I was walking down the road the other day with a few friends. We were on the way to the pub. In the course of socialising, we were pretending to grind on each other like so many women in a hip-hop video.

Suddenly, someone who we knew, but on the extreme periphery of our social circle, started looking angry and calling us benders. I told him I wasn't homosexual but actually a transvestite - as if he couldn't already guess by the drag I was wearing! What an idiot.

Anyway, we taunted this guy all the way down the road until we got to the pub. Pretending to kiss each other, rubbing each other, asking him out on dates, complementing his shirt, saying his waxed hair style looks so masculine and so on. Each time the look of incredulity and exasperation on his face stretched and contorted itself even further. People with homophobia have one fear - their homophobia. As this guy (my idol) shows us brilliantly, these guys can be made to look pretty stupid pretty fast.

Even though I am technically just a normal, everyday tranny, I still sometimes get temporary and deep urges to fulfil a deep hole in my body. I think you will all know what hole that is! This usually happens after half a bottle of vodka and a few lines of cocaine.

The other day I was at this pretty cool club, dancing away in my vest (I wasn't in drag this time!). The club was just about to close and my urge for man flesh just had to be tempered. I looked over to the bar and suddenly I saw this huge, muscular mass of blond meat just standing there. He looked Scandinavian. He had his shirt ripped wide open, with his dripping abdomen pulsating in the neon light. The open shirt was a sure sign that he was up for some manly action. Literally no-one else had their shirt completely undone in the entire club. Or even in any club anywhere in the world. No-one does that. He looked so gay and I wanted him.

We at Corrupt are always talking about how you should have positive goals, and how you should always reach for them. And for this goal I wasn't just positive; I was HIV positive! I went up to him and complemented him on his cute chest hairs. He smiled and said thanks. After taking a sip of water, he asked if I was hot, as the club had very little air conditioning. I said yes, to which he said I should take off my shirt as well!

From all this outrageous flirting the next move was pretty plain to see. I reached out and touched his bulging pectoral muscles. Then I got a huge surprise (no not that kind of huge surprise!); he freaked out, pushed me away and then shouted "fag" at me. I felt so disheartened! The night was wasted. Or was it? I went outside to see all of the other ladyboys leaving the club (the place is a popular haunt for the LGBT scene). I went home with one of them and... well you know how the night ends!

I guess the lesson here is yes, if you're straight and have spent your whole night dancing topless in a gay bar, don't be surprised if someone tries it on with you at some point. Being tolerant, I forgave the guy anyway and didn't stay to teach him a lesson. I hope whatever that hunky totem is doing nowadays, he's doing it with an eye out for tolerance and fairness.

Amazon (UK): Desert Essence Castile Liquid Soap with Tea Tree Oil.

If you look on the back of your shower gel bottle you'll be bummed in the arse by a giant list of esoteric ingredients. I don't want to cover myself with that crap everyday.

Desert Essence soap has four quite plain ingredients, and as far as I can ween, none of them were invented in an underground laboratory or were initially designed for war crimes: Castile soap (made from olive oil), coconut oil, some more olive oil and tea tree oil. It's organic too, which is lovely.

The soap is very mild, and because it's rich in olive oil it keeps your skin from drying out. I have no idea what the coconut oil does, but the tea tree oil acts as a mild antiseptic whilst "diminishing imperfections" according to the back of the bottle.

Use this for everything: your body and your hair (very good for hair, even if you're a tranny like me!) and even your dishes if you don't want to handle hand-raping detergents. Decant it into another shower bottle for washing yourself otherwise it's a little unwieldy.

This gets an Alfred Wells rating of: FIVE STARS OUT OF FIVE STARS LOL BRILLIANT LOL

OK, so Christmas has come and gone but we can still prepare you in time for next year. So here are a few tips for ruining your next Secret Santa. For the uninitiated (who are you?), "Secret Santa" is when a group of people agree to put their names in a hat and randomly pick out who they will buy a Christmas gift for, usually with a reasonably restricted price limit. It also leaves a lot of opportunity for some arse to go and ruin it all. Use these tips wisely.

1. Not horrifically bad, but tell everyone individually who your Secret Santa is, making it up each time. If possible, use this information in an exchange so they tell you who their Secret Santa is. Tell this information to the rest of the group one by one.

