Because, Ajax Issues in Northern Germany

[seahawk]

12 hours ago, Tim Sielbeck said:

We also found this to be true as well as the general friendlier disposition of the Germans in Bavaria as compared to those in northern Germany.

That is a fact. Northern Germans are generally considered a bit more distanced and reserved.

[Stuart Galbraith]

Goddam Prussians.

 

[Ssnake]

We're just trying to be polite, allowing everybody to mind their own business rather than jumping into everybody's face at the first opportunity like those invasive Bavarians. You're grown-ups. If you need our assistance, ask. If you want to make conversation, start chatting away - just don't assume that we feel a moral obligation to show more enthusiasm than politeness demands. In fact, I think in some ways northern Germans - and may I remind you that most of us were occupied by Prussian imperialists, by military force - are about as British as Britons themselves like to see themselves, without the stupid and destructive class mentality.

[Stuart Galbraith]

Yes, but without our self destructive class mentality, you wouldnt have Brideshead Revisited or Downton Abbey would you?

Yes, I was thinking about this earlier whilst watching some Scandi Noir, that Northern Europe (and that includes Northern Germany) is pretty much the same thing in its attitudes. Which when you think of the legacy of the Vikings, or the migration of population from NW Europe to England about 1500 years ago makes perfect sense. Culturally there isnt much in it, we even share many of the same words.

To me, the more interesting divide is less the North South one, than the East west one. Which as we are but 30 years on from the cold war at this point, is still seemingly prevalent.

[Ssnake]

There's all the coastlines around the North Sea that had more than enough millenia-long trade in goods, culture, and bodily fluids.

Same could be said for the Baltic, with some overlap of course. That will leave its traces all over the place. Britain's splendid isolation always was a very relative one.

[Stuart Galbraith]

We were isolated purely from Invasion. I think the idea our culture was isolated was always somewhat mythical, as the effect on the language has proven.

[Ssnake]

Someone said invasion?

[Stuart Galbraith]

Ah, If only 'The Foreign Threat' was that easy to recognise, the Times could have posed it on the front page

Its quite interesting, I was reading a book on UFO's more years ago than I care to remember. In the lead up to WW1, there was increasing fears of an influx of foreigners. There were even extremely detailed descriptions of strange looking men whom were seen being dropped off by Zeppelin. And then again in the 1970's, it change to the fear of an influx of foreigners, and pretty much exactly the same stories were printed of strange looking men (Indians in one description) being dropped off by Helicopter in the middle of nowhere.

Which all goes to prove, the Daily mail has probably been going to long....

Your point about the Baltic was a good one, and brings home the memory of the Baltic exchange in London.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baltic_Exchange

[Ssnake]

I was more thinking of the Hanseatic League, to be honest.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanseatic_League