a Russian winter

Every picture tells a story, season 3, picture 16

During the first half of World War II, Peter the customs officer was lucky in that his work was deemed essential and he wasn't called up. Also, he was 39 years old at the start of the war, so not among the first to be considered. In 1939, he had been promoted and moved to Idar-Oberstein, just after the birth of his third (and last) daughter. We saw him with all three here.

In mid-1942, however, his luck ran out and he was called up as a Feldwebel (sergeant). At the beginning of October he was sent to the northern part of the Russian front, so I assume that's where these wintry photos were taken:

In his letters he mentions that he served as an adjutant (ie doing clerical work for the commander) which seems to fit with the letters "adj" above his head in the picture above. He also mentions they built a "villa" which could be the building shown.

During that winter, the battle of Stalingrad happened further south, so I guess it was relatively lucky still to be sent to the northern part of the front where events were less dramatic and large swamps limited the mobility of the opposing armies during the warmer seasons.

I only have like half a dozen photos of him in active service - thankfully none of them feature any weapons or military activity, so might share the other three (similar but no snow!) at some point too. Which will probably be the last we see of him.

Should anybody have any answers to some of the many questions I am raising in this series, please leave a comment here (I'll need to vet it, so it may take a few days before it goes public) or contact me at michaelgrr [at] yahoo [dot] co [dot] uk

Navigation tools:

Season 3 so far:

1. family holiday
2. play time
3. fashion show
4. bakery to butcher's shop
5. the Hamborn brotherhood
6. all grown up
7. sisters in the snow
8. the last holiday
9. village life
10. family reshuffle
11. push bike
12. mystery trio
13. confirmands at Hamborn
14. streets of Hamborn
15. more grandchildren
16. a Russian winter

The Mastodon thread for season 3 is here.

You can find Season 2 entries in this thread on Mastodon (complete now!) or via the list at the bottom of the last entry of the season (and also at the bottom of the first entry of this season).

The twitter thread for season 1 is still here. Alternatively, visit the last instalment and find the numbered list of entries at the bottom.

the dangers of migrating

Many of us may envy the birds that migrate to warmer climate zones in winter. We may even naively assume that their expertise in long-haul travel may enable them to get out of harm's way when they face difficulties such as habitat loss and climate change. In reality, though, they are often more vulnerable than other comparable species, as they depend not on one habitat but on two, and on a safe passage between the two. Recognising these dangers, the UN set up the Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals (CMS), a global treaty that came into force in 1979 and holds regular COP meetings to check up on them. At the most recent meeting a global report was released that shows how the situation has become more difficult for many of the migrating species.

Starting from this report, I have prepared a feature on the conservation of migratory species which is out now:

Migratory species in danger

Current Biology Volume 34, Issue 6, 25 March 2024, Pages R217-R219

Restricted access to full text and PDF download
(will become open access one year after publication) (ScienceDirect link as the CB website isn't working at the moment. May even be open on that site, not sure if that's the magic link speaking which also goes via science direct.)

Magic link for free access
(first seven weeks only)

See also my new Mastodon thread where I will highlight all this year's CB features.

Last year's thread is here .

The Indian skimmer (Rynchops albicollis, Endangered) is among the globally threatened or near threatened migratory species not yet listed in the CMS Appendices. (Photo: Mike Prince/Flickr (CC BY 2.0 Deed).)

two bass recorders

Just two days after I posted about the recorder family, a long-awaited email came in telling me that the two recorders I had ordered back in September were now ready for delivery. As I love my Triebert alto, I had ordered the Triebert bass as a birthday treat and the garklein to complete the size range at the smaller end. And in February, as I was losing faith in that delivery ever arriving, I found the Thomann bass for € 70 at a fleamarket in Germany.

So now I have two bass recorders to compare, and the funny thing is they are externally identical (apart from the two-colour scheme in the Thomann while the Triebert is all matt black), clearly molded from the same cast (or whatever the process is to make plastic recorders) but a few details reveal that the Triebert may be getting a better quality control treatment.

• The keys are very flimsy and noisy on the Thomann, which Sarah Jeffery also criticised in her review, and blamed on the plastic material. Funny thing is, the keys on the Triebert are the same plastic in the same shape, and they are much firmer to the touch and consequently don't make that horrid noise when they're released. Peering underneath I notice a subtle difference in the metal spring: straight for the Thomann, kinked in the Triebert. So at some point I will take the Thomann keys apart and see if it helps if I make the springs more kinky.
• The joints are fitting perfectly in the Triebert. In the Thomann, the first joint from bottom is a bit tight, the second a bit loose, an the one near the kink (which can stay connected for packing up but is needed to access all places for cleaning) was so tight that I first believed it was glued together and didn't dare to force it open. Only after I saw that the Triebert came apart effortlessly at this joint did I manage to do the same with the Thomann.

Both are really easy to play and sound nice and breezy. You could use them for meditation like a didgeridoo just blowing the bottom F.

As Sarah has explained in her video, the tuning around B and Bb doesn't work with the standard fingering printed on the sheet that comes with the instrument (but funnily enough doesn't even mention the existence of bass recorders, it is marked for sopranino through to tenor!), but this can be compensated with clever fingering (eg no little finger for the Bb). Both come with identical accessories, only that each company had its brand name printed on the bag. Which I find hilarious as it shows each screaming "we made this" when clearly they didn't. I also note that both instruments came with a cleaning rod that is the size used for tenor recorders and concert flutes (it has the mark that you need for adjusting the cork on the flute). A slightly longer stick would be handy for the bass. Another DIY project I guess.

