Saturday, July 26, 2008

Schlaflos in Muenchen - podcast review

My native language is Dutch. On a daily basis I constantly switch between my native tongue and English and Hebrew and somehow, I manage not to get them awfully mixed up, although it is a delicate balancing act. I used to be fluent in German, but for lack of use, I do not speak or write it any more and whenever I try, my balancing act with the three other languages get disturbed. I am a three ball juggler. Ask me to juggle four and all of the balls end up on the floor.

My passive mastery of German has remained the same though and this means that for listening to podcasts, German podcasts come in Frage. Occasionally I go for a news or sports podcast in German, if the content is somehow unique and cannot be had otherwise, but nothing serious enough for this blog. I did however, very much want to at least get acquainted with the legendary, much referred to on The Word Nerds, German podcast Schlaflos in München. This podcast deserves a review and consistent with my principle to blog in the podcast's language, I should review Schlaflos in German. But I do not want to make a fool of myself and end up with four balls on the floor and egg on my face. So I chicken out to English. Tut mir Leid.

Schlaflos in München is a witty, paced and entertaining audio blog by host Annick Rubens, a thirty something inhabitant of Munich who makes podcast at night when she cannot sleep, oder so heisst es. In the last episode the major subjects on the show are a book review and an interview, but other than that, she also treats the listeners with a staccato banter and attention to the listening community consisting of answering voice mails. Annick is sharp and funny and that is the major quality of the show. Her qualities as an interviewer were a tad less. Her conversation with a weathered Twitter user, was easy to follow for me, because I know and use Twitter, otherwise I would have been at a loss. Even if the guest says that Twitter cannot be explained and must be experienced, one can still venture into some more description, I guess.

In any case, SiM is a podcast I am going to give an occasional listen to.



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