Jungle

Our fellow Bliper Nigel was a fan of Munich TV Weiß Blau back in the late 80's, particularly their cultural show "Olaf Go", one of the stars of which was a vehicle. Neither the station or programme exist today but probably nothing to do with Bernie Ecclestone who appeared in a Munich court this week charged with giving one of the directors of the Bavarian State Bank $50 million in bribes to get back some F1 TV rights. The bank (LBS) almost went under, after several bad deals this and other directors did 6 years ago. They were also Angie's employer until last year when her profitable building society part of the bank had to be sold off to pay the debts the bank had accumulated. Just before the sell off, she and a few hundred colleagues, each individually, had to employ lawyers to take the LBS to court as they refused to honour a contractural pensions rights issue. (In employment law, one can't go to court in a group). The employees won. In the meantime the directors were stuffing their pockets and getting pay, bonuses and redundancy pay offs in millions. Crazy world.

Back to TV - this afternoon after the daily muck out, was feeling lazy so watched a Bavarian TV prog - pleasant, coffee & cake, Bavarian homeland, crafty type show. One of the spots they do daily is a quiz on a rare Bavarian dialect word (probably 9/10 wouldn't know it). The solution is provided by a German language Professor at Munich University and also the head of research in to Bavarian dialect at the Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities (former members include Goethe & Einstein). The Professor is called Anthony Rowley born in Skipton and educated at Reading University! Today's word was "Fruiserl" which turned out to be a person who suffers from the cold weather. The ending "erl" being a dimunitive, implying squeamish. Rowley even said the "s" was an ancient form of s, similar to the English "z" as in "freeze". Never heard him mention English before.

However the programme is no replacement for Olaf Go. BUT all is not lost - tonight the 8th year of the German version of "I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here!" started and will keep the whole of Germany busy for the next two weeks. They have spared no expense this year and managed to sign up a C class celebrity to join the other E class one's. So Team GB, get your production machines running at full tilt, you have 14 days to flood the German market with your goods as all production lines here will be at near standstill & the office's will be in full time chatter mode. I wouldn't even fly Lufthansa at the moment, the female co-presenter is a former pilot and her ex-colleagues will no doubt be discussing her performance much of the time - she is actually very good and has a wonderfully wicked sense of humour, taking the mickey out of the contestants.

Have a great weekend and if you get bored no doubt the Jungle Camp has a live webcam to keep up with events.....

The photo was done by Angie this evening when I said I hadn't done any photography all day - think she did OK and it's straight out of the camera.