Devaluation

There was a time when being called 'Sir' was a time for respect. Damsels in distress, holy grails and all that. After living in Germany for a while, it appeared to be an anachronistic nicety. Now it is a short and polite form for 'Rich useless fat cunt'. Take, for example, Sir Fred Goodwin or Sir Allen Stanford. The whole Knighthood business relies on the respect of the common people, and its been a while since any of these so-called knights challenged anyone to a jousting duel in the name of righteousness. What if 'Sir' becomes slang for 'useless fat bastard'? My husband has turned into a right sir.

It would be quite easy and painless to devalue a name, but how about money? When people retire, they rely on the following generation to do their bidding, carrying them round the world on ferries and eventually changing their underwear. They either get their offspring to work to fund this, or rely on their savings and pension to persuade other people's offspring to do it. But what if the next generation say no? What if they devalue the old money, and return to bartering? What does a Sir Fred Goodwin have to offer them? I hope he has some loving children, and more than a bundle of promises to pay the bearer whatever he wants. Promises can be broken, and bundles of promises can end up as firewood.

I promise to pay any good friend who leaves a comment the sum of one 'I owe you one mate'.

Citation Needed

Could there be a more German photo than this, taken at the end of my road? Even a picture of Lederhosen-clad men drinking beer, eating Bratwurst, leering at bedirndled Fräuleine with a backdrop of Oompah bands and mountains could not capture the spirit of a country as well as this photo. The literal translation is

Access to the railway is forbidden! Section 58 of the regulations of construction and operation of urban railways.

What makes this so very German is

1/ Verboten! Verboten! Das ist hier Verboten!

2/ The little section thingy. A German kezboard even has this on top as 'shift' + '3', relegating the local currency to an Alt-Gr manouvre. Referencing the correct paragraph of legal texts is obviously more important than paying for stuff.

3/ The appeal to a list of rules, rather than to common sense. Section 58 of the rules does of course exist, and says, in legalese, that people should keep off the tracks.

In England a similar sign would say "Please Keep off the tracks", although some more abrupt ones may omit the 'Please'. The specific authority telling you this isn't important, because this is a sign. It carries its own polite authority.

When I become King, all signs will be polite, logical, and carry proven scientific statements backed up by useful references.

Cramp

Of Torpedo Entenhausen's 26 games last year, I took part in 25. Once I came on for the last ten minutes to waste some time, but it felt like an important contribution at the time. The game I missed was due to injury. After playing the last few minutes of a game with cramp, my legs didn't recover. The calf muscles were permanently stiff and a couple of days later I couldn't stretch my legs out. This made walking difficult and painful, so I stayed in bed and got depressed. I got a lift to see the doctor, who told me to take some painkillers, take it easy, and not play football for a while.

I managed to do something similar yesterday. After a week full of doubts and confusion, I came to life on the football pitch. It was only a Sunday kickabout, but I ran around like an idiot, chased every ball, and was in a great mood. As things were going so well, I didn't want to stop. So I kept running until I got cramp. Now walking is slightly painful, especially uphill. I will try to take it easy for a day or two.

Tobleron-e

I decided to liven up my shopping experience by trying to use a Toblerone as the 'Next Customer' bar. This needed a certain amount of planning, as some supermarkets sell Toblerones but have separators with a square cross-section, and some have triangular separators but only flat bars of chocolate.

The supermarket chain Rewe have both triangular-shaped separators and triangular-boxed chocolate with nougat, honey and almonds. They were therefore rewarded with my custom. I actually bought more than I needed to, as I attempted to give body to my ruse. I thus approached the checkout with a full basket of shopping and one Toblerone.

While discussing my plans with a friend last week, I realised that in all my time in Germany I have been pronouncing the name Toblerone wrong. I have been using the english tow-bler-own, whereas the correct pronunciation is somewhere between towbler-owner and tobbler-owner. I also never knew there was a bear hidden in the picture of the Matterhorn. Actually, just sod off and read the wikipedia page.

Anyway, I approached the checkout and tried to make it look like I had two lots of shopping. I decided to go for two mixed-bags of shopping with apples in front, bananas behind, cereal in front, milk behind. In the middle was a Toblerone, it's axis pointing across the band, but with a 10 degree tilt, as though it had been slightly thoughtlessly cast down. A respectful 15cm of empty band each side of the Toblerone made it clear that this was no standard grocery item.

An old lady approached the checkout, her arms struggling to clutch her groceries. In any other circumstances I would have shifted my things together to relieve her straining, but I was on a mission. I put the real customer separator behind my second lot of goods and ignored her visual pleas. She'd just have to hold on.

And then it didn't happen. The checkout lady just scanned everything through, including the Toblerone. She didn't even pause, or look twice, or smile.

Freibad

I went to a pub last night, and thought I was in for a good night when I got a bingo card. Sadly it wasn't a bingo card, but a reminder of how much I'd ordered. There are several things I didn't understand about this card.

1/ This open bookkeeping can't be in the pub's best interest. Surely either the drip-drip approach of ordering one drink after another, none of which costs much, or the drink-all-you-like-and-hand-over-your-wallet-at-the-end approach would extract more money. Being told exactly how much you've spent after every drink is rather annoying.

2/ 'Kein Eintritt' literally means 'No Entrance': You can't come in. But I was already in. Should I go out again? I decided to stay, as they probably meant 'Eintritt Frei', which is 'Entrance Free'. But they should have said so.

3/ The font used was Comic Sans, or something very similar.

4/ So there is no entrance fee, and no minimum order (kein Mindestverzehr). When did pubs in working-class towns like Bochum start expecting people to pay to go in to a pub, or tell them how much to order? It really was just a pub. No dancefloor, no DJ, nice dark furniture, a billiard table, all the usual pub stuff. The next time I go in, I will walk up to the bar, put on my best Father Dougal accent and ask "Would you like some money?", then follow up with "Is it alright if I order just the one pint, or should I start with a dozen?. I don't want to be putting you out there".

5/ What other things don't they have that other pubs don't have? No entrance fee, no minimum order, no cock-fighting, no fat naked men. Maybe it's too much psychotherapy, but why not advertise with what you do have. Freibad - Cold beer and hot food, solid dark furniture, friendly service and a bit of music. Had they said that I may have stayed for another beer.

Party Girl

I haven't had the pleasure of blogging while drunk for quite a while. I cut back on the old alcohol consumption to stop the cycle of euphoria and desperation. Tonight I agreed to a juggling appearance for the culture office of Bochum university. I did a little 3-ball juggle to Party Girl by Elvis Costello, and it went down very well. This has been one of my forays into perfectionism. I've been trying to cut down on them, and to allow myself little mistakes, but the plan was to juggle perfectly to every beat and lyric of the song.

I know that I can drive myself crazy looking trying to do things perfectly, so I spent the last five minutes before the show convincing myself that it is fine to drop a ball. I picked out two members of the front row to throw the ball back to me if it fell off the stage. I convinced myself that it would be fine to make some mistakes, and that it would be done and finished in 3 minutes and 23 seconds.

It was finished in this time, and I had time to get quite drunk, which is enough for me to load up a picture that is somewhat amusing, but which wouldn't pass my sober blogging threshold. Maybe you can do better in convincing the world to follow your beliefs.