In my ongoing quest to fill the void of sporting activity that graduate life tends to entail, I decided, almost a year ago, to devote some of my energy to the gym. Three evenings and one morning each week, I get to wander around in silence counting reps in my head and generally relieving the stresses of the contemporary working day. At the same time, I am exposed to terrestrial television's early-evening line up of quiz shows - Pointless, The Chase and Eggheads, which allows me to exercise both mind and body. Or something.
As part of this pursuit I have been known, occasionally, to browse the various fitness forums offered up by the internet. One day, in among all the insecurity, in-jokes and odd pieces of actual good advice, I came across a thread dedicated to so-called "mental gains" - specifically, recommended reading for the man or woman with the goal of physical perfection. Suggestions ranged from the Bible to the rather out-there teachings of "iceman" Wim Hof. But by far one of the most popular works, and one that caught my eye, was the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius.
Marcus Aurelius was emperor of Rome from 161-180 AD, although for the first eight years he shared power with Lucius Verus. Meditations was written in Greek over the last ten years of his reign, and commits to paper (papyrus? wax?) his stoic world view as applied to the full spectrum of the human experience.
I had been assured prior to reading that this book would change my life, along with my fundamental understanding of the world around me, my role within it and my duties towards it. So it would be safe to say that expectations were, ultimately, set impossibly high. Not to say that there aren't some brilliant words of wisdom to be found. Marcus Aurelius' attitude to the world of work resonated in particular:
"What art and profession soever thou hast learned, endeavour to affect it, and comfort thyself in it; and pass the remainder of thy life as one who from his whole heart commits himself and whatsoever belongs unto him, unto the gods."
Did the Romans even have jobs in the modern sense? Probably not, and yet these words would not be out of place at a careers talk in the present day. Equally, his advice on the natural world and mankind's responsibilities in that area still hold up.
But ultimately my main issue with the writing was that it was just too... earnest. Following this philosophy would entail assessing every single action of your life, determining whether it serves a higher purpose, and eliminating any aspects that do not. It's a mindset I absolutely apply to lifting weights, but I can't really see it taking root elsewhere. Combine that with an 18th century translation that hadn't bothered to explain any ancient Greek terms that are untranslatable and Meditations became something of a burden to read. Perhaps that was the point: the teaching of stoicism is, essentially, to suck it up and get on with life. But the world would be a much more boring place if that was all anyone did.
2/5
I've also decided that this blog should stay true to its roots, so each book will be paired with a musical counterpoint. I feel like Aurelius would have loved Gesaffelstein's Pursuit, for all its clinical efficiency. Good workout music too.
Like, I suspect, the majority of Brits who were teenagers in the mid '00s I was first introduced to the work of rapper Scroobius Pip through his seminal collaboration with Dan le Sac, Thou Shalt Always Kill. Though I now think it comes across as trying a bit too hard with its sanctimonious tone and early trash-rap mood, at the time it seemed to fit in perfectly with the world view of a generation of indie and emo kids who thought they had the arts all figured out. "Thou shalt not make repetitive generic music" seemed to us the most brilliantly witty indictment of the admittedly pretty awful pop music that permeated the airwaves of the time and kept what we considered real music out of the spotlight.
But music moved on, and so did I.
Then, about five years on, I rediscovered him and found that there was a vast back catalogue of great material that I had missed out on. While the that same world view that I never quite agreed with remained, it was applied to the gamut of the human experience, in particular as it pertained to modern British society. And I realised that the man had a brilliant talent for words.
So when I saw, thanks to the occasionally good Kindle recommendations emails that Amazon bombard me with, that Scroobius Pip had written a book, I was interested. When I saw that it was in fact a series of interviews with various creative types on such varying topics as politics, the arts and science, I thought it could be worth a look. And since, as one Amazon reviewer pointed out, it was currently on sale for less than the price of a pint, I decided it would be a good way to kick off the first year in which I attempted dry January.
As it transpired, Distraction Pieces is in fact a collection of transcripts from Pip's iTunes podcast of the same name. For those who have been regular listeners, there is not much new here. But as I said, I had never been a particularly close follower of his work and wasn't even aware that the podcast existed.
