Lunch with Financial Times:

Every Friday,when I pick up The Financial Times, I look for who would be at Lunch with The Financial Times( Regular column in the weekend Financial times). It is kinda reality TV. It is elaborate,intimate and very interesting. I may put aside the whole paper if I do not have the time,but I would religiously read that.The recent Lunch guest was the principle conductor and artistic director of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, Sir Simon Rattle. He was in the South of France for a concert. They were talking about Germans and British.According to him,"Germans have an understanding of history and cannot allow themselves to forget it".British tabloids caricature Germans as humourless.English are self -deprecating,looking down on themselves,insular but flexible.Germans are very Deutsch- we know better. Germans are never frightnened to tell what they think unlike British. "German sounds are so clear and articulated but it is not allusive".Germans take irony as sarcasm. English are indecisive,but after making a decision,they they will go through with it,but Germans are like to be decisive, and then change their mind. "Germnas are most emotional people on the planet. The necessity for rules and strictness is a way of dealing with an enormously powerful impulse". German precision also comes from that emotion to avoid chaos.English culture is of inhibition and restraint whereas German culture is emotional.Very intersting of people and cultures.