The Berlin Blog

Slagging off the country you live in is fun. It's fun! And everyone does it. Well, everyone normal does it, anyways. You should hear the people in England whingeing and whining about the NHS, the telly, the weather, the drunk teenagers, the Tube, the Royal Family… it's normal. Everyone slags their country off – well, everyone normal, i.e. everyone except for Russians, Americans and Chinese people. But that's just coz they're mad bastards. All normal people slag off the country they live in – it's one of the things that keeps us sane and normal. All it is is some people happen to live in countries they weren't born in. That's all.

And I really don't think I slag Germans off any more that I would do if I actually WERE German. I really don't. If I were German I'd just be slagging them off in slightly different ways, that's all.

Still, I gotta admit, it was a bit easier on me, back in the Olden Days, when none of my German mates actually read my blog.

"I read your blog the other day, Jacinta," a writer friend of mine said (fairly) recently. "God, I got annoyed. I got really pissed off. I got so annoyed. You said that all German people who spoke to you in English were cunts."

"Er," I said brightly. "The English word 'cunt' isn't as bad as the German word 'Fotze'."

He wrinkled his forehead at me. "It isn't?"

"No! It's more like 'Arschloch.' It's, like, halfway between 'Fotze' and 'Arschloch'."

"Oh, yeah," he said sarcastically. "That makes me feel so much better. I'm half a Fotze and half an Arschloch."

"You never speak to me in English," I pointed out.

"That's only because I can't speak your stupid language. I would if I could. I can't believe you wrote that! It's so unfair. They're only trying to be polite. German people never try to be polite. Then they actually do, and they get called cunts for it."

Another boy came up and joined in our conversation then.

"I read your blog once, too. Only once. It was about how crazy we Germans are, but not in the way we think we are. We're crazy in a different way."

"See!" I said defiantly. "You see? Thank you, Jens. I do all these blogs sticking up for the Germans and their funny ways and everyone always forgets them. The only things that people can remember are that I once said they were cunts who waited for the green man for hours on end. It's so unfair."

"Yeah," Jens said. "It was something about the green man. Something like that. We weren't crazy – well, we are crazy – but we don't know why we are crazy. Something like that. And the other people are crazy, too! Something like that. I thought it was quite funny, actually."

"You did?" I asked, in an emotional state which can only be described as dead chuffed. "I didn't think your English was good enough to read a whole blog like that."

"Oh, it isn't. I had to use Google translate. That might've been why it was so funny, actually."

So anyways, just to clarify, once and for sodding all: I quite like German people actually. I just think they should a) stop whingeing about how everyone hates them coz of the Holocaust and b) not rhyme in adverts so much. That's all.

No, it's Americans I can't stand. Bleurgh. I like everybody-else, even Muslims and the Vietnamese and Spanish people and Swabians. But the Seppo's, YUCK. I think they should all go home immediately, and not because they don't like it here, just because they're annoying, especially when they speak, which is all of the time.

Phew.

So glad I could clear that little misunderstanding up. Ciao for now, Blog Fans. XXX