July 2011

Dear Friends of German Comedy,

I take it we’ve all had a good month so far as Britain, for the moment at least, has one less paper whose sole purpose is the breaching of the peace for financial gain.

There’s little glory in speaking out against British tabloids when even leading politicians of all parties dare to do so, but here we go:

What does get me is the ludicrous claim that the News of The World journalists are innocent scapegoats as loads of them joined after the hacking and anyway, even if they have been on the paper for a long time they were not personally responsible for the paper hiring private investigators and bribing policemen.

That attitude could have considerably shortened the Subsequent Nuremberg Trials.

I would argue that people who joined NoW, or any other red top for that matter, at whichever point in time have no leg to stand on as the tabloid industry’s sub-human moral standards are not hidden but on the front cover as its core selling point.

If you don’t believe that being good at sport, serving society as a politician or having slightly blue hair like poor Mr Jefferies from the Joanna Yeates murder investigation, make someone fair game, you wouldn’t consider working there.

And as for improved ethics; I don’t know much – as already mentioned in April’s bulletin – I only ever did one interview with Scottish News of The World. It was in the run-up to the England-Germany game at last year’s World Cup and every single quote attributed to me in print was fabricated to stoke up anti-English ressentiments north of the border. What a “wonderful team of people”, to quote editor Colin Myler, their staff truly were!

Ahhhh…feeling better now! Time to get off that soapbox and set my sights on next month’s Edinburgh comedy trade fair!

Great news for the easily pleased – there will be another raffle!! Unfortunately due to budget cuts as a result of keeping Greece going the German National Tourist Office won’t be able to raffle away a trip to Munich. Instead the lucky winner will win a crate of finest Liebfrauenmilch! Slurp, slurp!

Whatever your plans for the summer – don’t go on holidays to Greece in a misguided attempt trying to help the Greek state.
Your trip will only benefit some oligarchs who will not pass any of your money on to Athens.

Instead, if you really care about the Greeks, go on holidays to Germany!! Our hotels, restaurants and tour operators will pay their taxes, which Berlin then can give to Athens.

Actually, I think it would be a very shrewd move by the Greek state to take what little money they have and sponsor the German National Tourist Office! In fact if the Greek airport controllers weren’t always on strike they would re-route all incoming flights to Berlin! In their country’s own best interest!

And yes, I am aware there’s a certain degree of hypocrisy in accusing tabloid staff for despicably low moral standards before slagging off wholesale all Greeks in the next paragraph. But it’s all true.

Have a great month and hopefully see you soon – be it in Berlin or Edinburgh!

NB: I wanted to email this out tomorrow morning but with constant new disclosures of News International’s malpractices I better send it out right now before it’s totally outdated again.

Henning