The ordering by theme, rather than interviewee, keeps the book flowing and introductions to each section by Pip himself help to give more of an insight into his own views, as the guests are allowed the lion's share of each conversation. Bringing together an interesting mix of personalities ranging from Frank Turner, Amanda Palmer and Killer Mike from the world of music, Romesh Ranganathan and Rufus Hound from comedy and writers Alan Moore and Jon Ronson, Pip provides merely the occasional nudge to steer his interviews into various directions. Police brutality, the creative process and the role of the arts in modern society are all covered, as are death, independent cinema and magic.
While it would perhaps have been more interesting to see a few guests with opinions that conflicted with those of the interviewer, Distraction Pieces remains a brilliant insight into the minds of some of the more highbrow creative types around today, their view of the world around them, and their view of themselves.
As a teenager, I thought I had the arts figured out; now I know that isn't the case at all. But it is reassuring to see that the artists themselves are still trying to figure things out.
4/5. Not sure if I'll do ratings, but that's what this gets.
Somewhere along the line, I fell out of love with reading.
As a child, I couldn't get enough. With a foundation, like the majority of British kids, in the works of Roald Dahl, I progressed to the classics between the ages of around seven and fourteen, encountered a brief dry spell, and then immersed myself in modernism over the course of my A Levels like any good pretentious aspiring arts student should.
But the next five years were about to drive me into the ground.
While I didn't dedicate every waking hour of my life to the library (hardly any in fact since I preferred to work from my room), a degree in French and German followed by an MA in Translation Studies ensured that there was little time available to read for pleasure. So I simply stopped.
In fairness, I did actually enjoy a lot of the books I studied. Subject to deep analysis, the short stories of Franz Kafka reveal themselves to be just about the most perfect use of any language ever. Thomas Mann proved with Mario und der Zauberer just how beautiful German can be in the right hands, while Peter Weiss's Die Ermittlung showcased its brutality in gut-wrenching detail and Ulrich Plenzdorf's Die neuen Leiden des jungen W. its potential for humour. The poetry of Baudelaire allowed me to feel every inch the stereotype of an arts student that I aspired to be, and an academic reading of Asterix revealed more dimensions than my ten-year-old self could ever have imagined.
Then again, a lot of what I read had less of an impact. I am reminded, by its presence on my bookshelf, that I once studied a book named Flugasche by Monika Maron, and yet I cannot recall a single detail of its content. Stripped of its post-colonial context, Maryse Condé's La coeur à rire et à pleurer reads like an airport paperback, while Die heilige Johanna der Schlachthof is Brecht a painfully long way from his best. Renan Demirkan's Schwarzer Tee mit drei Stück Zucker has not even been deemed consequential enough to warrant its own Wikipedia page, and for good reason.
And then there were the works I actively disliked. Nobel Prize aside, Elfriede Jelinek's writing in Women as Lovers is post-modern neo-realist rambling at its absolute worst. The second half of Goethe's Faust proved so impenetrable that I struggled for the majority to decipher even the superficial meaning of the smog of classical allusions and forced weirdness. While I never read Mein Kampf in its entirety, the passages I did encounter, for all their tedious egocentricity, left me wanting to punch a hole in the wall and Hitler in the face. And yet the worst of the worst would have to be Georges Bataille's Le bleu du ciel, the only book I have read so utterly depraved that I found myself genuinely offended by its content. Worse still was that it was dropped from our curriculum. After I had already read it.
Looming in the background to all this like a vast, oceanic undercurrent, was the endless, soulless, hard academic theory. Hours spent poring over regional breakdowns of French by-elections from the 80s in an attempt to work out exactly how many people jumped ship from the Communist Party to aid Mitterrand's drearily efficient rise to power. The inscrutability of political theory in general. The black hole for enjoyment that is film theory in general. The pretension of literary theory in general. The theory of translation, in which the same debate has been raging with little progress since the turn of the 20th century, and which has provided absolutely minimal influence on my emerging career as a translator.
Needless to say, reading came to be something of a chore, and one that I only picked up again when I found myself with a 75-minute daily commute to and from London. This allowed me to tick off a few works I'd had my eye on, but was never a long-term solution and before too long I found myself driving to work, living in a house with plenty of other forms of entertainment in a town with plenty of yet other forms of entertainment.
