Wer im Glashaus sitzt, sollte nicht mit Steinen werfen

Der türkische Außenminister Gül hat das neue deutsche Einwanderungsgesetz kritisiert. Ausländische Ehepartner, die nach Deutschland nachiehen, müssen schon vor der Einreise ausreichende Sprachkenntnisse nachweisen. Nach Herrn Güls Ansicht verstößt das gegen die Menschenrechte. Ich bin wahrlich kein Freund von schärferen Migrationsgesetzen - zumal ich selbst in einem fremden Land lebe. Als Repräsentant der türkischen Regierung aber in einem anderen Land die Menschnrechte einzufordern geht zu weit.

Der Länderbericht von Amnesty International listet im Kapitel Türkei zahlreiche Vergehen auf. Nach einem neuen Strafgesetz können Menschen, die sich zu bestimmten Themen äußern strafrechtlich verfolgt werden. Es gibt zudem regelmäßig Berichte über Folter und Misshandlungen. Das Vorgehen der Polizei gegen Demonstranten wird als "exzessiv" bezeichnet. Im November 2006 wurden vier Demonstranten erschossen.

Natürlich kann und soll jeder deutsche Gesetze kritisieren, schon gar Einwanderungsgesetze und ganz besonders deren Verschärfung. Kommt diese Kritik aber von der Regierung eines Landes, das selbst massiv die Menschenrechte verletzt, so wirkt diese Kritik bestenfalls unglaubwürdig.

On my mission...

... to eliminate stereotypes I deal with "Germans don't have a sense of humour" today. I was at a wedding in Frankfurt, Germany last weekend. It was in fact my cousin's wedding (Jörn and Sonja on the left). I realised that my preparations were mediocre at best when my boss asked my if I had written my speech. It is not a German tradition that the broom's best man holds a humorous speech. Nevertheless the wedding was very nice and very funny. Funny especially because of a special comedy programme (Schmitts Reisen). Thanks for that, Sandra, well done! I also learned that a 83 year old guest was forced to change her travel itinerary this year because her children were concerned about her well being during air travel. So she's only up to short flights to Bulgaria and the Czech Republic this year. She travels on her own btw.

Living in London for almost a year and a half now my present had to be English somehow. So invited Sonja and Jörn to London for a concert and gave them the first season of Green Wing to get them used to British humour. He's a doctor in a hosptial and she a physiotherapist.

The later the hour the more unusual the dancing becomes.

Moving House

I have to say that my idea - and in fact my experience - of moving house is somehow different from what I experienced yesterday. Christina, however, pointed out that they only had two people helping during there last move - and they had lived on the second floor then. So, no problem. Right, I started as the only member of the team filling cardboard boxes with books and files. No worries, I loved the breakfast :-)

Due to my remarkable skills in logistics we managed to get all the staff in the van (proof pictured with Christina and Martin). And off they went to Oxford. Bye-bye guys, hope you have a good time.

Rain and city ponds

In one of my first blogs I argued that the stereotypes a lot of people have with regard to Britain and especially British weather were untrue. Well, the facts remain, London had more sunny hours than Madrid in 2006 and I still haven't experienced a lot of of rainy miles while cycling through the city.



It does, however, rain in London as it does in any other European city from time to time. So you would expect a reasonable sewage system. The pictures on the top and left prove otherwise.

I have passed this spot (Southwark Street close to Borough Market) regularly and it always looks like this after a shower. There is either a gully that is constantly blocked or there is no fall that would allow the water flow towards it. I mean, this is not a puddle it comes closer to a pond - and it's not the only spot on my way to work. I only cycle 15 minutes btw.

Health & Safety

Und ich dachte, in unserem Büro, dessen Sicherheitsbeauftragten ich die Ehre zu sein habe, sei es gefährlich. In der britischen "Nationalen Sicherheits- und Gesundheitsbehörde" wimmele es so tagesschau.de am heutigen Samstag nur so von Gefahren für Mitarbeiter. Markant, weil eben genau diese Behörde, die Aufgabe hat, solche Gefahren zu bannen. Landesweit.

Leider habe ich bisher weder herausgefunden, auf welche Quellen man sich bei tageschau.de beruft, noch, um welche Behörde es sich handelt. Die einschlägige Behörde wäre NIOSH (The National Institute on Occupational Safety and Health’s), aktuelle Berichte über Versäumnisse sind aber weder bei bei der BBC noch Guardian online zu finden. Beides sind in der Regel sehr verlässliche Quellen und beim Health & Safetywahn der Briten ist es zudem sehr unwahrscheinlich, dass ein solcher Skandal unentdeckt bliebe. Keep on searching.

