The Brits - asleep while the rest of the world is up and doing

I remember reading Bill Bryson's book Notes from a Large Country (known in the US as I'm a Stranger Here Myself), his brief tales of life back in the US with his British wife and two children. He moved his family there so they could have a taste of good ol' American life.

Even he was amazed at life over there in contrast to life in the UK, such as the huge variety of breakfast cereals in the supermarkets. One thing that stunned him was when he made an appointment with a dentist for 6.30 the next day. When he turned up at the dental practice at 6.30 in the evening, everything was dark and it slowly dawned on him that the appointment had been for 6.30 in the morning!!

Americans have to be early birds. Many schools in the US start classes before 8 a.m., which is when school starts in Germany.  However, if you tell people in Germany that school in England and Wales start at 9 a.m. but with class registration and 'assembly' (basically a church service - as mandated by law) first and that classes only start at around 9.30, their jaws drop. 

If you have to sort something official out at the Bürgerbüro (the so-called Citizens' Centre - where you can get things such as passports and ID cards), then you can get an appointment for 7.30 a.m. As is the case in most official places. When I worked for the Housing Benefit department of a local town hall in Wales, I was there for 8 a.m. but the rest of my colleagues (apart from one who clocked in at 8.15 and then went to the cafe across the road until the boss came) only trundled in at 9 a.m. 

What brought this little piece of writing on was the fact that I've just read about an author in an article in The Guardian who stated that her high school in the US started at 7.25 in the morning. And I once again thought that the British are still asleep - or at the very least still in bed or eating their cornflakes - while the rest of the world is already at work or nearly starting classes at school. 

If the Brits still want to be "world-beating" at anything, they're going to have to set their alarm clocks for a much earlier wake-up. It's no wonder so much is not working there.

Quick! Put the Bavarians on The Red List now!

Some of you may have already heard of The Red List of Threatened Species. It's been issued by the International Union for Conservation of Nature since 1964. It's basically an inventory, or list, of the "global conservation status and extinction risk of biological species" (to quote Wikipedia).

Why, therefore, do I believe that the Bavarians should also be included on the list? Well, it's like this. So far, this year has been pretty quiet and August was the quietest month since I started translating. Which means I watched an awful lot of German TV - not live, but in the archives. At one point, I hit upon Die Rosenheim Cops, a police series set in the quaint town of Rosenheim, about an hour's drive from Munich, with a view of craggy mountains in the south.

Having been going for 23 series, it's got over 555 episodes and hundreds of them are to be found on the so-called "Mediathek" (or archive) of the ARD TV channel.

It is my stated aim to eventually be able to understand the Bavarian accent and dialect of some of the characters without having to resort to the subtitles. After a few hundred episodes, I'm slowly getting there.

What is striking, however, is how many of the people involved in each episode - the staff at the police station, the murder victims and anyone capable of being suspected - is described as being single, childless and living alone. Given that there is at least one murder victim an episode and that nearly everyone else isn't reproducing, then surely the Bavarians are soon doomed to die out, to become as extinct as the renowned and once prolific dodo.

We must do something to prevent the death and extinction of the Bavrians, their accent, dialect, gastronomic delights and culture. So, quick, put them on The Red List and let's see what conservation ides we can come up with to save the Bavarians.

What I learnt from stand up paddling

 A few weeks ago, before autumn descended upon us seemingly overnight, I achieved a long-held aim of mine: I tried out stand up paddling.

I booked a lesson at a local lake and cycled over, with a bit of trepidation: I'm not the most physically coordinated of people and have never been good at sports. And, guess what? Of the seven people in my group taking the introductory SUP course, I was the only one to fall into the water. Twice.

However, I came away feeling immensely happy because I learnt a few things from my unfortunate dunking:

1. Unlike mountain lakes in North Wales or Lake Wakatipu in Queensland, the water in this local lake was positively warm. My fear was that I'd fall in and suffer a heart attack from the shock of the icy cold water. (I should stop watching so many crime series - I always think of the worst possible scenario.) But, no, it was like falling into a bathtub.

2. I now know that I can get back onto the board. Although, one does look somewhat reminiscent of a rather ungainly seal, flopping along on one's belly, trying to get to the middle of the board so that one can get into a kneeling position and slowly stand up again.

3. The fear of falling in was one hundred times worse than actually falling in.

Maybe there's a lesson in there somewhere.