Drive on left

I get annoyed when conductors hold up two or four fingers as they start beating a passage to let me know whether they’re beating the time in halves or quarters. If you conduct clearly it’s obvious. If you don’t then by the time I see your fingers and process what it means I’ve probably gone double or half speed already. It reminds me of the road signs in Dover (a port in south-east England): for about a mile after you drive off the ferry they are telling you, in four languages, to ‘Drive on left’. How many accidents do they reckon this saves? If you haven’t figured this out by the time you’ve driven a mile, it’s probably a bit late, no?

What's so scary about big heavy books?

Why is it that we feel daunted by the prospect of starting a really long book? We know it will take a long time to finish it, but why does this matter? Surely we don't read for the sake of the sense of achievement at finishing something, we read for the pleasure we get doing it. And most of the time, the more you get into a book the more pleasure you get; it's the first 50 pages that are often the hardest going. So if anything it takes less effort to read one 800-page novel than four of 200 pages each. Yet somehow, in front of the bookshelf, we feel scared of the commitment.

Lost in translation

Why do so many expats have two greeting messages, in their native and adopted languages, when you ring them and get their voicemail? Do they worry that people who don't know what 'please leave a message' is in German won't know what to do?

Why is a thermos flask like the DRS?

I used to get in a terrible stress in the morning if something distracted me at breakfast time and I had to rush out of the house without having had time to drink my tea in peace. Having to start my day without a cup of tea was always sure to put me in a bad mood, convinced that no good could come of the day.

This has all changed since I acquired a thermos flask. No more outpourings of grief; I simply decant from mug to flask in one smooth movement and sip contentedly in the U-Bahn.

The key difference this makes is not so much about the tea itself, of course. It is that is removes an obsessive mental block that made me believe I wasn’t able to start the day without my tea. I mean, I do still believe this – this is therapy, not cure – but I no longer have the rush-inflicted bad mood, nor the excuse that if anything goes wrong with the day, it was scarcely to be imagined it could have turned out much better in such inauspicious circumstances.

Mulling this over as I sat in my rehearsal, filled with the kind of ruminative insight that only sharp tannins and caffeine can inspire, it reminded me of something I’d been thinking about the video review systems that have come into cricket, tennis and other sports in recent years. It isn’t really that getting a couple more decisions right is that crucial to the outcome or fairness of the game. Think back to Frank Lampard’s goal that never was against Germany in the 2010 World Cup. I was furious at the time, but did England actually play better, deserve to win and only lose because of that moment? Hardly. Somehow it always feels like with one more decision going your way everything could have been different – it would have given the team new confidence, they could have turned things around... All possible. But most games are won by the better side.

No, what makes a bad decision hurt is that from the moment it happens, the players on the receiving end of it are cursed with the belief that it isn’t all their fault. Believing you’re being unfairly treated is much more demoralising than knowing you need to do better. If you’re playing badly and something goes against you then you start to question whether it’s even worth the effort to play better – why take wickets if they’re going to be disallowed anyway? And all the energy you should be focusing on improving your performance is wasted on resentment. This energy is what is freed up by decision review systems.

It’s a bit like how you can look for your keys in a drawer for ten minutes and not find them if you believe your housemate may have moved them, but if he tells you he hasn’t touched them and he just saw them in the drawer earlier you find them in ten seconds. Having a scapegoat for your misfortunes is the biggest impediment to performing at your peak.

German secrecy: information and entitlement

One of the most frequent cuases of frustration in Germany is the unavailability of basic and critical information. Street names are a closely guarded secret. They are occasionally indicated at quiet junctions between residential streets, provided neither street is wide enough for any vehicle wider than a bicycle. At roundabouts and crossroads they are strictly prohibited, presumably to avoid the risk that a confused driver would inconvenience other road users by slowing down to try to read one. This is always necessary in the rare cases where a sign does exist, because the writing on them is far too small to be read by anyone moving faster than a pedestrian with time on his hands. They are also cleverly angled away from the road so as to minimise the area from which the sign can be read.