I did not read many books in 2016. In 2017, I aim to read 20. I will probably review most of them on this page at some point. Stay tuned!
So that was 2013. A year that, for me, saw a lot of change - leaving Germany, heading into the final year of my studies and somewhere along the line deciding that being a music critic wasn't the one for me. One thing that didn't change, however, was my obsession with making lists, an inherent part of human nature that I just couldn't resist partaking in at least one more time.
With that in mind, here are the best moments in music of the past year. A year that, like 2012 before it, saw music go from strength to strength. Once again, there are countless artists that should have made this list, only to find there wasn't space for them. On one side, it was the year of great comebacks - bands from Black Sabbath to Alice in Chains to The Fratellis released albums that came close to their prime. On the other, hip hop cemented its position as the dominant force in music, with Eminem, Jay-Z and Danny Brown all releasing exceptional works that had to be dropped from this list to avoid congestion.
The song of the year was Nick Cave's Jubilee Street, a track so outrageously brilliant that it was accompanied on the same album with another song titled Finishing Jubilee Street, describing the depression he felt when he realised he would never sound this good again:
Video of the year is this wonderful slice of surrealist silliness from Duck Sauce:
Onto the top 10:
10. Childish Gambino - because the internet
Part-time screenwriter and rapper Donald Glover's second album positively rumbles out of the blocks, the colossal beats of crawl and WORLDSTAR booming incessantly as Glover's Georgian drawl meanders around in the foreground. However, this is more than just another moderately intellectual rapper jumping on the big beat bandwagon: what follows refreshingly eschews self-glorification in favour of a sprawling exploration of the bizarre world that the internet has become transposed into a Bible-style narrative. From illegal downloading to viral videos, Glover's lyrical prowess ensures the listener is treated to a genuinely ingenious dissection of these particularly modern phenomena, while the music is more than diverse enough to keep it interesting. The accompanying 75-page screenplay should probably be avoided, though.
9. Brendan Benson - You Were Right
The Raconteurs' guitarist's fifth solo work is comfortably his strongest to date. Staying largely within his realm of country-tinged '70s-style rock, Benson still manages to sound fresh without going overboard to be different. Simply put, every one of the 15 songs that make up You Were Right is just about perfectly formed from a songwriting perspective, with the occasional quirky moment thrown in to mix things up a bit. She's Trying to Poison Me adds some nicely-arranged brass, The Fritz is as charming a 90-second break up lament as you'll hear, and Diamond blends swirling psychedelia with hoe-down vocals. Ultimately, the signs are good ahead of a third release for The Raconteurs rumoured to be in the works.
8. Nine Inch Nails - Hesitation Marks
Trent Reznor took a break from winning Oscars for film scores to record the first Nine Inch Nails album since 2008, and it paid off. Being far less concerned with gimmicky release methods and more with the music than other releases meant that Hesitation Marks was Reznor's most consistent work since his 1994 masterpiece The Downward Spiral. It will never be as groundbreaking as that album was - music has changed too much since then - but from the college rock of Everything to the anthemic chorus of I Would For You, the album toes the line of self destruction before drawing back to level out in a much more controlled manner than might be expected. All in all, it's a step in the right direction for Nine Inch Nails: Reznor may have dropped the image of a tortured genius crying for help, but it doesn't matter because we know he never really was, and his music is entertaining enough on its own. A brilliant return to form in just about every way.
7. R. A. the Rugged Man - Legends Never Die
New York-based rapper R.A. the Rugged Man finally ended a nine-year hiatus in 2013 by releasing his second studio album. From a technical point of view, R.A. is among the best rappers of his generation, and this album is testament to that, often delving into rhyming that moves faster than the brain can handle. Yes, most of it is the typical self-promotion that has always been a part of rap, but the way in which in which R.A. achieves this is just too entertaining to dislike. He even reverses this with the brilliantly self-deprecating Shoot Me In The Head and also isn't afraid to go deeper - Still Get You Through the Day and the title track, a eulogy for his father, are as lyrically touching as it gets. An eclectic approach on the musical side, delving into jazz, soul, Beyoncé and Mozart, means there isn't a single weak track on the album.
