It's a rude awakening when the Abercrombie & Fitch billboard goes up on London's legendary Savile Row, reports Nancy deWolf Smith in the Wall Street Journal (2/12/10). The moment is captured in a documentary called "Savile Row" which aired recently on the Sundance Channel. The giant, garish billboard heralds the arrival of an A&F flagship store, and "the irony -- that A&F used to have a nice pedigree as an outfitter of the sporting man" is not lost on the tailors.

They still think of their 'hood as "the tribal home of the gentleman ... a tiny community of craftsmen (who) make the best men's suits in the world." A place where, as the documentary narrator says, "The Hunchback of Notre Dame emerges looking like Justin Timberlake." Maybe that's the problem. But Savile Row, which earns 70 percent of its income from American customers, do indeed have "a record of dressing the world's most glamorous and discerning people." No need for billboards, then.

"We're a household name in the households you want to be known in," says one tailor. Here's hoping, when suits run about $4,000, with those in superfine wool costing upwards of $15,000. But certainly not when the neighborhood is "being invaded by a huge American jeans and T-shirt retailer whose magnetic presence may drive rents up and them out." The Savile tailors must hope the documentary narrator is right when he says, "Labels say you're one of the boys -- but a bespoke suit says, 'You are the man.'"

Five years ago, Stefan Strumbel of Offenburg, Germany, gave up graffiti and began making cuckoo clocks instead, reports Gisela Williams in the New York Times (2/4/10). "When I did graffiti, it was all about marking my territory," says Stefan. "But then I started thinking that graffiti itself was more of a New York thing and that I should do something that was authentic to where I come from, the Black Forest."

He's referring to a German idea, "heimat," which basically means "homeland," and how it relates to his art. "For so long after Hitler, Germans haven't been able or allowed to reclaim their heimat," says Stefan. "I wanted to ask the question, 'What is heimat?' and make it something fresh, ironic and dynamic." He found his answer in cuckoo clocks, which are, of course "quintessentially German" as well as "symbolic of the Black Forest region."

So, Stefan "began buying clocks from local stores and transforming them into street-inspired pieces with spray paint." The clocks "are based on traditional models but are adorned with grenades and handguns instead of rabbits and antlers" (images) They are priced anywhere from $1,200 to $35,000 each. Mon Muellerschoen, a curator, thinks the clocks capture a new German spirit, a "Germany that is aware of its past, but ready to take new, lighthearted and colorful paths -- a Germany that can accept its cliches with the wink of an eye."

Ukrainian disaffection has deepened to a point where a presidential candidate calling himself "Protyvsikh" -- or "Against Everyone" -- could change an election, reports Ellen Barry in the New York Times (11/20/09). Vasily V. Humenyuk, who legally changed his last name to "Protyvsikh," in advance of a presidential election currently involving some 18 candidates, as well as the option to vote for "none of the above." The field likely will narrow to two candidates in a runoff -- former prime minister Viktor F. Yanukovich and current prime minister Yulia V. Tymoshenko -- but for now Mr. Protyvsikh seems to be striking a chord.

"Everyone's disappointed in politicians," says Vladimir Zuyenko, who is currently unemployed and feels left behind after the so-called Orange Revolution that brought Ms. Tymosheko and her predecessor, Viktor Yushchenko, to power. "They made this revolution, but they didn't solve anything. We were poor then, and we're still poor. The only reason to vote is that if we don't, someone else will vote for us." Darya Lobachevskaya agrees: "People had hope then," she says. "It lasted for a year, maybe two years. But then, wherever it came from, it went back there."

And so Mr. Protyvsikh is stepping forward, saying simply, "Elect me, and I'll explain everything." He isn't even bothering to take a campaign swing, saying that "these trips cost a great deal and the people are sick of them." But a protest vote could prove decisive. Polls show "none of the above" rising from four to eight percent, and as high as 18 percent in a two-way runoff. Even if just 10 percent choose a protest vote, it could change the results. But Andrei Mikitin, a journalist, doesn't think that will happen. He predicts that Orange sympathizers ultimately will not vote "against everyone" but against Viktor Yanukovich, "if only because Moscow backs him."

A confluence of German engineering and sausages is sparking an entrepreneurial bonanza for the Grillwalker, "a one-man mobile sausage-cooking machine," reports Nicholas Kulish in the New York Times (9/24/09). It's really pretty clever. Bertram Rohloff came up with the idea back in 1997 when he couldn't get the permits he needed to open a sandwich stand. The rule in Berlin was that a permit was needed if his stand touched the ground, so Bertram figured he could just wear a grill like a cigarette tray and strap a small propane tank on his back like a knapsack (image).

