All entries by this author
Feb 19th, 2010 |
By Peter Joerdell |
Category: Features, Global, Uncategorized
As we delved into language and community with the bit on Germans and English in one of my last contributions, this time I take thee, dearest fellow-gumbooteer and interested, keen reader of this blog (hi, parents of John Horn!) into the linguistic quagmire that is Germany: Welcome to German dialects!
In contrast to nations derived from [...]
Tags: Bavaria and dialects, German Dialects, Kaiser Wilhelm II., Kotten, Luke I am your father, Oma Selma, Plattdeutsch, Rhenish sing song, Solinger Platt, Trent Reznor Posted in Features, Global, Uncategorized |
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Feb 12th, 2010 |
By Peter Joerdell |
Category: Features, Jock Straps and Sports Bras, Regional
It may not exactly be “The House that Pain built“, but then the Olympic Village in Whistler is also not likely to appear as the last track on a Killing Joke-album. (And “The House that Pain built” of course is still MacKinnon Residence in Bishop’s University, Lennoxville, QC, but that’s a different story altogether). Still, [...]
Tags: cardboard architecture, German athletes, German Ski Jumpers, Hermann Weinbuch, Katrina, Killing Joke, lennoxville, Maria Riesch, Olympic Village, Ski racers, Star Wars, U-boat pen, Werner Schuster, Whistler Posted in Features, Jock Straps and Sports Bras, Regional |
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Feb 5th, 2010 |
By Peter Joerdell |
Category: National
Hell, I like Germany’s conservatives. Now, don’t misinterpret me here. I like those guys, because they’re always good for a laugh. Well, I gotta admit, they kinda changed. As I pointed out in my article about “Gay Germany”, we’ve got a female chancellor now, and our foreign secretary is openly gay. Hussa! The only problem [...]
Tags: CDU, Cem Oezdemir, conservatives, culture of English language in Germany, DDR, Die Krupps, English in Germany, FDP, GDR, German Border, German Foreign Secretary, German politicians, Green Party in Germany, Guenther Oettinger, Guido Westerwelle, liberals, Westerwelle snubs BBC Posted in National |
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Jan 22nd, 2010 |
By Peter Joerdell |
Category: Features, National
It doesn’t happen any day, that you officially welcome someone into a community, with all pomp and circumstance. So today, I am really proud to introduce my old friend Zelimir to you, who, finally after the 21 years that I’ve known him, has recently received his German passport. Zeli, whose family hails from Serbia, former [...]
Tags: becoming German, Beograd, German citizenship, Germany, illegal aliens, immigration, it's a long way back to Germany, living in Germany as a foreigner, passport, percentage of foreigners, Ramones, Serbia, Solingen, Yugoslavia Posted in Features, National |
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Jan 8th, 2010 |
By Peter Joerdell |
Category: Features, National
Today, dear fellow gumbooteers, „I wanna take you to a gay bar, gay bar…“ And if you don’t like that song by Electric Six, you may as well stick to the good old Tipperary Song: „All the streets were paved with gold / so everyone was gay…“
Well, not quite – and of course it meant [...]
Tags: Angela Merkel, Christopher Street Day, Cologne, Electric Six, Gay Bar, gay marriage in Germany, gay politicians, gay pride, gay rights, Guido Westerwelle, I am gay and that is alright, Ich bin schwul und das ist auch gut so, Klaus Wowereit, Ole von Beust, Pet Shop Boys, Tipperary Song Posted in Features, National |
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Dec 18th, 2009 |
By Peter Joerdell |
Category: Features, Local
“Oh jumble sale mums – what are they on? Kids just sit hanging round the street and they’ve got somebody else’s clothes on…” The lyrics of an old Suede-song (I guess in the US and Canada they were called The London Suede) come to mind, when I think of my mother’s volunteer work in the [...]
Tags: Catholic, donated clothes, fall of the iron curtain, Germany, Jumble Sale Mums, Pope Benedict, Suede, thrift store, Turkish immigrants, volunteer work Posted in Features, Local |
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Dec 11th, 2009 |
By Peter Joerdell |
Category: Features, Local
It’s been in the air for a while, a change more felt than actually observed. “The point at which it falls apart”, to quote the title of my favourite album by British band mesh. German society is changing. Since out of all things, the socialist-green coalition that ran the country from [...]
Tags: Arbeitslosengeld, German social legislation, Germany, Hartz IV, homeless, Misfits, punk rock Posted in Features, Local |
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