Audiostretto 59/4/24 English

In order for a vehicle to be allowed to participate in traffic, it has a license plate - front and rear. This entitles it to participate in traffic. The license plate is available after the vehicle has been registered. The plate is actually just a visualisation of an important process of registration and proof of ownership. This applies to new cars, used cars, expensive or cheap, large or small mo...

At home, we had various carpets in our flat where we grew up. We mainly had single pieces and no fitted carpets. The carpets all had fringes at both ends and we even had a comb with which we could, or were allowed to, or had to, straighten them out nice and parallel again. If the fringes got mixed up because someone walked over them, it looked messy. Carpet fringes are really only an aesthetic emb...

Imagine you are standing in front of an armoured door with a handle. It is locked. Behind it is an incredible treasure. You have the key and can open the door. Everything is ready for you to get the great treasure. You unlock the door with the key, reach for the handle and want to open the door - but then you only have the handle in your hand: unfortunately, the little pin in the handle that locks...

We were still small children when we once drove with our family to East Germany or GDR to visit our relatives. We had a relatively old, cheap car. It was raining heavily on the motorway and then the windscreen wiper broke. It became very dangerous for us without clear vision at the high speeds on the motorway and we had to find a service station that would repair the damage. In order for us to go...

Do you have a favourite actor or actress? If yes - why is he or she this? For me, it's because I'm simply impressed by that person. They embody something that impresses me or fascinates me or is or has something that I would also like to have or be. I take this for me as a motivation that my development is not over yet. So a role model with attainability, not one that is unattainable. In this way,...

Are you a user of flannels? So it's a piece of cloth that you wet to wash yourself with? It's super practical. You can do a good cleaning job with it - better than with your bare hands. Just a piece of cloth. But it makes a difference. When you go through your day today and look back at the end, you might also think: what have I done today? Or said? Why don't you assume that your contributions - a...

In our language, we have borrowed some terms from other languages. In Switzerland, for example, we don't actually speak of a purse, but say Portemonnaie, a French term. A wallet is probably already a discontinued model, because today we tend to pay with cards or mobile phones or online. But the wallet has the advantage that the money is usually stored there - and not spread out somewhere in variou...

I recently saw a bird washing itself in a puddle in the park. It was beautiful to watch and it made my heart happy. It made me think of the paradise story: how everything was originally good and for the joy of man. Nothing of what we need today as motivations or satisfaction etc. existed there: no smartphone, no tedious work, no money not even shopping - nobody wore clothes anyway - and yet the pl...

A magnifying glass is something fascinating. It lets me see things in greater detail than I would see them just with my eyes. That means I see things at all or in finer resolution. So a cut glass makes things accessible to me that I would otherwise not perceive. For me, this means that my perception is limited. The magnifying glass does not create anything new, but simply shows me more of what is...

When I'm on the train, I like to drink a coffee. And I like it hot. In paper cups it cools down quickly and paper cups are not very sustainable, ecologically. A thermos cup is ingenious: I can use it several times and the coffee stays nice and hot. I am grateful for such inventions, as simple as they may be. When I think about it, so many things come to my mind that I take for granted in everyday...

Before writing this episode down, I had to yawn. This is an interesting phenomenon and, by the way, not fully explained medically. That is, why we yawn is not yet completely clear. Apparently it serves to cool the brain and of course it increases oxygen intake. But it doesn't necessarily have to do with tiredness. But it is contagious - because mirror neurons are activated in us. These trigger the...

A few months ago I was able to work with clay and made a lantern out of a lump of clay. I noticed how carefully I had to shape the clay with my hands to get a more or less regular form, or how soft and sensitive the clay reacted to my pressure. I think we all have soft, very sensitive places in our lives, especially mentally and emotionally. A lot of pressure or hardness doesn't help, rather a fin...

You may have grown up in the city or in the countryside and your parents may have worked in agriculture or as teachers or in hospitals or.... and you experienced your environment as orderly and beautiful and your parents' profession as something that satisfied them and offered them regular working hours. And then at some point you saw an ugly industrial complex, chimneys, smoke, large production h...

