Begging Geckos, Cheaper Tax Returns, and lots of Food

One sees them in the streets of most cities and towns, beggars are unfortunately a common occurrence in the modern day world. But who would have thought that other animals also behave like this? In Madagascar a gecko was caught on camera begging an insect for its honeydew. How sweet...

For those of you needing to do their tax returns for 2007 in Germany, then currently Amazon is offering the software "WISO Sparbuch 2008" at a good price. And if you put in this voucher code when ordering (WISOEUR5), you get another 5 Euros off (making it currently 23 Euros in total). Just use this link to buy it now

Now onto one of my favourite topics: Food. On Friday we went out to one of the best restaurants in Mainz, Ban Thai. After a couple of cocktails and a large amount of food, Ali, Luigi, Olgui and myself were able to roll back home. As if that wasn't enough, yesterday we had Friedi, Mark, Christiane and Indy over for one of Olgui's special colombian meals. A kilo of rice, another kilo of mince, and many other ingredients meant we ewre also in a very full state at the end of it. However, the wine helped it all settle down, and before we got to the Obleas and Bocadillos for dessert, a couple of shots of Aguadiente did the trick. All in all a very satisfying evening.

According to the radio, the temperature is meant to go up to 17 degrees celcius today. It is currently about 8, but one has to look at it optimistically, so better get ready for wander around as soon as the thermometer goes above the 10 degrees mark...

Eat well, and don't mention diets...

UK Borders, Blue Smarties and Space-born Fish

As governments tighten up border security, and your personal information gets shared amongst many more organisations (to make you safer, obviously) you will be glad to hear how effective your hard-earned and paid tax hsa been. A brazilian woman got to heathrow airport and before she could be denied entry she ran away from the immigration officials and escaped into london. It didn't stop there. Not only did she manage to get into the country illegally but she also ended up working as a cleaner in the house of commons. Yes, here you would assume security would also be quite high...

Forget studying computer science to try and get a green card into the UK. No, that trick doesn't work any more, there are enough computer scientists now. What you really need to do to be able to come easily to the UK is to cook curries. Yes, migrant workers from Bangladesh are being sort in order to help the declining curry industry (I don't know here the statistics are to prove this, as if you go down selly oak you will see the curry house industry thriving...).

Smarties lovers out there can go out and celebrate. The colour blue is coming back in packs near you. Apparently up until now they couldn't find another natural ingredient that gave this colour, but now thanks to a special seaweed sort, they have. Makes me sleep easier at night now, that does.

The ever-adventurous germans are doing things you never thought possible. I bet you never thought you would see the day when some fish are sent out into space to experience 6 minutes of weightlessness...

Ever thought why if you can give old clothes to charity shops, your underwear you had to throw away? Well, maybe you don't after all. Shakira has proven to the world that even old bras can fetch a lot of money from the right person. But before you start collecting all your old undies, I think being famous had something to do with it...

Wondering what to give up for lent? Well, take a leaf out of citizens of Venice's book and give up bottled water. Seems like a worthwhile act, except I can't figure out why they would do it in Venice of all places. The water there is so polluted that you can no longer go there in the summer without feeling ill.

Better get back to the 0 degrees celsius warmth...and that's inside !!!

Diploma with fries, nudist flights, and a new vending machine

Now everyone knows that kids today have more exams to go through than any generation before them. However there is always a lot of controversy about how easy the exams are getting compared to when we did them. A great example of this is that now one can get a diploma in a certain fast-food burger chain and it counts towards the exams for 18 year-olds.

And as any good englishman will tell you. Kylie Minogue has the most perfect legs (among other assets). This is now confirmed by polish scientists, that women with 5% longer legs than the average are found to be more attractive.

You know how it is. Going on holiday tomorrow and you don't know what to pack. Well, no need to stress any more. A German airline has decided to offer flights where you have to take off your clothing on board. Yes, nudist flights mean you no longer have to pack any clothes for your naturist holiday. Whether donuts will be served on the flight has yet to be confirmed.

In California vending machines will now be allowed to give out Marijuana. Yes, whilst waiting at the station one can get their can of drink, chocolate bar and a joint at the same time...

And finally, in Finland if you need to stop on the motorway to go to the loo, make sure you have enough money on your mobile phone. If not you might find that the toilet will not work, as you will now have to pay for a pee with an SMS (or MMS?). One has to ask what happens if the signal in that area goes down whilst one is inside. Can you not escape until the signal is back up again?

So the after rounding up the latest and greatest news events, I will leave you to put on your cup of tea and settle down with a good book.

Snuggle up well...

How to miss a carnival

So, having recently come back from the lovely city of Barranquilla just before the carnival fever really gets started, there was an important decision to make. Stay in Mainz during their carnival, or get out of the city (and preferably the country).

In the end we were stuck here barricading ourselves in the house so as to prevent the drunken mob doing there business against our front door, with all windows shut to try to prevent the sound of the shouting stop us from going to sleep.

There is one way to let the Mainz carnival pass by without affecting you much. Rent 5 DVDs, make sure you've stocked up on all major foodstuffs and don't leave the house from the Saturday until Tuesday. The films that we watched were The Perfect Crime, Next, Zodiac, Freedom Writers, The Oh! in Ohio.
Whilst not watching films, we kept up to date on the status of the Barranquilla carnival (the marvels of the internet) and eating through the food we had piled into the fridge.

So, now a bit of a novelty, here's a few of the photos taken on my trip to Colombia going via New York (where I met up with Eva). Hope you like them.