Germans are always annoyingly impressive. They are the epitome of classy European business bods and somehow, as I discovered this week, they manage to always look like they're standing directly under the air conditioning on a stupidly hot May day even when they're not.

I was at the headquarters of BSH, the appliance giant that owns Neff, Siemens, Gaggenau, Bosch and various other local brands across the world. The company's annual results were being announced to a waiting press gathered from all its global territories.

Cue the slightly embarrassed English contingent sheepishly looking bewildered as everyone around them switched language seamlessly from German to English to French to Italian. There was even some Yiddish, although that was probably a step too far, even for cosmopolitan Europeans. Look at it this way, I was making much more use of the simultaneous translation available through the headphones than many of the others. It was like a United Nations Security Council meeting...if ovens and hobs were a matter of international security.

Anyway, what was the outcome? Well, in short, a reasonably good year all things considered but a relatively poor economic situation in Western Europe was bailed out by quite phenomenal growth in Eastern Europe and China - both around 25%.

What made this interesting was that the Chinese and Eastern Europeans are buying the high price items - Siemens, for instance, is huge in the Far East. Reading between the lines, it's clear that it's only a matter of time before these markets become the company's, and likewise the whole industry's, biggest customers.

But, as with all choreographed events like this, it's the unplanned snippets that make it more enjoyable. For example, BSH's fabulously German-named ceo Dr Kurt-Ludwig Gutberlet (look out for the full interview with him in the June issue of kbbreview) has Siemens cooking appliances but a Bosch dishwasher in his house - "a very politically correct kitchen".

And, my favourite, the designers from the different brands are kept apart as much as possible to promote competition and prevent erosion of 'brand profile'. In fact, there are separate security passes, so if you ain't Bosch, you ain't getting in the Bosch part of the building.

I managed to get a bit of an exclusive though from the multi award winning head of design for Siemens, Gerd E. Wilsdorf. After complaining to him that there are plenty of coffee makers but nothing for coffee-hating tea drinkers like me, he grabbed my pen and notebook and designed me a built-in tea maker (see picture above). Who says Germans don't have a sense of humour?

Andrew Davies, editor, kbbreview

andrew@kbbreview.com