Friday, slow day

We sent off the competition yesterday, postmarked nine minutes before the post office closed. Cutting it fine, but we have been even closer on previous occasions. The scheme turned out very well, and the drawings are nice too; I think we stand a good chance of winning at least an honourable mention (which would basically just cover the printing costs).

Actually, the odds of winning something are very good. Like most recent architectural competitions in Germany, this was run in two stages: One applies for the right to take part, either by submitting proof of having designed similar buildings (or having won similar competitions) or as a pure lottery, throwing your visiting card into the hat. In either case, the administrators select around 30 offices to compete. Given that there are typically four prizes and three runners-up, the odds of winning at least an honourable mention are 1 in 4. Much better than the lottery.

Now, back to reality. I jumped straight into this project on the Monday morning after St. Petersburg, I still haven't taken my dirty shirts to the laundry or answered half the e-mails and telephone calls that came in my absence.

Time for a little real life: laundry, shopping, a cappucino downtown, maybe a walk by the Neckar if the rain holds off. A little rain would be very welcome, it might reduce the grinding heat and humidity of the last few days.



The soundtrack to this post is "Neve al Sole" by Pino Daniele, melodic soft rock from Italy. Not my usual style, but it's pretty good background stuff. I heard it played in a standup eatery at lunchtime last week, and thought that it was African: sounds like early Youssou N'Dour. I asked the proprietor what it was, and he jumped for joy: Pino Daniele was his father's favourite rock musician back in la bella Italia. He (the proprietor) went running into the back room and returned with a stack of CDs for me to listen to (he actually said "copy" but I don't do that).

P.S. Curses to Blogger for changing my template behind my back. They have introduced a new <div style="clear:both"> tag at the start of each post, which removes the wider linespacing. Damn you, I liked the wider line spacing, it was one of the main reasons I chose this template. Please (1) fix this, and (2) don't tinker with my settings.

P.P.S. Doubled curses to Blogger for also having messed around with the comments page. I have written them an e-mail to complain, and encourage you all to do likewise. Their address is support@blogger.com.