Felt a bit sulky yesterday: misgivings about the whole venture. I knew taking the new job was a risk, but I was unprepared for the reality of it… Unfortunately I was offered a different kind of job at the same time in the south of France, and I’ve been wondering about that. Which is completely pointless, since I’ve taken this job because of where it might take me, and I don’t think I’m going to leave here unless it gets so bad that I start shooting off fingers so that I can’t work, like the soldiers in the trenches did during World War I. I mean, I have no idea where you can buy guns around here, for one thing.

I was also reflecting on life in a mid-size German city. Am realising I am going to have to make quite an effort to get into the countryside, avoid suffocation in the English-speaking expat community and be a generally good low-carbon kind of person. They have supermarket chains selling apples from Chile just like in England. Resist! I must resist!

Happily, I got out of my funk (not the German kind) by taking my first look around Bonn. To wit, I saw the following life-enhancing, funk-reducing items:
- Bonn’s botanic garden, which seems a bit heavy on the plant side of things but nice all the same;
- a lovely egg yolk-yellow baroque construction housing the Mineralogisch-Petrologisches Institut and other large-brain nexii;
- a statue of someone with a beard;
- metal pretzels for door handles;
- two buskers playing a Bach fugue on French-style accordions;
- a shop selling Iranian caviar; and
- Beethoven’s death mask*.

Doesn’t that lady look delighted with her purchase? 

Most excitingly of all, after exhaustive investigation at some risk to my physical person, I have answered the Haribo Question. I cannot reveal my sources, but here is unequivocal proof:

Excellent preparation for the journalism distance course I am considering studying. Just as insurance, you understand…

* This may have been a copy.