“Fairly rugged”

I had missed the fact that the Financial Times, like Time magazine, had anointed Angela Merkel its person of the year last month.

This caught my eye:

The chancellor once criticised multi-culturalism. But today she praises migrants, not only for their economic contribution but also their role in “enriching German cultural life”.

Knowing that a fifth of Germans are first- or second-generation immigrants, she is pushing the nation to be more inclusive. Thomas Schmid, political editor of Die Welt, says she seeks a “new, different, more colourful, ever less homogenous and fairly rugged republic”.

“Fairly rugged”.