Auferstanden aus Ruinen - we love Germany!

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Ben@Forest
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Re: Auferstanden aus Ruinen - we love Germany!

Post by Ben@Forest »

PDQ Mobile wrote:We have using that as a criteria become more tolerant of litter, bad service, bad behaviour in public places, filthy public transport etc.


Admittedly my experience of such in the 1970s is limited by being a child then, but underground trains were covered in graffiti, dog mess on the streets and in recreational areas was omnipresent (I remember that well), and the first high-profile 'Keep Britain Tidy' campaigns started in the late 1960s and 1970s.

Bad service in institutions like British Rail and the GPO was endemic. My Dad still recalls with incredulity, just after BT was privatised, that he could get a new phone line put in in days rather than weeks.

Is behaviour really worse now? The below is often quoted but I'll quote it again:

"The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannise their teachers."

Socrates, 500 BC


PDQ Mobile wrote:The (homo) sexual side of things is perhaps more of a media phenomena than much else. Dominated as the media is by such.

Definitely not true. Society generally is tolerant of homosexuality, has no problem with people in positions of authority being homosexual or their children coming out. You only have to listen to any vox populi carried out in the 1970s compared to now.
Freddie
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Re: Auferstanden aus Ruinen - we love Germany!

Post by Freddie »

Are you trying to tell us the 1970s weren't a socialist paradise, Ben?
Ben@Forest
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Re: Auferstanden aus Ruinen - we love Germany!

Post by Ben@Forest »

Ben@Forest wrote:Admittedly my experience of such in the 1970s is limited by being a child then, but underground trains were covered in graffiti, dog mess on the streets and in recreational areas was omnipresent (I remember that well), and the first high-profile 'Keep Britain Tidy' campaigns started in the late 1960s and 1970s.


Bringing it back to Germany, in 2006, visiting Berlin, Dresden and Leipzig, what was noticeable was that dog mess on the streets there was far more problematic than London or any other British city at that time. I've been to Germany since but have spent less time in cities, so don't know how they've cleaned up their act since.
Cyril Haearn
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Re: Auferstanden aus Ruinen - we love Germany!

Post by Cyril Haearn »

Ben@Forest wrote:
Ben@Forest wrote:Admittedly my experience of such in the 1970s is limited by being a child then, but underground trains were covered in graffiti, dog mess on the streets and in recreational areas was omnipresent (I remember that well), and the first high-profile 'Keep Britain Tidy' campaigns started in the late 1960s and 1970s.


Bringing it back to Germany, in 2006, visiting Berlin, Dresden and Leipzig, what was noticeable was that dog mess on the streets there was far more problematic than London or any other British city at that time. I've been to Germany since but have spent less time in cities, so don't know how they've cleaned up their act since.


Leipzig has changed a lot. I first went there in 1990, it was grey but even then a great city with lots of tradition. After Helmut Kohl transferred a lot of money to the east it picked up and is now more modern than cities in the west, this is true of Dresden too. Leipzig had a population of 400 000 a few years ago but is protected to reach 700 000 sometime, the mayor said it almost seems to be growing too fast. There are car factories there :( , an airfreight hub :( and an enormous train station :P. The book fair gets bigger every year, it was much more interesting the first time I went there in 1991 just after the historic *bouleversement*
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Ben@Forest
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Re: Auferstanden aus Ruinen - we love Germany!

Post by Ben@Forest »

Cyril Haearn wrote:Leipzig has changed a lot.... There are car factories there :( , an airfreight hub :( and an enormous train station :P.


The railway station is fantastic, finished in 1915, lots of art nouveau detailing and the biggest in Europe I think.
Cyril Haearn
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Re: Auferstanden aus Ruinen - we love Germany!

Post by Cyril Haearn »

Ben@Forest wrote:
Cyril Haearn wrote:Leipzig has changed a lot.... There are car factories there :( , an airfreight hub :( and an enormous train station :P.


The railway station is fantastic, finished in 1915, lots of art nouveau detailing and the biggest in Europe I think.


It now encompasses a shopping paradise too, but plenty of station is still there. Leipzig now has a rail tunnel directly under the city and the Voelkerschlachtdenkmal is an enormous memorial, one may climb to the top of it

Leipzig has a problem with musicians, while Bonn for example is known for Beethoven, so many famous musicians were in Leipzig that one hardly knows where to start

Erich Loest write a novel about the Volkerschlachtdenkmal, he said: if one chooses to write about Leipzig one will never run out of material. This city is inexhaustible

We love Leipzig!
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PDQ Mobile
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Re: Auferstanden aus Ruinen - we love Germany!