6. Earl Sweatshirt - Doris
Of all of the members of the Odd Future hip-hop collective, Thebe Neruda Kgositsile (better known, for obvious reasons, by his stage name of Earl Sweatshirt), has always been the most objectively talented as a rapper. Yet, despite having released a mixtape back in 2010 at the age of just 15, he suddenly disappeared from the limelight, having been sent to a boarding school in Samoa to keep him out of harm's way in the music industry. Doris is the culmination of those three years spent in the wilderness, both fiercely introspective and meditatively dark. Earl vents his isolation over an increasingly bleak musical backdrop, from the blurry opener Pre to the cathartic double closer of Hoarse and Knight. Guest appearances from Mac Miller, RZA and Frank Ocean, among others, help to break up the gloom but this remains one of the more intellectually challenging works in the Odd Future catalogue, and one that is ultimately a rewarding listen. Be warned, the following video is disturbing in just about every way:
5. P.H. Fat - Happiness Machines
The second full-length release from the Cape Town electronica trio would at first glance to be the pinnacle of hipster stubbornness - recorded exclusively on analogue synthesizers and drum machines salvaged from second-hand shops around South Africa and released for free online, without the support of any kind of record label, it seemed to be willfully rejecting all of the concepts that modern music tends to expect of a new release. It was, thankfully, an attitude that failed to stand up when listening to Happiness Machines. Far from being a mess of lo-fi noodling, the group manage to tweak sounds out of their tech that are generally consigned to '70s experimental music - and then made them sound good. House of Clashes bristles with juddering bass and drums, EGODETH flows and pulsates and there are a fair number of instrumental tracks where the music takes control. For their part, rappers Smooth Mike and Disco chip in with weird and entertaining lyrics, ensuring the album doesn't get caught up in the pretension of its concept.
4. Kanye West - Yeezus
In any year when Kanye West or Jay-Z release an album, the works in question will end up near the top of the list. In 2013, fans were treated to a taste of both artists at their best, with West's Yeezus being released two weeks before Jay-Z's Magna Carta Holy Grail. But despite the rappers' close connection, comparing the two is like comparing a Constable landscape to a Jackson Pollock canvas - yes, they're both works of art, but they couldn't be much more different. This time round, it was the hack and slash technique of West's borderline insane production that won through. On first listen, Yeezus is an appalling mess - a confusing mash of random samples, wonky beats and bizarre sound effects. But like many works of art, you simply need to stand back to appreciate it properly: listen a few times and everything falls into place; it works precisely because of its lack of coherence. Throwing together samples from sources as diverse as Gary Glitter and Nina Simone, it weaves a rich tapestry of sonic creation that descends to dark depths before clawing its way out again. Lyrically, it's not quite on the same level - a line comparing the social pressure of being seen at basketball games to slavery received the most attention but is really only the tip of the iceberg - but West was always a producer rather than a rapper, and the production of Yeezus is his most inventive yet. Shame about the video for Bound 2 though.
3. Rizzle Kicks - Roaring 20s
The Essex duo followed up to their outstanding debut effort with more of the same - while other British artists walking the tightrope between rap and pop have headed towards a highly polished, American-style sound, Rizzle Kicks have maintained an ethos that is distinctly multicultural Britain. Ranging from Midlands ska to London funk, with more than a nod to the sunshine beats of Fat Boy Slim, Roaring 20s sounds as English as its lyrics make it out to be. From the opening This Means War, which decries the petty nature of knife crime, to Lost Generation, which led to legal involvement with its jibes aimed at John Terry and Jeremy Kyle, the album starts off in a rather intellectual manner. Fortunately, the sense of fun that defined their earlier work is not lost: Skip to the Good Bit is pure feel good fluff, Put Your Twos Up is just outrageously catchy and I Love You More Than You Think is a truly charming declaration of feeling. Ultimately, it was the ideal soundtrack to a summer that was actually, for once, not too bad - a sunny, carefree blast through whichever sounds worked together. And work it did - nailing the second album is definitely a positive sign of things to come.