Today, he has "15 employees selling sausages around the city in teams of two; they take turns wearing the grill and reloading the sausages, rolls and condiments." He is also renting Grillwalkers via subcontractors "in cities around the country" and "has sold the equipment, at $7,100 a piece, to customers in Bulgaria, Colombia, South Korea and elsewhere, including one to a man in Nebraska." There's even a Grillwalker on its way to South Africa, in advance of the World Cup.

Bertram says the Grillwalker not only gives him access to prime tourist locations, but also enables his team "to follow the crowds." He uses bright orange umbrellas to stand out -- although the Grillwalker's novelty attracts plenty of attention by itself: "Tourists unaccustomed to seeing a kitchen stroll around on two feet gawk, gape and take pictures." The Grillwalker sausages also cost much less than those sold by traditional vendors, who say their quality is higher and hygienics are better. But Lydia Eiglsperger, a Grillwalker customer disagrees: "I don't think it's unhygienic," she says. "Standing out there, they can't hide a thing."

With France's GDP shrinking by about three percent, French President Nicolas Sarkozy thinks it's time to find another way to measure prosperity, reports David Gautheir-Villars in the Wall Street Journal (9/15/09). Sarkozy says it's not enough simply to measure economic output, and of course he's not the first to say so. Back in 1968, Robert F. Kennedy noted that GDP "counts napalm and counts nuclear warheads." His point was that these weren't exactly leading indicators of economic health. Sarkozy believes that well-being should also be measured, somehow.

Hm. Maybe if he counted Carla Bruni ... Sarkozy actually has been working with a group known as the Stiglitz Commission, led by Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz to come up with ways to measure well-being. So, far, the commission recommends "tracking household income and consumption." The commission also suggests that, over the long-term, "governments must pay more attention to sustainability to determine what level of well-being can be maintained for future recommendations."

Of course, adding in a "well-being" factor "would likely paint a rosier picture of the economy in France, where workers take long vacations and have generous social-security benefits." But Joseph Stiglitz says the real key is to figure out what to measure. "What we measure affects what we do," he says. "If we have the wrong measures, we will strive for the wrong things." The commission therefore suggests "that each country comes up with its own basket of indicators" based on its objectives, rather than create a universal "composite indicator to replace GDP."

Germans -- children and adults alike -- "see a richness and complexity" in Donald Duck "that isn't always immediately evident to people in the cartoon duck's homeland," reports Susan Bernofsky in the Wall Street Journal (5/23/09). "Donald is so popular because almost everyone can identify with him," says Christian Pfeiler, president of D.O.N.A.L.D., a Donald Duck fan club. "He has strengths and weaknesses, he lacks polish but is also cultured and well-read." In other words, the German Donald Duck is not exactly the same as the American one.

"Donald quotes from German literature, speaks in grammatically complex sentences and is prone to philosophical musings, while the stories often take a more political tone than their American counterparts." In other words, something is gained in the translations. Back in the 1950s, the Ehapa publishing house hired Erika Fuchs, a PhD who "had never laid eyes on a comic book before the day an editor handed her a Donald Duck story." Erika was told to "crank up the erudition level of the comics she translated, a task she took seriously."

She soon had him quoting from literature, and using more colorful language When Donald spoke in English, he'd say: "I'd do anything to break this monotony!" In German: "How dull, dismal and deathly sad! I'd do anything to make something happen." She wove warnings about totalitarianism into storylines, "and a newly politicized generation ... saw the comics as illustrations of the classic Marxist struggle." Erica passed away four years ago, at 98, but her Donald continues to help move some 250,000 comic books at German newsstands each week.

"American commercials go from the head to the wallet, British ones from the head to the heart, French from the heart to the head," reports Michael Kimmelman in the New York Times (2/19/09). Michael is actually paraphrasing an observation by Jacques Seguela, chief creative officer for Havas, the second-largest ad agency in France. "Clearly French commercials speak to French culture no less than French literature or music does," writes Michael, who also notes that while French ads are "long on sensuality, style and poetry, they are notably lean on facts and nearly allergic to the rough-and-tumble of commerce."

In France, advertisers aren't allowed to attack competitors and typically cannot include a direct-response phone number. Jacques Seguela says this is because "we have always had a very unhealthy relationship to money ... To us, money implies corruption, and moreover, because we consider ourselves the inventors of freedom, never mind if that's not true, we still consider advertising as a kind of manipulation ... This explains why television commercials started so late here -- essentially because leftist opposition saw ads as corrupting the soul."