2. Try to fix the initial raffle so that most people are buying you presents and you aren't buying anyone anything. When you receive your gift for the fifth time, chances are they are about to wise up, so grab the gifts and run off.

3. Target your present for maximum unpleasantness. If you've got a fat girl, buy her a month's gym membership. A girl with a monobrow = tweezers. Someone with a gambling addiction = free bets at the local casino. If you've got no ideas at all, then just buy them a balaclava. No-one will have any use whatsoever for a balaclava, but aside from a brief awkward silence you will most likely get away with it. Then you can grab everyone else's gifts and run off, wearing the balaclava if possible.

4. In the interests of political correctness, always refer to Secret Santa as "Secret Gift Exchange". If there is a Muslim taking part, always make eye contact with him when announcing the name and tell him that you're being especially considerate just for his "special needs". Chances are this will piss either him or everyone else in the group off, but if anyone calls you out, just feign good nature. Consider running off with everyone's gifts.

5. Jokingly tell everyone that your Secret Santa gift will be a turd in a Tupperware box, and when the time comes to exchange gifts give them a turd in a Tupperware box, then run off with the gifts (but leave the turd in a box).

6. Keep telling everyone that you hope no-one poor is buying you your present.

7. Try to exclude homosexuals from the group.

Giles Coren humorously comments on the classless class-war rhetoric of local moron Polly Toynbee:

The next day, in my favourite paper's always-gripping education section (“Down wiv' Eton!”), there was another extract from the book, in which Dave and Polly had joined some state school kids from Brent on a trip to Oxford (I bet the kids were delighted).

The clichés here were more delicious still. Not only did the word “spires” appear twice in the same short extract, but the lawns, bless them, were “manicured”. Except they're not, Polly. They're just mown. Same as everywhere else. You don't have to be rich, or posh, or evil to mow the bloody lawn. They mow the lawn on council estates too. It's you, Polly, and you, Dave, who are trying to present Britain as a cartoonish, divided society to suit your own arrogant, dim-witted, outdated Weltanschauung.

For as long as I can remember, I have always viewed privilege and excellence not with disdain, but with reverence, delighting in its potential opportunity. The fact that some of us have already managed to escape the dirt gives us something manifest to aim for, and perhaps to surpass. This is a viewpoint I hope readers of Corrupt also share.

The story itself confirms what we already know about the Labour Party - a vile socialist party of self-obsessed apparatchiks that relies on the votes of parasites every general election, - what is more interesting here is the truly incisive reporting on show.

Gordon Brown was snubbed by badly injured Afghan veterans when they closed curtains round their beds during a hospital visit and refused to speak to him.

More than half the soldiers being treated at the Selly Oak hospital ward in Birmingham either asked for the curtains to be closed or deliberately avoided the prime minister, according to several of those present.

The soldiers, who have sustained some of the worst injuries seen in Afghanistan, described his visit as “opportunistic” and a “waste of time”.

Furious about equipment shortages and poor compensation for their injuries, one soldier said: “It is almost as if we are the product of an unwanted affair ... he has done nothing for us.”

...

“I met Prince Charles and Sir Richard Dannatt [when they visited Selly Oak]. I have respect for them. Prince Charles spoke to me for two hours. I really didn’t want to speak to Gordon Brown.”

Another soldier, who suffered severe injuries when caught in a mine explosion, left the hospital in an attempt to avoid Brown.

He was angry at the government’s attempt to cut compensation payouts for injured soldiers. He said: “I went outside for a fag but when I came back he was still there. Most of us said we wouldn’t like to see him so we drew our curtains and waited for him to go.

...

Another soldier, who lost his right leg after being caught in a mine blast in Afghanistan, said that more than two-thirds of the 25 soldiers on the ward closed their curtains. He, however, decided to speak to Brown.

“I wanted to find out how the guy’s head worked,” he said. “I was interested in what he had made of his trip to Afghanistan and what he had learnt from it.

“I feel that even if someone is a moron, he should have the opportunity to defend his moronity. [His response] all seemed rather textbook and not from the heart.

“It is quite obvious to anyone that Brown is not concerned, it is almost as if we [the soldiers] are the product of an unwanted affair.

“The straight fact is this: we don’t like the man, he has done nothing for us and continues to kick us in the teeth over equipment and compensation.”

