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Our Euros rematch with Germany… at foosball

20th June 202420th June 2024 funtime65

And their trip up to Edinburgh gave us the chance of our Euros rematch with Germany… at foosball.

Of course, damningly, the Germans were even better at the table football version.

And we lost 8-2, with the Germans as gracious in victory as they were after our Munich mullering.

Mine host Harald looked after us, for our double matchday function at Riddles Court, as well as any Munich bierkeller owner.

You’ll perhaps have heard how the 200,000-strong Tartan Army drank Munich dry.

And that is no small beer in boozy Bavaria.

Swiss timing

The Tartan Army, of course, packed up camp and moved on to their next base for the match against Switzerland in Cologne.

And the Swiss were outnumbered here among the Scottish guests at Riddles Court as they were in the Koln stadium.

Food for thought

With a point now in the bag and qualification still alive it’s now Hungary in Stuttgart.

Where we picked up a little local knowledge from the mayor of Stuttgart, no less, on what culinary treats await.

So that’ll be the Schwäbische Maultaschen then, a large ravioli, filled with meat, onions and spinach.

Or the Zwiebelrostbraten, literally an ‘onion roast’ with the beef cooked in a gravy flavored with garlic and the onions.

All washed down with the Stuttgarter Hobrau and a schnaps chaser which the Scots will learn about soon enough.

This Scot was a quick learner when he was presented with a shot glass and a stein at the Hofbrauhaus in Munich.

A different ball game

Now, of course, that many Scots can’t be shoehorned even into the biggest stadium and that’s where fanzones come into play.

And the fanzone in Schlossplatz boasts a football pitch, beach football, foosball, e-sports and teqball.

Teqball, you say… well, it’s a cross between sepak takraw or foot volleyball and table tennis which will be new to all of us.

Bet the Germans are better than us and everyone else at that too.

Which we know all about from our Euros rematch with Germany… at foosball.

America, Europe

Democrats voted Hitler

27th January 202327th January 2023 funtime65

On this National Holocaust Day lest we forget democrats voted for Hitler.

And while we rightly have the notion of the Great Dictators ruling at the point of a bayonet and a pistol.

It was at the ballot box 90 years ago, on January 30, that the Nazis officially won power.

And if that’s not a reminder for us to constantly be vigilant about who we vote for.

And what checks we put on them then we will, and do, pay the consequences.

Now if you thought that your cosy country was immune to being taken over by megalomaniacs authoritarians.

Then that’s just what the Germans thought about Adolf Hitler back in 1933.

And they believed too that he could rid them of a greater Communist threat and then they could put him back in his box.

Nor should we be blindsided by the threat from within or without as the Germans were back in the 30s.

Seduced as they were by a sense of grievance, common bogeymen enemies within the State.

And a zenophobic hatred of foreigners.

Bavarian barbarity

Sound like Germany of the Thirties… and America of the late 2010s, Brazil now, Brexiteering Britain and a fascist stream in the French Far Right.

All touchpoints for us as we travel through history and the world.

My first introduction to holocaust history was as an offshoot to a very different holiday, the Munich Beerfest in the Eighties.

But Bavaria was where Hitler had his first putsch and where he installed his first concentration camp in Dachau in March 1933.

All under the noses of Bavarians going about their daily business.

While the ‘disreputables’ were packed away to what were presented to the rest of the world as holiday camps.

It is challenging tourism but vital and rewardingly now memorials are now marked across the globe.

With permanent Holocaust centres, the biggest being the Yad Vashem in Jerusalem, the Auschwitz Concentration Camp, the Holocaust Memorial in Berlin and the Anne Frank Huis in Amsterdam.

But also in towns and cities in every civilised country.

To remind us that racism exists on our doorstep too and genocide grows from unfettered populism.

Cry Freedom

And that was driven home to me not in Germany, Poland or any of the major arenas of the Holocaust last year.

But in one of the most liberal states in America, the Commonwealth of Massachussets, and its capital Boston .

Where the New England Holocaust Memorial stands next to the Freedom Trail.

And that marks the key points and figures in the American Revolutionary Story.

Alas, the openness which defines our free societies means that racist zealots can broadcast their vile racism.

As happened when neo-Nazis took a selfie of themselves and put it up on social media.

Of course that should never put civilised people off paying our respects wherever we are and steel ourselves.

Because lest we forget democrats voted for Hitler… we who are still democrats.

America, Asia, Countries, Oceania, South America

Joby Aviation lost in translation

19th July 202219th July 2022 funtime65

And how those of us of a Scottish variety sniggered how Joby Aviation got lost in translation.

A jobby, as Glasgow’s second most famous son, Billy Connolly, revealed to the world is the contents of your bottom.

But there is nothing crap about the all-electric aircrafts for commercial use that are coming to Scotland.

Flying by the seat of your pants: The Joby

As we reported in the Daily Record the The Joby is a five-seat, piloted electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) aircraft.