Post by PDQ Mobile »

But is there any dog's doodoo in Leipzig?!
Cyril Haearn
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Re: Auferstanden aus Ruinen - we love Germany!

Post by Cyril Haearn »

The food is great in Germany, I am enjoying Butterstollen (Christmas cake, like Bara Brith)

A refugee from Afghanistan said he thought the food in Germany is very good

Spaghetti is his favourite
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Cyril Haearn
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Re: Auferstanden aus Ruinen - we love Germany!

Post by Cyril Haearn »

PDQ Mobile wrote:But is there any dog's doodoo in Leipzig?!


There is plenty in Berlin at least, since the deindustrialisation the main smells are caused by the weather or by dogs, I read in the paper today

In the Erzgebirge there is occasionally something in the air, *Katzendreckgestaenk*. Dirty cat smell. Numerous experts have failed to identify it
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PDQ Mobile
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Re: Auferstanden aus Ruinen - we love Germany!

Post by PDQ Mobile »

Cyril Haearn wrote:
PDQ Mobile wrote:But is there any dog's doodoo in Leipzig?!


There is plenty in Berlin at least, since the deindustrialisation the main smells are caused by the weather or by dogs, I read in the paper today

In the Erzgebirge there is occasionally something in the air, *Katzendreckgestaenk*. Dirty cat smell. Numerous experts have failed to identify it


The translation is "the stink of cat "excrement"!
The state of the cat is irrelevant!

And still, IMHO, S. Germany is freer of dog mess than a great deal of the UK. Public toilets and trains are cleaner too.
Cyril Haearn
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Re: Auferstanden aus Ruinen - we love Germany!

Post by Cyril Haearn »

France has 365 cheeses, Germany has 3192 types of bread. Pumpernickel is one of my favourites

The *main parties* both lost a lot of votes in the election and now they will need a lot of energy to try to ostracise the AfD

The most likely coalition is apparently CDU-FDP-Gruene although the FDP (right-wing liberals) and the greens dislike each other, could be interesting, the coalition negotiations could last for months
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Ben@Forest
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Re: Auferstanden aus Ruinen - we love Germany!

Post by Ben@Forest »

Cyril Haearn wrote:The *main parties* both lost a lot of votes in the election and now they will need a lot of energy to try to ostracise the AfD

The most likely coalition is apparently CDU-FDP-Gruene although the FDP (right-wing liberals) and the greens dislike each other, could be interesting, the coalition negotiations could last for months


And the CDU is actually not a single party, it's a coalition of the CDU and CSU, the CSU being their sister party in Bavaria. And of the western states Bavaria voted most heavily for the AfD. So now the CSU wants to be sure the larger CDU doesn't trample over its concerns when negotiating with the FDP and Greens. The CSU could reject overtures made by the CDU to the FDP and Greens if they feel it affects their position in Bavaria.

In Focus magazine of 11,000 respondents to a poll 75% think a CDU(CSU)/FDP/Green coalition would be unstable. And Germans hate instability.
Cyril Haearn
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Re: Auferstanden aus Ruinen - we love Germany!

Post by Cyril Haearn »

The jewish journalist Mischa Brumnik described the AfD as an *extreme middle* (extremismus der Mitte) party, the AfD is in a chaotic state, several members are trying to branch out on their own

New elections are unlikely I think, there will be a *Jamaica* government in a few months, *was nicht zusammen passt wird zysammengefuegt*, things that do not match will be forced together

Altogether democracy seems to work in Germany but the parliament is much too big, it has 709 members, in theory it should have 598. And there are 16 regional parliaments too with enormous staffs. But Germany seems to work well enough altogether :wink:
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Cyril Haearn
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Re: Auferstanden aus Ruinen - we love Germany!

Post by Cyril Haearn »

3192 sorts of bread
Stollen (Christmas cake)

Maerchenwalder: models of scenes from Grimms Fairy Tales - the seven little billy goats:
The wolf ate them all except the youngest who hid in the clock
She and her mother took needle and thread and went to where the wolf was sleeping, they cut him open and took out the six billy goats (all alive) and filled him up with stones instead
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djnotts
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Re: Auferstanden aus Ruinen - we love Germany!

Post by djnotts »

Well.....Doro Pesch is German and that's good enough for me to insert (sic) love in the Subject line.
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