My German collegue Birgit and I have argued over many things over the years. Birgit - for those who haven’t read Planet Germany - is the one who thinks that all things English are inferior and the British are dysfunctional and poorly nourished. And she should know - she’s married to an Englishman.
Things we have [...]
Most of my neighbours are enjoying the warmer weather and spring flowers that are starting to come out in the gardens. But not me.
Springtime heralds the start of the annual warmer weather which makes me sweat. Not because of the heat, you understand. Because of my sheer terror when it comes to discussing the temperature [...]
OK - I’ve been in Germany for over 15 years now and I’ve struggled to become German. I mean I can speak German, I can drive on the right, I’ve even been known to go out with unshaved legs and wear Birkenstocks. From fifty paces, I might even fool some people. Well, short sighted people, [...]
One of the questions I get asked a lot since I wrote Planet Germany is whether the incidents described in the book actually happened. I mean, surely not. Nobody’s household is that chaotic.
Like the time I tried to have a party and made hot curry for an entire legion of Germans. You know, the [...]
It seems that the wealthier inhabitants of the German Villenviertel were sleeping like babies last night. By which I mean, they were waking up every couple of hours screaming.
Dawn saw the first of a series of raids by the tax fraud investigators following their acquisition (for a paltry € 5 million) of stolen bank data [...]
Would you believe it! Our bin has been stolen!
Instead of a garden, we have a sort of bin-park at the front of the house. With lots of different coloured bins for throwing away different sorts of rubbish.
Two of them are grey - and those are the containers where you chuck anything that can’t be put [...]
On my first full day in Germany I was unfortunate enough to go down with a cold. This meant my first task was to go and buy a packet of tissues.
After the breakfast experience, I thought it wise to arm myself with the correct vocabulary, so from the depths of my luggage I retrieved my [...]
Of course when I first came to Germany, I assumed I’d pick up the language fairly fluently within a week or two. The best way to do this would be to immerse myself totally. I resolved to seek out people who don’t know any English and insist on talking with them. In German, of [...]
