Songs that saved your life

I have decided that as every equal should have its opposite, the antithesis of posts tagged as "a tune too far" will be represented by a "song that saved your life" (to slightly misquote Morrissey).

The only rules for choice of these songs in either camp is that they were heard incidentally during my stay here, be that on the radio, television, out shopping or doing something else more meaningful. My first song in this category is:

David Lee Roth ~ Just a Gigolo

I fear this may be rather a contentious choice, not least because of his crimes against fashion and penchant for spandex body suits but also my usual rather arch musical tastes, but hey, I've never been anything if not eclectic!

I heard this wilst working this morning and while I'm not a fan of Mr Roth's (or should that be Mr Lee Roth's?) I love this song! especially by George Melly. Marty Feldman's version in Young Frankenstein is great too, but this one will have to do as it's what I heard!

Updated "needs" alert

I had a minor disaster last night, I opened a bottle of wine with the corkscrew in the flatand it worked perfectly. Voila! one uncorked bottle of wine!

"So what on earth is so disastrous about that?" I hear you cry.

Well, the plastic cork had stuck completely to the screw mechanism and, in the end I had to saw it off with the bread knife before I could open another bottle!!! And, while technically the corkscrew in not exactly "broken", it is immensely irritating and I think potentially dangerous so we need a new one (no arguements to the contrary please!)!

• corkscrew (newly identified need)
  
• salad bowl (still outstanding need)
  
• scissors (newly identified need)
• tin opener (newly identified need)
• vegetable knife (newly identified need)
• vegetable peeler (newly identified need)

Dahlink! How was Bratislava?

It was actually really wet and quite miserable when we arrived, as were we after we missed the tram into the town centre and wandered off to the bus stop. Naturally, on the first rainy day of our trip, we had forgotten to pack our umbrella. We eventually jumped on a bus, any bus that was travelling in the right direction!

When we arrived in the centre, we wondered whether we had arrived on some obscure festival day (this has happened on several occasions in several different places) as all the shops were closed and there were hardly any people around at all.

We spent part of the afternoon in the Milan Dobeš Museum. The museum is housed in a very cute14th century residential building in the old town centre and is interesting in its own right, whether you like the art on display or not.

Dobeš is a Slovak son and the museum celebrates his work (over 4 floors) alongside works of other artists (including Bridget Riley and Victor Vasarely). The exhibition was good fun.

Below are pix of the main street while waiting for the tram to the station at 6pm. The place was so quiet as to make it almost surreal.

My aunt went to Bratislava and bought...

... a colander from Tesco! That's another thing I can cross off the "what we need" list.

We visited Bratislava several times during our time in Vienna between 1993/94 when we had friends to stay. During these trips, as well as exploring the cultural opportunities the city had to offer, we would also visit the local grocery stores and once or twice, the big supermarket (at that time Walmart) before travelling back, to stock up on luxury(sic) items (coffee, beer, pickles etc). We were quite hard up at the time and the difference in prices of the items we bought and brought back (was it smuggling? I really don't know) would offset the price of the tickets.

For our guests, Bratislava offered a different cultural experience to that of Vienna which I think they all found at least interesting, if nothing else. We also reckoned that in our own small way, that we were supporting the local economy too. So everything was ok!

Now while this isn't intended as a big political statement about local produce, supply and demand, or global consumption, it was interesting to note that the goods we used to buy in 1993 at a saving to equivalent goods in local Austrian supermarkets, were now actually more expensive than than they are in Vienna and at home in the UK! While I imagine that in the meantime, the Slovak economy has generally raised the standard of living for its inhabitants, I doubt it has boomed to the extent where they can afford to pay more for their shopping than we do in the Austria or the UK for that matter.

Surely this makes the "luxury goods" even more unobtainable for the local inhabitants than they were previoulsy, or at the very least, is a great big rip-off.

A tune too far #2

This one couldn't go without dishonourable mention:

Camouflage ~ Stan Ridgeway (heard in the Thalier bookshop on Mariahilferstrasse).

all together now

"Whoa Camouflage, things are never quite the way they seem...
Whoa Camouflage, this was an awfully big marine!"

The first couple of times I heard this I thought it was called Camel Plod.

More art to shake a stick at...

It was cold today. Only noticed when we left the house this afternoon tovisit the Leopold Museum in the Museum Quartier. I think it shows how well insulated buildings are on the continent compared to back home.

When we arrived in Vienna I noticed an exhibition called Zwischen den Kriegen (Between the Wars). Unfortunately it finished the day we arrived. This morning however, Tim noticed that the exhibition run had been extended, so we decided to go along.

The exhibition chronicled the artistic endeavours of Austrian artists (not necessarily in Austria) between 1918 and 1939. The gallery is an amazing space, very understated with large well lit rooms and a huge cavernous central atrium.

The exhibition was quite interesting though completely depoliticised. Odd that.

The ground floor (and part of the basement) house the largest collection of work by Egon Schiele in the world (allegedly). It was suitably impressive. I'll take you to see it when you come to stay.

We went for a stroll around the area as the gallery closed before retiring to Das Möbel, a bar/café at the bottom of Burggasse for a bier.

A tune too far

Yesterday I was brought to a complete standstill on the way back to my desk as I heard the delights of One Night in Bangkok by Murray Head on the radio

So few songs possess this paralysing power that I felt it worth documenting.