Germany

 Gstaad In this freewheeling Swiss village of the 1950s, the unconventional was the norm and monumental drinking commonplace, but the manners of the players were always impeccable. Yes, there were ladies of lower-class parentage and with a dubious past, but they covered it up with a grand manner and an affected aristocratic confidence they had learned through experience. That’s how things were back then. The slags that pass as celebrities today would not have lasted a minute. Some might think it snobby, but it was nothing of the kind. One just had to act in a certain manner and that is all. Everyone knew where everyone else came from, so

For the last five years, politicians of all shades have been banging on about how we should adopt this or that aspect of German economic policy. George Osborne argued in 2011: ‘We want to learn the lessons of the successful Mittelstand model, which has operated in Germany for many decades.’ Only a few weeks ago, Vince Cable argued: ‘Britain has not been as good as competitors like Germany in turning ideas into wealth creation.’ The German economy seems to be widely admired, despite lagging behind Britain’s for nearly a generation. It is true that Germany had a better post-crash period than the UK, but its financial sector was smaller and many of

‘Keep your temper’, from The Spectator, 8 August 1914: ‘When a nation goes to war the policy of the Government nearly always fails to carry with it the convictions of a minority.  It is, of course, very rare for a Government who make war to find themselves without the support of the majority – for, as a rule, they would not even contemplate war without ascertaining the general tendency of public opinion – yet such cases have happened. It is probable that the majority were opposed to the war of George III. and Lord North against the American colonists. Even when the causa causans of a war in past history

From ‘News of the Week’, The Spectator, 8 August 1914:  ‘A good many excellent people are talking now as if the present war would mean the destruction of all civilization. That, we venture to say with all respect, is rubbish. Civilization is a far tougher plant than these good people imagine. That the war is a terrible evil, and that it will bring great sufferings, we admit as fully as can the most determined pessimist. It is, indeed, because we feel this so deeply that we have struggled hard in favour of those preparations which alone could have averted war, or, at any rate, might greatly have shortened it. Nevertheless

Yes, alright. It turns out that Germans are pretty good at football. But they aren’t quite so good at everything, as our Barometer column this week points out. Here are some things Germans aren’t very good at: Making reliable car engines. According to a survey by Warranty Direct last year, Audi came bottom, BMW seventh from bottom and Volkswagen ninth from bottom out of 36 manufacturers for engine failures. Making love. According to a spurious website survey of 15,000 women in 2009, German men were the world’s worst lovers, the main complaint being that they were ‘smelly’. (Englishmen were second worst.) Cricket. But they are not the worst. Germany lies between Ghana and Japan in division 8 of the ICC

The best team won, and the best two teams reached the final. This is a comparatively rare event at a world cup. And it was a fine world cup in general, with plenty of things to gladden the heart – the hammering of Spain by the Netherlands, the hammering of Brazil by Germany, the eviction at stage one of teams who think too highly of themselves, the emergence of doughty underdogs (Iran, Ghana, Chile, Costa Rica). The Netherlands remain an enigma; they are either wonderfully fluent or suddenly turn into England. But their record, for a country with a fifth of our population, is excellent. The most distressing thing about

If you’re walking through any built-up area in England between 8 and 10pm this Sunday and you hear a cheer you can be pretty sure it means one thing – Germany have scored yet again. One of the great myths we were fed as children in the 1980s and ‘90s was that the English don’t like the Germans, and in particular the living representatives of all things Teutonic on earth, the German national football team. We love ‘em, and I imagine most English people will be supporting Germany on Sunday. I remember being stuck in the countryside in 2006 and watching the Argentina-Germany quarter-final in a pub; the place went

Sorry – bit of an interregnum in the World Cup diary, caused principally by England’s pathetic capitulation. But still the tournament gives pleasure, perhaps to a greater degree than it has done in thirty years or more. Watching Brazil get stuffed on their own midden heap was an enormous pleasure. Their thuggery in the previous round, against Colombia, came back to haunt them; there is karma in football. That’s why Leeds Utd are still in the lower reaches of the Championship.  Germany were magnificent; Brazil gave in after the second goal — but truth be told, they were never terribly good. One thing bothers me, though — at the start

So – Nigeria versus Iran, then. I wonder who Boko Haram were cheering for, surrounded by their infidel abductees in some sand-blown, bilharzia riven hellhole. I was cheering for our new allies, Iran. We are told every year – since about 1986 – that African teams will take world football by storm. And they never do. They’re as useless as were Zaire in 1974. But that won’t stop the BBC spending our licence fee money on the African Cup of Nations, for political reasons. And then earlier, an enormous pleasure to watch Portugal’s pouting moppets, each of them seemingly named after a seaside donkey, thoroughly thrashed by good ol’ dependable

I would rather live next door to a German than a Romanian. I thought I’d just make that clear. I don’t mean I’d rather live next door to SS Obergruppenfuhrer Reinhard Heydrich than the humorously surreal dramatist Eugène Ionesco. I mean, in general, on average, given what I know about the people from both countries who have come here to live. Not all of them, obviously. Just as a generality, if you were to offer me the choice, without telling me any more about the respective merits of the people concerned, just here’s your choice, Rod – Germans or Romanians. I may be wrong, but I suspect most people in this country, if offered the same choice,