just to let you know

addressing the nation

Aren't UK addresses incredibly long ? Anyone who has ever seen german addresses knows what I'm on about. Let me give you a fictive example, but I swear that it's based on an existing postal address.

Mr & Mrs. Wuthers
The Maple Stables
Old Farnsworth Path
Middlefritham (near Clusson)
XD7 89HY
England

Gorgeous, isn't it ? Usually addresses merely help you to find a location - but a lot of addresses in the UK do more: they tell you a story and seem to say: "Oh go away with all this modern nonsense !".

Being the Office German

I really enjoy being the office German. It has so many advantages, you know. Because of the underlying assumption that Germans are ruder than Brits, it can be so easy to break taboos without having a bad conscience.

Take office sweets, for example. Colleagues bring back sweets for various reasons and different places: holidays, business trips, because they have too many at home or simply they want to lose weight themselves and decided you're not fed well enough. Usually, a formal queue is formed to make sure everyone is getting his/her share of the sweeties - until there is only ONE bit left ! Once the last lollipop is found in the jar this manic run for sweets suddenly grinds to a halt. "Surely, it would be rude to have the last sweetie.". This is exactly the moment when it can be so handy to be a German. - "Just 'ave it ! ".

Look Ma, no bad conscience !

Things I love about the UK: bring your own bottle...!

It happened in a curry place in Coventry A.D. 1997. That's where I - for the first time in my life - brought my own bottle to a meal. To be precise, we're talking a 2 litre bottle of Cider here. After all, we were students. And we all thoroughly enjoyed what we could never imagine to be possible back home in Germany: consuming your own beverages while enjoying the delicacies of distant asian countries.

Someone please explain to me why this system has not been adopted in Germany yet - you save money *and* you know what kind of drink you get. I guess there is some sort of law against it. With bevvies getting more and more expensive on the continent, I can see this becoming normal practice.

There is the "corkage" though... a fee for opening bottles on the premises - and it feels almost like a rip-off. There is you, bringing all these bottles and then somone still charges you for merely opening them ! Also, there are restaurants which do not allow you to bring beer, but are happy with wine.

All in all, "Bring-your-own-bottle" gets top marks from me. Lets hope for the german students that they might find a loop hole in gastronomy legislation.

the british way

People sometimes ask me what I think the "British Way" is. To me, a little anecdote describes this best.

During January 1998, I visited a german friend who did a practical down in Bournemouth. I was still a student and lived in Coventry at the time. It was my friend's birthday on Saturday and I took the National Express down to lovely Bournemouth. I arrived fairly late and we went straight to an Irish Pub where we consumed substantial amounts of alcohol. We continued celebrating until the wee small hours and had a great time.

Needless to say that I felt a bit under the weather the next morning - I stayed in a B&B that my friend had arranged for me. I either must have been the only visitor that weekend or terribly late because when I finally went downstairs for breakfast, there was no one else there but the landlady. After placing my order and staring into a Nirvana behing the Cornflakes box, she reappeared with my breakfast and also decided to have a conversation with me. "Oh dear", I thought and it turned out to be one of the biggest morning-after ordeals I have ever had in my life. She wanted to know all the glory details - Where I come from, what I do in Cov and if I would stay in the UK forever - the usual stuff. After a while of talking through a major headache I put my courage in both of my hands and popped the important question, "Excuse me, but do you maybe have an Aspirin for me?". "Oh,", she said, "have you got a headache?". "Yes," I replied, "we've been to O'Neills last night - the Irish pub in town, you know".
And here it comes: smiling, she replied, "Oh, I know this place, they play terribly loud music there. I'll get you your Aspirin.".

How lovely! To me, it doesn't get more british than this. Even though her smile revealed a certain kind of Schadenfreude for my misery, she would *never* be rude and mention this to me. A german landlord would have probably lectured me about age and alcohol and drugs - she simply kept stumm about it and would never even dare to interfere into what's my business.