German TV icon dies

R.I.P. Horst Tappert, bourgeois Germany's longstanding televisual incarnation of law and order.


Yes, this is what us Germans associate with the term "sleuth." This is our Karl Malden, solving his cases in the smutty streets of ... upper-middle-class Munich. Despite (or because of?) the series' rather Chabrolian take on the nature and context of crime, the whole world was intrigued by Derrick, the cop show whose title role Tappert played for 24 years until 1998. The show - dubbed and/or subtitled - was exported to 100-odd countries. In Italy, according to Fritz Wepper, the actor who played his sidekick, Tappert was the second most important person after the Pope (video evidence here and here).

Derrick's tag line, directed at his assistant, is better known in Germany than "Ein Gespenst geht um in Europa" or "Hier stehe ich, ich kann nicht anders": "Harry, go get the car" ("Harry, hol' schon mal den Wagen").

We shall miss this unassuming but culturally significant man.

Sunday reading matter

I have too much to do right now to find the time for serious blogging, so a few links to news items that caught my eye as I was scanning the web will have to do.

1) German public TV-channel ARD messes up the German flag in a spectacular way (just out of stupidity or by way of retaliating for a recent Swiss blunder, I wonder? This might be another case of "young colleagues" at work ....).

2) A Dutch insurer pays its insured members sickness-related trips to the shrine of her holy whatsit? at Lourdes.

3) Most Britons doubt the sources and significance of climate change.

4) In a controversial interview with Corriere della Sera, Ian McEwan voices his critique and fear of Islamism.

Considering the bloody battles currently being waged at other sites, all this may indeed appear trivial. But then we are in birthday mood over here at OD, today, and too concerned with licking the wounds of old age. And celebrating, of course.

And, no, it ain’t my birthday ….