Just a few choice cuts from the article, and congratulations to that soldier for calling the Prime Minister out on his moronity. But don't you wish a newspaper could make it simpler, and just tell us what this whole story means? Oh wait, they have! Look:

The concerns of the wounded soldiers appear to highlight a disconnection between front line troops in Afghanistan and Brown and his government.

Berlin, Germany - As Germany celebrated the twentieth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin wall, a free music concert staged by Irish rock-band U2 drew controversy as a section of the capital had to be walled in to separate the crowd from the rest of the city.

For those old enough to remember, the temporary barrier reignited memories of the panic surrounding the sudden erection of the old wall in August 1961.

One of those who were trapped said today: "I had just sat down, next to what looked like a makeshift bandstand. I turned around and suddenly I saw a huge barbed wire cordon going up. Some were trying to make it over to the other side. I turned back around and my worst nightmare was confirmed: U2 were performing and there was no way out."

As the concert continued, thousands could be seen inside the zone trying to escape by climbing the gates and throwing themselves against the razor wire fence.

Families were eventually reunited with teary-eyed loved ones who had managed to become stranded inside the restricted zone overnight.

"It was absolute hell," one man said, continuing: "we thought it couldn't get any worse, but then Jay-Z came on. This was advertised to us all as a free concert; a social paradise for everyone."

"But I guess you really do get what you pay for."

This morning, the Channel looked so warm and sparkling that I took my two little girls to the beach. As we walked home, a car came screeching to a halt in front of us, and a pair of men jumped out. Within seconds, they were in a vicious fight with a third man, who had scrambled out of another car.

What to do? Should I drag the children away from the fracas? Should I call for help? Should I intervene? And, if so, on whose side?

Conservative MEP Daniel Hannan, although a well honed orator and a politician of sincerity, is a bit of a weed. If he were to recognise that fact in a situation like this, it would be highly commended. Flight is almost always preferable to fight. Logic should always trump or incorporate the fear of ostensible cowardice.

Personally, I wouldn't ever risk an inch of my skin to intervene in a fight between parties of lowlifes, or if there is a reasonable chance they are both lowlifes. Nor would I bother standing up to most people nowadays over points of principle. My main priority is my survival rather than theirs, so what would I have to gain upon entering a scuffle, if that is indeed my goal? Even if it were to protect a shred of my honour, all it takes is a quick shadow and the flick of a knife to find out what cold concrete tastes like.

Obviously the scenario changes if one clearly recognises the worth of one fighting party over the other. Anyone who has read The Faerie Queene will understand the duty of chivalry we owe to fair maidens in distress. Although I tend to do without all of that chastity shit.

The quote goes something like (and I'm not going to look it up to make sure): "the idiotic talk about people, the average talk about events, the intelligent talk about ideas."

Well I've been noticing some idiot talk lately. Here are a few simple formulas, which you can use to good success in any social situation. Alex and Bhetti will be enacting the scenarios for us. On my first draft the dialogue was a little stilted and not very naturalistic, but I have since tried to make it as genuine as possible.

Technique #1

Alex Birch: "So I was watching TV the other day like I always do, did you happen watch programme X"?

Bhetti Ameen: "No I was praying at that time. What happened?"

Alex: "This guy or girl, N, said something or did something. Then this other guy or girl, P, said something or did something which created trivial tension to be reconciled by the end of the show. I will now explain to you my haphazardly formulated opinion on this unnecessarily witnessed altercation or occurrence, with your assent of course".

Bhetti: "Depending on whether or not your argument is socially inclusive, that does or does not totally make sense to me, but you seem cool so let's talk more about these television programmes."

Technique #2

Bhetti: "Wanna exchange quotes from our favourite films for half an hour"?

Alex: "Yes I do."

Technique #3

Alex: "I got drunk enough to do some stupid crap last night. Want to know more?

Bhetti: "Yes I do."

Please note down your own in the comments section, and if it's worth my time I will include them in a future post like this.

Negotiations between her Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and the smaller pro-business Free Democrats (FDP) opened in Berlin a day after voters gave the parties 332 seats, enough for a working majority, in the Bundestag.

Mrs Merkel pledged that the new cabinet would be in place before she greets foreign heads of government when Germany celebrates the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall on November 9.

