Friko's World

I read today that " The Nobel prize in Physiology or Medicine has gone to Sweden's Svante Paabo for his work on human evolution....

 Traditionally March is a difficult month for Russian rulers. Stalin died March 5th, Alexander II was murdered March 13th Nikolaus II abdica...

Fat raindrops race down the window pane,  avoiding the shiny, pearly patches of earlier gusts of rain sticking to the unwashed glass, and en...

For the average German the forest is more than just the sum of the trees. When trees are threatened, Germans go on the warpath. I well remem...

Karneval in Cologne, image Fourth Thing Karneval, the Rhenish name for the Fools' Season, is centuries old - Mardi Gras is an offsh...

The more specific maintenance of the graves fell to Uncle Peter and Aunt Katie. They often grumbled about it. Grandfather, who owned the p...

Aunt Katie’s welcome smile ushered us in. The black and white tiled hall of the cottage was unheated. We shed our coats, hats, scarves and ...

In November the wide and fertile flatlands of the Northern Rhineland cower in the path of angry storms, which travel unimpeded for thousan...

or How to Spend a Profitable Afternoon. (It’s still raining) What started me off I no longer know.  I remember I was idly looking for poet...

"Permission has been granted to visit the West” A misunderstanding is all it took for the wall to come down and a continent to be reu...

Before greed became morally acceptable in the circles of the Haves as well as many of the Have-Not-Quite-As-Muchs, and we all strove to make...

Giovanni Bellini, 1460-1464, Galleria Querini Stampalia, Venice February has been the month of purification since Roman times;   Febr...

Source: The Daily Mail Who else is glad that the Jubilee celebrations are done with? Although I've had no hand in any of it...

It grieves me to see so many of my American blogging friends unhappy with the politicians in their own country. I see a good, proud, kind...

Langley Chapel,  near Shrewsbury in Shropshire, sits tranquilly all alone in charming countryside. The interior of the chapel is a unique ...