Another reason why footballers shouldn’t fake injury…

What prejudices do you have about Germany?

Tibetan activist squirrel forces Switzerland to miss Olympic closing ceremony

What do you call a German biscuit?
Germans are remarkably restrained when it comes to biscuits (that’s cookies to any readers from over the pond). For eleven months of the year, that is. As soon as Advent comes around, this changes. Traditionally the Germans bake “Plätzchen” … a wide variety of different types of Christmas biscuits… and the entire month of December turns into one long gluttonous cookie-fest. There are lots of different types… Lebkuchen, Zimtsterne, Streuseltaler, Mandelhappen, Spritzgebäck… so it was no wonder, I felt, that when I came across this pack in the local supermarket, that the product manager had somehow failed to come up with a name

Germany’s New Outside Minister

Hanging out on the Schwebebahn
This week I went with my visiting father and my youngest daughter to Wuppertal and took a ride on the Schwebebahn. My grandfather lived in Wuppertal around 1911 – and he had told my father about the marvellous “hanging railway” which runs along the route of the Wupper river, from one end of Wuppertal to the other. So here we were, nearly a century later – three more generations of the family – taking a ride on our ancestor’s route to work. The first thing you see as you approach the tracks is an amazing iron structure spanning the river and stretching off into the distance in each d

The steamy art of making grape juice
Today was finally time to pick the rest of the grapes. The vine grows all across the pigsty, which I use as an office… and across the front of the barn. In fact, if I don’t cut it back soon, we might actually lose the house. So out came the ladders… and up I went to harvest this year’s crop. It wasn’t long before I’d filled the largest pan in the house. I kept some of the ripest, juiciset ones to go with the cheese I bought for this evening… and took the rest inside to turn into grape

I have the perfect face for radio!
This is exciting! I was invited this week to be – get this – a special guest star and Graham Tappenden’s weekly News Quiz. Graham records a podcast of his quiz every other week under the name “Truly German” – though in picking me as his guest, I think he may have been thinking “Bungled German” … because I’m anything but a well integrated seamlessly teutonic citizen of this country. More of a wanabee Kraut. How sad is that? Anyway… I rose to the challenge and tackled the most tricky and challenging questions I’ve ever come across about current events this week in Germany… whic