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The country where they give honours to Honecker

Monday, July 21, 2008
Remember Erich Honecker? The deeply odious leader of the German Democratic Republic and father of the Berlin Wall? He has, thankfully, been powering the central heating in the infernal regions for about 14 years.

His scumbag wife is still desecrating the world with her presence, and normally resides in Chile (what is it with that place?) on a state pension from the Federal Republic. She was not some little woman waiting at home for the vile Erich, but the Education Minister of the DDR for 26 years. I have seen extracts of text books from the DDR, and maths questions would involve tractors carrying beet from various fields to the collective farms. I am NOT making this up. So, Not One of Us.

However, Margot is on holiday in Nicaragua and they appear to be having quite the Sandinista / Sandalista reunion at the moment:

"Margot Honecker...was awarded a top Nicaraguan honor for her work on a 1980s literacy campaign....[She] reportedly also received the Rubén Diario honor for her husband's services to the people of the Central American country."He showed such solidarity and particular caring interest in the free people of Nicaragua," said the wife and spokeswoman of President Ortega, Rosario Murillo, adding that Honecker had supported the first Sandinista government back in the 1980s".

Seethe, seethe. Oh yes, and Victory to the Contras.

I hope she gets kicked out of the plane home at 30,000 feet.

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Nonsense on stilts, German style

Wednesday, July 09, 2008
From The Local:

"More than 40 German deputies on Tuesday proposed that the voting age be lowered to birth to give children a say in the country’s political future, the parliamentary press service said...They proposed that parents be allowed to vote for their offspring, until such time that the children felt they were ready to cast ballots themselves".

One of the partisans is named as a Free Democrat, the FDP being reasonably sound, generally. I will accept that 16, 18, 21 or whatever is an arbitrary age, and would regard dropping the voting age to 16 in these parts as being reasonable, with this the youngest age regarded as a threshold of adulthood.

What our woolly-minded German friends do not seem to have factored in is that an awful lot of pater and mater familiases will deem their progeny incompetent to vote, and should mutti, vatti and die kinder kick off in a polling station, who decides who gets to exercise the franchise? I forsee lots of litigation, lots of harassed polling officials, domestic violence and probably an outbreak of parties bribing younger voters with the promise of jelly and ice cream rather than the traditional cakes and ale.

Truly etc etc.

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"Continental people have sex life; the English have hot water bottles"

Monday, July 07, 2008
George Mikes' observation seems to be believed by our various neighbours Outre Manche, judging from a survey for the Game of Love Observatory, or Observatoire du Jeu Amoureux. Looks to be a PR stunt for an internet dating firm, but enough pre-amble, to the amusing findings:

In which of these countries (UK, D, F, I, E) is love most important?:

We reckon Italy - 43%. And us? 14%. Pity the poor Germans: 2%. Our average score across five countries is 5%, and the lowest overall. France's average is 31% and Italy's 37%.

Mind you, the reputation of our womanhood (and chaps too) has been noted - 33% think the time between meeting and closing the deal, as it were, is shortest with Britons.

Elsewhere, Italy leads for Lotharios and Lothariettos, with the British, French and the ever modest Italians considering them the most seductive. The Spanish think they are the best, we give ourselves 22%, no one else goes above 3%.

Best dressed? 14% of Germans think they are, and a rather deluded (present company excepted) 16% of Britons think we are. They shoot horses, don't they?

Pity the land of Cervantes, Lorca, Velasquez etc - only 2% of Germans, Italians and Gauls judge them 'the most cultivated'. We give them 5%, they give themselves 16%. A modest 62% of Germans give themselves the laurels. We attract a solid 25% average share of voice.

Don't bother telling a joke in Milan or Valencia - the Italians and Spanish do not think we are funny. They think they are. However, you have a one in four chance of bringing the house down in Germany or France. Pity the Germans and the French - take away folk voting for themselves and they fail to secure a double figure share of voice anywhere. We are the most likely to be creasing up at Teutonic humour after the Germans - 2% of us think they have best humour. I suspect that those responding thus were having some fun with the questionaire....

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Is *nothing* sacred?

Friday, June 06, 2008
As anyone who has spent time in France will know, Parisian cars carry the mark of the beast - by way of the number 75 on their numberplates.

However, the simple pleasure of identifying (and hissing at?) Parigots when in La France Profonde is about to be taken away from the French people, and those sad individuals like myself who know far more departmental numbers than is even remotely healthy.

Anyway, this sort of thing is on its way, photo borrowed from AFP:

Meanwhile, France's MPs - a spectacularly supine breed in general - have risen en masse to damn this prospect, so a rather feeble compromise will allow regional identifiers to be added to the plate, if one likes that sort of thing.

