Wandering through downtown Basel, Switzerland, I came across this sculpture of the Roman god Janus. I was struck by the skill involved in creating something that intricate that presents two completely different faces to the world. What you see depends on which side of the statue you are looking at. Janus was the god of […]
There were things I missed by being in Canada last month, especially the Christmas tree in Sulzburg’s town square. For me it is a highlight of the season. The tree is still there, but the lights have been removed. Soon it will be taken down and most of the branches stripped from it, Then it […]
Over the Christmas break I spent some time cleaning out my digital closet so to speak. I dumped a couple of hundred emails, read and filed some others and did some cleanup on my phone. That’s where I found this un-posted piece from 2017, written shortly after moving to Germany. After two months here […]
Today another post rescued from my phone that I meant to share months ago. It’s a sequel to what you read here yesterday. I attended an Ottawa Senators hockey game recently and noted the team had fallen on hard times with lowered expectations. On offer was a special promotion sponsored by McDonald’s. If the […]
Some days it seems as if time flies by. Today’s post was written in October, but somehow got stuck in my phone and never published. So, a little later than intended, here it is. There were plenty of tickets left, and with the rest of the family out of town, I took in a hockey […]
There are a lot of important people buried in the Basel Munster (Minster in English – the large former Roman Catholic cathedral). Doctors, physicians, politicians and others who obviously had some status in society. I didn’t recognize any names, other than Erasmus. And I had no idea how he got from Rotterdam to Basel – […]
This post, from March 2015, was the most viewed post of 2019 here at Random Thoughts From Lorne. I think its popularity must have something to do with search engines, though I can’t figure out what the trigger is. It seems to be increasing in popularity – more people read it just last month than […]
I understand why this piece, originally published in February 2015, was popular in 2019. There has been a movement in Turkey for a number of years to convert the Hagia Sophia from a museum into a mosque and it seemed there was increased talk of that this past year. This was the second-most read post […]
We continue to recap the most-read posts here during 2019. Strangely enough, none of the were from the year but from previous ones. This one, which came in at number three for the year. The best seller at the U2 concert last Friday at the Rogers Centre in Toronto was one of The Joshua Tree tour t-shirts that […]
My 2015 post about one of my favorite books of all time was the fourth most read piece here in 2019. I had to write a book report last week for a course I am taking. No need for details, let’s just say I didn’t much enjoy the experience. It reminded me too much of […]
Recent Comments