Britain through the eyes of a German

In a new book by a German journalist, Britain is portrayed as a country of many eccentricities, weak showers and an unreasonable fear of Europe

It is a land of warm beer, cricket and unrestricted capitalism -- and a place where people take the monarchy dreadfully seriously.

There are plenty of eccentrics in this strange country, but no extremists. It is also a place where the showers don't work properly.

We are talking, of course, about Britain. Not Britain as seen by the British, but viewed through the eyes of a German foreign correspondent, Christian Schubert, whose book, Great Britain -- Island Between the Worlds, is published this week in Germany.

Schubert, an award-winning journalist for the leading German paper the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, has made a valiant attempt to explain Britain to a baffled German public.

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/archives/2003/10/31/2003074053