MR Martin Beth

Why is it that in the past few weeks, Germany has cracked down on my gender? Apparently I am now an incompetent male who doesn’t know better and subsequently continually enters my name backwards. Last name? First name? All the same really aren’t they??

Last night as I tried to check into my hotel in Munich, I was told that I had booked incorrectly and that they couldn’t accommodate me as they were waiting for a MR Beth, first name- Martin. I pulled out the booking to prove that I had, in fact, entered my details correctly and that they must have changed them in the belief that I was a man... I was begrudgingly given a room.

As I tried checking into my flight back to Berlin a few minutes ago, I was told they had no record of me.. again even though I had my printed flight confirmation on me... No, they were expecting a Mr Beth also. Indeed, thereafter followed an embarrassing conversation for the woman at the checkin counter as she tried to politely tell the main checkin centre that passenger Martin Beth was standing there in front of her; “no SHE is standing here. No, No SHE is standing in front of me. Yes SHE.” Etc. Etc.

I need a decidedly more German name - any suggestions?

Absturz

A recent fall saw me admitted into the German hospital system. Firstly I was taken down the many flights of stairs from my apartment not on a stretcher, but rather on a chair strapped to the back of the paramedics. Arriving at the Emergency Department of the hospital, we were greeted by a sleepy nurse, and told we could wait for the doctor... yes, in the whole hospital there was only one doctor. Visions of the many Australian ER's I visited full of bright lights and people running around made this tiny cubicle with devices I swear haven't been used since the second world war, seem more alien than ever to me. After not checking me for concussion, not attending to my nose (which was freely trying to bleed as much as it could), not really listening at all, I was taken to a ward... and left there. for a day and a half before any tests were done. It seems that the nursing staff were not amused with their jobs, sometimes coming past as little as twice a day and, if called, were extremely put out that we had "torn them from their card games" and "coulnd't you come to the nursing station if you had a question next time?" (yes I will get myself in my wheelchair, and drag my drip along behind me... nothing better for the circulation than a late night drip stroll.. .) At times I listened to the bell from others calling the nurses for up to 20 minutes, before they attended the patients... The photo is as I tried to get let out of the hospital, and had to wait for half an hour before a nurse was available to sign me out.