Unflattering Spiegel article about the UK

This week's Spiegel article "Hunnen, Miele, Hitler: Warum Engländer die Deutschen auch 62 Jahre nach Kriegsende nicht leiden können" (sadly not yet available free online - e-Spiegel to purchase) has been picked up for commentary by the Daily Mail and pleasant reading it isn't. Although I'd be tempted to ask if the Spiegel writer wanted some Mayo for the large amount of Pommes on his shoulder.




Ooof.

"Loads of Money" is rather an 80s view of the UK though?

This bit did make me laugh:


The writer has balls the size of the Allianz-Arena, I'll give him that!

Although the writer should really realise that three nations in the UK would probably like the Germans more if they weren't all being classed as Engländer.

Um, and your point is?
_snigger

This part is at least true. The best bit is that even if you go to an all-German hotel they still sneak out at 6am to "reserve" the "best" deckchairs - or even send their kids out to do it (maybe before they go to bed...)


Lost cause here IMHO.
I am from England - always say I'm British & earn sad looks when you try to explain it says "British" on yer passport...

No surprises here. Spiegel specializes in lecturing its readers on what everyone else is doing wrong and should do better. To write that kind of an article on the UK is lazy journalism anyway, I guess the writer was really desperate to come up with a story (any story) on something regarding Britain.

The word Spiegelleser says it all really.

Hmm, some truth in some of that... Like usual Daily Mail readers need to read about what happens abroad as they never actually experience it for themselves. You should feel sorry for them.

Also discussed in ze Independent today.
Slow news day, it seems.

he has some valid points...
edit: (don't get me wrong, i love the brits)

I think atomizing Dislike of Germany, and assigning the role of sole perpetration to the English, displays a näivete that's almost endearing. It screams "everyone else likes us again, why can't you?". No, everyone else tolerates you. There's a difference.

"Mr Hüetlin's article is published together with eulogies about other European countries' admiration for the new progressive Germany under Chancellor Angela Merkel, from Der Spiegel's correspondents in Paris, Zurich and Rome." Merkel...and they call plugging the gaps with peoples pensions "progress"? Cloud Snafuland more like.

Traditionally, haven't the Germans and the Russians been the most disliked nationalities in Europe?

"Paraphrase: Loss of empire and industrial strength"

I don't think so. UK now has a high GDP per person than Germany.

But of course the Brits are a nation of small minded boozers who like to pick fights in pubs. We are not as quite as super xenophobic as others.

Well it is the same for the French to them we are all “Les Anglais“ and since this is what we all speak then as linguistic cultural group you can say this is what we are.
It is the same for us when we think of all French speakers as French even though they may come from Switzerland, Belgium, Quebec or wherever.

What about the Six Counties?

<Stirs pot>

There's a GRAIN of truth in what the Spiegel wrote but he is over-eiering his Nachspeise.
Germany is hardly that much different:

Binge drinking = Flat Rate Saufen.
Think Posh is "classy" = Tatanja Gsell.
Concerned about loss of industrial base so cling to WW2 memeories = Concerned about loss of industrial base so slag off Poland and Czech Republic etc.
Populist xenophobic trash tabloids = Populist xenophobic trash tabloids.

--------------------
new progressive Germany under Chancellor Angela Merkel
---------------------

PMSL!

No - the UK is obsessed with everything related to money. Next time you pick up a paper (preferably one of the 'old' tabloids), look out for the numerous articles on a) how to make more money a) who is the richest person in the world c) what the UK spends annually on broccoli d) supermarket price wars e) how some skally became chairman of a FTSE 50 company f) the price of petrol g) UK inflation h) interest rates i) gas price hikes j) the ultimate in luxury breaks k) barrow-boy city bonusses blah blah bloody blah.
One of the things I noticed here is that conversely, much like pre-Thatcher Britain, money is still considered by most simply as a means to an end.

Agree with Pike, look at the British national obcession, the supposed "value" of a house.
Of course they mean its currnet market price not it value but...

Sorry, I couldn't agree less. Cheapest supermarkets in Europe with the Discounter, geiz ist geil, Stiftung Warentest, labelslabelslabels, the price of petrol and having the cheapest Tankstelle programmed into your GPS, gas/oil/electricity/phone prices... you live in a different Germany to me it seems.

Maybe the house price obsession isn't there but the Schnäppchenjäger one certainly is.

Though Posh is classy in comparison to Tatjana Gsell.

OMG!! A german!! Get the pitchforks!!! Hound her out!

"Life in Britain, meanwhile, "resembles a giant face-lift operation - look better, live better, cook better - paraded on endless TV programmes. Understatement, charm and stoicism - once prime British values - have been replaced by a general desire for loads of money," Mr Hüetlin says"

that is a good point

Its next to impossible to get into the housing market in this country, so no wonder there is less of an obsession about housing value.

Promotion and advertising is one thing. Consumer obsession is another. You will not, in my experience, find germans talking ad infinitum about how much money they have saved shopping at Aldi.

Yes I will - ever single day. Sorry, my experience here is very different.

Maybe that's a reflection of the people you mix with then.

The money thing is there is both places but the other way round.
I've REALLY noticed this over the last few weeks in "discussions and negotiations" with my parents.

In Britain it's like showing off nowadays like in the Old Sparkasse advert:
My house, my car, my horse, my Rolex, my posh holiday!

That of imvho creates a knock on effect of not so petty street crimes in the UK.

Here, as Katrina correctly says its about NOT spending money.
Some of Germany's economic problems would have long dissapeared if the country with the World's second largest savings actually spent some money!

