h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

The Germans
Obsessed by beach towels and sun loungers!

Making fast cars and driving them fast...in the outside lane or around racetracks at least

(Except for the Audi TT which hasn't figured out how to go around corners yet)

The Germans: terribly well ordered, lovers of uniforms. Often found drinking lager whilst wearing small leather shorts and slapping themselves.

No sense of humour, apparently...but then they flock to David Hasselhoff concerts and why would they do that unless they had a terrifically well developed sense of the ridiculous?

They send a Christmas market to Birmingham every year from Frankfurt and with ruthless efficiency, or an overactive sense of irony, take it down the weekend before Christmas

I remeber seeing that last year, it was really cool, didn't realise they got rid of it before Xmas, that's just though I suppose they want an Xmas too.

Mel

"No sense of humour, apparently...but then they flock to David Hasselhoff concerts and why would they do that unless they had a terrifically well developed sense of the ridiculous?"

I did hear that one of the most popular comedy shows in Germany is Benny Hill....

OK, slapstick visual humour travels well with no need for subtitles, but you do have to worry about a people who consider Benny Hill to be "sophisticated British comedy"

Another interesting thing about Germany... a recent winner of "Who wants to be a millionaire?" (German edition), who actually got the million, is a practicing prostitute from wherever, and a lot of her regular customers actually rang the TV station to boast about it and share in the glory.... I don't know if it's still up there, probably not, but the RTL website gave this a very high profile!

No moral or moralising, but if this was in England, would the contestant have given "prostitute" as her occupation, and would the proud punters have rung up Celador to congratulate her?

Neat and orderly people who keep their streets clean.

Take hygeine very seriously can often be sen taking golden showers.

Love humourless electronic music in the mode of Tangerine Dream, Kraftwerk etc. Though show their more gentle side by loving over the top heavy metal bands like The Scorpions.

germans are really nice in general but when i went over there there was a propensity for the women to dye their heads read, and the Nazi on time thing still exists and they do have a strange humour...

They have a particular fondness for Monty Python and a strange B&W silent English film about a buttler slowly getting his master more and more at Christmas.

And it's said that Benny HIll knew exactly what he was doing, that it was all pre-post-modern-pre-PC-irony

Benny Hill a master of post modern irony?

I think I sprained my mind trying to think my way around that...which means it's probably true.

Another thing about Germans - stoicism.

Al Murray, standup comedian and faux landlord, has an explanation for this. He says:

Everybody actually thinks in English. This means that the English speaking nations of the world say what'son their mind pretty much immediately. In the case of pain, you stub your toe and say "Ouch, I hurt my foot."

Now, a Frenchman who stubs his toe seems to have that Gallic indifference to pain...but here's what's really going on - his toe sends a pain signal to his brain, which then has to translate the message into spoken french. Which would be "Mon Dieu, j'ai blesse mon pied!". Now, remembering which order that comes in takes a moment.

In the case of the German, well, he's got that whole three gender thing to worry about...so his brain is thinking "I've hurt my foot. Is foot masculine, femenine or neuter? And is it noun, then verb? Or verb then noun? And what's the German for foot anyway?"

By the time he works it out, the pain is gone. So he doesn't have to say anything. Hence the reputation for stocism.

Except the English have a reputation (entirely undeserved) for stoicism - stiff upper lip and all that. I can't believe the Welsh were dismissed with work in mines and sing a lot. What about burn cottages down, play rugby, talk a lot etc.

ermm....

Oh yeah, like Rugby, have a nice accent and if you go to places like Bangor you'll realise just how much they hate the English, the signposts were graffittied to remove the English names.

Mel

The Welsh and singing!

As they say " All the Welsh sing, the sad thing is - most of them can't!"

Missed out the English belief that we are the best in the world at any sport worth mentioning, namely those we invented, matched only by our ability to talk our way out of it when we lose

The Welsh....

consigned to Room 101 by Anne Robinson.

though they did produce Twin Town which is an all time classic in my books right up there with Love, Honour and Obey


are we on the welsh now then:

That's what the title says!

Mel

Wales - where men are men and sheep are nervous!

joyriders
love the valleys
hate queers
take Valium


that's what my welsh mate is like anyway so empirically speaking, they're all like that