I was perplexed to find myself billed as a “designberater” at Monday’s Rosenthal Design Convention in Frankfurt. Now in my dictionary, berate means “to rebuke or scold angrily and at length”. That can’t possibly mean me, I thought, self-righteously. It turns out that the German word berater means, more prosaically, advisor or consultant. Still, I can’t help thinking that someone was trying to tell me something. And maybe they are right. I will only ever say sweet, short things about people from here on in. Hummmmmm.