What could happen outside your front door

This building or what's left of it collapsed this afternoon. It's literally a hundred meters from my flat. Just phoned my mum, telling her that I'm ok and our house is still standing. I wouldn't know however for how long.

BBC NEWS
Building collapses in east London
A search has begun for trapped people after a four-storey building collapsed in east London. Emergency services were called to Commercial Road, Whitechapel, at 1640 GMT on Tuesday following reports of a building partially collapsing. Sound tests are being carried out on the building to determine whether people are trapped inside. Paramedics at the scene treated 10 adults and one boy for shock, but no-one was taken to hospital. Loud bang Steve Ware, from the London Fire Brigade, said: "We're trying to work out if there are people inside. We have no confirmation of anybody involved at the moment. "We have specialist teams actually in the process of using listening devices and we're considering what plan to adapt." About six to eight metres of debris has fallen onto the pavement in front of the building, said emergency services. The building was being refurbished when the first and second floors collapsed. Part of the building has fallen against scaffolding on the front of the site, which is leaning against a lamp-post. Ali Morris, landlady of The Castle Pub, said: "My flatmate came and told me he'd heard a loud bang so we looked out of the window and the fire brigade were already coming out. "We came down, they sealed the road off and you could see all the debris that had come out of the building and the scaffolding is leaning right over."

Commercial Road is blocked in both directions. There are delays in the area, with all traffic being diverted along Whitechapel Road towards Mile End. It is also affecting the buses with routes 15 and 155 being diverted. Police advised motorists to avoid the area around the western end of Commercial Road. Scotland Yard said cordons around the collapsed building were expected to remain in place until further notice.

Story from BBC NEWS - Published: 2007/02/13 22:45:58 GMT

Weltmeister II

This time it's in exports. China is close though and expected to get the cup next year.

Deutscher Außenhandel verzeichnet 2006 Rekordüberschuss

Deutschland hat im vergangenen Jahr so viel Waren ins Ausland exportiert wie nie zuvor. Wie das Statistische Bundesamt in Wiesbaden mitteilte, betrug der Wert der ausgeführten Produkte insgesamt 893,6 Milliarden Euro. Das waren 13,7 Prozent mehr als im Jahr zuvor. Für 2007 gehen Volkswirte davon aus, dass die Branche weiter wächst, wenn auch nicht mehr so stark.

Ausgabe des dradio-newsletters: Deutschlandradio 20 Uhr Nachrichten vom 8. Februar 2007.

About things I do not understand

Haven't moaned in a while. So here we go. Tell me if I'm too naive, but sometimes I feel that things could be so easy.

To start with, there is this waterless urinal. You might have seen it in a restaurant. I mean, whoever invented this thing, give the guy the Nobel Prize and make these urinals compulsory for every pub, restaurant, government building, university etc. How many water could be saved?

Number 2, why can't you abolish cars in the city centre like Montpellier (which is twinned with Glasgow btw) did? You can then even safe the money for proper cycle lanes and pedestrian zones because cyclists and pedestrian can simple use the streets. Beside exceptions for emergency services, give special permission to couriers, but increase the number of bike couriers and have low emission delivery vans. Effectively abolish SUVs and sports cars in cities in general by increasing tax by some hundred percent and/or set a petrol consumption (e.g. five litres). Subsidies cycle to work programs massively and encourage employers and employees o join.

To be continued.

WELTMEISTER - at last

Germany wins the Handball Worldcup! The team of coach Heiner Brandt who won the titel as a player in 1978 beated Poland 29:24.

tagesschau.de Telegramm, 04.02.2007, 17:54 Uhr

Handball-WM: Deutschland ist Weltmeister

Die deutsche Handballmannschaft hat im eigenen Land das Endspiel der
Weltmeisterschaft gewonnen. Das Team von Trainer Heiner Brand besiegte in
Köln die polnische Auswahl souverän mit 29:24 Toren. [...]

Weitere Informationen: http://newsletter.tagesschau.de/re?l=6m5n10I3gyho1I0

El Morro, Rumba, El Prado

And on we went. The next day we visited El Morro, a massive fortress built in the late 16th century to spot enemies approaching the city.

