Recent content by mandryka

At the moment my test song is Erstarrung - particularly the extraordinary verse Ich will den Boden küssen, durchdringen Eis und Schnee mit meinen heißen Tränen, bis ich die Erde seh’. Unbelievable sentiment!

If you decide to continue exploring it one thing I would say is this: it's well worth getting to know the poetry. They're crazy, the Müller poems. And the melodies and piano really do bring magic things to the sense of the words. Can't explain it better than that I'm afraid!

Why does the US not do more to stop Israel harming the Palestinian people so much?

That makes it sound as though little Israel has the whole of the western world over a barrel. Do you think we all need to bend over backwards quite so much? If we did some more to reduce the scale of tragedy would Israel would just refuse to cooperate with us - just turn its back on us?

I agree with you, and I appreciate that you have the courage to express it and the tact to put it so delicately.

If this post is an unwanted distraction to the topic @tuga please say and I'll remove it. I'm just interested to know whether anyone has explored Golden Visas in Europe -- TBH I am quite tempted, if I didn't have a business here, I think I would go live in Greece.

One major issue I suspect is that the DWP has a reputation of being very difficult to deal with - a labyrinthine and unhelpful bureaucracy. They can cut a tenant's benefits and they can demand repayments from the landlord if the tenant was overpaid, at least when the rent was paid direct. So...

I used to think that a problem with all of this was that the bottom of the market will find it harder to get accommodation. My thinking was that higher mortgage repayments mean higher private sector rents, benefits lag behind, owners don't see enough return and so quit the market. However I may...

Here are the details. If mortgages remain high the demand for rentals will increase because less people will become first time buyers. In London, it's clear that people are being priced out of inner London, and moving to suburbs...

Well I go at least once a year, but I tend to do what I need to do and leave pronto. I guess I feel about Manchester like you feel about London.

I just learned that Boddingtons is no longer brewed in Manchester! Quelle horreur. I was going to suggest a brewery tour and a visit to Strangeways.

Ah! Memory plays tricks.

How about Heaton Park?

Well, it is (or was) interesting architecturally -- a theatre in the round inside the old Victorian Corn Exchange. It did some good productions -- like 40 years ago (I worked in the bar there) It had a good cafe and bar -- possibly a restaurant too. The gay area downtown was just slightly more...

What about the Exchange Theatre? And the gay bars round Rembrandt Street (unless they've all changed) There must be some good things to visit still down Oxford Road, near the University, surely! Friends of mine once said I should explore the new Tib Street -- I went (I have fond memories of the...