Deutschland, Deutschland über alles

[photo Philip Young Nicole Ziesche via Philip Young]

Got back yesterday from the Euroblog symposium in Stuttgart. I had a jolly good time, drinking lots of coffee and eating even more biscuits. Of course, it was even a greater pleasure meeting up with some people I hadn't seen in a while, like Julia (Jahansoozi - University of Central Lancashire), Betteke (van Ruler - University of Amsterdam), Philip and Elizabeth (who both, as expected, shared some excellent insights and findings).

It was also great to meet many truly interesting new people such as Ansgar Zerfass (MGF Baden-Württemberg - I think he's too intelligent for me) and Swaran Sandhu who, together with Philip Young, had set up the Euroblog Survey, or Steffen Büffel (University of Trier - who did a really interesting presentation about how a local Trier newspaper uses blogs in an intelligent way - also like his blog; check it out), Jan Schmidt (University of Bamberg - woke me up (almost litterally) with his talk on "Bloggers as trendsetters", presenting some findings of his "Wie ich blogge?!" survey), Michael Schuster (Knallgrau New Media Solutions in Vienna - with an excellent casestudy of how an Austrian bank sponsoring a trip to Antarctica led to a well-read blog ) as well as some of the board members of Euprera (the European PR organisation backing this event) with whom I had the chance of spending some very enjoyable moments (mostly at the table of a restaurant or Weinstübe): Serra, Sven, Paul, Inger, Sue and of course Anne-Marie.

"Stop, stop..." I can hear you think it. "Enough with the 'Oscar acceptance speech'-like talk mentioning everybody you think you should" (actually, I forgot my wife and kids for allowing me to take off to Stuttgart). "What was the event like?" Well: just check out all the links in this post - I'm sure you'll be able to judge for yourself. Let me just add this: Stuttgart is a far nicer city than I had thought beforehand (with some great museums which were open all night long last Saturday for their "Lange Nacht der Museen" - managed to catch a nice glimpse of an excellent collection of (relatively) modern painters like Picasso, Bracque, Modigliani, Warhol, Munch, Mondriaan and Kokoschka) and I even liked the Germans there. Just one thing: some should really do something about this... And some of the presentations made me even more convinced I was right about this. But for the rest: it was great. Looking forward to more weekends like that...

Comments

[Serge Cornelus]

Following Sam's example of some time ago, this is a pre-emptive comment. Not all the Germans have 'zis funny akzent'. Some actually speak English really well. But it was too great a film not to link too. Sorry, guys! ;-D

[Andrea Weckerle]

Pre-emptive comment, eh? Anyway, the "we are sinking! what are you thinking about?" is hilarious!

With regard to the photo, I notice a theme here: http://no-copy.typepad.com/no_copy/2006/03/shocking_revela.html

[Steffen Büffel]

LOL! Great summary post with some VERY funning links. You are totally right about the English skills... ;-)

[Julia Jahansoozi]

Had to watch the language clip twice as it was so funny!

[Serge]

@Andrea: a theme? Like a "he's always eating in a photo" kind of theme? No - that's a totally wrong impression you have... :-)
@Steffen: I was definitely NOT referring to you. Welcome on this blog, btw. Come back anytime!
@Julia: I know. I have already seen it over a dozen times and I still can't help ROTFL'ing... BTW: same 'btw' as for Steffen...

[Philip Young]

Take care - with five comments this could turn into a 'conversation'... Why not watch this instead? It kept my students quiet for five minutes anyway.

http://www.storewars.org/flash/index.html

[Le rasoir chantant]

Yes, again an interesting photo. I immediately recognized the theme there. Andrea is right. Maybe it's time for Serge to start up a second blog about food.

You boys and girls seem to have a good time between yourselves. Baden-Württemberg has always been one of my favourite German provinces. The Ur-German province, as it were. Nice and straightforward people there, also very outspoken, I like that.

[exgunewwetag]

incest cartoon