It turns out that the German for jelly bean is Gelee-Bohne.
Oh, I forgot to tell you about the jelly beans! Back on the bank holiday weekend, several_bees was running some games at the National Theatre as part of their Alternative Village Fete, and she employed me to assist her with her jelly bean stall. This was along the lines of the traditional "Guess how many jelly beans there are in the jar" game that I have played at many church fetes, but with bonus SCIENCE! (not actual science). We put on lab coats and goggles and peered over our clipboards at anyone who came up and wanted to play, and made them answer lots of questions, like:
- how many jelly beans are there in the jar?
- how many Smarties are there in the jar?
- how many kazoos are there in the jar?
- when were jelly beans invented?
- how much does one jelly bean weigh, to the nearest decimal place?
We also made them shake different containers and tell us which one had jelly beans in it, draw a picture of a jelly bean, and put on a blindfold, eat a jelly bean and tell us what flavour it was.
It was ace! I had so much fun asking random people all these silly questions with a very straight face. The best question was "And how many jelly beans are there in THIS container?!", whipping out a very small jar containing three jelly beans. This would make anyone under 10 laugh and say "THREE!" but a surprising number of older people squinted at it in puzzlement, debated with their friends whether it was a trick question and then declared one or two of the beans to be fakes. The small children were generally much better at answering the questions than anyone else (apart from their hazy grasp of time - jelly beans were probably invented about three years ago), while the teenagers tried to impress each other with complicated mathematical estimates that didn't really work. I particularly liked a couple of mums who tried to help their daughters guess what flavour jelly bean they'd eaten by saying "Here, breathe up my nose!". And the rain chucked it down and everyone cheerfully put on free plastic ponchos and carried on drawing their jelly beans! Aw, South Bank-frequenting families are teh cute.
Oh yes, and at the next stall there was a concrete mixer full of pink cement with a sign saying "Who wants a bucket of cement? £1". And several_bees also ran a dancing game with a woman who'd taught Paul Morley to Morris dance.
Anyway, the jelly bean jar has been given to the person who got the most correct answers now, but you can guess too if you like! I can't remember the answer though.