2. Tyler, the Creator - Wolf
The second member of the Odd Future collective to appear on this list, Tyler, the Creator followed up his 2011 album Goblin with a far stronger effort. While Goblin seemed groundbreaking at the time, it hasn't quite stood up to the test of time - getting through the whole thing in one sitting is actually quite a challenge as its mid section descends into somewhat murky territory, both musically and lyrically. Wolf suffers no such problem, its backing tracks being musically spectacular throughout: a voiceover on the opening title track even jokingly comments on how Tyler must have been practicing in that area. This means that, even when it gets lyrically self-indulgent, the music is more than capable to pulling it through. And when it does work lyrically - in particular on heart-wrenching breakup song IFHY - it's nothing short of genius. As a few keen writers noticed, Wolf actually forms a prelude to Tyler's other two albums, which in this context can now be linked as one story arc examining the rapper's childhood issues that eventually lead him into therapy and concluding, presumably, on his fourth LP due in 2015. Like all good concept albums it drifts from the point at times - Colossus and Domo23 are, respectively, wince-inducingly frank and hilariously defiant dissections of the trappings of sudden fame but cause the story to lose its way, while 7-minute centrepoint PartyIsntOver/Campfire/Bimmer is as ponderous as its name would suggest. Put these issues to one side, however, and Wolf is as complete a concept album as any genre is likely to produce. And, as usual with Odd Future members, the accompanying videos are well worth a watch.
1. Queens of the Stone Age - ... Like Clockwork
The haunting sixth studio album from alt-rock titans Queens of the Stone Age comes complete with a haunting back story. In 2011, main man Josh Homme was suddenly bedridden for four months after dying on the operating table during a minor knee surgery, and spent the following period completely off the map. Confronted so dramatically with his own mortality, he decided to go back to the very beginning. The band re-released their debut and rehearsed the songs afresh, performing the work live in its entirety. Two years on, ...Like Clockwork is a defiant progression from that first album: lacking the grimy riffing of their 2002 magnum opus Songs for the Deaf, it instead embraces the tuneful blues-rock of their first album, and then expands into a realm that far surpasses that. The opening crawl of Keep Your Eyes Peeled gives way to the creamy psychedelia of I Sat by the Ocean. The Vampyre of Time and Memory is a beautifully arranged piano ballad, while My God Is The Sun harks back to the desert-influenced jamming of their earlier work. Trent Reznor adds his touch of ethereal electronics to Kalopsia, Arctic Monkeys frontman Alex Turner adds vocals to If I Had A Tail and Elton John, of all people, makes an appearance on Fairweather Friends. It's also no coincidence that Homme sounds best in the company of long-time collaborators Dave Grohl, Mark Lanegan and Dean Fertita, but ultimately this is an album that feels like the brainchild of the frontman alone, a defiant statement that talent should not be kept in reserve because you never know when you might lose it all. By not holding back, Homme has produced what will probably be the best album of his life.
Nine months ago I was on a one-way flight from Stansted to Cologne, terrified at the prospect of what lay ahead. Surviving in a foreign country, doing something I'd never even considered doing before on a professional level and having to communicate full time in a language in which I felt confident but not fluent. I didn't even have a place to live. A week ago, I made the same journey in reverse, leaving behind everything that had become so much a part of my life for what had seemed like forever.
Germany is undoubtedly a ridiculous country at times, one where shops never open on Sunday but prostitution is legal, where the system of social benefits can afford to support everyone but there are still homeless people wandering the streets and stations during the day, where everyone who wants a job is required to have official training in that area but language assistants are taken on off the back of about 12 hours of being told vaguely what we should be doing.
Ultimately though, the good outweighs the confusing. All I can say is thank you; thank you to the country that I found so easy to call my home so quickly. Thank you to Deutscher Bahn for (generally) getting me where I needed to be when I needed to be there. Thank you to Telekom for providing decent enough internet that I could stay in touch with my loved ones at home and not get too lonely out in the sticks.
Thank you to Bayern München for providing some of the most brilliant football I've ever witnessed. Thank you to German TV in general for giving me something to do at night. Thank you to Olivia Jones for making my evening viewing that much more entertaining.
