Die Werkzeuge in Deutschland

As already blogged by Brush and Matty, we had a bit of Tool reunion last month in Southern Germany. Brush was a most gracious host, picking us up from a typical RyanAir-airport (125km from the city it purports to serve) and providing us with excellent Bed and Breakfast facilities at his place, including a fantastic genuine German breakfast of white sausages and eggs - delicious! He also blew us away with his Deutschensprechen, being so fluent now that he can engage in wittenbanter mit the locals. OK Brush, I know how much it annoys you so that was the last of my patented Deutschenmanglen in this post. Well, apart from that bit...

Being much more diligent bloggers than us, both the other guys have already blogged about our visit to Burg Hohenzollern, a fantastic castle perched atop a mighty peak. So we'll be lazy and just stick in some pictures:

Not content with that, Brett also took us to Tübingen, a lovely traditional town:



And to top it off, we headed into Frankfurt to experience one of the high points of the local traditional cuisine, Handkäse mit Musik - yes, you read that right, I didn't just make it up - "Hand-cheese with music". This turned out to be a very barnyard-scented, cow-esque cheese which was augmented with a raw-onion-and-vinegar garnish. Quite how this could be described as "music" was beyond us, and luckily Brett only ordered one serving for us handkäse novices to share - it was ... interesting!



Perhaps as a reward for finishing the handcheese, on the way home Brush very graciously allowed Johnny to give his Beemer 1-series a caning down the Autobahn, and what a pleasure it was to be back behind the wheel of some quality German engineering. Johnny loved the thrill of seeing the speedo needle on the interesting side of 200km/h. Bec did not. :-(

Thanks again to Brett for a terrific weekend and we hope to be able to welcome him (and Belinda) to London soon. Maybe we can arrange a flat-out driving session in a Tube train!?

Lost Highway to... Southampton?

When Bec first heard that Bon Jovi had announced their Lost Highway tour of the UK, she could hardly contain her excitement! Johnny, it has to be said, was somewhat less excited. But, due to a combination of unavoidable factors - namely that Bec could not find a single other person willing to go with her, and also that Johnny is, let's face it, a genuinely lovely person - he reluctantly enthusiastically agreed to come along.


For some insane reason, which seemed perfectly plausible at the time, we booked tickets not for the London show but for the one in Southampton, about 80 miles away. This necessitated a hire car, an early departure from work and a 2 1/2 hour drive. Matters were then complicated significantly by Royal Mail, who managed to record our secure ticket delivery as "Delivered and signed for" when in fact it had been neither. After several phone calls and much frustration and anxiety, the tickets were finally in Bec's hot little hand... but not until the morning of the concert! All dramas resolved, we were finally on our way.

Even Johnny had to admit it, Bon Jovi know how to put on a rock concert. For almost 2 hours they had the crowd enthralled, belting out some of their new tunes as well as the obligatory classics that, let's face it, we were all there to hear. Highlights were In These Arms, Always, Raise Your Hands, I'll Be There For You (sung beautifully by Richie Sambora to give JBJ a break - despite still sending every woman over 30 into swoons (and yes that does include Bec), he's not as young as he once was), and of course Bec's all-time fave, Livin' on a Prayer. The crowd went wild, and Bec was in Bon Jovi Heaven.

And just to prove Bec's not the only Bon Jovi fan left in the UK:

Success In The City

Good news from London Town! After being unemployed for the entire month of June (conveniently coinciding with Wimbledon on the TV...) Johnny has finally found himself a new job.

He was hoping to get another contract role, but after 3 weeks of disappointments and zero-progress, he switched to looking for permanent work. The contract market in London is in very bad shape at the moment, with all this Credit Crunch malarkey making employers a great deal more likely to be off-loading contractors than adding more to their payroll. As this situation looks to be around for a while, even if he had picked up a contract, Johnny didn't fancy being dropped back into that market in 3 or 6 months (or perhaps even less if things went very badly!) Sure enough, within a week of looking for permanents, he had an interview, and 3 hours later, a job!

In a change from his past two roles, the new company couldn't fit all its employees into a minibus - they are 50-strong and have very good partnerships with some big, big names (Nokia, Vodafone, etc). So hopefully they won't follow Johnny's kiss-of-death pattern and go down the tubes like his last two! The company is called Icom and they build websites for "communities" of like-minded people. For example, 50% of UK universities have their Student Union websites operating on the Icom platform, which offers various cool features like a mini-Facebook for students of the same uni. Icom also developed a "GlastoNav" product which helps drunk Glastonbury music festivalgoers find bands and each other via interactive maps on their mobiles.

So the work is interesting and the job is secure, but best of all, the location is slap-bang in the middle of London - just off Oxford Street - and only a few minutes away from Bec's work. Result!