Asides.

A few meanderings of a mind on the run.

1. Green Power.

   The electric landscape
    .The drive from Austria in to Hungary had mile after mile of this vista.
   Make your own judgement.
   Passed a truck carrying just two blades, fitted to an extended long tray about 70ft long.
   These are a LOT bigger than the ones up on the hill at Palmerston North or widespread through the UK.
   
   Try and judge the size of it by the crane works.
   In the forests, they tower up over the tallest mature trees. It is like an Invasion of the Tripods.
   The tower itself is (I guess) 9-10 metres diameter at the base and about 60-70 metres up to the generator, which has the blades spinning at a 20m radius above and around that.
   Hundreds, and hundreds, and hundreds of them, on the plains, in the forests, everywhere.

2. A Black Blade.

   Damn but I thought this boat was just so outrageously stylish, I had to put it in again.
   A slightly different view of the boat that Rhienhardt and Burkhard built. So sexy. So black you can’t see it properly.
   Cool? Like a liquid nitrogen Icebox, so cool it burns.

3. Euro drivers….

   Actually, drivers seem to me, to be much the same worldwide.
   Old, cheerful and unshaven!
   * I feel the pressure wave hit the van a few times as cars come hurtling down the autobahn at 240-250kph.
   The Big Yellow feels it and it makes for a bit of a lurch to the right.
   The closing speed on 100kph traffic is ridiculous.
   This day there was 3 lanes, a lot of traffic, and trucks that keep pulling out at 90kph to overtake the slow guy.
   So when the black X5 was delay braking and head light flashing a line of 10 cars in the fast lane doing 110kph (as though they can magically disappear),….
   …. a car pulled out round the overtaking truck that had just cut him up,……
   …. and it all got a little desperate for Mr X5.
   Door handles, mirrors and miscellaneous bits of trim flying in the air as the X5 driver leaned on the median barrier.

   * Was stuck in a traffic jam today. About an hour and a half, crawling.
   Bunches of cars started driving up the shoulder, ostensibly to take an offramp about 2.5kms up the road. Of course, they were jamming back into the lane I was in.
   No sweat, I’m on holiday, but,……….. I thought “they are all bloody BMW and Merc drivers”.
   C’mon Ollie, that’s just a prejudice, a cliche. Stick to hard facts.So I counted;
   Got to 15 all of which were Merc, BMW, Audi or VW in black before a big white Merc showed up number 16.
   I laughed so hard I lost count.

   The question is then, what is it that drives the drivers of the Big Black Donner and Blitzen Bombers?
   };>))   Apologies to any “Bomber” pilots among my fine friends and readers who may feel slighted.
   I’m sure you are all wonderfully considerate and polite, handsome and virile, full of grace and fresh of breath, who pick up after your dogs and stop for old men, ladies and small children crossing the street.  (Yeah right)

4. The Big Bang (in Budapest)

   I have come  to really like this town.
   The Buda up on the hill overlooking the Danube is spectacular and dominates the vista.
   The Pest across the river and very flat, is even more grand in many ways, large and small.
   This statue representing the Buda and the Pest, separated  by the Duna (Danube), was in a nondescript and overgrown park up near the Citadel. There is lots of lovely art just tucked away here.

   I was fortunate to be here for the celebration on Aug 20 of over 1000 years of the Hungarian state.
   They put a display on of a few crackers. The video is the last 3 minutes of a 30 minute extravaganza that had two parallel and simultaneous sets coming off the river, while another pair of sets came off the Citadel.
   The colours of the Hungarian flag are Green, White and Red, which featured strongly in the display.
   Big Bangers
   (click link for video)

5. What a cool van!

   Just a beautiful thing
   Hahahahaha.