Oh and I could in principle assemble a vast number of hybrid instruments from the different parts, although for the aesthetic I do prefer the all black style of the Triebert.

So in summary, online shop prices are a factor 2.6 apart (£ 105 vs £ 275) and what you get for the higher price is a slightly better quality, but maybe not 2.6 times better? Note that the Yamaha YRB302II Bass Recorder is available at an intermediate price between these two, but by the looks of the photos online I guess it may also come from the same factory as these two?

And here's the updated family portrait, now including all recorders (except one ancient school soprano that has gone missing years ago but must be in the house somewhere):

Basses: Thomann, Triebert; tenor: Yamaha; altos: Triebert, Moeck; sopranos: Moeck, Schneider; sopranino: Yamaha; garklein: Triebert - the tenor came from the Allegro shop many years ago, Triebert bass and garklein from the Early Music Shop, all others from flea markets. All have baroque fingering, except my old school recorder and the Moeck alto in German fingering.

PS When I took the Thomann bass to a session earlier this month, a folkie friend told me she currently has three bass recorders to sell - these things are like London buses ...

PPS I've now added the all instruments tags to this entry - think I'm giving up on the formal structure of that series (which portrayed the oldest 21 instruments of our household in chronological order until Covid came along) and will now add instruments if and when I feel inspired to write about them. More exciting to write about the new arrivals than about the yamaha keyboard I bought twenty years ago. I've now also added the tag to the entries about Jenny the cello and two of the rescue fiddles I adopted.

more grandchildren

Every picture tells a story, season 3, picture 15
(season 3 now carrying on after a break due to the 100 years of cellotude series):

We have seen Frieda the pianist as a grandmother with the first three children of her oldest daughter here, but there were more grandchildren to come. A total of six were born in her lifetime, and another three (including me) postumously. Among the six she knew I am struggling to tell the four boys apart (their fathers were also brothers, and they were very close in age), so I'm hoping that I've captured everybody with the pictures below. First a series of three with Frieda stuck on the same chair while various children crawl on and off her:

By the way I haven't figured out where this is - will report back on that.

And here's some outdoor fun by the fire, although I'm not sure Frieda is enjoying it as much as everybody else.

Should anybody have any answers to some of the many questions I am raising in this series, please leave a comment here (I'll need to vet it, so it may take a few days before it goes public) or contact me at michaelgrr [at] yahoo [dot] co [dot] uk

Navigation tools:

Season 3 so far:

1. family holiday
2. play time
3. fashion show
4. bakery to butcher's shop
5. the Hamborn brotherhood
6. all grown up
7. sisters in the snow
8. the last holiday
9. village life
10. family reshuffle
11. push bike
12. mystery trio
13. confirmands at Hamborn
14. streets of Hamborn
15. more grandchildren

The Mastodon thread for season 3 is here.

You can find Season 2 entries in this thread on Mastodon (complete now!) or via the list at the bottom of the last entry of the season (and also at the bottom of the first entry of this season).

The twitter thread for season 1 is still here. Alternatively, visit the last instalment and find the numbered list of entries at the bottom.

vintage postcards

I got a bit obsessed with vintage postcards when I researched my lost cities series, and word got out, so a generous Santa helped me build a collection of beautiful books with such postcards, covering some of the lost cities and some others too:

The books typically date from the late 1970s, but those of the two cities that are no longer part of Germany (Breslau and Königsberg) date from the 1990s. Hence they all qualify for my much-neglected antiquarian tag. I still haven't quite figured out the rules predicting which places got into the series and which didn't. Regensburg, for instance, didn't make it. There may be an element of luck in that too.

instrument families revisited

When I discussed instrument families in August 2021, I used a wikipedia pic of recorders from sopranino to bass. As it happens, I now have all five sizes myself, so I guess it's time to revisit the issue with a new photo:

Bass: Thomann; tenor: Yamaha; alto: Triebert; soprano: Moeck; sopranino: Yamaha - the tenor came from the Allegro shop many years ago, all others from flea markets. All have baroque fingering, in addition I also have my old school recorder and a Moeck alto in German fingering.

I also may need to revise my preferences. I have warmed to the tenor recorder since the last blog entry and now use it for certain tunes at sessions, and I love my new bass recorder, so the trend is towards bigger instruments in that family (does anybody have a sub-bass to sell?). In the strings department by contrast, I have taken to to the violin and now also have a viola and a double bass in the room, so I'm spoilt for choice. Oh, and I've also found a low whistle, so families are growing all around thanks to fleamarkets, charity shops and gumtree.

tipping over

Climate tipping points were once a hypothetical risk in a distant future. After humanity spent the first quarter of the new century not sorting out climate change, we're now at the point where shit gets real. Tipping points will tip, and it's only a question of when, and how they will interact with each other. For instance, the Greenland ice sheet may topple the North Atlantic's AMOC (and thus the Gulf Stream), which in turn may kill the Amazon rain forest. Interesting times.

I remember very vividly a climate workshop back in 2012 where we were told that AMOC was safe. I wrote a feature about it then. Now there is mounting evidence that AMOC is no longer stable and could pass its tipping point at any time. So I had to write another feature to correct my record on that.

This feature is out now:

North Atlantic tipping point ahead

Current Biology Volume 34, Issue 5, 11 March 2024, Pages R175-R177

Restricted access to full text and PDF download
(will become open access one year after publication)

Magic link for free access
(first seven weeks only)

See also my new Mastodon thread where I will highlight all this year's CB features.

Last year's thread is here .

After recent rapid heating in the Arctic and accelerated melting of Greenland ice, the collapse of the Gulf Stream has become a real possibility. (Photo: Jennifer Latuperisa-Andresen/Unsplash.)