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Before we worried about the Neue Mitte in Fürth (project to create gigantic shopping centre closing in a whole road as putative salvation of local shops), there was the new pedestrian zone.

There was a design, with partly curved stones I believe, and an invitation to tender produced no tenders!

After that the design was simplified.

Then the firm employed ordered stones from China, which did not come.

When the stones did come, there were big gaps between them such as to fell wearers of high heels.

The stones also cracked a bit, suggesting the harvest festival procession may have to change its route.

Horrible bronze street furniture was introduced, and the nice green ticket machine was carefully bronzed.

Shortly afterwards, the bronze rubbish bins were peed on by dogs, I presume, and began to go green.

They disappeared. So did the bronzed bum-freezing little seats designed to prevent large gatherings of non-natives. One or two are still there, but the one outside this building was replaced by a hole in the ground, carefully filled in with stones slightly different to the rest.

Today, in the sleet and snow, scaffolding was put up and a horrible bronzed pole with oval cross section rose. It appears that two such poles are to bear a light. This was the beginning:

After that, attempts to put the light on and erect the second pole seemed to fail. There was a lot of phoning and smoking. Eventually, the solitary pole was covered with a plastic bag:

The other pole was stowed away, and after some deliberation, and even a chat with the police, the crew departed, to warm up indoors if they’re lucky.

One can only hope the worst.

The Story of Mennard – The edited highlights from the life of a northern barrister – is unlike any other law weblog I know. It is like a worm’s-eye view of life as a barrister, with a strong literary quality and imperfect spelling.

What is there to say :self deprecating Lawyer who cant spell.Thinks he has a sense of humour

There is a gap between the eclectic town house hotel in Manchester where he is staying during a trial and his description of it.

It describes itself as an eclectic hotel which no doubt explains the bath in the corner of the room and the milk that’s gone off in the fridge, the hot tub on the roof terrace that along with the DVD player in my room, is not working .

As News 24 gives way to what passes on the BBC for breakfast TV I draw the curtains to allow some daylight in .

The drawing of the curtains is a feat in itself given the size of the windows and the thickness of material .However it reveals a set of dirty net curtains with a grime reminiscent of permanent smog making it easy to picture young children in the neighbourhood being sent up chimneys to either earn money for their family or search for a Lancastrian Dick Van Dyke dancing on the roof top.

A description of the court too – Manchester Civil Justice Centre.

And the constant nagging irritation that the instructing solicitor, ‘My Best Friend’, is annoyed about Mennard’s fees, while the chambers clerks think the two of them are having an affair.

I ring my clerk. We exchange pleasantries. I ask after him and the Liverpool Fan Clerk who I am pleased to avoid after another glorious weekend of footballing triumph. I try to be witty maintaining my banter even though I’m on another circuit .I need a friend to chat to my wife is at work , my children at school ,My Best Friend frosty.

I ask about My Best Friend

‘Are we doing anything wrong’.

‘No she’s beginning to annoy me as well’ says my clerk ‘ She keeps querying your fee and I’ve double checked everything ‘Its the amount of money and because you are so close’

I knew it and it dismays me not only that but clearly chambers think we are having an affair and we aren’t. I will ,after all ,be bathing in the cast iron bath on my own tonight .

Frau Marion Schreiber, formerly the principal of the Institut für Fremdsprachen und Auslandskunde, died on March 7 2009. There was a notice in the Süddeutsche Zeitung of March 14. I can’t yet find any information on the site of the IFA, so this is for any readers who happen to have missed this.

Frau Schreiber was born in Leipzig. Her father died when she was 12. After the war she passed her Abitur, but of ten people in her class, only one went to university. She could not go to university in what was then the Russian zone, later the GDR, because her parents had both studied (they were graduates in librarianship). She crossed to West Germany alone (her mother later followed her) to a contact in Erlangen. There she was a part-time secretary at the institute founded by Dr. Karl Friebel and Dr. Isolde Friebel, and eventually managed to complete university studies in economics. She was Schulleiterin from 1978 to 1993, and after that she remained the treasurer. She originally intended to spend her retirement with Isolde Friebel in Tutzing, but after Friebel’s death in 1992 she lived in Tutzing alone. The funeral was in Tutzing on March 20th.