Company NewsGerman Wage Gains at Decade High Give Some Hope for EconomyBy Mark SchroersPublished: December 06, 2024 at 4:39AM EST (Bloomberg) -- Inflation-adjusted wages in Germany will advance at the fastest pace in more than a decade this year, according to a study. Collective-bargaining salaries will increase 5.5% in 2024, the Institute of Economic and Social Sciences at the Hans Boeckler Foundation — known as WSI — said Friday. That’s a 3.2% rise in real terms, it said. “The strong real wage increases this year made it possible to compensate for around half of the purchasing power losses of the three previous years,” said Thorsten Schulten, a researcher at the institute that has ties to the Confederation of German Trade Unions. Salary developments in Germany and the euro area as a whole are currently under particular scrutiny for two reasons: The European Central Bank sees a moderation in still-elevated pay growth as a precondition for sustainably reaching the 2% inflation target and further interest-rate cuts. At the same time, healthy increases are essential to support consumption and a struggling economy. In the third quarter, negotiated wages in Germany rose 8.8% from a year ago, the quickest rate since 1993, but that pace is unlikely to last and the recent IG Metall key settlement for the manufacturing sector already locked in relatively moderate pay growth for the next two years. According to WSI, the inflation-adjusted level of negotiated wages is well below the peak of 2020. “The reduced purchasing power of employees is a key reason for the weak economic development in Germany,” said Schulten. “Even though employees’ incomes have made up ground again this year, there is still a lot of catching up to do.” Twitter feed ©2025 BellMedia All Rights Reserved We have found the most beautiful pumpkin farms exhibitions and festivals in the Berlin area Pumpkins are as inseparable from autumn as golden-red leaves, rough weather and warm tea! Visiting pumpkin farms and festivals is one of the best things to do in October We have picked out the best pumpkin events in the Berlin area for you You can admire a whole 100,000 pumpkins in every imaginable color and shape in the Brandenburg village of Klaistow It’s a good 60 km away from the city In addition to the largest pumpkin exhibition in the whole of Brandenburg the village itself is also a real eye-catcher and is a listed building due to its considerable age you can expect a selection of around 500 varieties from all over the world and a farm store where you can buy all kinds of pumpkin products Klaistow asparagus and adventure farm | Glindower Straße 28, 14547 Beelitz Karl’s adventure villages are better known in Berlin’s collective memory for their strawberries the village is transformed into a spooky theme park with scary decorations You can also try all kinds of dishes that feature the round fruit vegetable Karls Adventure Village Elstal | Döberitzer Heide 1, Elstal The Kremmen asparagus farm also adapts its usual program to the spooky season This is when the farm is transformed into a pumpkin farm where a huge selection of pumpkins awaits you There is also a pumpkin exhibition and a farm restaurant where pumpkins are turned into delicious dishes Kremmen Asparagus Farm | Groß-Ziethener Weg 2, Kremmen The village is normally better known for its nature reserve than for pumpkin farms, as many storks nest here every spring. In the fall, however, it’s all about the pumpkin harvest, the rich yield of which is sold in the farm store. Farm store at Rixmanns Hof | Nauener Straße 23a, Linum ...var cex1 = "aW5mb0BndXRlci16aWVnZW5rYWVzZS5kZQ==";var dex1 = atob(cex1);dex1 = decodeURIComponent(escape(dex1));jQuery(document).ready(function() {jQuery(".ex1").html(""+dex1+"");});+49 339 226 01 90.guter-ziegenkaese.de Sarah Spindler looks after around 120 goats on the Karolinenhof farm. She makes delicious cheese from their milk, which she sells in her own farm store and café. The goats don't know about weekends or closing time. "Go ahead and go to the barn, the goats are also happy about a little change!", Sarah encourages me. In the stall, Sarah and I are surrounded by baby goats; when I'm there, it's lambing time. They nibble at my shoes, my coat, my pants. Behind us there is a clatter: the kid Klitzeklein has broken out, climbed onto a chair and fallen over. We laugh. Goats have minds of their own, that's what Sarah loves about them. "Right now, they're always breaking out of the barn. It's always fun with them." Sarah Spindler runs the cheese dairy and Karolinenhof with her husband Sebastian, with around 120 dairy goats. Gela Angermann and her late husband Roger Lemke turned it into a goat farm. In 1991 they bought the old LPG farm, at that time it was a cattle farm. Gelas and Rogers idea was to produce goat cheese on the