Guido Westerwelle, the putative Foreign Minister and leader of the FDP, is pushing to deregulate the economy, cut spending and reduce taxes.

Stimulus packages, quantative easing, VAT and interest rates - all of these are useless and any link to a "recovery" is merely correlation. By the way I am slightly tipsy as I write this so if I appear incoherent I apologise.

The fact of the matter is this: people want to be rich. Modern people especially; we all love comfort. Of course we do. People will always seek riches and a better lifestyle for themselves, regardless of whatever the government at the time tries to legislate.

Which is why if you leave people alone, if you leave the economy alone, if you leave everything alone, we all tend to agree on making ourselves as wealthy as possible, in a lovely organic process which organises itself beautifully. In this marvellous way, things will tend to get better by themselves.

So Germany leads the way, again. Although hopefully not like it led the way against Poland in 1939.

Part I

I took the train from Kassel to Munich early one weekday morning. I slept at the station, and the night got particularly cold. However I did have a choice of where to sleep. Either I could have stayed at the front of the station on a flat and almost comfortable bench, but possibly find myself periodically molested by wandering tramps and other strange twilight vagrants, or I could have relaxed in perfect solitude along any of the train platforms, on benches that looked like they were designed for enthusiastic masochists. I chose the latter option.

Tired and cold and with a spine bent to the side a little bit I stumbled onto the train with my bulky backpack around my shoulders. On my way down the carriage I clumsily nudged anyone brave or ignorant enough not to remain far behind their armrests. I sat down in front a large, content-looking German lady, who greeted me, heard my imperfect attempt at the language, and I believe she started telling me about where she lives. I wasn't particularly conscious by that time, and I fell asleep as soon as she stopped, waking up to see a mercifully empty seat in front of me. The train station around Munich turned out to be incredibly claustrophobic, especially on a hot day with almost 20kg on your back. I met my friend and we left as soon as possible towards the south, towards Kochel am See; the name implying its position by a lake.

To earnestly detail the entirety of the hike would take far too much time and probably wouldn't be interesting. Basically, we travelled eastwards across mountains and forests from Kochel am See towards Lenggries, another town by a lake, then eastwards again to Tegernsee and Schliersee. It was all very beautiful. At this point, we took a train towards Königsee and spent the rest of our time walking around the area there. We had initially planned our route using Google Earth. This small detachment from reality meant that we hilariously overshot our actual possible accomplishment by around 300%. Whilst we were on the computer, we thought nothing about nonchalantly dragging a straight path directly over every stretch of mountains we found, giving no thought to what the reality on the ground would actually be like.

Hiking through remote parts of alpine Bavaria is simply soul purifying. When the sky isn't falling down, it is a serene mixture of physical exertion, clean blue skies, a largely unmolested natural environment, stunning vistas and an infrequent procession of amiable ramblers passing you by. The locals have dotted the mountains with these pretty wooden adaptations, fashioned from fallen tree trunks, that siphon off emerging water from springs and rivers in various playful ways. As well as being delightful to rest by, they also make it far more convenient to collect water for your bottle. The humble soundtrack of tinkering cowbells from every valley is a welcome sensation. However, if you've never attempted it before, don't convince yourself for a second that hiking isn't incredibly difficult work, despite this pleasant description. At the foot of your first ascent, a distance that looks like it's a mere stone's throw away will actually feel like thirty minutes of carrying a much, much larger stone on your back. Our first mountain ascent was characterised by three minutes or less of hard slogging for every ten minutes or more of recuperation.

Finding places to camp in the mountains is sometimes a problem. Owing to the inherent characteristics of mountains, i.e. their inclination to slope upwards, finding a suitable camping site can be rather difficult. On the rare occasion you do find level ground you will most likely be banging in your tent pegs next to a breezy one hundred metre drop, and attempting to tie your legs to the nearest fir tree. Trying to sleep on any appreciable slope can be a very unsettling experience, in the most lateral sense of the term. Imagine that it's late at night and you've been hiking since early in the morning. Your tent is up, your sleeping mat is rolled out, and then you lay down inside your sleeping bag, realising your exhaustion. After a few seconds you notice a slight willingness for the sleeping bag to inch towards the lower side of your tent, but you dismiss it as unimportant and go to sleep. After an hour of sleep you calmly wake up. Mildly astonished, you perceive that your head must now facing the other way, your knees have come to rest just above your chin, and your hands are helplessly locked in a contortion behind your back, having unconsciously turned 180 degrees during a gradual and unsettling descent towards the bottom corner of your tent. Despite all preventative measures, this exact process will happen several times further during the night.

