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Archive for March, 2011

Spring News

Posted in Books, Culture, Stammtisch, Travel on March 22, 2011| Leave a Comment »

On Monday, we had another successful evening at the Mansion House and I would like thank Gunther for the lovely meal and Councillor David Faulkner for his interesting talk on the Ruhr, which celebrated Capital of Culture in 2010. One of the acts that David mentioned was an American singer called Bobby McFerrin – who, I must admit, I wasn’t familiar with. But apparently everybody in Germany knew him and I thought I share his appearance at the Sing! Day of Song event at the Gelsenkirchener Schalke stadium with you, which is on YouTube – click here.

Stammtisch member Sylvia Graham is the honorary librarian of the Meissen Library at Durham Cathedral. This is a specialised collection of mainly protestant theology in German and does contain books not available anywhere else in Britain. There is a website www.meissenlibrarydurham.co.uk and Sylvia would be happy to reply to emails from anyone interested – jms.graham@btinternet.com.

From 1 April, our Stammtisch member Kim di Rollo will also be responsible not only for Brussel Airlines, but also Lufthansa and Austrian Airlines here in the region. She has also passed on an interesting website for small to medium sized businesses, where they can find out more about the Star Alliance Company Plus programme. This can cut company’s travel costs as member companies earn PlusPoints whenever their employees fly with one of the alliance’s 13 participating airlines– click here to get to the website.

And if you’re travelling to Germany and you’re not quite sure yet where to go and what to do – the ‘Germany is Wunderbar’ website might just give you a few ideas – http://germanyiswunderbar.com. Last week, the Guardian also had a very insightful series on Germany and you can still get this online – http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/germany.

This week Germany is also mourning the loss of Knut – the four-year old polar bear from Berlin Zoo, who passed away last Saturday. Happier news come from Nuremberg. Their star Flocke (snow flake), moved successfully to France last year with her Russian companion Rasputin and lives now at a sea water enclosure in Antibes. And her mother Vera just had two polar bear twins in December, who are doing very well. For photographs – click here.

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Helau Stammtisch!

Posted in Culture, Food & Drink, Stammtisch on March 8, 2011| Leave a Comment »

It’s the final hours of this year’s carnival and maybe you had a chance to join in the festivities somewhere around the world (apparently they even have a pet carnival in Rio)? I was wondering if some of our Stammtisch members fancy doing something for Fasching 2012? This could be activities with local schools or even a carnival ball with lots of fancy dress. It would be interesting to see if there’s some interest in this. Or maybe we’ll just join in the UK traditions and have some pancake instead? To give you 2012 Fasching dates, their will be ‘Weiberfastnacht’ on 16 February, ‘Rosenmontag’ is 20 February and finally Faschingsdienstag on 21 February. And maybe it’s not a good idea to tell the kids that in Germany the women cut off men’s ties….

We’ve already had quite a number of acceptances for our next Stammtisch on Monday, 21 March at the Mansion House in Jesmond. Please let me know by latest Thursday, 17 March if you’ll join us to make sure we have enough food for all. David Faulkner, the leader of Newcastle City Council, will talk about the Ruhr Capital of Culture from 6.30pm onwards, followed by our usual informal get-together and German Linseneintopf mit Bockwurst at £7.95 per person.

The other dates for your diary are Tuesday, 10 May for the Liebherr factory visit in Sunderland followed by Schnitzel & Bier Dinner and Tuesday, 21 June back at the Mansion House for an evening all about wine.

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Organ Recital at Martin Luther Church on 25 March

Posted in Events organised by Others, Music on March 8, 2011| Leave a Comment »

On Friday, 25 March 2011 there will also be an Organ Recital at the German speaking Martin Luther Church in Newcastle (Clarence Street/Copland Terrace – close to the Biscuit Factory). This is a rare opportunity to listen to this Rowntree & Brennan organ of 1976 as the church is only used for worships twice a month and meet up with German speaking people at the same time. The evening will start at 6.30pm and Moira Flanagain will play Buxtehude, Bach, Elgar, Grainger, Brahms and others. Admission fee is £5, which includes interval drinks.

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Congratulations to WEST in Glasgow

Posted in Food & Drink, Restaurants on March 8, 2011| Leave a Comment »

I would also like to send congratulations to the West Brewery in Glasgow. The brewery and restaurant, which looks like a proper Munich Bierkeller, not only brews beer according to the German Reinheitsgebot, but also has lots of tasty German dishes on its menu. The Scots seem to really appreciate it as West has just been voted ‘The Best Family Restaurant in Scotland’. But that’s not all – the West brewing team also received three medals at January’s UK keg beer competition – for further details see www.westbeer.com.

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Books & Pennies

Posted in Books, Travel on March 8, 2011| Leave a Comment »

If you want to see what Germans are reading right now – the Stern had a review of popular novels earlier this year. Click here for details. One of our Stammtisch members also suggested a small book fair of German books. Maybe more of you have books you no longer want to keep, or language books you no longer need, but obviously it might be a bit pointless to just give them to a charity shop. Let me know your thoughts!

A few years ago Alexander von Schönburg, the younger brother of Gloria von Thurn und Taxis, described himself as being from an aristocratic family that had to get used to social decline over the past five centuries. At the beginning of the last decade, the journalist and his young family hit harder times after he lost his job. Drawing from this experience he wrote ‘Die Kunst des stilvollen Verarmens – wie man ohne Geld reich wird’ (the art of becoming poor stylishly – how to become rich without money’, which questions our pursuit of consumerism vs quality of life. You can order the book in German and French, but unfortunately there doesn’t seem to be an English version.

So if you’re looking after the pennies, there might just be a site for you when travelling: www.airbnb.com. Instead of staying in hotels, this offers you places to stay in people’s homes. The website, which started around three years ago, now offers accommodation in 9,299 cities in 172 countries around the world and has already arranged more than 1 million bookings.

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