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Someone on Quora asked the loaded question - why are Germans so unfriendly - and when I read this at the crack of dawn I could not resist the temptation to answer it with one finger typing on my tablet. So here is the text below German social behaviour is different from say, English speakers. English is a mid-subtle language. Saving face and politeness are important, being perfect is less important. German dignity comes from merit. Being perfect is important. 1. We generally avoid direct refusals   English : We'll see what we can do .   German. No . 2. Specific  confirmation of informal social events.   English: "Are you going to the pub on Friday? Probably/possibly/perhaps /maybe." (avoids No)   German: " Yes + time/No ." 3. The imperative: (which is considered abrupt or rude in English even if you have authority. Imperative sentences are normal in German.)   English: "Could you give me that book?" German: " Give
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Heavy Duty has an audience.. I have sold copies of Heavy Duty in Kindle. I should mention that I deleted my Facebook account after about four months as I found it utterly pointless. I haven't suffered any ill effects from eliminating all things social network from my life apart from G+. In other news, I haven't completely checked to see if SkinUp is fully Kindle compliant with a toc file, an ncx file and a main file, but sometime this week I intend to set about it. Perhaps I might produce an Halloween edition.
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Of the many ways to end up with a Bavarian Farmhouse, one of them would be to win this week's lottery of 10 million Euros. I am not holding my breath. The other way would be to sell a reasonable number of novels on Kindle. On a similar literary note, I am preparing SkinUp as a Kindle title, but I haven't finished the formatting yet. SkinUp is a sort of Gothic mystery. If there is an easy way to convert a novel into an Epub, I haven't found it yet and I simply hand code the thing all the way through. I need to get the cover image created soon but I have no clear idea what it should look like or just how Gothic I want it to be
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Ever since we got a dodgy washing machine from Amazon we haven't really bought anything that big. Not that it was the fault of Amazon but their crap delivery men. But since then we tend to look at things in shops and then check them out on amazon. The best deal gets our money. In almost every case it is amazon.
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I'm not locked in here with you. You're locked in here with me . noui consilia et ueteres quaecumque monetis amici, 'pone seram, cohibe'. sed quis custodiet ipsos custodes, qui nunc lasciuae furta puellae hac mercede silent? crimen commune tacetur. prospicit hoc prudens et a illis incipit uxor. " I am aware of whatever councils you old friends warn, i.e. "throw the bolt and lock her in.” But who is going to guard the guards themselves, who now keep silent the lapses of the loose girl - paid off in the same coin? The common crime keeps its silence. A prudent wife looks ahead and starts (her infidelities) with them." It has been a long time coming but, someone eventually pulled the Watchmen movie from production hell: Way back in 1992 I read the original graphic novel for the very first time and it became emblematic of the period in much the same way as the movie Aliens was a marker for the 80's. I was bored one week and I decided that it would be ni
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All Power to the Soviets! Massed Plumbers on Home Front! Mario Brothers arrive in a full offensive line-up! Power tools to the fore! Mario, Luigi, Yoshi, Koopa and Tom of Finland arrived early in the morning with a complete set of pipes, elbow joints, radiators and huge power tools. Tom and Luigi proceeded to cut giant mouse holes in the walls and Mario and Yoshi manhandled copper piping, soldering elbow joints as they went. Tool-Handling Luigi and Yoshi power-bored holes in the wall for the radiator mounts and Dagobert Toadsworth himself appeared and agreed, after a sound ear-bashing with a large acorn from The Squirrel, to demands that the living-room radiator should be sensibly fitted beneath the west window. Tom of Finland demonstrated his superb-tool handling with a direct bore chisel through solid concrete with double (post 1947 German Economic Miracle) R-bar steel. By the end of the working day (6 pm and it was a Friday!) they had completed almost 40% of the required work! R
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Power on - Power - off - Power On Sonic to the rescue! Today the electricians quietly turned off the power and said it was only going to be off for half an hour. 5 hours later having zapped all the circuit breakers, Sonic the Hedgehog, Dagobert's genius 12 year-old electrician turned up at the apartment and helpfully pointed out that the circuit breakers had clicked. Then his mum shouted on him for his tea. There is of course no point in expecting a report of further activity here today because normally things get f*@ked up in the afternoon, just before the 'workmen' leave. So MS Project entry for today would be 2:30 Activity: Screw everything up. Resources: Sparkies - 2 Screwdriver - 1 Time: couple minutes So in the absence of anything happening here's a picture of the Combined Heating and Power Unit in the cellar - and no, it's not working yet either. The Cult of King Rolf On an entirely different subject - we were in Hugendubel (a famous bookshop chain) and I spo
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