Category: Funny Side of Life

The trend toward exercise and wellness continues unabated – and I think it’s highly commendable. The saying “Sitting is the new smoking” fits this trend well – and is leading more and more companies to encourage their staff to do fitness and wellness exercises during working hours. There are numerous instructional videos on LinkedIn and YouTube, and at my company, one colleague took it upon herself to regularly provide us with new exercises “for in between.”

Continue reading “Fitness in the office”

When I was working in Laos as a voluntary teacher with the British Voluntary Service Overseas (similar to the US Peace Corps), I had the bright idea of treating a number of friends to a British Christmas dinner. I lived in a town on the Mekong, miles away from the nearest Sainsbury’s, so I pondered how to source my ingredients. Fortunately, the British Embassy was a mere few hundred miles away where occasional treats like Chivas Regal for next to nothing (duty free) were available.

Continue reading “Baking in the tropics”

A culinary imposter

In the Netherlands, every lunchroom, every bakery that sells filled rolls and every café has “broodje gezond” –  a so-called healthy roll – on the menu. I was initially very impressed, because it is not a matter of course to be offered a healthy alternative competing with less nutritious treats. I don’t want to tangle with all the bread-roll shop owners in the country and immediately commend all those whose “healthy rolls” really are healthy. But in my experience, they are a very small minority.

Continue reading “A roll called heathy”

Dear Harlequin fans, I confess, over the summer I neglected my educational mission and did not publish any “stories that life writes” for our blog. This will change again instantly, laughter provoked by bizarre stories helps best to banish winter blues and pandemical tin-foil theories.

The German title of this article is based on the Stern magazine column “News from Kalau”, which specializes in excruciating puns; no doubt the cartoonist would also think of a suitable cartoon for the following story. In short, the following story is about foreigners in strange places, weird streets and an irritable taxi driver.

Continue reading “Scilly Taxi Tale”

… more little white balls get lost.

… is boring! Sex in the garden is much more interesting! And on holiday you finally have time to be a voyeur there.

A little love, wine as much as you can take, and good friends: who needs more in life to be happy?

Opening times:
Tues.-Fri. 11:30-11:30 & 17 – 22.00
Sat. 12 – 22.00
Sun. 12 – 14:30 & 17 – 21.00

On Mondays we let friends be friends…

and eat sandwiches.

… cannot be escaped in Tallinn, the capital of Estonia. Only the “Kiek in de Kök” comes from Low German – in the Middle Ages the name for “high tower”. From there you could look into your neighbours‘ kitchens!

they have their say on Fridays as usual, but with very short contributions! We’re on holiday – at home or elsewhere – and looking for inspiration for new topics.

We wish you all a wonderful summer!

Your Harlequin Team

When harlequins go on holiday…

… they can be lazy – and delegate the yoga lesson to the frogs in the garden. Then they let their foreheads go all soft!

My barbecuing experiences in the Netherlands

In previous posts I have dealt several times with the culinary differences between Germany and the Netherlands – and they also exist in the case of the greatest of all summer pleasures, barbecuing. However, the differences are not so much culinary, but rather ideological. The Dutch are a people of flat hierarchies, they can’t stand it when one person has a greater say than anyone else. This is true in politics as well as in daily life, and I suspect that the royal family is also so popular because their representatives de facto have quite little to say.

Continue reading “Anarchist summer delights with charcoal”