On the road in Germany... just when you think things were Bad, they got wurst!

Angie and I returned from a great holiday in Germany. We loved it, so don't let the header above fool you...

One fellow traveller asked me after the sausage-laden breakfast: "How was your breakfast?"
I replied: "It was the wurst meal I had."

I didn't know then that it was going to get from brat to wurst...

Like I said, it was really a very nice holiday. And I found MY car in Rothenburg!

Explanatory notes:
Bad means  "spa".
Everyone should know that wurst means "sausage".
And the car above is the Tesla S, an all-electric sports saloon. The number plate was what caught my eye!

Oh, what a gas!

This ad in The Straits Times (April 11) caught my eye:

German gas? I remembered that my older siblings used to tease each other whenever one of them released some really stinky "German gas"! But this expression seemed to have sputtered out and I am not sure if Generations X and Y are familiar with it.

Wikipedia (under the heading "Fart") has this interesting cartoon which hints at the German origin of this expression:

The caption reads thus:
German peasants greet the fire and brimstone from a papal bull of Pope Paul III in Martin Luther's 1545 Depictions of the Papacy.

I posted the German gas ad on Facebook and KA responded with this pic of a well-prepared dog...

Oh no, the old fart's at it again!

 Finally, the Family Guy cartoon series seems to have this scorching farting scene in one of its episodes!...

Haha, I am off to, yes, Germany, for a holiday. So I won't be blogging for two weeks.

Amazing graffiti art!

Paying homage (Part 2)...

There's more still to mull over Mr Lee and the subject of India.

1. Here's an admiring Indian Singaporean's take:

2. The Diplomat has this to say recently:

Lee Kuan Yew Believed in India

Lee Kuan Yew was both an admirer and critic of India.

http://thediplomat.com/2015/03/lee-kuan-yew-believed-in-india/

3. A less flattering view of India was surmised in this March 2013 piece which appeared in The National Interest:

Lee Kuan Yew, Grand Master of Asia
Singapore's eminence grise sees China rising and India falling

http://nationalinterest.org/commentary/lee-kuan-yew-grand-master-asia-8169

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So, the question to ask ourselves then is:
Is Singapore a real country?

Paying homage (Part 1)...

If my memory serves me correctly, Mr Goh Chok Tong was the architect of the "India Fever" economic outreach -- part of the 1990s "external wing" economic strategy of the then prime minister. Interesting, it is Mr Lee Kuan Yew that the people of India are now paying homage to, as seen in several reports in today's ST (April 7):

Playing tricks with your eyes!

I eventually got this one but I swore I could have fallen asleep staring at it...

This next one seems easy. A frog, right?...

But wait, there's more....

So, an image is not always what it seems to be at first glance...

 Yup, look again...

Finally, this National Geographic pic is awesome!...

Okay, let's make the image much bigger...

...and bigger (but, sorry, it gets grainier)!

Got it? If not, see this link...

https://ekeda12.wordpress.com/2012/10/14/untitleda-he/

On politics...

1. She is arguably Singapore's most insightful political commentator:

http://catherinelim.sg/

2. The "Emperor's New Clothes" is arguably the most trenchant expose on what a political system must never become. I must emphasise that the late Mr Lee Kuan Yew is not being alluded to here as the Emperor in this Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale. Mr Lee's record (and those of his old guard colleagues) of superlative achievements in pursuit of Singapore's interests will stand the test of time. This cautionary tale here is a reminder about never making a demi-god out of a mortal being (the Kim dynasty in North Korea comes to mind):

http://www.andersen.sdu.dk/vaerk/hersholt/TheEmperorsNewClothes_e.html

3. Finally, this political quotation is definitively (not arguably) an ever-present reminder that a political system is only as good as the mettle of the people who live under it:

You'll get the political system you deserve.