Not only are mothers here reduced to cultural stereotypes whenever it is suggested that they might be interested in things like cookbooks, vacuum cleaners, sewing machines and irons, fathers in these parts are not treated any better.
The German Father’s Day stereotype (Father’s Day is today, incidentally) consists of fathers and other so-called “men” celebrating it by turning it into a drunken orgy of day-drinking debauchery in which mindless Herrenparties (gentlemen party groups) pull their ridiculously decorated Bollerwagen (handcarts) filled with booze and food but mostly booze through the countryside or greener urban landscape. It’s scandalous. To assume that all men are interested in that kind of nonsense, I mean.
I’d like to address this subject in a little more detail but I have to go help my neighbor load up our Bollerwagen. It’s getting on noon and we haven’t had a drink yet.
Lidl Germany has come under fire for suggesting people buy their mums cookbooks, vacuum cleaners, sewing machines and irons for Mother’s Day.
The expansion of German discount chain Lidl into US-Amerika is turning out to be less successful than hoped, to put it mildly. Sales are disappointing and the two billion euros planned to cover investment and start-up losses will not be enough. Management apparently chose too many wrong locations and built stores that were much too big. Instead of the 100 stores planned for last year only 47 actually opened.
This puzzles me a bit. You can’t walk a quorter of a mile in Germany without running into one of these places. And when I read how Lidl prices in the US seem to be just as low or lower than they are here, how could they possibly fail? Well, if they do, there’s still Aldi, right?
Die extrem jungen Expansionsteams haben in Amerika oftmals falsche Standorte ausgewählt. Zudem wurden zu große und zu teure Märkte gebaut. Die Umsätze sind enttäuschend. Die ursprünglich kalkulierten zwei Milliarden Euro für Investitionen und Anlaufverluste werden nach Informationen vom manager magazin nicht ausreichen.
And a lot of customers are cross at the big German discounter Lidl these days for doing just that: Airbrushing out crosses on their products. It’s like Lidl crossed a red line here or something. And now they’re caught in the crossfire. I guess you could say they forgot to dot their i’s and cross their t’s.
First it was a number of Greek products last month and now its Italy’s turn. And why is Lidl doing this? Apparently “to observe religious and political neutrality.” They promised to stop doing this after last month’s airbrushing incident, however. I guess they forgot to cross their heart and hope to die.
Well I, for one, certainly want my moussaka to remain religiously and politically neutral but maybe this is taking it just a wee bit too far.
Damals erklärte Lidl, dass ein derartiger Eingriff dazu diene, die religiöse und politische Neutralität einzuhalten. Nun fehlen auf Lidl-Werbefotos in Italien erneut die Kirchenkreuze.
Observing Hermann 