I hope the Germans are not intent on messing with their plates - note that Volkswagens often have WÖB for Wölfsburg, Audis In for Ingolstadt etc. More prosaically, German plates starting with one letter - F, H, B, D - identify the larger cities.

I know, I should get out more, and once there ignore number plates.

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Social Democracy - not very butch

Thursday, June 05, 2008
From Deutsche Welle:

"The party is particular weak among men. In the FORSA survey, the SPD polled only 17 percent among German men -- the same as the Left party and only half as well as the conservative CDU/CSU".

Unless there are an awful lot of beardie weirdies and neo-nazis on the loose, presumably the thick end of two thirds of German men are rooting for the CDU/CSU or the Free Democrats.

Elsewhere, the extent of the hole the German Left has blundered into becomes clear:

"Germany's Social Democrats. Their support has dropped to a historic nadir of 20 percent...the FORSA poll also put support for the Left party at 15 percent, its highest showing ever and 1 percent better than the previous week. That suggests the SPD is caught between a rock and a hard place. Left-leaning voters are deserting the party because it is not progressive enough, while moderate ones reject the very idea of a coalition with those on the far left".

So, with a bit of luck the reds and the greens will be out office for years. Shame Merkel can't call an election now and kill off the current coalition, as she is within an ace of a majority, if allied with the Free Democrats.

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The world's most useless intelligence service

Wednesday, May 21, 2008
I nominate the Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz, or the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, the German equivalent of MI5.

In a truly astonishing finding, it has worked out that Die Linke - the German Left Party - has extremists in its midst. Die Linke is a newish party formed by Oskar Lafontaine's mates (the hard left of the SPD) and the soi disant, cough, Party of Democratic Socialism, the successor to the Socialist Unity Party, the former rulers of the far from lamented German 'Democratic' Republic.

Later in the week, the BfV will reveal that wrestling is fixed.

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A history lesson for Chavez

Monday, May 12, 2008
Hugo Chavez does not seem to be up to speed with German political history, judging from this little outburst at Frau Merkel:

"The Venezuelan leader criticized Chancellor Angela Merkel for belonging to the conservative Christian Democratic Union, calling the movement "the same right wing that supported Hitler and fascism".

Well, the CDU was founded by Adenauer, who would have no truck with the Nazis, and consequently spent time in The Big House. Still, why let the facts stand in the way of a good rant?

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The politics of envy

Tuesday, May 06, 2008
Are alive and kicking - with some vigour - on the eastern bank of the Rhine:

"Some 68 percent of those [polled] were for a ceiling on salaries for well-paid managers, whereas only 29 percent were opposed. In former communist eastern Germany a whopping 77 percent backed capping what corporate fat cats make. The survey...comes amid a political debate in Germany whether the government should try put prohibitive taxes on high salaries to discourage widening income disparity".

Note the procrustean approach here. Nothing to do with whether the salaries are justified or not, but rather that they should have a ceiling set in the interests of 'social justice'.

One might note that the CDU/CSU polled 35% at the last election, and the FDP (Genschman's old lot) 10%, so there are some very confused conservatives & liberals.

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The neo-Nazi former chimney sweep

Thursday, May 01, 2008
Or, technically, master chimney sweep, "a status akin to that of civil servants...assigning them independent districts to oversee. The law requires property owners to have chimney sweeps check ventilation and heating systems". Source.

Anyway, said chimney sweep, one 49-year-old Lutz Battke has been deprived of his employment by the Land of Sachsen-Anhalt (used to be Prussia, but never mind), because of his political proclivities. Or more precisely, "a lack of personal integrity as grounds for the dismissal after conducting a lengthy investigation that amassed a 26-page dossier on the chimney sweep's activities".

I will not make the usual boilerplate statement at this stage as it would insult anyone who has ever read this blog, so on with the rant:

Was he refusing to clean the chimneys of those who would have been in trouble under the Nuremburg laws? No indication is given.... So, if people with fringe, if legal, political affiliations are to be denied employment, purely on the grounds of ideology, and not on the grounds of competence, is it preferable that they should be paid to be idle by the state? I would consider it infinitely more vexatious that neo-Nazis, Trots or whatever be given a permanent sick note from paid employment than run the risk of having my chimney cleaned, post delivered, bins emptied etc by someone with politics I find repulsive.

Hell, I would not mind the outgoing Mayor of London making an honest living in the private sector.

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Curious people, the Germans

Tuesday, April 29, 2008
Der Spiegel has aggregated some polls to show what the German man and woman in the strasse think, and the findings are, in places, pretty curious.

