Saaga

Yesterday we trooped off to Wuppertal to see the Renoir exhibition at the Von der
Heydt gallery. I say trooped off because there were five of us; Mandy and Vanessa are
visiting at the moment.
The gallery was great. In the past I have been occasionally disappointed when promised Renoir, but this place delivered the goods. There were dozens of pieces by Renoir and only a few of them were half finished sketches. The high point (at that point) of the day was getting a good look at ‘On the Terrace’ (1881) by myself. For a good five minutes I was the only person in the room. The painting is amazing.

But what I thought was the highlight of the day was to be overshadowed during coffee and cake in the afternoon. We went to Grimm’s Konditerei which was a great place. A more appropriate name however, would have been ‘Aunt Mabel’s tea rooms’. Everyone in the place (apart from us) was well over 60, including the staff. Our waitress was a fantastic old white haired lady that instantly fell in love with M, who was really only doing her normal stuff. You interact with her and she smiles at you. It really is that simple.
Every time our waitress came by she spoke to M and M gurgled and laughed back in all the right places. When we were paying the bill, Alex had M and was standing up. We got out change and our waitress was now almost at eye level with M, who was grinning like the cat that got the cream. Again she started talking to M who amped up the cute noises as high as they would go. When the lady left to serve some more customers there were tears in her eyes and her nose was sniffly.

We just had Games Day at our School today. Grades 8 to 11 participated. I ran my usual dungeons and dragons game, but during the week I had the students (during our Wednesday session) cut out a whole bunch of card buildings, which I later assembled.

I shamelessly ripped off what I heard about a game Scott is currently doing and adapted it to my purposes; the heroes (played by the kids) had to find out why the town of Camford had been enveloped in unnatural darkness. The players all got right into it and had a great time, although Felipe’s good humour was tempered a little by the fact that his chatacter (Ongis) died in the final scene.

I think I will run another one in Spring, although I may not use D&D as the engine.

This article made me pretty angry. I’m sure I’m not getting a balanced view of the events here, but still, a 64 year old grandmother does not look like a 40 year drug dealer. Add an intrusive search on a public street to this and you get a pretty grim picture of what is going on, in what once seemed to be a country whose ideal was ‘the fair go.’ I hope the police officers involved lose their jobs.

Reading that article makes it clear that if you are not 100% cooperative with the ‘law enforcement officers’ then they will charge you with whatever they can, even if they find nothing. It makes me think that if I am going to be charged anyway, I might as well use my 130 kg and make them earn their charge of resisting arrest.

Maybe the safest course of action for me is to remain in a civilised country where the police are less frequently wielded against the people as a weapon.

The challenge, inspired by Pop and laid down by Yoshi is here.
Simply write a Christmas carol including the words: ‘tree burst white phosphorus’ to win an awesome prize.*
I have been having a bit of a go and it feels like the ghost of Bing Crosby is trying to possess me, so I am not sure how successful I will be.

* Prize may not be awesome.

Have a look at this page.

Religion is dangerous.