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Frank Reed wrote:

"What do Germany, Austria, and Bosnia have in common that distinguishes them from the rest of western Europe?"

A curious sense of privacy.

In the US, for example, flaunting your naked body in public would draw a reaction of shock and outrage, and you would probably be arrested on a charge of pubic indecency or some such. In Germany, Freikörperkultur (Free Body Culture) is a big thing and there are beaches and city parks where peeling off is quite the thing.

But Germans are shocked at the way Americans, Brits and others are ready to share their personal data - to the extent that whereas in the the UK or Holland for example, you could go for months without using cash for small transactions, in Germany you would not last a day!

I should be in Germany right now, attending a trade fair, but Covid-19 put the kybosh on that. If this gets much worse the only way we will get to see the world outside our own country is by a virtual tour using Google Earth or Google Maps.

Geoffrey Kolbe