More deep video from Lyon's version of Speilberg.

Hi guys 'n' goyls!

I hope you're all well this rainy Lyon Sunday..

Well, I'm still in video mode as you can see. This one's a kind of semi-autobiographical thing. Awfully egotistical I know, but it's my video so I can do what I want yah! :)

Some of the places and ships and events are real, others aren't. Which is which? Ah, you'll just have to choose....

Apart from that, things are ok, but I have more or less stopped teaching english to concentrate on translating, which pays more and takes up less time. This is because I am both greedy and lazy lol!

I detest rain. Vote me President if you think the same as I do. I'll bring in a law that makes rain illegal except from midnight to seven in the morning.

Thy ever-humble scribbling machine.

My Mother and Me...

I wrote and recorded this a few years ago. I've been waiting for the right moment to play it for others. That moment is now.

It's a short musical tribute to my blessed mother. Just one photo, of her, and me, taken in 1954, in Germany, where I was born.

She was murdered. I was still a child.

She was such a beautiful and caring woman...as mothers are..............and I miss her so very much.

A song I wrote........

I wrote and performed this song as a present for a woman I know, and it was recorded here at my place. She has a copy of it, and this is the photovideo of it that I just put up on Youtube.

Ah, "Crazy little thing called Love"?! Tell me about it.......
Some things just cannot happen in this life. That was one of them. I have no regrets though.

Oh, and is there a (one) photo of her in there somewhere? Now wouldn't you just love to know!! :)

Enjoy,

Thy musicianly-oriented-person

(ps. It's not too bad on 'Full-Screen version here on the blog, but if you want better image resolution, go to my Youtube page. Then you shall also have access to all my boring old 60's 70's and 80's favourites as well as my favourite comedy clips......)

WTF and the cool Receptionist.

I mean, I know Lyon is a beautiful city, but even I was surprised by what I saw today. It exists less than a kilometer from my place, but I just never happened to go down that street before.....

These pics were taken in a run-down part of the city. They are what encloses a small public park. It was such a pleasure to sit down on a bench and admire it all. The paintings were done by local artists, and I hope you enjoy them. The detail is amazing! (Click on the images to enlarge, then use your zoom...)

The receptionist? Oh, I was on my way to see a potential client when I took the pics. When I got there she was so friendly and funky. She even pronounced my name correctly when she phoned the person I was meeting!! French people have a lot of problems with my surname. Cool receptionist. She goes to work in a leather jacket, black jeans and boots, and looks like Chrissie Hynde!! Makes a nice change from dragons and prozac addicts.....

Ok, I'm off to eat fried eggs on toast, with ketchup. (Am I pregnant or what?)

Be good you peepul...

Your Intrepid Reporter

Wanna come for a Walk?

It was a nice day here in Lyon, so I went for a walk down by the river Rhône. It's a couple of minutes' walk from my place..
That weird barge thing pleased me because of the super colours!! It's on a slipway for repairs (looks like it needs repairs too!). The slipway doesn't get used much now, because river traffic has given way to highway traffic now. Shame, I like boats. I used to live on boats! Hey, come to think of it, that boat would make a real funky little home...

The flowers are a little wilted, but that shows you how warm it has been this last couple of days. The sprinklers aren't even up and running yet, so either they need to get on that or it had better rain, poor things.

The "thing" you see in the foreground in the river, with a door in it is very weird. I have no idea what it is, particularly given that the tide is never even remotely high enough to access it!! Who needs a windowless turret stuck there incongruously in a river? I think those who built it should either get a life or change jobs, because there are enough useless structures around as it is! (Police stations and overground car-parks being just two examples).

The last picture, the building with the high circular columns, is of a very very dangerous place. It's called "P4". It's a place no-one likes to be near. Why? because it's full of deadly viruses like Ebola, AIDS, Asian flu, the Plague, Anthrax, and some nerve gases too they say.

This place is a test centre for antiviruses and vaccins. There is a high level of security there. Everybody is worried about there being an earthquake here one day that would destroy the building and release all this stuff into the surrounding air. I'm not though, because there hasn't been an earthquake above zero.five Richter for a thousand years! Some people just like worrying I suppose.

But I have been busy too, not just strolling alone the riverside! Yesterday was a good work day. I landed a contract to teach english to the professors (no less!) at one of the most prestigious business universities in the whole of France. YES!!!!

I hope this missive finds you all in good health and spirits, and that your loved ones are all in good shape too!

Bye for now,

Thy Scribbling-Delire-Correspondant.

My First Video!

It's a kind of photo/video/documentary thing.

I hope you enjoy it....

Yours,

The-New-Spielberg!! :)

Lyon is Light. Big Time!

Now THAT'S what you call a beautiful city!! This is what Lyon looks like during the annual Light Festival, which takes place for four days starting on the 8th of december. It's an amazing and unforgettable spectacle, believe me.

The buildings you see are already beautiful in the daytime, but lit up like this they are absolutely magical!

The city is flooded during this period with hundreds of thousands of people, all transport is free, there's a great vibe. It's a bit like a fairground, kids, candyfloss, colour and crowds wherever you go.

It changes every year of course, and they invite the best lighting people in the world (many of whom are French, they excel at this) and the techniques they use are astounding. The French are also credited with the best ever lighting of an international sports event for the Albertville Winter Olympics.

