Europe

PROST! Germany lost the beer war, And China won.

Germany, country of the Reinheitsgebot (Beer Purity Law), and cradle of beer as we know it, where, at the age of fifteen, I regularly drank a few Helle too many at any pub I wanted to, well, that very country not only has failed to export its beer, but now, Germans have stopped drinking it themselves, apparently.

Not What You’d Expect from a Topless Beach in France

French beaches, best known for their topless female sunbathers, have been afflicted with a disgusting and deadly scourge: floods of green algae. 

The latest victims were eighteen young wild boars, whose cadavers were found on July 26 on a beach of the Bretagne. Ten cadavers were found nearby the prior two days.

Explosive Food

We get some of our harder-to-find Japanese foods directly from Japan by mail, though we have some good Japanese stores in the Bay Area. And normally, we don’t run into problems. Well, except once, when we were living in Belgium.