How perceptive...

I stumbled across this the other day while walking around the Gurtel (ring road I suppose).

Something tells me that Club Dracula might be a goth club. What do you think?

High on a hill with a lonely erm... chicken

There was something about this picture on the eggbox I bought the other day that reminded me of the seminal scene where the innocent young Maria belts forth.. . "the hillllls are aliiiiiiive... with the souuuund of muuusiiiiiic!" before delving into the sordid underbelly of the local aristocracy.

I hope these chickens enjoy as unfettered a hilltop life as the carefree Maria did.

All under control...

We didn't miss Control, although it was touch and go as the Stadtbahn train was ten minutes late leaving Oberdöbling. We found the Schikaneder cinema on the Margaretenstraße quite quickly (thankfully), and in time too, though we needn't have worried as the usher arrived late too to allow us into the cinema.

The cinema was a long room painted black with a white rectangle painted on the wall for the film to be projected on. The seating was a mixture of sofas and deckchairs. It wasn't the best sound insulated place. You could hear traffic outside and people walking by talking on their mobiles (Händy) but in the great scheme of things, what does that matter? It reminded me of the art cinema I used to work at in Oxford whilst a student, the self-deprecatingly (though ultimately truthfully) named Penultimate Picture Palace.

Shikaneder's eccentric furnishings were much more comfortable though than the PPP ever offered, and you could take drinks in from the bar too! I really liked the cinema and hope we go again.

Control was a fantastic film. I really enjoyed it, even the boring bits! It was very beautifully filmed and thankfully, not dubbed! And even though I knew the ending (he dies, by the way), it still was very, very moving, and the soundtrack, quite spectacular. Thank you Mr Corbijn, Mr Curtis (Riley) et al.

We retired afterwards for a beer (or two) to the Café Savoy on the Linke Wienzeile which boasts some of the largest mirrors in Europe (apparently); which makes it a really good place to, erm... look at the other patrons.

Rock me Amadeus

Did you know that Austro popstar Falco was dead?

Neither did I! Tomorrow (6th February) is the anniversary of his death in a road accident in the Dominican Republic. The press, the radio and the television have been saturated (slight exaggeration there, but only slight) with Falco stories and remembrance programmes.

I would almost imagine he is receiving more column inches now than when he was at the height of his fame in the mid 1980's.

He is buried in Vienna's Zentralfriedhof.

Alles klar, Herr Kommissar?