Swabian English

What’s with the politicians in Germany? Yesterday was the first day of Merkel’s new government, and it includes Guido Westerwelle, who can’t manage diplomacy even at a press conference, as foreign minister, and Wolfgang Schäuble, who forgot he had some of Schreiber’s slush money in his drawer and thinks torture is ok to extract information, […]

Grammar guru: must, have to, need to?

Last week’s question was What sounds better to you? This has to be done by Friday (88%, 7 Votes) This has to be done until Friday (12%, 1 Votes) If it is done until Friday, somebody is doing it day and night until Friday rolls around. By Friday just means it’ll be ready on Friday. […]

Mae West: I’m an occidental woman in an oriental mood for love

Mae West (1993-1980), actress, comedienne, sex symbol. Mistress of double entendre. Her best lines: I speak two languages, Body and English. It takes two to get one in trouble. Love conquers all things except poverty and toothache. Opportunity knocks for every man, but you have to give a woman a ring. You only live once, […]

William Hope Hodgson: The Voice in the Night

Read this classic horror story of 1907 by William Hope Hodgson, a forgotten writer inspired by authors such as Edgar Allan Poe, H. G. Wells, Jules Verne, and Arthur Conan Doyle  (bio) as an eBook published by the University of Adelaide. A great Halloween read! It was a dark, starless night. We were becalmed in […]

Conductors are managers

Helmut and I loved Itay Talgam‘s presentation of famous conductors and their styles, from the TED conference in Oxford. It’s actually not just a mirror of styles of management, it’s also a prism of culture, as control is organized in very different ways. So, which of the conductors appeals most to you: Carlos Kleiber, Ricardo […]

Autumn essentials

My essentials are: lights on my bike: headlight, taillight + wheel accessories; I wish I had these, but these are also pretty good: PS: Just saw that tire lights aren’t allowed on the street in Germany. They should be, for the protection of bicyclists! a variety of gloves, mittens, scarves a tea pot and teas […]

Margaret Atwood at Literaturhaus

It’s rare to come face to face with an author you admire and go away feeling as empty as I did last night. Margaret Atwood read far less from The Year of The Flood than I would have wanted. Long passages of the translation into German were “played” with spunk by a fine young actress, […]