Dear Friends of German Comedy,
It’s unbelievable. There I was all diligent to get the monthly bulletin back in tune with the calendar but discipline went immediately out the window and I’m now two weeks behind again already. Monday 16th indeed! (This line would have had a lot more punch with last Friday’s date but the bulletin wasn’t written then. Once again a perfect proof that timing really is the secret of comedy.)
My, admittedly made-up, excuse for the late mail-out is I was busy stashing away my Royal Wedding memorabilia; mugs, plates, horseshoes, action figures of Prince Philip in a Fiat Uno…you name it, the Daily Mail advertised it.
In excess of one million people lined the streets of good old London Town to see extravagant people drive non-competitively from A to B to C and then back to A. The Silverstone Grand Prix it was not.
(The next time we hear of a million-strong assembly in Pyongyang singing the Dear Leader a birthday song we should not immediately discard it as a forced propaganda exercise – they might be there voluntarily, too. Does anyone know if there is a North Korean version of the After Eight to be had on very special occasions?)
More than two billion people worldwide watched the wedding on TV, proving there’s nothing on TV everywhere. But it’s tremendous to see how the Royal family and the idea of British nobility can still emotionalise the world and generate an interest in these shores.
In its recent history Germany only had one such momentous occasion; the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. And I don’t think this hype can ever be replicated, not even if we were with great fanfare starting to rebuild the wall. Mind you, it’s definitely worth a try.
Despite all the positive press the Royal family generates for Britain, the tourism industry will find it difficult to capitalize from it.
London might just have seen the opening of the spectacular St Pancras Renaissance Hotel but as every touring performer, sales person and lady of the night will tell you there’s a lot of false advertising when it comes to accommodation.
Talk about staycation all you like but as long as ‘Royal’ in hotel names is most of the time a euphemism for ‘hasn’t seen a lick of paint or a new mattress since Victorian times’; Britian is not the first class holiday destination its beautiful countryside should make it.
Just last week I stayed at the grandly named Kensington Hotel in Rhyl. Sounds posh but let me assure you there was very little about the ‘hotel’ that reminded me of King’s Road. For instance I very much doubt stopping to serve breakfast at 7am is very Kensington-like.
Considering how happily McDonald’s sue any old burger van that uses anything vaguely similar to their logo, it’s surprising that hotels can give themselves the most extravagant names without anyone pulling them up on it.
The government should introduce legislation that hotels and B&Bs that don’t live up to their splendid names must carry the suffix ‘-dump’.
That’s it for now – let’s not discuss the Eurovision Song Contest. It was just as disappointing as it was 12 months ago. Why does everyone garble along in Pidgin English rather than their own language? Pathetic!
The only thing that made this year’s contest even worse than last year’s was the added confusion of the Eurovision Song Contest being won by a non-European country. You would think being part of Europe is the most basic stipulation for entering the competition?!
But what do I know……well, what I DO know is that there’s an extra Edinburgh preview at the Betsey Trotwood TOMORROW,
Tuesday 17th, for which there are still a few tickets available. (what a seamless link!!)
Have a great month and the next bulletin will be with you June 1st (or thereabouts)
Henning