It is much more preferable to find shelter at an alpine hut instead. A mixture of youth hostel and pub, these wooden structures are placed in the more remote regions of the Alps along the longer hiking routes, to allow the more serious walkers time to travel much deeper and higher into the mountains without having to brace the capricious nightly environment. To stay the night is quite cheap and you sleep on simply designed bunks that you share with other hikers. The bar offers wholesome food and frothy local beer, both of which are much appreciated after a long hike. The local Bavarian community forms around these huts, with the atmosphere inside being superbly warm, in stark contrast to the dark and cold air outside. I stayed twice in two of these dwellings, and the first time I recognised the faces of half a dozen other ramblers who reached the place before me, having seen them on various stages of the mountain beforehand. We had some local beer, and a man played German folk music on his guitar whilst his wife kept in harmony with the lyrics. The second time we slept in a hut my friend and I played chess as a storm raged outside. This close to the scene of the lightning, every time the lightning struck it was like a bomb had been let off. I finished the night with a shot of local spirits, which immediately took me several hundred metres higher up the mountain.

After this second night in a hut we were near the end of our journey. I was initially intending to carry on walking past the hut, towards a more difficult stretch of path that led steeply down the mountain towards the St. Bartholomew church by Königsee. My less confident friend would walk back towards the town. However I had been informed by a Bavarian at a different hut that a lady had fallen and died the day before whilst trying to negotiate the tricky passage, and infrequent crosses inscribed with memorials to dead loved ones confirm the deadly capability of the mountains. He went on to mention that with care there is no need to be worried on the route, but with the skies overcast and the ground still wet from the night before, I decided not to attempt it with the burden on my back, and turned to take the easier path back down towards the north.

When you're down from the mountains, there are many interesting things to tell about civilised Germany too. Like the time I sat down on a bench in Lenggries and came to realise that I was sitting next to a spitting image of Michael Schumacher, who was eating a bread roll at the time. The youth hostels in Germany are actually used by young people in the community as a centre of recreation, but this is quite annoying if you want a place to sleep the night instead of having to pitch your tent in what will come to be an apparently very irritated farmer's field in the morning. I once walked past a school that looked like a concentration camp.

After an extreme night of weather in the mountains, at the heart of which we had pitched our tents, we descended cold and wet towards the town and rented a place at a camping site until the next day. This was where I realised my tent had completely given up the ghost, and for it to cope with just one more meek evening shower was evidently far too much to ask. The roof started to unload drops of water with increasing frequency, and the wonky door proved itself as a highly efficient water chute, the end of which disappointingly sent most of the water inside. I erected an intricate system of water bottles and other camping paraphernalia to correct the canopy into dropping the water harmlessly onto the ground outside, but a brief bluster of wind scattered the instruments and forced me to gather up my possessions like a madman for an undignified rush into my friends tent.

Despite my several mishaps, the overwhelming impression of my time in Bavaria has been that the Bavarians are simply a brilliant people. The rest of Germany has infamously mixed opinions on the area, many being none to keen on the folk. But my blessed experiences with almost every individual I met there have been deeply treasured. An elderly couple on a short hike who, on our first day, noticed we were hopelessly lost without a map, so they gave us theirs and drove us all the way back to our starting point. A man who walked out of his way to take us to the train station, and then patiently showed us a method to purchase cheaper train tickets. A young hiker, stranded on a rainy night at the same train station as us, who gave us a helpful sum of his experience before the storm ended and parted from us with a gift. I'd already forgotten many of the other kind souls even before I returned home, but had I the capacity, I could give an endless and endlessly grateful account of people who offered favours beyond their mere justification, or heard my fractured German requests for directions and were only too pleased to help. Bavaria, along with Austria, has become my favourite European retreat; it's an extraordinary land.

Kabul, Afghanistan - The death of Patrick Swayze raises questions over whether democracy could ever take root in the Middle East as millions of Afghans descend into mourning for the late American actor.

Swayze was beloved by millions in Afghanistan, following movie smash-hits such as Red Dawn and Dirty Dancing.

