This entry has nothing to do with cycling, but after spending my day off cycling today with following the coverage of the Japanese earthquake and the tsunami, I have to write something. Dear German journalists that cover the catastrophe, I am embarrassed about you. I am proud to reside in the UK, in a country that drinks too much, has bad food and sometimes no manners, but has the BBC, the Guardian and most of all, they have respect for the victims of natural disasters. In the wake of the massive disaster all you, German journalists, have to do is to sit in your save newsrooms that will, let’s be realistic here, never be struck by earthquakes, neither will they ever be swept away by any tsunamis, unlike your colleagues in Japan and New Zealand.  But all you are interested in is to report the worst possible outcome for the Japanese with a nuclear meltdown, a second Chernobyl. It seemed to have happened already this afternoon, but unfortunately it hasn’t been confirmed yet, but at least you can report on the first contaminated victims and proud yourself with the future of nuclear energy on the front cover. The quake has made thousands of people homeless, probably killed thousands of innocent people, and all you can think about is to best utilize a natural disaster to best kick off a debate about nuclear energy. And some of you, caring German people that are much faster than any nation in the world to come up with human chains to pity yourself that you still live next to a nuclear power station, you are a selfish mess. And to make things even better, your foreign minister pledges all of you pity Germans in Japan to come home. They possibly won’t!

To make things clear, I do not like any nuclear power, I am strictly against it. I ride my bike wherever I can, I use public transport and I tend to spent my holidays in the countries I reside. I hate the Japanese killing of whales, I do not believe the information from the Japanese government. But I have respect and strongly believe in humanity. I was deeply struck by the events in Christchurch, as I have a very personal relationship with that part of the world. I understand that New Zealand was not of any interest for you, Spiegel Online, Tagesschau or Heute, a country that is nuclear free, and also really hard to utilize for other things. It’s only good to spend your holidays in and send your disillusioned citizens to. Fair enough. But for me, I much prefer the British attitude of analysing the events first, and instead of having a heavily biased news coverage, look at facts and make a fair judgement. And to offer help to countries that need it, and not caring about the nuclear threat due to the events in Japan. Please, German people, please reinstate my faith in you when I come home next week. For today, I am much more happy being in Scotland.