And of you too, it mostly comes from co-workers who frankly have more than enough cash and still penny-pinch to an extreme which drives me to despair.

Aye, it is more look how much I've saved as opposed to look how much I've spent.
Drinking Krystal on credit or Aldi Champagne.

There is nothing wrong with wanting to improve your lot in life. I dont see how this can be an insult, the more money you earn the better you can look after yourself and your children. Capatalism is not a dirty word. Neither is "Low Tax" perhaps Herr IchKennAlles should write an article about economic growth rates between the two nations.


Nothing wrong with a tipple or two.


Again. What the hell is wrong with improving your lot in life? Should we just accept that we are not von Staffelberg or in every way that we can, improve our lives and ultimately those of the next generation by building and improving.


We won.


[img]http://www.keithball.net/img/football/Deutschland_1_England_5.lrg.jpg[/img]

Bollix!

There have been flats in GBV for EUR 300K
There are brand spanking new terraced houses going up in Feldmoching that go for EUR 250K.

If you really really look you MIGHT get a run down house or flat for that in one of the less salubrious areas of the UK.

I'd saved HARD for 10 years, a fairly decent salary have no dependents and a flexible UK mortgage lender and I JUST managed to get on the UK housing ladder.

In Germany it is more about the midset than it not being possible.

Upfront payment of 25%?

I know which I'd be prouder of.
Go brag to this guy about how much you've spent lately on luxury items. I'm sure he'll be facinated.

I dont get this post at all.

Sorry but when German co-workers on excellent wages turn up to company events with Tupperware to take home the catering mid-event, while folk are still waiting for service, that's just plain shocking and I am embarassed for them.
There's no pride in that.
No manners either. Could live with folk asking for a doggie bag at the end, but really.

Plus I doubt that company party chicken wings would survive being posted to the world's poor.

They're a nation of Sparfüchse, it's a national sport, invariably pub talk will veer towards bargains, quality of good to value for money ratio and the old chestnut of how Aldi/Plus/Whoever products are actually known brands in sheeps packaging. Blokes I know admit to being ashamed to shop in Tengelmann because it implies laziness, that they haven't made the effort to be thrifty and are spending their money unwisely.

What you have to make as a down payment is coming down in Germany I believe
and it it isn't a lot more than the % I had to put down in cash to buy my UK house.

The UK if anything is dangerously the other way in offering 110% mortgages and not expecting people to put anything down.

Where does he live then Kat, is it near your place?
Thats what happens to you when you dont work and spend all day masturbating.

In the UK more people get on the propety ladder sooner and easier.

I tend to agree with this, however one is more easily saddled with 50-year mortgages in the UK (same logic applies in the US) which means that you actually own property by the time you're almost dead.

Strange a disscusion about a German writing an article saying that the British are oppssed with Money turns into a disscussion about House prices

Not really. Buying property is pretty much the biggest financial outlay that most people ever make, so it's inherently linked to any discussion on money.

Second biggest.

#1 is the wife (and well spent/invested)

Up untill now IW, yes.

But let's take for example a "greedy" London Underground driver who is prepared to strike to defend a £30K salary.
The rule of thumb is you can get a house for five times your salary.

What will £150 K get you in Greater London? If you are LUCKY it will get you are tiny house in a run down area of Walthamstow
or an ex local authority flat in one of the poorest or most remote boroughs.

And there are, as we learn every time tube drivers threaten to strike, a LOT of Londoners on worse money.

There's a generation growing up in the age range of say 20-30 that CANNOT get onto the housing ladder in the UK.
That will happen with either their parents' deaths releasing their capital unless the government snaffles it to pay for care or if there is more than an economic wobble and prices fall which of course would leave plenty people in houses now only worth X when they pay X + for them and continue to try and do so...

Correct. Spiegel isn't even good for toilet paper.

whatever..my feeling is that the UK has an unhealthy obsession with Money and house prices in particular that if the bubble ever bursts then I for one wouldn't like to see the effects

HEM agreed

Yeah, I guess this is true. I think that the inheritance tax in Germany is 50% and 40% in the UK, with rates like that you are more likely to improve your house in the UK than here.

Unfortunately it's considered a leading publication here in Germany and people from all walks of socio-economic life read it avidly...

Spiegel is Germany's leading news magazine.
It's VERY good for improving your German and it does have good articles, including on overseas issues.
This one lets it down badly.

It's politics are centre-left and I stopped reading it for its wishy-washyness.

The centre-right version is Focus which has better graphics, an easier style to read perhaps but I don't find it as serious.

Stern is another. I find it hard to coment on that without being bitchy.

The last UK property crash in the early 1990s several estate agents were shot in their offices by disgruntled persons (I assume) with double barrelled shotguns.
There is definitely a binge drinking culture in England.

This thread does seem to have strayed a little from the orginal point. Surely the point is that a German magazine has printed an apparently one-sided article about the British, putting us in a very bad light. I haven't read the article yet but it does make you wonder, if that is the case, what the author's and the magazine's motives were, surely? and, perhaps, what it says about German culture??? Magazines do tend to write what the readers want to hear?? Just my opinion of course :-)

Right. So in short, all German magazines suck.

The South East of England is not the average when it comes to the UK. Housing prices there are absolutely crazy, however the system that is in place allows younger people to get on the housing market sooner in the UK and stop them spending "dead money" on rent. To bring it back to the conclusion that some how owning your own property is a bad thing, and that having wealth is a bad thing, which Herr Hüetlin is implying, well that is simply dumb.

Points in this Spiegel article are very true but obviously this reporter doesn’t know the whole story.
The true picture of Britain today is much grimmer than what this reporter describes.