Diversions Manifold

Saab cars went into bankruptcy just before Christmas. There is tons about it on the web, so I don't really need to describe the ins and outs of the long and painful slide from being sold by GM to Spyker and "Swedish Automobile," to the rather demeaning attempts at sale to the nobody Chinese firms Pang Da and Youngman. I'm writing about this now because I had to pop into the local Saab dealership in Ipswich to have an engine management problem looked at. (It turns out that the turbo vacuum hose had a small hole in the side, most likely caused by a marten, the famous "Marderbiss" in German.) I had to wait a while, just over an hour, for my car to be looked at and repaired, so I had time to sit in the upstairs waiting area to read a 1987 history of Saab-Scania, and to sit in the latest and last Saab, the 9-5 Aero turbo 4. The book was full of hope and pride of Saab Cars, noting its original raison d'être of being an emergency occupation for thousa

I mentioned that I am home for Christmas. This means that I am at my parents' house with my own family, having made it to England without a full passport. After the initial assurances that my passport would be ready for me well before our travel, I eventually received an email from the lady working on my case that it emphatically would not be ready. I would have to travel up to Düsseldorf to obtain an Emergency Travel Document (ETD) from the British Consulate in person. Actually, I was supposed to have gone to Munich, because that's where British citizens living in Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg are catered for (or "processed", I suppose). But, since Heidelberg is so much closer to Düsseldorf than to the Munich mother-ship, I went there instead. It was an early start, but the weather was good and I made swift process along the Autobahns. Having left at around six o'clock in the morning I arrived just after nine, after battling through the Düsseldorf rush-hour

Back at my parents' house over Christmas, I was (watch out, this is going to get exciting) doing the washing up after my sister had made the dinner. (Just to write "pork chops" does the meal an injustice, but that's basically what it was). The item I cleaned last, because it had now rather unappetising looking bits of wet pastry on it, was the beater from our old Kenwood mixer. As I washed, I remembered how this piece of utilitarian design had always fascinated me through its complexity and simplicity. It is designed as a 'K', instantly bringing the branding to the forefront. Whether or not this is optimal for mixing pastry I cannot say; but it works very well, generally resulting in great cakes, so its impact on the mixing dynamics of pastry is at least not negative. Its complexity is subtle, but everywhere present. It warps in all three dimensions, combining rigorous straight elements with beautiful curves, tubes with flat and developing blades. Some

Last week I was on a business trip to Genoa. I was there to represent the Technology department in the lions den of a quality managers' meeting, as I had been a few years previously in Liège and in Bielsko-Biala. This time around was somewhat more relaxed than the previous few. The quality team had finally accepted our way of working and come round to accepting our thinking behind the complex tolerancing on seemingly simple parts. And to accept the necessity of measuring what we make. Naturally, I had only a little time to experience Genoa itself.  My evening out with the team at a pizzeria in the port at least showed me the way down to the port, so when I escaped an hour earlier than required the next day, I was able to wander down for a quick look in the daylight. The Genoa that I saw had that certain Mediterranean lived-in grandeur that many Italian cities posess; fading architectural glories simply being part of the activity going on in and around them. At least