Tales from Germany

The World Athletic Championships in Berlin which ended last night should have been a moment of triumph for South African athletes, giving their best performance since returning to the international stage in 1991. Yet bigotry and nastiness of the highest order marred it for those athletes who have spent days and hours to prepare. Sitting in Germany this week, I was getting thoroughly sick of the narrow-mindedness of so many. A lot have been written about Carsten Semenya but I would like to add my few thoughts. She looks like a man her accusers say: I worked as sports stringer for Reuters and SID (Sports Informationsdienst) in the early 1990’s in South Africa. The then long distance star of the day, Elana Meyer also had no breasts, a boyish figure and boyish facial features. She did however have a domineering husband who acted as her manager, which I suppose acted as an alibi. Today she has remarried and has a baby. Maria Mutola, the 800 metre Mozambican star was also not that feminine...

The annual Olewig Wine Festival in Trier, Germany's oldest town is ending tonight. Once again we celebrated at Weingut Deutschherrenhof. Where else? Good music, good wine, good food. Ate lovely vegetarian Flammkueche. This is what I wrote in my book about it. On the left vineyards of Olewig. Annual Olewig Wine Festival: “In the last few years we have preferred to sit in the garden of the wine estate Deutschherrenhof, belonging to the family Schieben-Oberbillig. The wines are excellent, the cuisine good and the music is normally to our taste. The problem with German wines is that they are so completely confusing. In South Africa my favourite wine for many years was a Boschendal Blanc de Blanc or for special occasions a Backsberg Chardonnay. With the French Huguenots bringing the wine culture to South Africa, I have no problem choosing a good French wine. But German wines, even after thirteen years of living in a wine growing area, giv...