2015 is Groundhog Year, nearly indistinguishable from the one before, which was, I think, 2014.
German weekly Der Spiegel kicked off the groundhog impression by running an article on how a campaign poster of the Tories uses a German country road. The article lead in starts with "embarrassing gaffe", but the body switches to, well, you don't notice it at first glance, then lays out the case for the appropriation of a German landscape by British ad designers.
They even cite a number, maybe in a nod to the frequent criticism by us at the K-Landnews about German media being number-shy. According to the photographer, about 35% of the photo matches his original.
That's it.
Bad reporting.
Really bad.
The real questions raised by the invasive use of the photo remain unanswered. Actually, they are not even asked!
What happened to the other 75% of the original?
Why is the road surface in the original so bad? The UK version has fresh tarmac!
Why was the image photoshopped? Do images of German road fall short of the taste of the British electorate?
Where does the road lead? To Rome, to Perdiction, to Nowhere?
Who decided to use only 35% of David Cameron in the Reuters photo?
Are the visible 35% of the PM photoshopped, too?
Did the intern who wrote the caption for the Spiegel rendition know what he was doing when writing "Ähnlich, aber anders" (Similar but different)?
Similar but different encapsulates the Germano-British relationship since the days of Chaucer.
And nobody noticed the profound insight!
And don't mention the war, will ya.
This is a snapshot of Der Spiegel's road to nowhere:
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