„The best thing the trainer can do is to substitute all eleven players” said Stuttgart manager Horst Heldt. But it wasn’t a post-match rant, it was an interview held at half-time. 45 minutes against Leverkusen were enough to have Heldt fuming over a 2-0 deficit in the BayArena. The second half, replete with another two goals from Leverkusen, did little to improve his mood.

Meanwhile the Leverkusen faithful celebrated the victory and man of the match Stefan Kiessling. Kiessling underscored his ambitions to be nominated for the World Cup next summer with three confidently taken goals, including one converted penalty. He is the Bundesliga’s most prolific scorer at present with 12 goals to his name. The 4-0 final score was finalised by a goal from forward Eren Derdiyok.

There’s a school of thought that says the best way to get good at a language is to concentrate on the words that can’t be translated. In so doing, you really get into the mindset of the speakers of that language – and so can speak like them, too.

So when learning German, you should definitely take some time to look at the word Bildung. Don’t worry: it’s not completely and utterly untranslatable like Fahrvergnügenserfassungsbogen (lit. “driving enjoyment questionnaire form”); no, Bildung can in fact frequently be translated with one word – education. This is especially the case in politically charged slogans such as “Bildung ist der Gesellschaft höchstes Gut”, or “Society’s most important asset is education”.

Flickr: 96dpi

A long motorway journey with children in the backseat of the car is, by most people’s definition, about the closest you can get to hell on earth. The train, at the very least, offers a restaurant car with essentially unlimited supplies of cold beer by way of escape from pint-sized hooligans; your own set of wheels is, at very best, home to a dwindling reserve of warm lime cordial – and perhaps valium, if you’re lucky.