JINGOISM

Ianit’s Blip yesterday titled “Xenophobia” was on my mind as I drove out the gate to the road. Left and I could have at least a Bavarian and a German Flag in the can within 700 metres, from outside the local joinery.

Or I took up the challenge and turned right, 6 kilometres to Ottobeuren, right through the town and out the other side to the nearby Observatory and then after a no doubt lovely walk with the dogs, drive back through the town on different streets and past more shops and businesses. I was prepared to count up to perhaps the limit of my computing skills – 10.

I drove right and ended up scoring zero and not because I feared taking my fingers off the steering wheel. Not a single national/state flag seen anywhere. I was actually a bit surprised myself but perhaps now that the tourist season is slowing and we have had the “sorrow” week around All Saints/All Souls, people are a bit sombre and reflective.

Last night on a Bavarian TV news & current review programme the Catalan, Brexit etc independence movements were mentioned, as the issue has for decades always been simmering on low heat for Bavaria. Apparently now it is at 30% thumbs up level. Bavaria probably could very well make a good case for independence being the strongest financially,  a long stable regional government which is uniquely in the entire country, being also in the national parliament and indeed provides several of the ministers for the conservative coalition national government. It also has it's own MEPs in Brussels.
 
It was though nice to hear the reaction of most Munich passers-by: The idea is great, the reality would be a disaster.
As the locals say: "Mia reicht, das i woas, das i kannt, wenn i mecht"   or “it’s enough for me to know I could if I wanted to”.
 
With that I went in to the up market supermarket and encountered the Blip – It was almost the only national symbol seen anywhere. On the circular stand to the very left, there are house slipper-socks with a Norwegian flag which I happened to see because I tried pushing the mobile display out of the way to get the Blip! I am sure if I had picked up or turned over other items I could have found the odd little flag. The slipper socks had no indication whatsoever that they had anything to do with Norway and on the left two thirds of the Tchibo stand, I couldn’t find a single item that had anything whatsoever to do with the UK.
 
However I then spotted the mistake. Tchibo is a coffee import & roasting family empire that made its march in to German post war households, much like todays internet stars, via mail order and then branching out in to retail stores and franchising or renting stands in supermarkets and offering non-coffee goods with cheap but slightly better quality, such as household gadgets, crockery and clothing.
 
I suspect the employees had put up the Union Jack on the socialist left side of the display instead of the Brexit fascist Ukip right side. And how do I know this? On the right is the real core business of Tchibo, coffee and they have clearly made a deal with the UK’s Agriculture Minister Mr Gove to have the sole EU rights to sell the 2017 harvest from yet secret, newly developed British grown coffee plantations. I personally suspect they are incorporated in the new Atomic Reactors the Chinese are knocking up in Somerset.

They clearly can’t fully admit the secret until Mr Barnier and Mr Davis have successfully finished their negotiations. In the meantime my Countrymen DIG FOR BRITAIN. I'm relying on you to pay my pension for years decades to come.

And ianit, don’t expect London to give you a cut of the ENGLISH coffee cake nor for them to enter in to a Fair Trade deal with you. You lot up there can keep your foreign brew.