulty does not lessen the importance of understanding those wants,
both within yourself and within those people that
are most important to you. It was the key insight of the founder of the
"method" acting, the great acting teacher Constantin Stanislavski
(1863-1938), that in this same spirit, understanding a fictional
character's wants was the key to great acting and great
dramatic writing:
"One of Constantin Stanislavski's key innovations was recognizing the central role of desire in our depiction of the human condition. The fundamental truth to characterization, he asserted, is that characters want something, and the deeper the want, the more compelling the drama.
"Desire is the crucible that forges character because it intrinsically creates conflict. If we want nothing, then nothing stands in our way. This may lead to a life of monastic enlightenment -- or habitual evasion -- but it's thin gruel for drama. By giving the character a deep-seated need or want, you automatically put her at odds with something or someone, for the world is not designed to gratify our desires.
"One of Constantin Stanislavski's key innovations was recognizing the central role of desire in our depiction of the human condition. The fundamental truth to characterization, he asserted, is that characters want something, and the deeper the want, the more compelling the drama.
"Desire is the crucible that forges character because it intrinsically creates conflict. If we want nothing, then nothing stands in our way. This may lead to a life of monastic enlightenment -- or habitual evasion -- but it's thin gruel for drama. By giving the character a deep-seated need or want, you automatically put her at odds with something or someone, for the world is not designed to gratify our desires.
"And a profound, unquenchable longing almost always forces us to do
things we normally would never imagine ourselves doing -- even things
seemingly contradictory to our natures. When confronted with
overwhelming obstacles of a kind we've never faced before
in pursuit of something we cannot live without, we are forced to change,
to adapt, to dig deeper into ourselves for some insight, passion, or
strength that will give us the power we need to keep going.
"In a sense, Stanislavski's desire took the place of Aristotle's telos (meaning an end or purpose). Where once man lived to fulfill his basic purpose, he now, in Stanislavski's interpretation, lived to fulfill his most basic ambition, craving, or need.
"Peter Brooks put it somewhat differently in his book Reading for Plot, remarking that, in the absence of desires, stories remain stillborn. This reflects a simple truth: Desire puts a character in motion.
"There may be no more important question to ask of a character than: What does she want in this scene, in this chapter, in this story? Thinking more globally, one should ask what she wants from her life -- has she achieved it? If not, why not? If so, what now?" David Corbett, The Art of Character, Penguin, 2013
"In a sense, Stanislavski's desire took the place of Aristotle's telos (meaning an end or purpose). Where once man lived to fulfill his basic purpose, he now, in Stanislavski's interpretation, lived to fulfill his most basic ambition, craving, or need.
"Peter Brooks put it somewhat differently in his book Reading for Plot, remarking that, in the absence of desires, stories remain stillborn. This reflects a simple truth: Desire puts a character in motion.
"There may be no more important question to ask of a character than: What does she want in this scene, in this chapter, in this story? Thinking more globally, one should ask what she wants from her life -- has she achieved it? If not, why not? If so, what now?" David Corbett, The Art of Character, Penguin, 2013
Resilience: Why Things Bounce Back, Andrew
Zolli & Ann Marie Healy, Free Press, 2012 The internet was created by the U.S.
military as a way to preserve communications to missile silos in the
event of
a Soviet nuclear attack:
"From its inception as a U.S. military funded project in the 1960s, the Internet was designed to solve a particular problem above all else: to ensure the continuity of communications in the face of disaster. Military leaders at the time were concerned that a preemptive nuclear attack by the Soviets on U.S. telecommunications hubs could disrupt the chain of command -- and that their own counterstrike orders might never make it from their command bunkers to their intended recipients in the missile silos of North Dakota. So they asked the Internet's original engineers to design a system that could sense and automatically divert traffic around the inevitable equipment failures that would accompany any such attack. "The Internet achieves this feat in a simple yet ingenious way: It breaks up every email, web page, and video we transmit into packets of information and forwards them through a labyrinthine network of routers -- specialized network computers that are typically redundantly connected to more than one other node on the network.
"From its inception as a U.S. military funded project in the 1960s, the Internet was designed to solve a particular problem above all else: to ensure the continuity of communications in the face of disaster. Military leaders at the time were concerned that a preemptive nuclear attack by the Soviets on U.S. telecommunications hubs could disrupt the chain of command -- and that their own counterstrike orders might never make it from their command bunkers to their intended recipients in the missile silos of North Dakota. So they asked the Internet's original engineers to design a system that could sense and automatically divert traffic around the inevitable equipment failures that would accompany any such attack. "The Internet achieves this feat in a simple yet ingenious way: It breaks up every email, web page, and video we transmit into packets of information and forwards them through a labyrinthine network of routers -- specialized network computers that are typically redundantly connected to more than one other node on the network.
Each
router contains a regularly updated routing table, similar to a local
train schedule. When a packet of data arrives at a router, this table
is consulted and the packet is forwarded in the
general direction of its destination. If the best pathway is blocked,
congested, or damaged, the routing table is updated accordingly and the
packet is diverted along an alternative pathway, where it will meet the
next router in its journey, and the process
will repeat. A packet containing a typical web search may traverse
dozens of Internet routers and links -- and be diverted away from
multiple congestion points or offline computers -- on the seemingly
instantaneous trip between your computer and your favorite
website.
