ἐπιφαίνω

A display of the crib scene on Epiphany displayed in the entrance door of our village carpenters/joiners office. They specialise in staircases and entrance doors and are a major supplier to Baufritz the company Bliped yesterday.

This Blip and the previous 1300 of my entries and nearly 400,000 words of drivel have appeared thanks to Blipfoto which for a multitude of reasons now needs our help to keep it going. So if you are wise and also very rich, then instead of a handful of gold, frankincense or myrrh a simple VISA or Mastercard debit card will suffice AND it gets better - you give and at the same time receive - shares in Blip. You probably won't get as rich as the three wise men but even Steve Jobs, Bill Gates & Mark Zuckerberg started life with nothing more than a nappy. So off to the Blip crowdfunding site to free yourself of some of Grannies gift voucher money.

Unpleasant day weatherwise and healthwise. Inactivity on driving my kidney stone bashing tractor seems to mean they are joining forces for a mass urethra bombing run. Has been knocking me about the last few days and last night in particular. Today is a public holiday in Bavaria (known as "Holy Three Kings") so no chance to get out the chainsaw and get some good vibrations. A few hours of firewood log splitting which I did manage, simply doesn't have the same effect - I guess an old fashioned axe instead of a 400-volt hydraulic splitter would be better,

During my coffee breaks, I kept popping in to ask friend Kathi who had popped by for a girls natter with Angie, how to navigate around in Facebook. Also wanted to try and solve a Blip pledge payment problem I came across last night on trying to make a new pledge. Seems that one cannot pledge without a VISA or Mastercard "debit" card, not a term known here in Germany. I think all such cards here are debit cards, I don't think credit cards from these two are available. Germany has always had a very different approach to cards and credit. When I first came here 25 years ago the Hilton Hotel in Munich would know what a credit card was but that was about it. Things have changed but even now no supermarkets take credit cards. If not cash, then the standard here is the simple bank card - Apart from a year or two back in 1990 of issuing a few Eurocheques, I have never issued a cheque in Germany. Research showed that some German Blipers could not pledge. So spent some time in discussions with HQ and Facebook Blip friends trying to find a way through.

I'm certainly not giving up, we should hit the 100K in the next 24 hours but that's only just over 50%. Slowly I am warming to Germany's best friends and financial advisors, Yanis Varoufakis and Alexis Tsipras, ideas based on good, solid, sensible finances - we simply don't pay a penny for PolaroidBlip. Why? The only assets of the company are our photos, your fine words, my drivel (hold on I think in double-entry bookkeeping, "drivel" was on the window side of the desk i.e. a liability) and a whole heap of email addresses, at least 75% of which are no longer active Blipers. And the best part, the active email addresses belong to totally worthless people - they are pleasant, polite, nice to each other people who raise their eyebrows at someone using the word "damn" . They make the Salvation Army look like a bunch of skinheads looking for a brawl. Have to work on this.

I see David is coming to visit us here in Bavaria tonight and hold a meeting with the King of Germany, Horst I President of Bavaria, Horst Seehofer who ordered his Rest of Germany assistant to appear today and told Mrs Merkel to cap the immigration at 200,000 for 2016. Bet David is rubbing his hands at this and will be seen on TV interviews in the scenic setting of Kreuth, south of Munich, with the long-awaited snowflakes falling, enjoying his late Christmas present. I could pop over tomorrow and do a bit of Union flag-waving - now that would be a Blip to cherish.