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Image description: caricature showing Angela Merkel The current German election campaign is not proceeding in a very Germanic way. There is a fluidity, an unpredictability, a volatility to this election campaign, where neither Armin Laschet (CDU), Annalena Baerbock (Alliance 90/The Greens), or Olaf Scholz (SPD) are inspiring much confidence or certainty in Germans. It is […]
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Image Description: the Reichstag Building on a sunny day. Across a decade which has seen convulsion and upheaval across parts of Europe, one unusual constant on the political landscape has been Angela Merkel. First elected as Chancellor of Germany in 2005, she is one of the longest serving democratically-elected European leaders in history, meaning her […]
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Image description: pride protest march at night Globally, 2020 has been a historic year for LGBTQ+ people. Alongside the Pope updating his stance on same-sex civil unions (something I wrote about earlier this term), we’ve also seen a ‘rainbow wave’ in the US, with more LGBTQ+ people elected than ever before. However, as queer people […]
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Image Description: A street view in Berlin In March almost all third-year linguists were forced to return home and had their year abroad cut short. These stories depict the unique challenges that those on their year abroad have faced in the last months and the disappointment of having to continue a year abroad in the […]
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Image Description: Mural of a man and a woman kissing on a building In 2003, Berlin Mayor Klaus Wowereit famously called the city ‘poor but sexy’, sealing its reputation as the place-to-be for artists. East Berlin was practically abandoned after the fall of the Wall, rent was low, and it provided an empty canvas for […]
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Image description: The John Radcliffe Maternity Hospital For many, the NHS is the jewel in the British crown. ‘Envy of the world’, ‘the national religion’, it is difficult to overstate its importance. For decades, the health service has been used as a particularly poignant political football. Recent years have perfectly exemplified this. Who could the […]
Continue ReadingImage Credit: Wikipedia (CC-BY-SA-3.0) “It is time to start a new chapter” declared Angela Merkel, announcing her decision not to run for re-election as chancellor in 2021 and to stand down as chair of the centre-right CDU at the party’s conference in December. A chancellor for 13 years and a CDU chairwoman since 2000, Merkel […]
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Image Credit: Ronnie Macdonald (CC BY 2.0) Recently, Mesut Özil announced his retirement from international football at the relatively young age of 29, citing racism as the reason for his decision. I think I can safely say that his decision to quit caught a lot of the football community by surprise. Sure, we thought, there […]
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The Erasmus Programme turns 30 this year, but its future in the UK is in doubt. With no concrete assurances from the government that it will continue to participate in the programme after Brexit, students and academics alike are concerned that the scheme will soon be a thing of the past. Hal Churchman, just back from an Erasmus year […]
Continue ReadingKick-off at the Signal Iduna Park was scheduled for 19:45 (GMT) on Wednesday. Come 19:49, however, Lukas Podolski was still addressing the endearing German fans who had gathered to witness his farewell to die Mannschaft, and it became clear that England were merely the party guests of the occasion. The script had already been written; […]
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It is undeniable that we have been facing a refugee crisis in Europe – over a million people travelled here in 2015 hoping to build a new life. This year, the numbers entering are not as overwhelming, but we are still left with the challenge of how to cope with the hundreds of thousands of […]
Continue ReadingPerhaps it was naive of me, but I didn’t come to Germany expecting a culture shock. Schnitzel and S-Bahns aside, I’ve never felt that Germany was particularly foreign. We have much in common: a national penchant for beer and football; languages from the same roots; weather that fluctuates between miserable rain and sunshine that makes even […]
Continue ReadingIn my experience, most British people don’t go to Germany on holiday. Business, Oktoberfest, friends, perhaps, but a German holiday is greeted with faint bemusement. Perhaps people have visions of finding themselves floundering in John Cleese-esque “don’t mention the war” predicaments; or perhaps another practical, grey Northern European country simply doesn’t have the appeal of […]
Continue ReadingAngela Merkel’s election victory has been widely hailed as historic, on a personal as well as political level: not only did her centre-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) achieve its best result since 1994, with 41.5% of the vote, but she herself gained an impressive third term as Chancellor of Germany – only the third post-war […]
Continue ReadingSceptics may think a performance of a play about Nazism written during the Second World War would be ‘old hat’. However, I defy anyone to find Jonathan Church’s marvellous revival of Bertolt Brecht’s The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui passé. Comedy, live music and glamorous costumes are brought together with superb acting to heighten a […]
Continue ReadingTraveling can truly open your eyes to the extraordinary, and often overlooked differences between supposedly similar regions. Take for example, the different drinking cultures to be found in my homeland of England, and my current home of Germany. Here in Deutschland, the cheapest beers will set you a back a mere sixty cents, and, conforming […]
Continue ReadingAni and Matt debate whether we should save the Euro
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