Consider that the nation which gave the world the Reformation, much of its high art, the wirtschaftswunder and a relatively bloodless end to the two Germanies, inter alia, sees 29% of German women considering that there is nothing in German history to be proud of. 14% of the men agree. I am not one to play down the horrors of the '39-45 war, but given that at the very least three quarters of the German population were born post war, is it not time to rein in the breast beating somewhat?

Elsewhere, less than two-thirds of German men would fight to defend their country. If memory serves, the US WW3 TV movie (1) 'The Day After' was a tad controversial in suggesting that the Ossis and the Wessis would find fighting each other too big an ask. Maybe.

In stark contrast to this neck of the woods, 91% of German women and 89% of the men consider 'discipline' important. Crikey. Oddest stat of the lot is that more women think chaps should earn more than ladies - 21% to 15% of the men. Mind you, around two-thirds of those polled think it is gender equality that makes Germany special. Without wishing to knock gender equality, it is hardly a unique selling point, is it?

I have seen traces of an interesting looking survey on the extent or otherwise of basic Christian knowledge, but will not be doing it unless I can lay hands on the source material.


(1) - A term that freezes the blood.

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A public apology to the German people

Thursday, April 17, 2008
Our German friends have had quite a lot to put up with quite a lot from us over the last few years - the tabloid press, soccer hooligans, lack of enthusiasm for German re-unification etc etc, but a line has been crossed:

J***ie O***ver has taken it upon himself to lecture die Deutschen völk on their eating habits. More here, in English.

I am really, really sorry. You have done nothing to deserve this. I had to apologise to Australia a while back too.

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Scratch a social democrat...

Wednesday, March 05, 2008
....and find a popular front enthusiast and a promise breaker.

Andrea Ypsilanti (she has Greek forebears, I believe), head of the Hesse SPD, has reneged on a pre-election promise not to co-operate with the extreme left Die Linke: "It could happen that I cannot stick to an election promise," she said. "Believe me, this is not easy for me." Source. The respectable parties in Germany have previously had a cordon sanitaire to exclude Die Linke, a combination of unrepentant Communists and sundry other flat earthers.

What she could do is co-operate with the eminently respectable, if rather less insurrectionist CDU, which would deliver 84 out of 110 seats in the Hesse assembly.

Minor footnote - when the CDU get together with the Free Democrats and the, bleurgh, Greens, it is termed a 'Jamaika-Koalition', as like Kingston's equivalent of Ol' Glory it has yellow, black and green. Fascinating, eh? By the same token, I suppose a Tory / Lib Dem coalition could be a Swedish coalition. As well as an abomination in the sight of the Lord, naturally.

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Give a dog a name.....

Tuesday, March 04, 2008
Our Teutonic friends can be a bunch of bed wetters sometimes. A German engineering company called Ixion took umbrage at a group of syndicalists calling it 'capitalist'. Erm, isn't that the entire point of being in business? It also, a touch more reasonably, had issues with being called 'extortionist'. In a further rather worrying development, Ixion judged that being called 'capitalist' would have 'a negative impact on its reputation among creditors'. Saints preserve us - those creditors could not possibly, whisper it low, be capitalists themselves?

Short form details of the litigation in English here, and in full form in German here, in which a Hamburg court reacted to a postponement in the lawsuit by noting that it would not deem the words defamatory.

Having done a little light googling, the German engineers might have done better than choosing a name shared with a character from Greek myth, "reckoned the first man guilty of kin-slaying in Greek mythology". Via some typically divine shenanigans, he ended up the father of the first centaurs.

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Strength through joy

Wednesday, January 16, 2008
Messing about with national constitutions seems to be all the rage at the moment, and following on from the French stopwatch nonsense, the Germans now face the prospect of "sport becom[ing] a constitutional objective".

It turns out that fads have been incorporated into the constitution, or basic law before, as it was with tree-hugging a few years back:

Art 20 (a) "Mindful also of its responsibility toward future generations, the state shall protect the natural bases of life by legislation and, in accordance with law and justice, by executive and judicial action, all within the framework of the constitutional order".

I feel sorry for those Germans who just want to sprawl on the couch and watch anything but fußball. Maybe they can be persuaded to take the World's Largest Outdoor (and Indoor) Steroid-Abuse Fest off out hands.

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A green raspberry for the Raspberry Reich

Tuesday, January 08, 2008
Jutta Ditfurth, a former Green MP in Germany thinks Ulrike Meinhof had it tough:

"Ulrike Meinhof was a much more interesting, much more multi-faceted person than I used to think," Ditfurth told DW-RADIO. "She was a woman who would have had a huge amount of opportunities and prospects -- if only she'd had the good fortune to have grown up somewhere other than Germany." Source.