Karolinenhof and sell it in nearby Berlin. As a young woman from Berlin Prenzlauer Berg, she is drawn to nature and animals, but she didn't know at the time that farming was an apprenticeship. "As a city kid, I thought you'd be born a farmer and then take over a farm," she confesses. After graduating, she did a Voluntary Ecological Year at Domäne Dahlem, where she eventually fell in love with agriculture. After the apprenticeship, where she meets her husband Sebastian, she studies agriculture. They spend their semester abroad together on a Swedish goat farm. There Sarah stands in the cheese dairy for the first time. Gela follows the whole thing via social media. When she returns, she asks the couple, who are friends, if they could imagine running the Karolinenhof. In the meantime, Sarah and Sebastian take care of the goat herd, their lambs, the cheese dairy, cheese sales and marketing. In the meantime, they prefer to buy in the grain because of climate change and extreme weather conditions. In organic quality, of course, because that is Sarah's deep conviction. Even when she moved into a shared apartment with a friend at 16, they had green electricity and bought only organic animal foods despite their small budget. "I also have friends who are conventional farmers. But that just wouldn't be an option for me." She has several reasons for this. Under no circumstances does she want to be dependent on large seed companies; she has few good words for Monsanto and Bayer. She also loves working closely with animals and being one with nature: "We take what we get from nature and work with it." It's exhausting. When Sarah shows me the milking parlor, the freshly born little lamb "Klitzeklein" follows us. She is being cared for during milking because she does not accept the artificial teats in the enclosure. Klitzeklein sniffs around curiously, Sarah takes her in her arms and cuddles her face into the soft fur of the kid. To give milk continuously, goats have to have offspring. Many people wouldn't know that. Sarah also sees her job as education, especially for city kids like she once was. Many people from the city know nothing about the animals whose products they consume. Sarah makes up to 20 types of raw milk cheese in the farm's own cheese dairy. She shows the customers how cheese is made and also disillusions them: the cute little lambs have to be slaughtered at some point. After all, Sarah can't raise them all. She keeps about 25 lambs to keep the flock going, and the rest are slaughtered by a conventional butcher in the area. The nearest organic slaughterhouse would be a few hours away. "We just don't want to put our animals through that." Karolinenhof is certified organic, but the goat meat is not. For slaughter plants, certification is not based on how the animal is handled. Her butcher treats her goats with respect. She knows how to convey this to her customers, most of whom are private. Their enthusiastic feedback, plus the work with animals and nature fulfills the Berlin native, "you see in the evening what you have accomplished." And yet sometimes it does you good to get out. She especially appreciates that about being close to Berlin, where she has many friends. "In 30 minutes, I'm in Prenzlauer Berg." Last year, she was in Scotland with a friend. Longer time away, however, is rare. The farm, the goats, the cheese, that's her responsibility. Nevertheless, she would never swap. "If I won the lottery, I'd fix everything up here from scratch," she says with shining eyes, pointing to the old barn, the roof where it sometimes rains through. Only the cattle haven't really let Sarah go yet. Someday she wants to keep some again. She'd love to have an old breed like the ones at Domäne Dahlem. Bestellen Sie jetzt Ihren individuellen Newsletter Note: Our newsletter is only available in German Bitte schicken Sie mir bis zum Widerruf meiner Einwilligung den Newsletter mit Informationen zu neuen Beiträgen. Die Datenschutzerklärung habe ich zur Kenntnis genommen und akzeptiere diese Would you like to discover more beautiful things Home › Comics › British Comics › Who remembers Kenny Everett’s Captain Kremmen newspaper strip After radio DJ Kenny Everett left BBC Radio 1 he landed at London’s brand new commercial station Capital Radio where his love of reel-to-reel tape recorders and his amazing arsenal of sound effects reached full fruition with his very own weekly sci-fi serial – Captain Kremmen Inspired in part thanks to Everett’s love of Dan Dare Captain Kremmen spawned a cartoon series produced by Cosgrove Hall within his Thames TV series cassettes and even a single of the theme music It was also broadcast on a number of other ILR stations and abroad – but few people seem to recall there was a “Captain Kremmen” strip that ran in the Evening Standard published in 1978 and running for