Many bottles today are closed by a screw cap or with a lid. The former can be opened with sufficient force without tools. The latter, on the other hand, in the rarest of cases. That means I need a bottle opener. With such a thing, opening is very easy - most of the time. The bottle opener grips under the lid and, with the help of the law of leverage, a sufficiently large force can be developed wit...

I belong to the generation that still listened to music with a record player and vinyl records. A long outdated technology - but it worked, was popular and reliable. Today I'm amazed at how it was possible at all: a groove is stamped into a plastic material in a very small space with information - which can then be picked up and converted by a fine needle and finally reproduces sound waves. Wow! W...

Are there things or situations that leave you speechless? It's familiar to me. Especially moments in which I am simply amazed or moved, as if I can be out of time for a moment. It is the amazement, for example, at things in nature: how there are forms and shapes that we humans could hardly make so well designed and beautiful. A polished stone, the wonder of the indefinability of transitions - for...

In summer, the sun warms the stones and the asphalt or the ground in general. After a cool bath, children like to lie down on these heated stones to get warm again. So the stone absorbs the heat of the sun and gives it off again. What power the sun must have to heat up the lifeless material of the stone! And the stone itself is simple - it receives and passes on - if it is exposed to the sun. It's...

Do you like crossword puzzles? The aim of these is to fill in the letters of the word you are looking for in the given number of boxes. It has to be the correct word, otherwise it won't work with the other words that cross it. In life it is sometimes similar: we feel that certain things fit, others don't. Although outwardly everything seems correct and it fits temporally, relationally or professio...

My grandfather collected mushrooms and every now and then we had them for dinner, usually stewed. I didn't like them very much. Mushrooms come in many forms, including those that indicate that an environment is not clean, so that mould then spreads. Or then there is mould cheese that is edible and other mould on cheese indicates that the cheese is spoiled and should just not be eaten anymore. Not...

Frederick Buechner wrote "Beauty is to the spirit what food is to the flesh." We recognise with our eyes and in our spirit what is beautiful. Beautiful perhaps not in the sense of perfection, but I believe in a broader sense that words cannot express. Beauty can happen suddenly from one moment to the next: a smile, a warm handshake, a heartfelt thank you or a flower moved by the wind, a person's f...

Do you pay attention to certain labels when shopping, for example organic? Do you consciously buy organic to eat healthier and promote sustainability and biodiversity? Such products are usually more expensive because more effort is required and unhealthy or chemical substances are avoided for a greater yield. Organic. If the label is on a product, we believe it is organic. We trust - who actually?...

You may be wondering why I am talking today about an Easter egg at this time of year. Chestnuts would be more appropriate. Well, that's just what came to my mind... an Easter egg. What actually makes an Easter egg an Easter egg? It's just an ordinary egg, like the ones you find all year round, that can be bought and eaten. But at Easter? As far as I know, there are two characteristic features of t...

Are you musical? Do you play an instrument? Surely you have sung before, even a song from sheet music. Then you know the treble clef. Perhaps also the bass clef. They indicate how the following notes are to be interpreted correctly. If a note lies on one of the five staves, it is decisive whether they apply to the bass or treble clef. Otherwise they will be played incorrectly and the music will no...

Are you an animal lover? There are animals that are very familiar to us because they share our habitat. Others we can watch in the zoo and some we only know from hearsay or not at all. Some of us are allergic to certain animals. There is now one particular "animal" that is probably too familiar to all of us: it lives inside us. It is the creature of habit. For example, it always likes to sit in th...

There are the so-called blue light or emergency organisations: Police, fire brigade, ambulance, which use a rotating light and a corresponding siren on their vehicles when on duty. Trained ears can distinguish the sounds even before they see the vehicles. These forms of signals allow for rapid deployment, for priority in traffic, for the most unhindered deployment possible to save lives. Actually,...