BR Radio Orange interview: Sat. 25.Feb.2006 on BR2

Last night, sarabyrd and I were interviewed on the American expat perspective on Kanzlerin Angela Merkel's first 100 days in office. The reporter, Florian Kummert, contacted me via Toytown, and I suggested that he come to Curry Night where there would be more Americans than just me available for comment. His questions were along these lines: "After Bush and Schröder didn't get along at all, how do you think German-US relations will develop with Merkel? Will there be a change, has there already been a change?" He also asked about Merkel's criticism of conditions at Guantanamo, relationships with Putin, and if Merkel would change Germany's impressions of America.



I was quite glad that I'd asked sarabyrd to come along as well, as I've not noticed much of what Merkel's been doing. Sarabyrd however gave an intelligent and informed interview, and we know that you can say anything on the Bayerischer Rundfunk -- as long as it's less than three minutes long. (Actually Orange has segments that are up to five minutes long, as does Zündfunk.) The interview will be one of four on Merkel's first 100 days presented on the show Orange on BR2, this Saturday, sometime between 9 and 11 AM. The other three interviews will be with senior citizens, families, and consumers.

Flo had a good time at Curry Night too - he likes spicy foods, and agreed that Maharani's Rogan Josh could have been hotter. We'll ask for English Hot next time. He also got to talk to joehot and ThePosterWithNoName who tried to get everyone to go to the Hash this Saturday.

Flo's also done a piece for BR2 on podcasting in Germany. The mp3 file is available there. Entirely coincidentally, Good German Podcasts were discussed on TT just yesterday.

Flo isn't the first journalist to have contacted Toytowners for interviews. We're much easier to find and interview than other expats who live under the radar -- used to be they'd have to go into an expat bar and shove microphones into people's faces and ask them stuff (yes I'm exaggerating), but now they can arrange their interviews quickly and unbureaucratically -- and several of these interviews have been at quite short notice too!

For example:Zündfunk interviews "Newropeans" 7pm 23.Sep.2005, Young Americans on life in Germany: BR2
Article about TT in the Süddeutsche Zeitung, Publication date: Tue 26.Jul.2005
TT featured in the Süddeutsche Zeitung (again), Newspaper article: "New blog for the kids"
Young entrepreneur wanted for interview, For a Bayerischer Rundfunk radio show

why joehot? he's german. not really the best person IMHO to tell how expats feel about merkel?

He just talked to JoeHot, he didn't interview him. Same as with ThePosterWithNoName, who's British. Just wanted to point out that we weren't just sitting there ignoring everyone else.

ach, i misunderstood joehot's purpose. is he hot?