OK, I know it’s a clichéd shorthand for Berlin, but I’ve chosen the Brandenburg Gate because, before our recent trip, I think my opinion of Berlin was one big cliché.  A friend had told me it was “very interesting”, for goodness sake!  Isn’t that shorthand for “ugly”?!  I guess, if I’m honest, I thought that the West would be the part to see and that the East, while obviously we’d go and visit, would be uniform, dreary and, yes, “interesting”.  How wrong I was!

This is my third attempt at this post and I don’t want to bore you with a catalogue of sights to visit, there are guidebooks that can do that far better than I ever could.  Pretentious as it sounds, I wanted to  record my response to the city.  I loved Berlin.  Although we were only there for 3 days, I could understand how people come to visit, fall in love with the place and end up moving there.  Like Paris, Berlin has architecture on a grand scale, buildings so huge they stop you in your tracks.  It has parks and gardens, wide, tree-lined streets and quaint cobbled courtyards that more than give the Marais a run for its money.  Unlike Paris, though, Berlin doesn’t intimidate you.  I never felt as if Berlin was thumbing its nose at me, something I have felt in Paris.  Berlin feels like somewhere you could live, not just visit.  Don’t get me wrong, I love Paris in many ways but it’s never made me feel like Berlin did.  When I’m in Paris, I feel like I’m on a film set, acting a part, consciously trying to appear “Parisian” and although I enjoy the play-acting, it is lovely just to be yourself.

So, before I completely disappear up my own arse, I’ll just say that, while I don’t see myself running away to Berlin to live (too many comittments here), it’s definitely somewhere I’ll always want to return to, hopefully before too long.  If you haven’t been, go.  And now here are some more photos:

Coming soon…

…some photos of Berlin.  I’ve tried twice today to put up a post*, complete with photos, and twice failed.  I’ll try again tomorrow or, possibly bribe a passing two year-old and get them to do it.

Overheard at the dinner table tonight:

Daughter No. 2  “No.1 daughter, did you know Mrs B_ was an identical twin?”

Daughter No. 1 (bored)  “Yeah.  So what?”

Daughter No. 2  “I wonder what her twin looks like…”

*Apologies to Tim Footman, who wandered across here and caught me in a state of disarray earlier.  Sorry for the confusion, Tim!

Berlin trip, part 1 (or the one in which I set out to write about one thing but immediately digress and write about something else instead. Sort of.)

Edinburgh very much trades on its reputation as a city of high culture and elegant restraint, but that isn’t to suggest that it doesn’t have a vibrant “street” scene as well. Oh no, we too have our colourful urban rituals in which local youngsters take part with enthusiasm. Unfortunately, when we went put our suitcase in the car on Thursday morning we discovered that, no doubt in their eagerness, the little scamps had got carried away and SMASHED THE WINDSCREEN! So there we were, moving rapidly from gaping to swearing to panicking. What if we missed our flight? We were, after all, flying with EasyJet, the airline which only refunds your money if you, or a close family member, actually dies. Public transport was going to be too slow so, as a last resort, we phoned a taxi firm and, after agreeing an eye-watering £126 fare, we were back in business. Thinking that our troubles were, for the meantime , over, we set off, tut-tutting with the taxi driver about today’s youth and their multiple defects. On reaching the outskirts of Glasgow, however, it became apparent that those vital minutes we had spent swearing and calling taxis meant that traffic entering the city was now at a standstill. We could do nothing except watch as the minutes ticked by until 8.30, when the boarding for our flight closed. Disaster!

Scene: airport check-in lounge. Interior. Day.

(John Nettles voiceover)

“It’s 8.40 and check-in for the Glasgow/Berlin flight closed ten minutes ago. However, Mr and Mrs Klein are celebrating their 20th wedding anniversary and they’re determined to get on that plane”

Mr and Mrs Klein approach the check-out desk. They are agitated and out of breath.

Mr K. “I know check-in has closed but our car was vandalised and we had to take a cab. Is there any chance we could still get on the flight?”

Check-in girl “Sorry, youse’ll jist hiv tae get the nixt flight”

Mr K. “But you don’t understand! I’ve already had to fork out £126 for a cab! If we miss these flights and I have to pay for new ones, there’ll be no money left to treat my wife when we get to Berlin! You don’t know what she’s like, she’ll go mad! Please, you’ve got to help me!

Check-in girl: ” Ah’m going tae hiv ask you tae calm down, sir. If you don’t, ah’ll hiv tae call security!

Mr K. “Now look here! Either you get us on that flight or I’ll…I’ll set fire to myself!

CIG. “That’s it! Ah’m calling security! Security! Se-cure-ah-tay!!!