just under 130 episodes which were collected at the time by Alan Jeffries who has sent us some in the hope of finding out more about it The strip is the work of Roger Wade Walker creator of “Eric the Punk Cat“ who also drew Captain Kremmen and the Krells designed and drawn by Roger with lettering by Chris Welch You can buy a copy from Amazon if you’re rich (there’s a copy of Eric the Punk Cat there although be advised that this is a story riddled with contemporary stereotyping he was included in the project because of his friendship with Everett the artist had spent time in Everett’s home studio and observed him recording the Kremmen serials first depicted Kremmen in a visual style whose realism was akin to that comic’s Dan Dare strip,” Paul notes “The artist recollects that the final cartoonish version came about because Kremmen needed to resemble the character depicted in the animated shorts and Cosgrove Hall could not produce an animated version of Walker’s Eagle-inspired pencils in time for broadcast on the Kenny Everett Video Show It seems a shame that the “Captain Kremmen” newspaper strip has been forgotten – there doesn’t seem to be any mention of it on the terrific Ultimate Kenny Everett Sketch Site We hope you enjoyed this look at a lost story • Does anyone out there know if the newspaper strip is an entirely new story or is it a representation of Captain Kremmen and the Krells the dim-witted space hero’s battle with one of his arch enemies Full name: Captain Elvis Brandenburg KremmenBorn: December 25th 1944Height: 6’10”Physical attributes: supreme athlete The name of Captain Kremmen came from Superfun a library of comedy “drop-ins” (very short audio recordings used on radio shows) produced by Mel Blanc • Ultimate Kenny Everett Sketch Site • Wikipedia: Captain Kremmen • Captain Kremmen and the Krells – An unexpected Underground Comic? With much thanks to Alan Jeffries for the scans of the newspaper strip John  is the founder of downthetubes, launched in 1998. He is a comics and magazine editor, writer, and Press Officer for the Lakes International Comic Art Festival. He also runs Crucible Comic Press He’s the writer of  comics such as Pilgrim: Secrets and Lies for B7 Comics; “Crucible”, a creator-owned project with 2000AD artist Smuzz; and “Death Duty” and “Skow Dogs”, with Dave Hailwood. Mark – it does seem to have been overlooked • British and Irish Comic Conventions and SigningsLast Updated: 5th May 2025 • British and Irish Current Comic-Related ExhibitionsLast Updated: 5th May 2025 • 2000AD, Treasury of British Collections and Specials – 2025Last Updated: 20th February 2025 If you have subscribed to the site through our Wordpress "Pop Up" Please support us through a PayPal donation – thank you! we’re proud winners of awards from ComicScene SFX and Tripwire down the years and we’re keen to keep running for you Please note - some interviews and feature items from older versions of the web site are archived. We continue to add these as time permits. The Internet Archive "Wayback" has archived downthetubes since its inception Subscribe now to keep reading and get access to the full archive If you buy something from an SB Nation link, Vox Media may earn a commission. See our ethics statement You can officially add Brandon Leibrandt to the list of pitchers the Cincinnati Reds have rushed to promote this August in the wake of the decimation of their pitching staff was called up by the Reds earlier on Thursday to add depth after the litany of injuries to other 40-man roster arms The #Reds today selected the contract of LHP Brandon Leibrandt from Triple-A Louisville and designated for assignment RHP Casey Kelly. pic.twitter.com/NMOVqQpi77 being tasked with finishing the season for the otherwise injured Cincinnati pitchers Such is apparently life when you build your starting rotation around young arms that have never pitched full seasons before Leibrandt is now 31 and a former 6th round pick out of Florida State and he’s logged 5 games at the big league level in his career...all of which came back in 2020 with the Miami Marlins He spent time pitching for the High Point Rockers of the independent Atlantic League as recently as (/checks notes) this season before the Reds scooped him up and watched him surrender 36 runs in 72.2 IP across 15 starts In slightly more exciting news, the Reds made official what rumors had suggested yesterday in that top pitching prospect Rhett Lowder will make his big league debut in tomorrow’s doubleheader against Milwaukee The #Reds today added RHP Rhett Lowder to the Taxi Squad.Lowder is expected to make his Major League debut Friday vs. Milwaukee. pic.twitter.com/2kZ2bE7oMW Lowder has absolutely buzzsawed his way through AA/AAA over the last month and a half and he’ll get a chance to show the Reds just how big of a piece he can be for 2025 