It may also help explain why French president Nicolas Sarkozy, a conservative, enjoyed a "public relations coup" recently by ordering a ban on commercials on four "public television stations ... during evening hours." The funny part is, some believe the French actually like TV commercials but "prefer not to admit it." Stephene Martin, director of the French Union for television advertisements comments: "We're not a Protestant culture ... So we have difficulty accepting successful people and embracing advertising as a means of selling. And there has always been such a strong sense that the state should be responsible for public services, like television." ~ Tim Manners, editor.

A "husband-and-wife team from Italy" is taking a "retro publishing model" all the way to the bank, reports Motoko Rich in the New York Times (2/26/09). Sandro Ferri and Sandra Ozzola Ferri came up with the idea for Europa Editions five years ago, and while other publishers "have laid off staff, suffered drastically reduced book sales and struggled to adjust to a digital future, Europa turned its first profit last year and is enjoying a modest but growing following."

Europa's model is simple: It acquires "literary novels written mainly by Europeans" and translates them for the American market. As Sandro explains: "I have a universal, global feeling that everywhere people should read and could read books from different countries ... Even if up to now, only three percent of the American books are books in translation, I think that this is not a reason that it should always be like that."

Europa's first bestseller, "The Elegance of the Hedgehog," has sold 71,000 copies since its September launch. While that's not exactly blockbuster, "it is proof that the company can do more than fulfill an earnest cultural mission." Jonathan Galassi, publisher of Farrar, Straus & Giroux, says Europa "finds things, picks things up for a little bit of money and makes a lot out of them," adding: "Most of publishing was once that way. It wasn't about big money so much (as) preserving the old values of it's-all-about-the-book and connecting the book with readers." ~ Tim Manners, editor.

Now that young Poles can afford to buy new clothes, they are doing just the opposite, reports Nicholas Kulish in the New York Times (12/14/08). They are scouting out thrift shops, like Tomitex, in Warsaw, "where everything, including the fur, sells for roughly $7 a pound the first week after delivery and as low as 75 cents thereafter." The young and the wealthy in Poland see it as cool to take a "playful attitude toward vintage clothing and bargain-hunting." They just don't see as much of a need to prove their wealth by buying new clothes.

They may also be influenced "by an emphasis in the media and the broader culture on the environment that made recycling and re-using hip." "It's just the next step in our reality, in our growing economy ... The times are changing," says one young shopper. However, the outlook on "second-hand chic" are quite different for older, less affluent shoppers, who also frequent stores like Tomitex, but for reasons that are anything but trendy. "I can't afford to spend 400 zloty on a new coat," an older shopper explains. Melanie Kurcharska, 21, understands this.

"I think the elderly people connect this with the past in Poland, in the '80s, the queues, " she says. "But it's trendy now to go to second-hand stores ... I can dress in a different way than half of Poland does." Tomitex has now opened a total of 25 stores in Poland, up from six just four years ago. It also has five stores in Ukraine, although those stores have yet to develop anything like cachet. But meanwhile, back in Warsaw, kids are making a game out of hunting down deals. "Our clients know exactly when and where the new deliveries will take place," says Tomitex co-founder Piotr Malecki. "They ride around Warsaw tracking them." ~ Tim Manners, editor

"He butchers people, but also has a very, very big heart," says Ronald Zehrfeld, referring to Klaus Stortebeker, the legendary 14th century German pirate, reports Nicholas Kulish in the New York Times (11/7/08). Ronald is an actor, and plays Stortebeker in "13 Paces Without a Head," a forthcoming feature-film about the Stortebeker legend, which includes that he stood up and walked 13 paces after being beheaded in 1401. He was said to have done so in a deal with authorities, who had agreed to let his men go free "if he could accomplish this impossible feat ... but they reneged."

Not only is a film being made about Stortebeker, but there's also a Stortebeker Festspiele, last year drawing some 378,000 people and including "the staging of maritime ship battles, swordfights on horseback and fireworks." So, what is it about this centuries-old pirate that makes him so heroic in a country that's been suspicious of "heroes" ever since World War II? It's that his victims were "the early capitalists of the Hanseatic League, the organization of German merchant towns whose ships Mr. Stortebeker reputedly preyed upon." The legend is that he divided "the plunder equally among his mates" and also shared the bounty with the poor.

"With the current economic crisis, with the widening gap between rich and poor, many find themselves wishing they had a Stortebeker on their side," says Geerd Dahms, who helped organize a "national celebration of the German reunification" in September. The festivities included "a theatrical event" honoring Stortebeker -- whose name, by the way, roughly translates into "downing the mug." Yes, there is a Stortebeker beer, whose slogan is "the beer of the righteous." Stortebeker is also honored with "rock songs, adventure novels and even a baroque opera." Ironically, the truth about Stortebeker is that he was a businessman as well as a pirate, and given his cutthroat style of competition, probably not a very nice one." ~ Tim Manners, editor