(Check-in is suddenly and dramatically bathed in golden light. A choir of angels can be heard singing. Finally, someone speaks)

John Smeaton (for it is he). “Did someone call fur security?”

CIG. “John! Thank Goad, yure here! This nutter says he’s gaun tae set himsel’ oan fire”

JS. “Oan fire, is it? Noo, listen you here tae me, pal, THIS IS GLESGA! WE’LL SET ABOOT YE!

A short scuffle ensues and the Kleins are led away in handcuffs.

(John Nettles voiceover)

“With the flight safely dispatched and Mr and Mrs Klein in a secure institution, check-in attendant Cheryl can pause for reflection”

Cheryl. “Och it’s a great job, really. Sure, ye get the odd bampot like that Klein guy, but maistly it’s dead good. And ah pure love the uniform. It matches mah foundation. Aye, orange has always been wahn of mah favourite colours.

(John Nettles voiceover)

“Join us next week when, following the failure of the runway lights, Cheryl and her permatanned colleagues lie on the flight path to guide the aircraft down…Honestly, who WATCHES this crap. I mean “Bergerac” wasn’t Shakespeare, but at least it had a ring of truth about it…”

Actually, and much less dramatically, although the check-in had closed we were just waved through so, credit where credit’s due, thank you, EasyJet.

 We were lucky enough to spend  sometime in the company of this lovely blogger, who was kindness itself, showing us all of Berlin’s sights over the course of a very entertaining afternoon and two evenings. Thank you, thank you, thank you, BiB!

Photos and a proper post, singing the praises of Berlin, to follow.

Festival(s)

Very belatedly, here is a post about “What I saw at the Festival this year”.  Actually, although everyone talks about the Edinburgh Festival, there are so many festivals taking place in the city in August, it’s hard to know where to begin.  As well as the Edinburgh International Festival and the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, there’s the Edinburgh International Film Festival and Edinburgh International Book Festivals as well.  There’s also the, industry only, Edinburgh Television Festival and a two day Festival of Politics squeezed in towards the end of the month.  Oh, and not forgetting the Edinburgh Military Tattoo, which, for many visitors to the city, IS the Edinburgh Festival.

Anyway, long story short, I decided to restrict my Festival-going to the film and book festivals this year.  No particular theme connects my choices which were as follows:

Film

Hallam Foe

The Hottest State

Ratatouille

Chansons D’Amour

Razzle Dazzle

The Counterfeiters (Die Fälscher)

Irn Bru (an event looking at the success of Irn Bru’s Phenomenal advertising campaign)

Two Days in Paris

Book

Iain Banks

Joan Bakewell

Jeremy Bowen

James Naughtie

Highlights, recommendations and low points

Meeting Urban Chick at the Book Festival, where we saw Joan Bakewell, I got a book signed by Andrew Marr and was interrupted, mid-gush, by Iain McWhirter.  A good night all round!  Jamie Bell’s performance in “Hallam Foe”.  The man who, having sat all the way through “Chansons D’Amour”, stormed out at the end, shouting “It was CRAP!”  The “Snowman” Irn Bru ad.  James Naughtie on his series (and book) ”The Making of Music” - I have rarely heard a more fluent speaker.

“Two Days in Paris”.  Now this one must be just me as every review I’ve read since I saw it has praised it wholeheartedly.  Obviously I just didn’t get it.  To me this film seemed to be aping Woody Allen every step of the way.  Why?  Surely one of Allen’s trademarks is that he makes American films in a “European” style.  “Two Days in Paris” couldn’t be more “European” if it tried – it’s written, directed and scored by Julie Delpy, who also plays the central female character, Marion.  It’s set in Paris, for God’s sake!  So why did it seem so second rate?  Perhaps because the characters are not especially well developed, the location is underused (why have a subplot about Jim Morrison, which involves a visit to his grave and then keep the grave just out of shot?) and the comic moments, some of which are genuinely funny, just aren’t enough to sustain the film on their own. 

As Tom Paulin has so often remarked on “Newsnight Review”, I didn’t like it.

By comparison,  I thought “The Counterfeiters” was a triumph.  An intensely moving  film about the Nazi counterfeiting operation in Sachsenhausen, the story revolves around the character of  Saloman “Sally” Sorowitsch, a career counterfeiter.  One of the central themes of the film is the very different and preferential treatment received by those prisoners involved in the counterfeiting unit, a group whose existence was apparently unknown even to the camp commandant.  It is a mark of this film’s brilliance that these touches of “humanity” serve to heighten the brutality of the Nazi regime rather than lessen it.  Based on the book written by Adolf Burger who, although now in his nineties, took part in a Q & A at the end of the screening, this film was the overall highlight of my 2007 festival.  If you get the chance, see it.

A bit link-heavy there – sorry!