Monday, July 27, 2009, 12:17 AM
I live in a practically German household.
To many, this must include a number of things, including bathtowel wars, remarkable teutonic toilet habits and frequent shouts of 'achtung Schweinhund' across the kitchen table. One would expect me to mention the war too, at least twice a day. I do my best.
In reality, this state of affairs has packed our kitchen full of remarkable food and drink that I would be much the sadder (and thinner) without. Apfelschorle, Jever Bier, Remoulade and frisch gebackene Brötchen are all things that would have been a meagre measure of compensation if the RAF hadn't withstood the affections of the Luftwaffe in 1940.
But the most remarkable footstuff of all, and the subject of this piece is the species porcus, member of the suidae family - to those who eat it, it is known as the common pig.
If you travel through Germany on an Autobahn, once you have been disabused of the myth that you can drive as fast as you want, wherever you want, you'll start looking out of the window, and noticing the fields full of sheep and cows. The reason that you don't see any pigs in the fields is because they have all been eaten.
The scale and ambition of pig usage in German cuisine is frankly awe-inspiring. That there are any pigs left standing after breakfast time is a miracle. Whilst the British chomp mournfully on their Cornflakes or Special K, the Germans will be polishing off any combination of bacon, ham, liver sausage, beer-sausage, 'Fleischsalat', salami or Mett. I won't say what the last one is, as I feel that the internet should be kept free of upsetting and offensive material. To what must be their unconfined delight, cows and chickens don't really get a look-in at the breakfast table.
The devastation resumes for lunch and dinner. Not only can the Germans call upon an unparalleled (and admittedly delicious) selection of sausages, but there is also the wonderful Schweinebraten to be savoured. I'm not even going to get into the 'Eisbein', as to do so would involve cardiac carnage. Pork is everywhere, meine Freunde.
I can't think of a nation that makes such profound and resourceful use of an animal, and I'm actually quite humbled by it. By comparison, the French don't do anything near as much with their coqs. Next time you go to Germany, you should try all of these things. Still, my plan is that we should share dietary balance around in Europe a little more. We balance out the German diet by relieving them of some of their pork, and meanwhile they can stock up on our... erm, Turkey Twizzlers.
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Sunday, July 19, 2009, 11:08 PM
If you love photography, just imagine how exciting it would be to be transplanted back 50 years with your camera. You'd photograph buildings being built, the classic cars, the traditional shops, the ordinary people going about their business. You'd do all this and charge triumphantly back to the present day with all of the evidence, and we'd all applaud this fascinating foray into real life as it was.
Yet in the present day we're routinely missing out on this opportunity: familiarity is breeding contempt. Only this evening I saw a couple of photography tutorials assisting learners in cropping out parked cars from the image of a windmill, and how to time the photo of narrowboats on a canal so that no one is seen walking past.
There is an arsenal of talented photographers out there with first-rate equipment, and if they read the same photo magazines as me, they will be sold the same false qualities of 'timelessness' and the 'abstract'. Just look at the images in these magazines, and you'll realise that, technical excellence aside, very few of them could be dated accurately in any of the last four decades.
As you park your car next to a Ford Mondeo outside your local Asda, you would be forgiven for thinking that you couldn't be further away from a worthwhile photo. Yet I believe that there is a significant job to do in documenting the world we live in, cashpoint machines, Phones4U and all. Skilled photographers are focusing almost all of their talents on the timeless, the natural, and could instead turn their technical and compositional skills to documenting our ordinary world.
These images will sit on your hard drive looking quite absurd for a while, yet with time, they will realise their true value, and an image of two salesreps eating a McDonalds could become a defining image in three decades' time.
The only drawback to all of this is that you may well be dead before you see my point.
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Friday, July 17, 2009, 12:08 AM
This creature set up shop on the roof of our holiday cottage in Cornwall, and was tolerant enough to let me get reasonably close to it. It's a common herring gull, and the kind of thing you'll normally ignore at best, and at worst get very annoyed by.
Yet just like those boring everyday things like cornflakes, seagulls are actually quite remarkable - they're beautiful (which designer put that discrete yellow trim round the eye socket?), with a tasteful colour scheme and engineered to withstand the kind of weather conditions that sink supertankers. They're aggressive, graceful, passionate and have phenominally good reactions. Just toss a chip up into the air, and one will have taken off and intercepted it in a perfect arc before it hits the ground.
Stand still enough and look at something mundane, and its beauty will jump out at you.
Unless it's Kerry Katona, mind.
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Tuesday, June 16, 2009, 12:25 AM
I haven't written much on this blog recently. Having put so much love into it at the outset, this makes me feel terrible - seeing it run bare gives me a similar feeling of inadequacy and shame to the one that seizes you when a cashpoint informs you that there are 'insufficient funds' to get hold of the money you need. I had that very moment today, actually.
Well, I do have sufficient funds when it comes to writing things. There'll be plenty more to say on here, I have a healthy side order of photos that go with that. I won't be any funnier, more savvy or quirky than anyone else's blog. I'll be a hell of a lot more me. This site is all about me, it doesn't get imposed on anyone, it doesn't have to be kept down to 140 sodding characters, and it doesn't get rammed down anyone's throat. I'm going to write about photography, sheep, Germany, vegetables, strap-ons, Wales and antihistamines. I may not get all of those into one entry, but file it away as a challenge.
Here's to being in my own skin again. It's fantastic to be back.
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Friday, May 22, 2009, 10:31 AM
I haven't disappeared. Just discovering some new toys with trendier names. No doubt, like an errant lover, I will return soon, tail between my legs, to my first love.[ add comment ] | [ 0 trackbacks ] | permalink
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