Red Dawn in particular resonated with audiences in the war-torn nation, with its depiction of armed civilian resistance during a fictional Soviet invasion of the USA, at a time when the USSR was still involved in a bitter guerrilla war against the Afghan militia.

But after Swayze's death to pancreatic cancer, many citizens are calling into question the very justification for democracy.

"Swayze gave me hope, he gave us all hope in the eighties. Red Dawn was a masterpiece. Now the man is dead, and democracy didn't save him, so what could democracy ever change for us here?" said Muhammad Talmud, a local shopkeeper.

Avid Bummar, the town's blacksmith, was also dismayed: "I've voted every time so far, but probably won't the next time round. I heard they are doing a remake of Red Dawn, but I don't think it will be as good without Patrick Swayze in it."

The head of the Electoral Complaints Commission, a U.N.-backed body charged with investigating allegations of fraud, expressed confusion over Afghanistan's rather odd reaction to Patrick Swayze's death.

"I have absolutely no idea why so many Afghans are conflating the death of an American actor with any failure of democracy," commission chairman Grant Kippen said. "This is very puzzling."

Part II

Last week I returned from Germany, having spent a total of three weeks there either hiking or staying with friends. I thought I may as well attempt to interest readers with an account of my journey and some of my observations of the land and its people.

My first week was spent around the border between Hessen and Lower Saxony, which is pretty much in the middle of Germany. I had a few nights at a friend's house in the city of Kassel, before having to move on to get some hiking practice. The region in and around Kassel is heavily associated with the Grimm Brothers; it is there where they grew up together and collected many of their fairy tales, and they would have doubtless gained literary inspiration from their natural surroundings.

Unfortunately you won't at all mind forgetting about Kassel. I've read some of the Grimm fairy tales in the original German, and not at any time did I imagine them taking place inside a budget supermarket or in-between a block of flats inhabited mostly by middle eastern engineering students. You can take a walk anywhere around the town and feel like all you've been doing is negotiating the arcades of a shopping mall. The centrepiece of the town - a simple circle of fountains surrounding an open space - is disappointingly arbitrary, as if a unimaginative ten year old had designed it on Sim City. The only grand-looking area of the city is positioned into irrelevance, perched as it is awkwardly onto the side of the main thoroughfare. The city is not unfriendly, nor especially ugly - it just lacks character.

The city would not be memorable at all were it not for the Bergpark Wilhelmshöhe; Kassel's saving grace and a marvellous showcase of park design where sweeping paths work their way up a small mountain, beginning from a castle on the western edge of the city. The beauty lies in its ability to charmingly lead you from side to side up the slope of the mountain; entering the dense woodland on either flank ambushes your sense of direction before you must turn once again to approach the central garden space from a different angle and a higher elevation. In this way, every crossing of the park offers a new and unexpected revelation of the same landscape below. Secluded pathways, lakes, boulders, rivers and ruins also help provide a sense of childlike adventure on your way up towards the top. A statue of Hercules stands on the very peak, which unfortunately was obscured by repairs at the time of my visit. I chose not to venture back down the way I came after noticing a footpath to the side that pursued an enchanting return route through the adjacent forest.

My next few days were spent around the town of Hannoversch Münden. To walk there from Kassel takes almost a day, but the scenery is pleasant, and the frequent cyclists often give greetings or encouragement. My favourite was a cheerful “gut gewandert!” which would mean something like “well hiked!” in English. Hannoversch Münden is actually somewhat of a hidden gem, a venerable looking town nestled between two stretches of forest in Lower Saxony. At its heart lies an old church around which the local community is focused, and if you head towards the forest in the north you may possibly get to see people mincing around in camp medieval costume due to the fairy tale tradition in the area. I came across one of these surreal parades after having spent several hours walking around in a circle and asking lonely lumberjacks how to get the hell out of there. After that I decided to sit down for a while.

I took a train to the nearby town of Göttingen one day, but didn’t really get much of a chance to see it. The main thing I noticed is that the place is literally full of attractive women. And they all seem to ride bicycles. Either that is a very generous government-sponsored initiative for the benefit of everyone else in the town, or the local cycle dealer has some rather perverse special offers.