And it has a maximum range of 150 miles and a quiet acoustic profile.

Now we imagine the new aircraft will be s***-hot but perhaps they should rebrand for Scottish fliers.

All of which has us reflecting on the brands which we have seen lost in translation.

C U Next Tuesday

Northern Territory, Australia: And I’m indebted to the doyen of Irish travel writers Eoghan Corry for clueing me in on this historical brand gaffe.

Now everyone is an expert after the event and the same mistook visited an old, and much-respected, boss.

When he cropped a picture of an England flag for an old newspaper so the ‘S’ and the ‘Horpe’ got cut from sCunTthorpe.

Coors fails sniff test

Colorado cool: But they’re too hip for the Spanish

Golden, Colorado, USA: And the Golden nectar with the taste of the Rockies will slake your thirst like few other beers.

The Coloradans, as anyone who has been out there will tell you, have a lifestyle and language all of their own.

But it doesn’t always translate, and their ‘Turns it loose’ slogan means ‘you will suffer from diarrhoea. Sloppy!

Fly solo

Braniff International, North America: And one from the vaults here when Braniff ran routes.

Primarily in the midwestern and southwestern United States, Mexico, Central America and South America before expanding into Asia and Europe.

They ran an advert in Spanish boasting of their leather seats and urging passengers to fly ″en cuero,″ or ″in leather.″

Only the similar ″en cueros″ means ″naked,″ and when pronounced on radio or television, the two terms sound identical.

In the Nip

Kinki Nippon Tourist Company, Japan: Japan‘s second largest tourist agency hadn’t factored in the Western World’s less prudish attitudes.

And they began receiving requests for unusual sex tours.

Upon finding out why, the owners of Kinki Nippon Tourist Company decided to go with KNT in English-speaking countries.

Road tripped

Ford, Detroit, USA: Now many of us love a road trip and Henry can lay claim to changing American society with his Model T which you can see in Motor City.

Alas, again the Iberian languages caught marketers out, this time the Portuguese tongue.

Ford blundered when marketing the Pinto in Brazil, unaware that the term means male genitals in Brazilian Portuguese.

These are brand new too

Along the road we’ve come across a Wanktunnel in Bavaria, an ISIS chocolate bar in Brussels airport and Negro licquorice in Croatia.

Share with us the brands which you’ve seen that have tickled your fancy, as it were.

Because how Joby Aviation got lost in translation is not an isolated incident.

America, Countries, Europe, Skiing, Sport

A broom to sweep the Alpine bar

10th February 202210th February 2022 funtime65

You trudge the peaks to the top of Europe only to be handed a broom to sweep the Alpine bar.

This broom though is a curling accessory, you have a stone in hand and a circle on the ice rink to target.

It’s not what you’d expect when you are escorted through the curtain of the Ice Bar.

At the top of the Jungfraujoch in Switzerland.

But you’ve got a Swiss dram (yes, really) at the bar.

To warm and energise you for your initiation in the ancient Scottish game.

Ice bowls

Aye, ice bowls, as it is sometimes dismissively referred, was invented (as everything is) in Scotland.

When an ice skating religious minister glided across Duddingston Loch…

Well, that can’t be proved definitively.

But do check out the Henry Raeburn painting at the Scottish National Gallery in Edinburgh.

Curling has us in our grip every four years when Scots Olympians take over Britain and our curlers swap their Saltires for Union Jacks.

Alas, just like golf which we also gave to the world, the world learned to do it better.

As evidenced in Beijing just now.

A Scottish gift to America

And we’ve struggled recently to replicate the success of Golden Girl Rhona Martin from the Salt Lake City Games in 2002.

Unsurprisingly as the Scottish footprint is all over the States the Americans are among the world’s leading curling nations.

And news comes to us from winter sports centre Lake Tahoe of how much more they put into the game and all winter sports.

With 17 of the US team calling the base in the Nevada/California border calling Lake Tahoe its home.

Learn to curl

Dark Destroyer: Curltime Jimmy in Switzerland

Helpfully the good folk of Lake Tahoe are offering help to curl and saying you’ll be able to show off on the next Zoom meet.

The rest (to get out there) you’ll have to ask your friendly neighbouring travel agents about.

Drams are made of this: Whisky in the Alps

Now, if you’re lucky enough to live in Scotland then you will be able to take your first baby steps in winter sports.

I’ve done it myself and yes with my old friends in Ireland Topflight for Schools, it has led me to the Winter Olympics.

Bavarian Games

Get your skis on: Channeling the 1936 Games

Albeit Hitler’s 1936 Games at Garmisch-Partenkirchen in Bavaria.

Where pictures of the winners adorn the walls of the showpiece restaurant in the town.

A page in history: German Olympic winner

And the centrepiece is the ski jump.

Maybe better sticking on firm ground (or ice).

Hand me a broom to sweep the Alpine bar.