over the coming weeks In case you missed it, Stuart Fairchild is done for the year and will have surgery on a UCL sprain in his thumb that he’s apparently been trying to play through for awhile Despite the tremendous defense he’s shown at times in CF so the odds of him breaking camp with the Reds next spring are a bit of a long-shot even if he did predictably hit LHP pretty well overall this year (.786 OPS in 124 PA) The Reds are 13.5 games back in the NL Central and 10 games back of the final NL Wild Card spot despite Rob Manfred doing his best to expand the playoffs so that every team can participate There’s college football on at least four different television channels tonight Every episode to be released for the first time in new box set All four series of  The Kenny Everett Video Show are to be released on DVD for the first time ever The show ran for  35 episodes from 1978 to 1981 on ITV It featured characters such as  Sid Snot plus star guests including  David Bowie as well as the resident raunchy dance troupe Hot Gossip Some of the material was released on VHS compilations in the 1980s with the only DVD release being the Complete Naughty Bits title in 2004 which contained assorted sketches.  Now Network Distributing are releasing all 15-and-a-half hours of material – including three New Year specials – in a six-disc set The shows – written by Everett with Barry Cryer and Ray Cameron, father of Michael McIntyre – followed Everett’s controversial but stellar career on radio that spanned the likes of pirate station Radio London He was instrumental in the success of Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody in 1975 having debuted the single on his radio show – despite promising not to release the preview tape – and going on to play it 14 times across one weekend His personal life and friendships with the likes of The Beatles and Freddie Mercury often hit the headlines too as well as the more recent revelation of a trip he took to the London’s drag queen haunt Cleo Rocos and Princess Diana in the late 1980s.  He died of an Aids-related illnesses in 1995 aged just 50 The Kenny Everett Video Show will be released on  November. 19, priced £59.99. Click here to buy from Amazon for £49.01 Gig of the day Paul Chowdhry: EnglandiaLeicester De Montfort Hall from 19:30 Coming Soon Michelle De Swarte: The AftersLiverpool Royal Court TheatreFriday 19th Sep Chortle had 173,000 unique visitors in April 2025 We are currently listing 20,977 upcoming comedy events Website and all original content copyright © Chortle 2000 - 2025 Chortle relies on advertisers to fund this website so it’s free for you so we would ask that you disable it for this site ITV is to air a documentary about Kenny Everett this Christmas featuring unseen home movie footage and family photographs Let Us Praise… Kenny Everett will ‘celebrate his professional career but with people who knew him very well’ Burning Bright Productions has already started work on the hour-long film. The company previously made the ITV documentary Billy Connolly’s Big Send Off, as well as Almost Royal and Adam Buxton’s BUG ‘There’s very little been done in collaboration with his family before,’ executive producer Karen Steyn told Chortle ‘We’re really excited about it because nothing big has been done on him for quite a long time.’ was a committed archivist and left more than 200 reel-to-reel tapes and cartridges from his DJ career His sister Cate Horgan donated them to the British Library’s sound archive writers James Hogg and Robert Sellers revealed that they were in the process of researching their content Everett studied for the priesthood at Stillington Hall near York But he was expelled as one of a group who broke into a chapel late at night to conduct a mock Mass and drink communion wine He renounced religion but still struggled to accept his homosexuality and only came out publicly in 1985 Seeking forgiveness from the Church shortly before he died of an Aids-related illness Everett requested a full Requiem mass at his funeral Television’s last documentary tribute to Everett was ITV’s Licence To Laugh in 2007 a celebration of his work for the channel featuring archive footage and friends colleagues and contemporary celebrities sharing anecdotes and praising his influence He made his television debut on Granada Television’s Nice Time in 1968. But it took a decade for Thames Television to give him The Kenny Everett Video Show, a vehicle for sketches and characters like Sid Snot and Captain Kremmen, co-written by Barry Dryer, Dick Burgher and Michael McIntyre’s father Ray Cameron He switched allegiance to the BBC in 1981 with The Kenny Everett Television Show And in 2012 BBC Four broadcast the biopic The Best Possible Taste focusing on the performer’s relationship with his wife Please enable JS and disable any ad blocker