Politics is serious business in central Germany. In these sort of towns there is about a 150% chance of seeing an anti-fascism sticker on any given rubbish bin. This means that there will be one relatively new sticker still intact and another, much older sticker that looks as if it has been half scraped away by an outraged neo-Nazi who happened to pass by. I also saw one young boy whose contradicting slogans on his punk attire made him look as if he was hilariously proclaiming his maverick allegiance to the centre-right ground of mainstream politics. “Troops out of Afghanistan! But only after we hand over policing and military control to a peaceful and democratically elected government!”

To end this first part of my adventure, I will mention that it’s nearly election time in Germany, the main clue being the posters up all over the place reminding you what party is prejudiced against whom. The most interesting thing I noticed is that the would-be class warrior has much more choice in Germany than they do here in the UK, as you can see:

Social Democratic Party - “We’ll tax the rich!”
The Left - “We’ll really tax the rich!”
The Marxist-Leninist Party of Germany - “We’ll fucking kill them!”

If you care for more, it’s all about Bavaria in my next piece.

I love going to Germany and Austria. Over the years I must have purchased an uncountable number of idiosyncratic beers from local pubs, beer gardens and clubs, and as is the natural way with these murky adventures, I have forgot them all. However there is one German beer I do not yet forget: Krombacher.

As we're now on the second paragraph it's time to warn you that I'm as bad at reviewing beer as I am at soup. To add to this, the last time I tasted Krombacher was last summer and I wasn't really paying attention anyway. As I cannot describe the beer directly, I may simply have to recount my vague experience of the product. The alcoholic context, if you will; an imperfect attempt to judge the cause from its effects. Isn't this the most relevant route to judging a beer's success anyway?

Two crates that lasted about a month, along with several bottles of spirits including Gin and Sambuca. We would drink from our supplies before going out into the night. The first time I tasted Krombacher, what hit me is how so much more fulfilling, and noticeably less harsh it is than the popular brands I'd had in England before. A thick, soft taste - I think. This is a beer that is happy to relax around in your mouth, rather than immediately kick your tongue in the nutsack. It also pairs quite well with spirits, if that's how you like to drink.

The nights themselves were amazing, which is as much a reflection of German lifestyle planning and Gemütlichkeit as the beer. I don't think I ever woke up with a despondent hangover following the Krombacher/Sambuca/Gin combo.

I can recommend this beer, in fact I will hopefully be drinking it tomorrow. If you don't trust my judgement, then just know that it's a very popular beer in Germany; that alone should be qualification enough for it be investigated by beer nerds.

A series of allegations including murder, weapons smuggling and the deliberate slaughter of civilians have been levelled against the founder of Blackwater, the security company being investigated for shooting deaths in Iraq.

...

The separate 72-page motion, which cites the affidavits, also accused Blackwater guards of boasting of kills, taking mind-altering drugs, steroids and using child prostitutes.

Sorry, world. Back in the old days we Europeans did pillaging a lot better. Our ancient and closely-knit tribes, including but not limited to the Saxons, Angles, Jutes, Greeks, Celts, Norsemen and Goths would perpetually hone their battle skills by invading their cousins down the road if they were bored, or when it was chilly outside.

Whenever such a skirmish occurred, heroic men with gleaming swords and shields would frighten the local population into a frenzy, indiscriminately tearing up the place beneath the blazing sun. No artillery strikes, no air support, no peace-keeping, no aid missions, just rushing into some faraway land to kill, steal, burn, vandalise and rape, possibly justifying it all with a religion. Then they'd hop into their boats and be back to the hut in time for mead and feasting, perhaps with a bard telling them about how awesome they all were for going out raping all day.

In the midst of this our crusading skills would become ever more adept, and our tenacity ever greater, until the best cultures of Europe turned it into an art form. At this point we quickly got bored of killing each other, so we banded together and started killing foreign people instead. Not only did this turn out to be really easy, but it was also a lot more entertaining. Almost every nation of Europe had its own empire at some point, or at least participated in a few of the Crusades. Even the French! It was also around this time that we stopped raping people after we conquered them; Europe had become politically correct at last.

Back then, money didn't make the world go around; Europeans went around and made the world.

Fast forward to the very end of western civilisation and the only crusaders we have left are a bunch of vulgar, white-trash kiddie-fiddlers, who in any respectable epoch would be impotent soil-dwelling serfs.

I just hope the civilisation that replaces us can deal with these kinds of fools.