There can have been few better places to be alive and in early middle age at the time Meinhof decided to become a terrorist. Africa? South America? The Soviet Bloc? China? The Middle East? Indeed, the BRD was such an awful mother to Meinhof that it allowed her to take a brace of degrees and be a full time student for some years before editing a magazine of the extreme left (Konkret), that continues to be published. Frau Ditfurth is an alumna too....

More, much more, on the Baader-Meinhof gang / Red Army Faction here.


Footnote - I *know* that the Raspberry Reich, or more correctly, das Himbeere Reich, was a dismissive term used by the extreme left for the Federal Republic, but it has proved extraordinarily difficult to pin down a reference because every possible form of googling turns up details on a film of the same name that is 'A critique of terrorist chic from pop culture maverick Bruce LaBruce'. If anyone can confirm the reference, I will be profoundly grateful.

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"Car bombs do not constitute terrorist activity"

Saturday, January 05, 2008
In spite of all evidence to the contrary, that is what a German court has decided. The German beaks have been examining this question in the light of the anti G8 protests last year, and under German law it would appear that "A terrorist act is one that causes significant damage to the state", rather than to one of the individual Länder, it being Mecklenburg-Vorpommern where the protest / riot took place.

I wonder if the reaction would have been the same if it had been Dusseldorf or Frankfurt in the firing line rather than a small town in the former DDR.

Meanwhile, the German far left thinks this is all just great.

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"Sit Fido! Roll over Fido! Salute the Fuhrer Fido!"

Thursday, December 20, 2007
Suppose that you discovered that a brain-damaged pensioner had taught his dog how to perform a Nazi salute on cue. You might, like me, think this somewhat comic, and hardly worthy of intervention by the law.

That, however, is what happened in Germany, with the owner "charged with displaying symbols of a banned organization". I am *not* making this up..

The outcome of that particular brush with the law is not made clear in the item in Der Spiegel, although the owner has now been jailed for rather more conventional displays of his Nazi sympathies, the dog passed on to an animal shelter and renamed from Adolf (inevitably) to Adi.

I would think that the next owner would have to make a herculean degree of restraint not to test out the mutt's skills.

Maybe the man was an aficianado of Fat Freddy's cat:




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">"Therfore bihoueth hire a ful long spoon that shal ete with a feend"

Thursday, December 13, 2007
One of the more readily understandable quotes from Chaucer, and apparently the first use in English of the devil sup spoon quote.

Showing off to one side, this came to mind reading about a Zimbabwean / German diplomatic spat:

"The government of Germany on Tuesday summoned Zimbabwe's envoy to Berlin, after a Zimbabwean government minister called Chancellor Angela Merkel a "Nazi"....According to Germany-based Zimbabwean journalist, Itayi Mushekwe, there are strong indications that Berlin may take diplomatic action on Zimbabwe. He said: "They regard pronouncements by Ndlovu as an unprovoked attack and we understand strong words were indeed exchanged when the authorities here met the Zimbabwean charge d'affaire. The general public also feels the same. They are well shocked that Mugabe reacted in the way he did towards a country that has been relatively more accommodative to him."

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Very touchy, the German Left

Friday, December 07, 2007
Suppose you were creating German language Wikipedia articles on the Nazis. You might be mindful of German law on the use of Nazi symbolism and the like, but also be aware that there are clauses in that law allowing their use in the context of education and documentation.

Anyway, Katina Schubert of the Left Party - the successor in title to the DDR's ruling party, Die Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands, inter alia - thinks that an article on the Hitler Youth goes too far.

So, I went to investigate the page, expecting it to look like one of David Irving's daydreams, but no, there is one symbol - The HJ flag, which looks very much like the Austrian flag with a swastika superimposed in the middle. Armed with a German O level considerably older than I was when I sat it allowed me to work out that it is at issue for quality considerations, so I did some digging to see what earlier versions looked like. Here's one from November 2007 - symbol count, 1. And November 2006 - symbol count, 1. And so on. I cannot discover any versions that look like the decor for David Duke's bedroom, frankly.

Meanwhile, should one be interested in Frau Schubert's ideological heirs in the SED, there is the party emblem, some stamps, and an election leaflet.

Should Nazi regalia and the like be one's thing, there's plenty to be found at the English language Wiki site, or indeed go to Google.de, click on bilder and bash in 'Nazi fahne'. Not exactly difficult. 'Information wants to be free', doesn't it?

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Quote of the day

Saturday, December 01, 2007
"Does anyone seriously think that data protection is as thorough everywhere as it is in Germany?" Source

Thomas Mann - No, not that one, but rather a Hessian MEP for the Christian Democrats.

He's right, isn't he?

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