At a press conference a day or two ago, Guido refused to answer the question of a British journalist in english. When pressed, he said to the journalist (in german, of course) .. “We are in Germany, here we speak german”  expecting the journalist to pose his question via an interpreter.

So, what’s going on here then? Is Guido getting too big for his boots, or is he letting German patriotism hang out?

The answer to the question doesn’t appear to be quite that exotic. The simple truth appears to be: Guido’s english is not up to scratch. And he wants to become foreign minister?

In the meantime, the clever bods in his party have suggested that Guido might make a better economics minister … would he need english for that, I wonder?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R4pQlkshzm4

Guido speaking english
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lLYGPWQ0VjY

Photo by Dirk Vorderstraße, licensed under a creative commons agreement

The outcry over the detention of director Roman Polanski by fellow filmmakers, politicians and other people around the world is intolerable in my eyes. For God’s sake, we are talking about a person who has been convicted of drugging and raping a 13 year old girl, a person who has admitted his crime, a person who fled the USA to avoid punishment.

The question where was the girls mother at the time might be a good question (it is surely), but that doesn’t diminish the pain or anguish that the girl went through, and probably did for many years after … why it has taken so long to arrest him, is certainly a good one … but it doesn’t make him any less guilty.

So, why is everybody siding up with this man? Why is everyone so quick to condemn a person like Gary Glitter, but defend a convicted criminal? – and I’m not even going to start to talk about Michael Jackson. Why should normal people get the maximum penalty, but “stars” are expected to get off free?

At least, one consolation: 78% of readers of  the Bild (Germany’s largest tabloid) who voted on this subject, have said that they consider it “correct that Polanski should be arrested.”

So lets get him over to the USA so that he can pay for what he did … at long last

The picture of Roman Polanski was taken by Rità Molnar and is licensed under a Creative Commons License

Monrose Live in Elmshorn

Four hours stood on one spot in the rain between rabied screaming teenies, getten trodden on and pushed, trying not to listen to the “music”.

Headliners were pop-stars casting band “Monrose”, which as far as I can ascertain, were the only ones that sang live on this day. Certainly they were the only ones with a live band.

Speaking of Monrose, and it being a teeny band much more popular with girls than boys, I find the results of this poll very strange…

According to the readers of the FHM-Magazine, Mandy (on the right in the pic above) of Monrose is the worlds most erotic woman. Bahar (left) of Monrose came in third and Senna (center) of Monrose got 26th spot. Taking into consideration that FHM is a mans magazine, one has to ask the question, what kind of men read this rag? Especially when you hear who got the 28th spot. It was the one and only, your very own Sarah Palin….

On saturday there was a Nazi ralley in the town in which I live. 270 nazi marchers against (according to the press) 4000 lefties. Why was it allowed? The local council tried to have it forbidden, but the court judge (in all his infinate wisdom) allowed it to take place on the grounds that the constitutional rights of free speech were more important than the threat posed to law and order. I just wonder whether someone along the way might have got his priorities a little mixed up!

The elections to the european Parliament at the weekend went off largely unnoticed by the general public, the turnout throughout Europe being around 43%. The voter who did turn out though gave his vote to the center-right party. There just seems to be a lack of interest in Europe, despite the efforts of people like Angela Merkel trying to tell us how important it is… I think really though, no-one really knows what Europe is all about…

The recession in Germany rages on (as it does worldwide). Opel were saved by the Government (i.e. the taxpayer) at the last moment before GM went bottoms up (the question though is for how long). One trend is becoming very alarming though. Any company getting into trouble these days just seems to be holding its hand out for Government (i.e. taxpayer) money instead of trying to sort it out for themselves. Best example being Volkswagen and Porsche. There was talk a few weeks ago about the two companies merging to get out of trouble. But in the end they decided against it in favor of asking for Government money – much easier isn’t it.

The latest victim could be the Karstadt warehouse group. The owner have said that they need 237 Millionen Euros (from the Government of course) just to prevent them going bust this week. Seems though that the Government my be catching on to these tactics, and at least for the moment, seem unimpressed. We shall see for how long however…

Its been a great week for soccer in my eyes
First of all there was the thrashing of Bayern Munich (I do not like Bayern Munich) in the Champions League at the hands of Barcelona, only regret was that Barcelona decided to stop playing at half time when they were leading 4-0, otherwise it may well have been much worse.
Secondly, there was the fine win by Hamburger SV in the EUFA Cup against Man City. OK, I am english and will take my british passport with me to the grave, but I have lived in Germany for more than 30 years and have supported Hamburg since my arrival (albeit its the only german side I support)

The biggest German tabloid Bild has called for its readers to vote for Annemarie Eilfeld on the german casting show DSDS (Germany’ Star Search) and is offering 10.000 Euros prize to be raffled amongst the readers that vote for her. Annemarie has made herself very unpopular with contestants, jury and audience alike, and is usually booed off stage by a large portion of the audience.

One contestant left the show in anger after allegations that Annemarie had stolen her act, and she (Annemarie) openly called out for Holger, a favourite of the audience, to be voted out of the contest. She openly states that she is not in the competition to make friends and seems to be unimpressed by her unpopularity. A superstar that is not liked by its public? What a strange notion.

But why would the Bild want to support such an unpopular person? That’s easy – she’s very pretty and is prepared to strip. In fact she already has…

Back to the Daily Mail: The father of a man stabbed to death by teenage criminals has been denied compensation, because he fought back in his attempt to save his life. [article] The Criminal Injuries Compensation Authorities has ruled that the man had significantly contibuted to his own death. So, now you know. If you get into such a situation, just lay down and die – at least your family will get the cash…

(Tree pic by Dominic’s Pics – Creative Commons License)