And FABULOUS.
Thank you to whichever geniuses at Super RTL and Nickelodeon Austria decided the two channels should show some of the best cartoons ever made and thus allowing me to switch my brain off once in a while. Not to mention all those hours spent watching Phineas and Ferb have raised my listening skills to native speaker level - among the words that are now burned permanently into my German vocabulary are der Schnabeltier (platypus) der Drachenflieger (microlight) and so was von fällig (so busted).
Also the lyrics to this song.
But really it's the people who make the place, and my year would have been nothing without them. Thank you to the English faculty at Silverberg Gymnasium for integrating me into school life and trusting me to take care of several pupils at a time without killing them or myself. Thank you to the Wednesday night football crew for letting me come along, even though I was very much an Emile Heskey in a sea of Bastian Schweinsteigers.
Albeit slightly more skillful.
Thank you to the pupils themselves - without you, I wouldn't have had nearly as much fun. My favourite quote from the year sums it up:
Me: which holiday do Americans celebrate on July the 4th? Maybe you've seen the film, where Will Smith fights some aliens?
Year 9 Pupil: Men In Black?
Last but by no means least, thank you to my awesome host family, without whom I would have surely lost myself in a bottle and ended up living on the street in Bedburg (probably). Thank you to Sylvia for so much food and the help negotiating the notorious German bureaucratic system, to Giuseppe for taking me to the gym and the cinema (Fast and Furious 6 being the cultural highlight of the year), to the twins Cassandra and Patricia for the McDonald's and Primark trips, and to Victoria for being someone to talk to about Star Wars and watch cartoons with. I know there will be a home for me in Bedburg if I need one.
And thank you to everyone for reading - it's not exactly world-beating but I have surpassed 1000 views.
So now life goes on. One chapter ends, and another begins. Just one more year until the world opens its doors to me. Year abroad - it's been real. Germany - this is not goodbye. It's auf wiedersehen.
Yesterday, in the second week of March, I woke up to this:
Now, I appreciate that something similar is going on back home right now, and that's it's not really fair to judge a place based on its weather, but I had hoped that Bedburg would have warmed up a bit by now. Indeed, there are times when I wish I'd chosen to spend my year abroad in Nice or St. Tropez or Martinique or French Guiana or Tahiti or pretty much anywhere that isn't quite so relentlessly, achingly cold as the Rhineland can be at times. Or somewhere that's more sympathetic to my rugby-watching needs, has more choice in terms of cuisine than Turkish or Italian and doesn't force everyone to turn up to school when the world looks like the above picture. It must be said that France would fulfill all of those criteria.
Having thought it over, however, I'm fairly certain I made the right choice. And in true German fashion, I will now proceed to make an ordered list explaining why:
The Way of Life
The Germans seem to have this one figured out pretty well. Beginning at a grass roots level this can be seen in the fact that their workers don't go on strike at every conceivable opportunity, instead actually choosing to work ridiculous amounts of overtime in order to keep the world's biggest export nation producing at full speed. It pays off: some of the electricity from the Rheinenergie towers behind me that churn out power 365 days a year will ultimately find its way to Belgium, the Netherlands, France and even the UK. Further up the chain, Frau Merkel has basically ensured the country will never go bankrupt, thanks to some slightly dodgy economic scheme involving selling shares in the actual government. Yes, Germany is basically funding the whole of the EU right now, but no-one really cares or even notices.
99% of the final-year students I teach have something already set up for when they leave school: from university places to training schemes to apprenticeships in industry. Even those aged 14 or 15 have a pretty good idea of at least the area they want to go into. The whole work ethic of the county should be an example to other nations in Europe.
Elsewhere, personal health plays a far bigger role than in most countries - there are probably more PE teachers at my school than in any other subject, the local gym is in use 24 hours a day, and overweight children are allowed to miss school in order to attend weight loss courses, often for up to six weeks at a time. I couldn't see that happening in the UK - no wonder they always destroy us at football. All this despite the constant stream of salt, starch and red meat that makes up the typical German diet.
Pictured: how to stay thin, apparently.
