To be honest I am dumbstruck at the amount of MTBers who advocate not wearing a helmet while skiing/boarding. Would you attempt coming down Fort Bill’s DH run on a bike without at least a helmet? The pistes have become more dangerous in recent years because of the sheer numbers of people now skiing compared to 10 years ago. There has been a lot of whoo-haa recently here in Germany after the Minister President of Thuringia collided with a lady form Slovenia over the Xmas period in Austria. He survived after being being in an artificial coma for a week she died. Guess which one was wearing a helmet and which one wasn’t.

This is one of my guitars in action. A fender Jagstang which has been modified with Dimarzio super distortion pick ups and custom circuitry. In my armoury I also have a Gibson Les Paul, an Epiphone Riviera a Fender Jaguar (too unreliable for live work though) and one or two Ibanez planks.

I have both an Inbred SS and a 456 with gears. I find for general riding the SS more fun as it seems to be a lot more nimble. The 456 can feel a bit pedestrian on your typical XC trails. When it all gets a bit extreme then the 456 shines. I like the 456 for the Welsh trail centres for example.

Hong Kong. Absolutely stunning beaches if you can find them as well as some top riding to be had too!

Slingshot bikes[/url]

I’ve had people look at me as if I am an absolute idiot for letting them out of a side road when it was my right of way. In this part of Germany the driving is super aggressive too which I put down to them all learning to drive in Trabbies! When I learned to drive it was drilled in to me that any action I make that makes another driver have to alter their direction speed etc. is bad driving. I see this practically every minute on the German Autobahns. The norm is to wait until the last minute then pull out into a faster lane right in front of someone making them have to brake heavily. One last thing I don’t understand is the lack of cat’s eyes on the Autobahn either.

ah, wir habe n zwei eier zu wenig”

i said “oder du hast zwei eier zu wenig?”.

We’ve got two eggs too few or have you got two eggs two few?

(eggs in German is also slang for men’s testicles)

Considering that most Germans consider themselves well cultured I also find a lot of the comedy here a bit base. They love Mr Bean for God’s sake! It’s all a bit LCD. We are pretty lucky in the UK for having such an uncensored comedic media. I could never imagine that a comedy such as the League of Gentlemen or even Little Britain could ever be produced here (they did do a version of the office but it was terrible!).

alpin’s rant sounded a lot like me after a year of living in Germany. My main gripe here is the lack of the idea of service. I live in the old communist side of the country and a lot of the older people who work in the service industry tend to be so rude it’s almost funny. (In the DDR if you worked in a shop or restaurant you had one up on your fellow comrades and so a lot more power.)

That and the Spießigkeit of my neighbours.

I am also a resident of Germany. Have been here for nearly nine years (gulp!) and before that China for two years. I can sympathise with alpin’s sentiments.

The train will be arriving at the station is the future continuous as someone already said. In this case it is often used by train guards, airline captains etc. to reassure the passengers that all things that will happen for the duration of the journey are in the normal course of events for that journey. Example: ‘We will be flying at around 40 000 ft, and will be arriving at Heathrow at 2pm local time’

The train will arrive is ‘will’ or future simple which in this case expresses a future fact in a neutral way, that is the speaker has no feelings about it.

Thorn?

Any German beer from Aldi/Lidl brewed in accordance with the purity laws."

Apsolutly – the only lagers i’ll drink. [:)]

Wernersgrüner is brewed just up the road from where I live and Aldi don’t sell it in Germany as it’s too up market!