World Infrastructure Day 2010

By chance, I found out that today - 13th - is 'celebrated'(?) as World Infrastructure Day. Now infrastructure is important every day (see this 2006 US post-storm blog entry), so I got to wonderung why the powers-that-be chose October 13th? What infrastructurally significant things had happened in previous years that might explain the choice? Here are some potential candidates :-

• In 1792, on Oct 13th, the foundation stone for the White House was laid.
• In 1806, on Oct 13th, Germany opened its first school for the blind.
• In 1950, on Oct 13th, the Lockheed Super Constellation made its first flight.
• OTOH, in year 54, Emperor Nero burned down Rome :-(
• And in 1925, grocer's daughter Margaret Thatcher (UK) was born ;-)

Missing out on October 13th, the World Infrastructure Summit will not be held until Nov 29 through December 1 (in Barcelona), where international bonkers bankers will meet to consume mountains of food (incl. waffles?) and have a wasteful hot-air waffle as usual. I hope they have a power(-point) outage ;-)

Copyright ^© Stu Savory on October 13, 2010 permalink Comments Email

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In Memoriam . . . Inge Rogge

W ith sadness, I relay the news of the death (on 26/9) of Inge Rogge, who survived her husband Ernst Leverkus (the unforgotten motorcycle author 'Klacks') by a dozen years.

Inge and Klacks were friends of mine whom I saw on and off over 45 years, first at the Elephant Rallye at the Nürburgring, camping in mid-winter in the deep Eifel snows of the early sixties. A year later, Inge, herself a motorcycle enthusiast in her own right/rite/write, turned up at the Dragon Rallye in Snowdonia (Wales) in the mid sixties. This was on a sidecar outfit, with her grandmother in the sidecar, all the way from southern Germany! I was there on my Velocette Venom Cafe´ Racer, albeit solo. Camping in winter is not everyone's cup of tea, but we were harder back then (and had less money for a B&B or hotel ;-).

Inge concentrated on the photography, whereas Klacks wrote many motorcycle books. Inge had a magnificently well indexed motorcycle photo archive going back 60+ years. Indeed, when Norton-Paul and I visited them in the nineties, she surprised me by pulling up a photo of the Venom at short notice over a cup of coffee!

But Inge also co-wrote a couple of books with her husband, the one shown above is a 1992 reprint of a 1987 book , the Handbook of motorcycle touring. Her photos :-)

So Rest in Peace, dear Inge, from an admirer; my condolences go to their son, Volker.
Thanks go to Heinz Schulze for the heads-up.

Copyright ^© Stu Savory on October 6th, 2010 permalink Comments Email

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Hiatus. . .

Time for a creative break, the first in eight years of thrice-weekly blogging.

This blog is going into Standby-Mode whilst I try to reinvent myself. I hope to be able to resume in November. In the meantime, thankyou everyone for reading me. You may go peruse the archives to avoid withdrawal symptoms ;-)

Comments (1) :
Schorsch (D) "I expect a daily hit rate of 404 on this page ;-)"

Copyright ^© Stu Savory on September 17, 2010 permalink Comments Email

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