The Culture
As all language assistants will know, there are long periods of time in the year when absolutely nothing is happening. My solution for this was to dive into German TV, which served the added purpose of perfecting my listening ability. I've seen it all: cartoons from the magnificent (Phineas and Ferb, Oggy and the Cockroaches) to the moronic (Horseland, feature-length Barbie specials), police shows where every single "criminal" was clearly an actor and soaps that make Hollyoaks look like Quentin Tarantino.
The one situation where looking like Quentin Tarantino would be a good thing.
Later in the evenings, things get rather deeper. This year's series of Dschungelcamp was genuinely touching as the last two contestants - a 19-year-old boyband member who was abused by his father throughout childhood and a 6'7" drag queen who seemed thoroughly fed up of the whole celebrity lifestyle - realised that they were each the missing element of each other's lives. They remain close friends.
Grayson Perry ending up as a parent figure to Harry Styles is about as close as I can get to a British equivalent.
In fact, reality TV in general dominates the primetime line up, but it does so in a much more tasteful manner than you might expect. Supertalent, similar to Britain's Got Talent, shamelessly invites in professionals from around the world, meaning from week one every show is a variety performance in itself, without viewers being assaulted by sob stories and atrocious singers. Deutschland sucht den Superstar is ongoing, with exactly the right vocalists making it to the live show and the Jedward equivalent being cut at precisely the point he went from entertaining to annoying.
The chap in the tasteful outfit in the middle there.
Crucially, none of these reality shows operate under the pretence that anything they show us is real, and the sooner that becomes the model for other such programmes (particularly in the USA) the better.
Add to this a solid national taste in music: I've never heard Radio 1 play the nine-minute version of November Rain by Guns 'n' Roses at 11 O'Clock on a Wednesday morning, for instance. Radio Erft has provided me with some of the most hilariously inappropriate gym music possible, from this:
to this:
to this:
Truly an eclectic mix, and fun with it.
Finally - although it only really applies to internet crawlers such as myself - the Germans are far less irritating online than the French, managing to abstain from writing extremist manifestos in the comment sections of every online newspaper article or "like if you are watching in 2013!!!" underneath Every. Single. YouTube. Video.
The Sense of Humour
The image of the Germans as a race of serious, studious types who laugh only at slapstick and bad wordplay is a contradictory and outdated one, and unsurprisingly doesn't hold up in real life. The vast majority of jokes I hear here are funny when translated into English as well, which sounds unimpressive until you consider that humour is one of the hardest things to translate due to its cultural aspects and the nuances of language involved. What's more, you can definitely mention the war*: people find it funny that Prince Harry once dressed as a Nazi and there are comedians who made a career out of impersonating Hitler. Sarcasm, puns, satire - the German sense of humour is pretty accessible to anyone who can speak the language well enough.
*Note that this is not always the case: for instance, while Angela Merkel's CDU are more conservative than, well, The Conservatives, you absolutely cannot describe them as right-wing. That term is reserved for the Neo-Nazis, which is a bit nonsensical because they're actually quite left-wing. Similarly, the rapper Bushido once tweeted "free Palestine" and was immediately branded anti-Semitic, regardless of his Arabic origins and genuine academic involvement in resolving the conflict. Oversensitive is an understatement.
The People
When it comes down to it, everything I've just mentioned can be traced back to the people. Far from the humourless, arrogant, rude stereotypes that generally go along with them, I have found the locals to be friendly, accommodating and good-natured. They don't shoot you down for having bothered to learn their language, they care about education and if you require services of them, they provide with the minimum of fuss. Really, they have a lot more in common with the British than either side would like to let on. There are dubbed episodes of Little Britain shown on weekday evenings, and I think that says it all.
Three months away from returning to God's own county (Bedfordshire), home of the English Defence League, that 11-year old boy who fathered a child and, officially, Britain's Crappest Town, Germany isn't looking too bad after all. I have therefore decided to stay here, at least until I know who wins Deutschland sucht den Superstar.
In the end, it's nice to know I'll always have another country I can think of as home.
When the period of Epiphany rolls around in the UK, the only part of it that we can generally commit to every year is Shrove Tuesday, in which we prepare for the Lent that some of us partake in by eating far too many pancakes. In Germany, things are done slightly differently. Yes, it's Karneval time!