"The highly distributed nature of the routing system ensures that if a
malicious hacker were to disrupt a single, randomly chosen computer on
the Internet, or even physically blow it up, the network itself would be
unlikely to be affected. The routing tables
of nearby routers would simply be updated and would send network traffic
around the damaged machine. In this way, it's designed to be robust in
the face of the anticipated threat of equipment failure.
"However,
the modern Internet is extremely vulnerable to a form of attack that
was unanticipated when it was first invented: the malicious exploitation
of the network's open architecture -- not to route around damage,
but to engorge it with extra, useless information.
This is what Internet
spammers, computer worms and viruses, botnets, and distributed denial
of service attacks do: They flood the network with empty packets of
information, often from multiple sources at once.
These deluges hijack otherwise beneficial features of the network to
congest the system and bring a particular computer, central hub, or even
the whole network to a standstill."
In the early 1920s, Germany experienced the worst instance
of hyperinflation ever recorded -- it took a wheelbarrow to carry the
billions of marks (German dollars) needed to buy a loaf of bread.
Hyperinflation
came because the German government printed trillions of marks. This was
not "printing money" as the term is used today -- a misnomer describing
the case where the Federal Reserve Bank directly buys U.S. bonds issued
by the Treasury -- but instead a literal
printing of money that created a major logistical operation involving
"133 printing works with 1,783 machines ... and more than 30 paper
mills." And it was not in the amounts sometimes "printed" by governments
today -- perhaps 5 to 10% of GDP per annum -- but
instead amounts that far exceeded 100% of GDP in a single year:
"While Germany was grimly trying to negotiate relief from the burden of
[war] reparations, its domestic economic policy, bad as it had been
during the war, became worse. The country was in perpetual turmoil,
constantly on the brink of revolution, run by a series
of week coalition governments, and was quite unable to control its
finances. In addition to large residual expenses from the war --
pensions to veterans and war widows, compensation for those who had lost
private property in the territories forfeited under
the Treaty of Versailles -- the governments took on enormous new social
obligations: an eight-hour day for workers, insurance for the
unemployed, health and welfare payments for the sick and the poor.
Germany's financial problems were mostly self-inflicted.
Nevertheless, reparation payments made what was already a difficult
fiscal situation impossible. To finance the gap, the various governments
of Germany resorted to the Reichsbank to print the money.
"In 1914, the mark stood at 4.2 to the dollar, meaning that a mark was
worth a little under 24 cents. By the beginning of 1920, after the full
effects of the inflationary war finance had worked through the system,
there were 65 marks to the dollar -- the mark
was now worth only 1.5 cents -- and the price level stood at nine times
its 1914 level. Over the next eighteen months, despite an enormous
budget deficit and a 50 percent increase in the amount of currency
outstanding, inflation actually slowed down and the
mark even stabilized. ...
"A series of events, however, in the middle of 1921 -- French inflexibility over reparations, a campaign of political murder by right-wing death squads -- broke the public's confidence that Germany's problems were soluble. It abandoned the mark in droves. The foreign speculators who had bought marks the previous two years also bailed out, losing most of the $2 billion they had pumped in. A visitor in the late 1920s to the game rooms of Milwaukee or Chicago would find the walls papered with German currency and bonds that had become worthless.
"A series of events, however, in the middle of 1921 -- French inflexibility over reparations, a campaign of political murder by right-wing death squads -- broke the public's confidence that Germany's problems were soluble. It abandoned the mark in droves. The foreign speculators who had bought marks the previous two years also bailed out, losing most of the $2 billion they had pumped in. A visitor in the late 1920s to the game rooms of Milwaukee or Chicago would find the walls papered with German currency and bonds that had become worthless.
"As the mark plummeted, Germany became caught in an ever-deepening
downward spiral. On June 24, 1922, the architect of fulfillment, Foreign
Minister Walter Rathenau, one of the most attractive political figures
in Germany -- cultured, rich, scion of a great
industrial family -- was gunned down in his car by yet another group of
crazed reactionaries. Panic set in. Prices rose fortyfold during 1922
and the mark correspondingly fell from 190 to 7,600 to the dollar.
"In early 1923, when Germany was late in meeting a reparations payment for that year -- the precipitating incident as the failure to deliver one hundred thousand telephone poles to France -- forty thousand French and Belgian troops invaded Germany and occupied the Ruhr valley, its industrial heartland. The chancellor, Wilhelm Cuno, powerless in every other way, launched a campaign of passive resistance. The budget deficit almost doubled, to around 1.5 billion. To finance this shortfall required the printing of ever-increasing amounts of ever more worthless paper marks. In 1922, around 1 trillion marks of additional currency was issued; in the first months of 1923 it was 17 trillion marks. ...
