Millions of Germans will tune in to a little-known English-language sketch called “Dinner For One” this New Year’s Eve.

Filmed in 1963 with British comedians Freddie Frinton and May Warden, it has become a traditional part of the evening and is shown in several versions (colour, original, etc.) on different television stations. As such, it used to have an entry in the Guiness Book of Records for the most frequently repeated TV programme.

The sketch is simple: Miss Sophie is celebrating her 90th Birthday. Unfornately, the companions of her own generation are long since deceased, so it is up to her butler, James, to take on their roles. As the meal progresses, James becomes more and more drunk and outrageous, whilst Miss Sophie calmly orders the next course with the appropriate drinks.

However, even though the sketch is performed in English, almost no-one in England these days has ever heard of it.

Want to see what you’re missing? Watch the clip at the NDR homepage.

Did you know that Santa’s bag has a name? Well it’s “Beutolomäus“, or so the children’s TV channel KiKa would have us believe.

In a 13-part series “Beutolomäus kommt zum Weihnachtsmann” they tell the story of how the bag was made and chosen to be the _one_ bag to deliver all the presents on Christmas Eve.

Sarah likes watching it and tomorrow is the last part.

To see what it’s all about, visit the KiKa Homepage.

Last night (well, sort of this morning), we watched a lone presenter on a late-night phone-in game show.

How it worked was this:

you had to call in and name 6 German cities ending in -BURG.

Easy? Well we got loads together, but when we rang in (for 49c/call) we always got told that we had a line that didn’t go through to the studio. Of 100 lines, only 5 at first and later 10 actually got you further.

On closer inspection, for over half an hour no-one was sucessful and the poor presenter was left trying to think up things to say to encourage more people to call.

This is unusual: normally the questions on such games are really easy to get people to give it a try – all lines are then open and the winner is picked at random. We thought this sounded harder and was worth trying out.

Well, for reference, here are the cities that were already named and so no good to us:

Hamburg, Flensburg, Lüneburg, Saarburg, Madgeburg, Oldenburg.

And here are the ones that we thought of:

Siegburg, Marburg, Coburg, Rottenburg, Altenburg, Neuburg, Meersburg, Homburg (Saar), Offenburg, Freiburg, Ginsheim-Gustavsburg, Ludwigsburg, Weilburg, Westerburg, Weltersburg, Limburg and of course Bad Homburg.

If you want to add to the list, feel free to do so in the forum – but we can’t offer any prize money!

Meanwhile, we are going back to playing the SMS game on “Wer wird Millionär?”…