For those of you unfamiliar with this particular festive season in Germany, Cologne carnival is kind of a big deal. People from all over the country head to the Rhineland, totalling over a million spectators lining the streets as floats and performers walk through the city: Rio de Janeiro style, only with slightly more clothes on. The origins are truly primitive: in prehistory, Teutonic tribes engaged in pagan orgies to celebrate the passing of winter, and today little has changed really.
I had hoped to make it to Cologne for at least one day, but it was not to be. The biggest parade happened on Monday, and although school was closed for five days to allow staff and pupils to take in the celebrations, it was just too cold for me to be standing around for six hours watching things go past. I'm not being wet either - temperatures did not rise above freezing all day, and the wind chill meant it felt around -10C.
Pictured: a better man than I.
What I did instead was to join my host family and head to Kirchherten, which is apparently the scene for the second biggest parade in the area on the day. It turned out to be the right decision: three hours in the cold as opposed to the entire day, a lower risk of being crushed to death and car travel to and from the event with the promise of a warm living room at the end of it.
And so the parade began. This particular one was more modest than its big-city counterpart, but made up for it in enthusiasm. The concept is simple enough: each district of the town is allowed a certain amount of money by the council to set up a float, and is given a theme to follow. The people who walk with or ride on the float have to register in the previous year, because if there's one things the Germans love, it's being efficient ahead of time (rail network excluded). Then they all chip in for bags full of sweets, crisps, small toys and flowers that they throw at spectators who shout "Kamelle." Everyone turns up prepared with the German equivalent of a Bag For Life, and as far as I could see, everyone had filled their bag by the end of it. It's also an opportunity for people in the parade to give slightly larger presents to their friends or neighbours - at one point I saw a Pringles can and bouquet of flowers being passed carefully down, and other people stopped off with bottles of spirits for a celebratory shot with friends. Mostly of Waldgeist, which according to Wikipedia is flavoured with the herb woodruff. Not that you'd notice over the burning sensation. The effort put in is impressive, and we witnessed an army of Huns, hippies, punks, and the local film society dressed up as Charlie Chaplins.
Always a brave move going for that moustache in Germany.
Aside from community spirit, these parades serve two other purposes: advertising and satire. The first is straightforward enough: companies faced with employees allowed a day or two off work take the opportunity to enter a float bearing their logo and send those workers to run it. They get an advert seen by everyone present, the employees have fun, everyone gets a good deal.
Sparkasse bank in Kirchherten, for example, displayed a safe bearing the words "Spasskasse" (fun box). I'm still not sure if this is an example of German humour or just proof that bankers the world over don't exactly help their own image.
The satirical side of things is altogether weirder, and judging by the TV coverage I saw of the Cologne and Dusseldorf events, it takes up more than half of the big parades. Both global and national affairs are covered:
Today, it essentially consists of political cartoons rendered in 3D and blown up to huge proportions, but the tradition goes back a long way. In the Middle Ages, people attended mass dressed as animals, reading out prayers in animal noises and thereby subverting the power of religious leaders over their subjects. In the 1820s, Karneval was used as an opportunity to attack Napoleon - little has changed since then. In an interesting twist in 2012, a group of Turkish-Germans released a press package stating they wanted to form a breakaway Karneval based on Muslim values, playing up the fact that Teutonic orgies aren't for everyone.
Overall, my lasting impression of Karneval was that it served to remind me how foreign Germany can seem at times. For the entirety, people in the area were celebrating the fact that they come from the Cologne area, and I just can't imagine that happening in the UK - yes, we do well in terms of national pride, but dedication to regions like that doesn't happen, especially not in the same manner as the friendly rivalry between Cologne and Dusseldorf, for example. Maybe this is a reflection of the fact that Germany has spent too much of its existence as a divided country; forming from a group of states in just 1871 and then being split for most of the lifetime of a lot of its current citizens. Germany as a whole holds no particular meaning to a lot of people, so they resort instead to their area in search of an identity, failed by their national government for too long. As a concept, that's pretty sad. Yet things like Karneval are a reminder that nobody is too bothered. Not bad music either.