Similar trials await anyone hoping to unlock the secrets of the U-Bahn (subway). The generous amounts of public money collected from our salaries will run to one sign per platform, which is not lit at night on outdoor platforms and is carefully positioned so that with the right training your driver can stop the train with the sign exactly at the join between carriages, avoiding any excessive risk that passengers will get close enough to the sign to use it up. This is an important German concept that is sometimes difficult for foreigners to grasp. A landlady of mine once tried to add a clause to our contract saying I would compensate her for using up her chairs. 'But I won't be doing anything to them,' I said, convinced I had misunderstood, 'just sitting on them from time to time.' 'That's how they get used up!' she retorted. It is a given that all objects get 'ausgebraucht' and I am sure it is the fear of this that makes the authorities so fearful of allowing their signs to be read too often.

I could go on and explain the electronic signs on the trains that are supposed to get round the problem described above by displaying the name of the next stop for precisely four seconds after you pull out of the previous station before they revert to showing the terminus station, or the motorway junctions that studiously avoid all mention of direction for fear of confusing anyone without a compass and instead help you orientate yourself by offering two alternative directions based on towns at least 150km away which you have never heard of and are not going anywhere near. But I think you begin to get the idea.

The interesting thing about all of this is that nobody complains. Apart from a few expats who huddle together in dark corners to reminisce wistfully about well-signed public transit, the theme is entirely undiscussed. Why is this?

I think it has to do with the fundamentally different attitude towards customer service. My point of comparison is the UK, where it is more or less routine to treat everything a customer says as not only correct but kind of inspired. Walk into a stationer's shop and ask if they sell organic radicchio and the answer will probably be 'I'm afraid not, there's a greengrocer's three doors up, maybe try there?', said with a sort of awkward mea culpa smile. In Germany, on the other hand, you walk into a stationer's shop and ask for the wrong kind of ink cartridges and the assisant looks at you as if you've said something off-key about her mother. This kind of contempt is rarely expressed vocally; it's not worth using up the air. Any question that can be truthfully answered with a monosyllabic 'Nein' will be; elaborations concerning the likelihood of fresh stock next week, the presence of alternative vendors in the area or general regret at not having been able to help you solve your problem are not to be expected. It is important to note that no German would regard any of this as rude. I did once express my frustration at this unwillingness to go beyond the call of duty and volunteer information to a German friend; she looked at me with incomprehension and asked if I'd asked for more information than I'd got. Well, no, I replied lamely, they didn't seem to really want to help, I didn't want to bother them any further, so I thought I'd better just keep trying... Still less can German friends comprehend the train platform problem. 'Just ask someone!', they exclaim. Well, yes, of course one can do that, one does if one has to, but it's hard for people to understand the gulf of desirability for an Englishman in being able to find information without having to initiate contact with a stranger and having to bother someone to get it.

What it makes me realise, though, is that there is a certain sense of entitlement in British culture. I think this is a phenomenon in other parts of the Anglophone world as well. We largely believe that if there is information we need, it must be someone's job to provide it. Go near the Tate Britain in London and the signs to whatever exhibition is currently on begin two miles away. Once you get within 400 metres you'll see a row of 20 enormous flags advertising it so you know you've arrived, and on every side of the building there will be signs directing you to the entrance. Nobody thinks any of this is strange. Trying to find an exhibition at a similar establishment in Germany is a quite different experience. There will be a transparent board in the window, like the menu outside a restaurant, and inside that will be an A4 sheet advertising the exhibition. You won't see this unless you've already found it, of course, but if you ask anyone directions they'll cheerfully wave in the general direction and assure you that there's a sign outside, you can't miss it.

Despite the way all this sounds, I don't really mean this in the tradition of the diplomat sent to the colonies to observe the behaviour of the natives and send back reports of their primitive ways. No doubt Germans in the UK find the onslaught of unrequested information patronising and bothersome - and Germans observing the reticence of British expats when it comes to asking for information they need must find us hilarious. A sense of entitlement is actually not a very good thing at all and it's a cultural difference that runs much deeper than the daily frustrations of the subway system. Believing it's someone else's responsibility to solve your problems makes you a lot less likely to solve them. I just wish I didn't keep getting off the train at the wrong stop.