Sustainability is everywhere these days. Just browse through the ads in Architectural Record and you'll be amazed how every single building materials producer finds something green in their product - no matter how energy intensive it was to produce. There is also an onslaught of "sustainability" events around us. Earth Day had just passed when I received a conference announcement flyer that mentioned three "sustainable" conferences on one page:

Read more...

Guess who outgrew the planters before the other seeds...

As the German news site Spiegel-Online just announced, a committee of public representatives ranging from a popular comedian to the editor of the most prominent dictionary have determined their favourite words with a foreign root in the German language. The following winners rose to the top among approximately 3500 submissions:

• Tollpatsch (Hungarian) - A less than capable person.
• Currywurst (Tamil, Portuguese and English) - A hot dog with curry and ketchup, essentially. The other German street food after a Döner.
• Engel - An angle... that was easy to translate...
• Milchschake (English) - Anglophones, marvel at the spelling!
• Chaos - A great word in any language.

Read more...

It suddenly appeared in our garden...

As seen in our kids' closet.