'So, these things you write about – one-night stand with a brass band, whipping a senior colleague in a chariot race, and the, ähem, interesting little exchange with a school-leaver dressed in Wonder Woman boots – did they really happen?
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Meet you at Mainburg's British Book Store |
It's the very first question posed by Etienne Nückel, reporter from the Mittelbayerische, when we meet up in La Vita, Mainburg.
'Hmm, actually, yes,' I reply, half-acknowledging I'm being put in the confession box rather than answering a simple routine question.
Pushing the embarassing question aside, we get talking about how Brits see Germans. Etienne asks what makes me laugh most about the Germans. To be honest, I'm not a great fan of German humour. It's so different from British. We laugh at more subtle things, often in a more deadpan, undetectably sarcastic way.
'Well,' I reply, 'Germans tend to be funniest when they're trying hardest not to.' I mention a report in Etienne's newspaper headlined 'Spider Causes Accident on B299'. Apparently a 19-year old driver was so horrified to discover a creepy crawly legging its way down from her rear-view mirror that she swerved and shot straight into a ditch. When police arrived on the scene, the spider had already absconded. I'm not sure what amused me most. Was it the headline which clearly blamed this motoring accident on a spider? Or some suggestion that police might have launched a region-wide search to track down the escaped insect? But I like Etienne's response: 'Tim, when we get a police report like that we just print the facts. We don't do British irony.'
This little gem is missing from the report, but there are plenty other anecdotes in there. Having read Becoming Bavarian from cover to cover, Etienne picks up on a lot of the things we Brits find quirky about the Germans. Such as going completely mad one day (Fasching) and then suddenly bouncing back to normality the next. Or the method behind the madness – carneval and school-leavers' pranks really are exceptionally well organised. I'm also glad he comments on the common sense of Bavarian traditions. Such as going into the sauna 'just as you are' and not making a big deal of it. I believe Brits and Americans could learn quite a lot from the Germans.
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| Enjoying a nice cuppa at the cosy La Vita Photos (3): Etienne Nückel |
By the end of the interview, I've confessed to a few more things. I admit that although I now think and speak like a German in many ways, my heart still beats for Britain. Etienne suggests I qualify the book title with a question mark:
Becoming Bavarian?
Thank you Herr Nückel and team at the Mittelbayerische for going the extra mile to Mainburg and making this news!
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Online 29.08.21, print
edition 06.09.21
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