Thirty-Two Perfect Evenings

The VOX cooking show Das perfekte Dinner began on 6 March 2006. Each candidate hosts the others for one evening, and at the end the guests give the evening 0 to 10 points. By March 2026 there had been 4,796 hosting evenings. Full points were given 32 times.

On average, the winner of a week has 35 points. The guests who give the points are themselves competing for that win.

No One Gave a Sehr Gut

In a poll for Bild am Sonntag, published in June 2019, the institute Emnid asked 1,009 people to grade the federal government with school grades. The cabinet received an average of 4 plus, 3.8. Only nine percent gave it a gut, good. Nobody gave it a sehr gut. 26 percent failed it.

Demanding but Doable

In 2019 pupils in several German states protested that the mathematics Abitur had been too hard. Some started online petitions. Hamburg’s school authority decided to adjust the marking standard for this special case. The exams would be marked better than originally planned.

In Bavaria, after a petition, the ministry told the state parliament’s education committee that it saw no sign that the marking key needed to change. An official of the ministry said the general tenor was mostly that the exam had been anspruchsvoll, aber machbar, demanding but doable.

When a Third Fail

In Berlin’s upper secondary school, an exam still counts if more than a third of the students get mangelhaft, deficient, or worse. Only the principal can decide that a new exam must be written. The Berlin Senate explained the rule in October 2024, in answer to a question from a member of the state parliament.

The Average Is the Rule

In the metal and electrical industry of Baden-Württemberg, the collective agreement adds performance pay to base pay. Across a plant, the performance pay is to come to 15 percent of total base pay.

In 2014 the Federal Labor Court ruled on who must prove what. An employer who rates an employee below the 15 percent must prove that the rating is justified. An employee who wants a rating above it must prove that he earned it.

World Class: Nobody

After each half of the Bundesliga season, the football magazine kicker publishes its Rangliste des deutschen Fußballs, the ranking of German football. It places the players by position in classes, with Weltklasse, world class, at the top and Internationale Klasse, international class, below it.

In the ranking of July 2024, the world-class category for goalkeepers read: Weltklasse: Keiner. World class: nobody. The top goalkeeper, Gregor Kobel, was rated international class. No central defender was rated world class either. The winter ranking of January 2024 had also listed nobody as a world-class goalkeeper.

More Perfect Abitur Grades

The Standing Conference of education ministers publishes the Abitur grades of every state. In the figures for 2025, 8,255 pupils finished with the top average of 1.0. That was 3.1 percent of all who passed. In the figures for the school year 2013/14, 4,569 of 324,431 successful candidates had a 1.0, about 1.4 percent.

The comparison has limits. The 2025 figures are provisional. Those for Baden-Württemberg are from 2023/24, and Bavaria had few candidates because of its return to the nine-year Gymnasium. The states also differ. In 2025 the average grade was 2.13 in Thuringia and 2.46 in Schleswig-Holstein.

Ten Percent at the Top

The federal regulation on civil service careers sets guide values for appraisals. Among the officials appraised in a pay grade, the share soll bei der höchsten Note zehn Prozent und bei der zweithöchsten Note 20 Prozent nicht überschreiten, should not exceed ten percent for the top grade and 20 percent for the second. For fairness in a single case, each limit may be exceeded by up to five percentage points.

The limits were once looser. In 2008 the Federal Administrative Court described an older rule that allowed 15 and 35 percent. In the case before it, the Federal Intelligence Service had set its own limits at 5 and 15 percent. The service said that its new rules were meant to counter Noteninflation, grade inflation.

In Front of the Assembled Crew

vor versammelter Mannschaft — in front of the assembled crew. The Duden dictionary’s example comes from the army: der Gefreite wurde vor versammelter Mannschaft getadelt, the lance corporal was reprimanded in front of the assembled unit. In everyday speech the phrase means in front of everyone present. Mannschaft can also mean a work team.

jemanden zur Rede stellen — to put someone to the speech, to call someone to account. Duden notes that Rede here first meant a statement or a justification before a court.

The Right to Raise It

In December 2025 Borussia Dortmund drew 2:2 with Bodø/Glimt in the Champions League. Afterward the defender Nico Schlotterbeck criticized the substitutes in public, without naming them. Die Spieler, die reinkommen, verlieren jeden Ball. The players who come on lose every ball. Wenn man reinkommt in der 60. Minute, erwarte ich 30 Minuten Volldampf. If you come on in the 60th minute, I expect 30 minutes at full power.

The coach Niko Kovač backed him. Als Führungsspieler hat er mit Sicherheit auch das Recht, gewisse Sachen anzusprechen. As a leading player he certainly has the right to raise certain things.

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