Saturday, May 28

FRAUEN ON TOP

You may be wondering if my 7-month holiday from blogging was caused by some major upheaval or trauma. Rest assured, nothing much has changed. I am still residing in the heart of Europe, fighting the good fight against the inexorable slide into Euro-English.

My lodger McChe is still in residence, despite several attempts to trick him into living somewhere else. Like mildew. After a while you just learn to live with it. I keep taking him on holiday in hopes of leaving him on the side of the road somewhere. But like an abandoned cat, he always manages to find his way home.


I'm still tinging Bert's triangle for the KNOB*, although I wonder for how much longer. Since Bert's departure, the orchestra has fallen into disarray. There has been a degree of laissez-aller, nay dare I say it, total negligence. Most un-German. The horn section has gone to pot - hence we were booted out of Euroompah!2011 in Athens, in ignominous fashion. A timely lesson that needed to be learned. My nose is clean - my ting is always pristine and punctual. But it was time for a new baton, and now we have got one. The KNOB has taken a leaf out of the IMF's book and has nominated a WOMAN leader. No, not me - it has to be someone who can read music. Our new leader is Waltraud von Klampwangler, Wally to her friends, a Rhine maiden of formidable presence who wields her baton like a rapier, and looks much better in lederhosen than any of them. I for one welcome our new overlady, and have dusted off my gay umbrella to show her I'm quite open minded. Some of the old farts don't like it of course - Dietrich made a rude noise on his euphonium the first time she stepped up to the podium, and Fritzi deliberately pretended he couldn't hear her instructions, whereupon she sent him off to have his ears syringed. She doesn't take any prisoners.


Thursday, May 26

BY POPULAR DEMAND ....


Not that I'm bovvered or anyfink, but I do check site meter now and again just to see if anybody's still visiting. And I find that since I went into semi-retirement from blogging, last October, I have had 20,000 hits! That works out, per month, to more than I used to get when I WAS blogging. So clearly, I am more popular when I keep quiet.

But popularity be damned. Silence has never been my forte. Having become a Facebook diva, I feel the need once more to unlace my corsets, and a fruitbasket as big as mine needs more than 450 characters to fully express itself. The blog is truly my milieu. My own pedestal, where I stand in all my glory, and you may all come and adore me. Or not.

There is the small problem of that Anonymous person, who may indeed be responsible for a large number of the hits I have been receiving. But in the spirit of inclusion, let us open our hearts and our comments boxes, nay, even unto the poor in spirit, for they shall inhabit the interweb.

And then there is my former no.1 fan in Tripoli, who seems to be trying to get through desperately. No, Muammar, it's no good apologizing now, I remember when you had your goons running around Brussels looking to whack a woman wearing a fruit salad on her head. You had your chance and you blew it. You're on your own, kid.

I wondered whether to start a new blog, but finally decided that 120,000 hits was too good to throw away and will carry on, possibly to 200,000 and beyond. Per blogga ad astra!

I am sure a great many hits are coming from people who have heard about me too late and are dropping in, only to be disappointed when they see I walked away from it all in Berlin, with my maracas held high. This reminds me only too well of my own propensity to discover hidden gems after the fact, for example back in 1986 when I found this great band composed of good-looking suntanned young men in shorts, only to find what I had just seen was their farewell concert. Well I for one will not be likened to George Michael, in any shape or form. Although now I come to mention it, I did rather fancy the other one, whatsisname .....