This event used to last just one evening, and the people of Lyon would put up rows of little candles on every home windowsill in the city. They still continue that tradition, so even in non-downtown areas it's light. Thousands of little dots of light.........

Yours,

Now-you-know-why-I-love-this-city

Lyon. This is MY City!!

I thought you might like to see a few pics of Lyon. City of light, city of art. I know it's not doing the environment any good, because of all the electricity it uses (without even mentioning the impact of it all on our local taxes!) but Lyon has to be one of the best and most elegantly lit of any French city, and, also, I am not a politically correct person so they can light it up as much as they want, yah boo to you!.

The first photo is a general view of the city, taken from the hill overlooking it, and, more precisely, from the Croix-Rousse, the artistic and trendy quarter. To get a passport to live there you must either be unemployed and have a guitar strapped to your back and call yourself a musician, be a dancer, which means you have to have hennaed hair and smell of patchouli, be a left-wing teacher living in one of the bourgois apartments with kids who think that the Rolling Stones died years ago, or like spending half an hour parking your car because the narrow streets there are choked with them, and call yourself an ecologist at the same time.

The rest of us, like me, (and I live on the right-hand side of the photo) can get visas directly at the border. I get visas because I do not have a car, I don't have enough hair to hennae, I do not have children, and I get paid for playing my music. Seriously though, it's a great place, there's always something going on there, and they say that only people born there are "real" Lyonnais(es)

Anyway, Lyon looks nice at night huh?!!

The second picture is of a tower block in which I work part of the week. It's called "Le Crayon" (The Pencil), because it looks like a television set. (That was a joke, in case you missed it. It actually does look like a pencil). It caused a scandal when it was first proposed, but, then again, anything causes a scandal here. That's what's so adorable about the French! They are the only people on earth who, if they won fifty million, would complain because it wasn't sixty!

The two other photos, which I touched up for the fun of it, are of some street artist's work. He puts these all over the city, in every quarter, on the pavement, near walls. I personally know of dozens of them. Nobody knows who he is. If you like them, there are other examples in past posts. I just love the shapes he does and the idea itself. Lyon is full of street art art. The city authorities seem to have a cool attitude towards it. If it looks good and well done, they leave it.

You know, I went to live in Bordeaux for a couple of years and got back here a year and a half ago, in good part because I missed Lyon.

I remember being where the first photo was taken, in the daytime, shortly after getting back. I looked out over the whole city and said "This is MY City!!"

I won't sell it to you, but you're welcome to come and visit when you like. You'll never eat better in the whole of your life!!

Have a good day everyone,

Thy scribbling comerade.

"Mayday". May heaven help us all......

As you know, I sometimes write about things that shock me to the core. There are not many things that shock me any more, because I have lived and seen so many things that most people will never live or see, including things that you don't even know about, yet. Thank god.

But this, and more particularly the last words on this post, moved me to tears, literally....

Some things in this world just seem so obscene, so inhuman, so unfair, so wretchedly useless and violent, that even I, a hard-bitten man, just cannot handle them.
___________

A man in Croydon South London left home with his three-year-old daughter a few days ago to take her to the maternity hospital to visit his wife, the girl's mother, who had given birth to a baby boy the day before.

They were waiting at the bus stop when he was attacked, apparently at random, by two people, one of whom killed him with a single knife wound to the heart. His daughter watched it all unfold before her eyes.

Security guards from a nearby office complex arrived and took her away from the scene.

The last words on this post are not mine, but hers.

When interviewed, one of the security guards said that the three-year-old was "in shock, her eyes were wide open".

She was muttering under her breath occasional words like "mum" and "Mayday"......

Hi!! Remember me!!? Yip, I'm Snowglobe.

In case you don't know me, I'm LFL's favourite dog. (Well, I'm his ONLY dog actually, but let's not be overly-semantic here).

I haven't written a post in a while, so I thought I'd ask if I could today. He's busy recording a guitar track right now, and came into the kitchen for a banana.

I just happened to be choosing a nice juicy apple (he doesn't give me dog food. He says he ate half a can of it for a bet when he was a student and it almost made him vomit, so he can't stand the smell of it any more. Why do human students do such dumb things? In fact, why do you even HAVE "students" for that matter!!?) Euhhh, where was I..oh yes....choosing an apple, and he looked in a good mood because his guitar recording was going well, so I seized the opportunity!!

I got nothing for christmas except a wash. A wash for me is holding my breath for an hour while I spin round the washing machine. Then I have to sit on a radiator for another hour. Now you know why dogs don't like being cleaned. For the New Year a friend of his spilt champagne on me. That meant aNOther half hour of radiator duty! Huh. Some friends he's got there....

He's been spending lots of time on his computer lately. I guess that's because it's winter and he goes out less for now. I like him doing that because it means I can do what I like doing best, which is sleep, without being disturbed by him, or other people, talking what they call "politics" or "philosophy" or "work". None of that stuff sounds cool to me. It's just more examples of you humans complicating your lives needlessly if you ask me.

In fact, the more I think about it, the more I think we dogs should keep YOU as pets, and not the other way around......

Oh, LFL's back and needs to check his email before leaving to do some more "work". So I'll just say see you later and have a good time?

Snowglobe.

(ps. Can anyone send me a can of dog food without LFL knowing about it? I like the beef type best but chicken's good too. Thanks).