"In early 1923, when Germany was late in meeting a reparations payment for that year -- the precipitating incident as the failure to deliver one hundred thousand telephone poles to France -- forty thousand French and Belgian troops invaded Germany and occupied the Ruhr valley, its industrial heartland. The chancellor, Wilhelm Cuno, powerless in every other way, launched a campaign of passive resistance. The budget deficit almost doubled, to around 1.5 billion. To finance this shortfall required the printing of ever-increasing amounts of ever more worthless paper marks. In 1922, around 1 trillion marks of additional currency was issued; in the first months of 1923 it was 17 trillion marks. ...
"The task of keeping Germany adequately supplied with currency notes
became a major logistical operation involving '133 printing works with
1783 machines ... and more than 30 paper mills.' By 1923, the inflation
had acquired a momentum of its own, creating
an ever-accelerating appetite for currency that the Reichsbank, even
after conscripting private printers, could not meet. In a country
already flooded with paper, there were even complaints of a shortage of
money in municipalities, so towns and private companies
began to print their own notes.
"Over the next few months, Germany experienced the single greatest destruction of monetary value in human history. By August 1923, a dollar was worth 620,000 marks and by early November 1923, 630 billion.
"Over the next few months, Germany experienced the single greatest destruction of monetary value in human history. By August 1923, a dollar was worth 620,000 marks and by early November 1923, 630 billion.
"Basic necessities were now priced in the billions -- a kilo of butter cost 250 billion; a kilo of bacon 180 billion; a simple ride on a Berlin street car, which had cost 1 mark before the war, was now set at 15 billion. Even though currency notes were available in denominations of up to 100 billion marks, it took whole sheaves to pay for anything. The country was awash with currency notes, carried around in bags, in wheelbarrows, in laundry baskets and hampers, even in baby carriages.
It was not simply the extraordinary numbers involved; it was the dizzying speed at which prices were now soaring. In the last three weeks of October, they rose ten thousandfold, doubling every couple of days. In the time that it took to drink a cup of coffee in one of Berlin's many cafes the price might have doubled. Money received at the beginning of the week lost nine-tenths of its buying power by the end of the week." Liaquat Ahamed, Lords of Finance, Penguin, 2009
Alan Jay Lerner, The Street Where I Live, W.W. Norton & Company, 1978
It was not simply the extraordinary numbers involved; it was the dizzying speed at which prices were now soaring. In the last three weeks of October, they rose ten thousandfold, doubling every couple of days. In the time that it took to drink a cup of coffee in one of Berlin's many cafes the price might have doubled. Money received at the beginning of the week lost nine-tenths of its buying power by the end of the week." Liaquat Ahamed, Lords of Finance, Penguin, 2009
Alan Jay Lerner, partner and co-writer with Frederick
Loewe of 'Camelot', 'My Fair Lady', 'Gigi' and other plays explains the painfully poignant lyrics of the 'Camelot' song
'How To Handle a Woman', sung by King Arthur at a point when he is both
lost and soon to lose his wife Guinevere to his most loyal knight,
Lancelot:
"By the middle of the first act, Guinevere has met Lancelot and has begun behaving in a manner that is to Arthur both perplexing and maddening. Alone on stage, he musically soliloquizes his confusion and out of desperation resolves it for himself in an uncomplicated reaffirmation of love in a song called 'How to Handle a Woman.' I had had that idea for two or three years, but I cannot claim sole inspiration for it. My silent partner was Erich Maria Remarque [author of All Quiet on the Western Front].
"By the middle of the first act, Guinevere has met Lancelot and has begun behaving in a manner that is to Arthur both perplexing and maddening. Alone on stage, he musically soliloquizes his confusion and out of desperation resolves it for himself in an uncomplicated reaffirmation of love in a song called 'How to Handle a Woman.' I had had that idea for two or three years, but I cannot claim sole inspiration for it. My silent partner was Erich Maria Remarque [author of All Quiet on the Western Front].
"He had just married an old friend of mine, Paulette Goddard, all woman,
magnificently distributed, as feminine as she is female. One night when
we were having dinner, I said to Erich (not seriously): 'How do you get
along with this wild woman?' He replied:
'Beautifully. There is never an argument.' 'Never an argument?' I asked
incredulously. 'Never,' he replied. 'We will have an appointment one
evening, and she charges into the room crying, 'Why aren't you ready?
You always keep me waiting. Why do you ...?!'
I look at her with astonishment and say, 'Paulette! Who did your hair?
It's absolutely ravishing.' She says, 'Really? Do you really like it?'
'Like it?' I reply. 'You're a vision. Let me see the back.' By the time
she has made a pirouette her fury is forgotten.
Another time she turns on me in rage about something, and before a
sentence is out of her mouth I stare at her and say breathlessly, 'My
God! You're incredible. You get younger every day.' She says, 'Really,
darling?' 'Tonight,' I say, 'you look eighteen years
old.' And that is the end of her rage.'
"I was as amused as I was admiring and I said to him: 'Erich, one day I
will have to write a song about that.' The song was 'How to Handle a
Woman' which ends:
"The way to handle a woman is to love her,
Simply love her; merely love her,
Love her, love her."
"The way to handle a woman is to love her,
Simply love her; merely love her,
Love her, love her."
Alan Jay Lerner, The Street Where I Live, W.W. Norton & Company, 1978
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