Vedado and Habana Vieja

We then moved on to the Plaza de la Revolución. The memorial in the middle of the square – named after the national hero José Martí - is not really pleasant, due to its height of 109m yet impressive. We judged most of the monuments that way, seems to be common in communist countries. Nice contrast to the massive concrete building: By chance we saw a colourful parade with dancers on stilts.


While going around the city in the coconuts you obviously get a very good impression of the day to day life in Havana. Most remarkable are the means of transport, pictured below.

The old part (Habana Vieja, above) where we stopped next is totally different from the newer quarters. Here you find colourful houses, newly renovated sights and nicely cobblestoned streets. Could have been southern Italy or so.

I especially liked the houses round Plaza de la Catedral with its balconies and stained-glass windows.

Sightseeing in Havana

We started our first day with a sightseeing tour in the notorious coconut taxis (right, short movie available on request). Eddy our Cuban guide - who speaks an almost perfect but funny German and also a very good English - suggested to start with the real Havana "where the people live" (Centro Habana). We saw some beautifully renovated houses, but mainly ruined buildings. Rather shocking when you see people living under these circumtances. Also sad that the architecture of these houses is superb, but there is no money to reconstruct them. People, however, have more trouble getting everything they need for the day to day life - the average earnings are about 250 Cuban Pesos (ca. £6). At least they don't have to pay the rent.

El Morro seen from Malecón

Our Hotel was directly on Malecón, Havana's famous coast road, opposite El Morro fortress.

Off to Cuba we go!

After a nine hour flight we touched down and the stewardess announced: "Welcome to Jose Marti international airport. The temperature is 28 degrees Celsius." Wow, this was going to be my warmest Christmas eve. My first impression of Cuba, however, was not so positive. First of all, o one seems to work in this country. While waiting at the passport checkpoint we counted as many as 14 uniformed men and women walking around the hall and/or chatting with each other. It took as two hours to get through the checks. And that's considered to be normal our guide explained later. As is the xray hand luggage check on arrival.

Anyway, we were glad to see him the minute we got our baggage and off we drove through the Havana night to our hotel.

Back from Cuba

After an almost 24 hours journey I'm back in London. The last 17 days were really great, I've seen a lot of wonderful places, met lovely people and had a lot of fun. I'm still not completely back, a bit of my mind and heart are still on the island. But, let's face it, tomorrow is the first working day... I took some 800 pictures that I hope will help to bring across a bit of the Cuban spirit. Have fun. BTW there will soon be a Cuba revival party. Christina, Martin?

Viva La Revolución!

We have learned today that the massimo lider is indeed not well, but not terminally ill either. The BBC relies on a statement from Hugo Chavez, the Venezuelan president, who has close ties to Castro. Let's hope that he's right. I'd feel a bit uncomfortable if he died while walking about in Havana.

Crime and Media coverage

Ever since my arrival in the UK in November 2005 I have wondered where there has been such an intensive and frequent media coverage of crime. Especially capital crime. This is true for newspapers, TV and radio. It also - unfortunately true for both tabloids and quality papers like The Times, The Daily Mirror, and The Guardian. I am under the impression that The Independent does have fewer crime related stories or at least does not push it that much than the others. Anyway, looking at the headlines and watching TV news reminded me of Michael Moore's Bowling for Columbine.

If you compare headlines and stories in general in German papers as Süddeutsche Zeitung, Frankfurter Rundschau, Frankfurter Allgemeine, Die Welt you will soon find out that there are far less stories about crime. If your German is good enough of course.

This is because there is simply more capital crime in the UK and it does therefore affect people more. Really?

647 people were convicted of murder and manslaughter in Germany in 2004. This included attempted murder and manslaughter. For the England and Wales this figure is 670. Considering the inhabitants in the two areas and to make it more complicated, this is about 0.01% of the German population and about 0.008% of the population in England and Wales.

So there is more crime here than there is in Germany. Quod erat demonstrantum. But, given the very small total numbers does that really justify this intensive coverage? I sincerely believe it doesn't. I think it makes people feel unsafe.

Another reason for the dominant place of crime stories in UK media might be the rising number of crimes committed. So has the crime rate risen of the last years? No, says the British Crime Survey.

According to the BCS:

• In 2005/06 the total number of crimes in England and Wales was around 10,912,000.
• Total crime peaked in 1995, and has since fallen by 44%.