Hello, Genossen. I stumbled across this rather haunting song, Am Fenster, by City, while looking for YouTube videos on the East-West German border. I think the music goes well with the scenes in the video.
Have a haunting day, won’t you!
This clip from TV Turkmenistan really does show a fine example of mass sycophancy, not seen since the day of Stalin in the USSR or Ceasescu in Romania. Not so much HROSL (Huge Roar of Sycophantic Laughter) as HROSA (Huge Roar of Sycophantic Applause).
Here’s the clip.
https://www.rferl.org/a/our-hero-lavish-praise-for-turkmen-president-s-cutbacks/29521371.html
Even Jeremy Corbyn wasn’t afforded this much obsequious applause and adulation at the Labour Party conference. (And that is setting quite a standard, comrades, Genossen and tovarishchi…)
Have a sycophantic day, won’t you!
Tomorrow is Tag der Deutschen Einheit (Day of German Unity).
Over forty years ago, in the summer of 1978, I remember standing up in the Harz Mountains watching the GDR border guards rebuilding the fence and thinking and saying to the late Sunray, “The GDR will still be there when I’m gone.”
Then October 1989 happened, and the rest is, well, literally history.
Have a unified day, won’t you!
Well, actually on this day yesterday… wind back 57 years… the Berlin Wall went up. And the rest is history until the next milestone in 1989.
As a pads brat living in Wolfenbüttel 1975-1978, I never got to see the Wall itself. Our family did make regular weekend trips down to the village of Mattierzoll to see the Inner-Deutsche Grenze (the “Inner-German Border”) and to be photographed by the Grenztruppen border guards… watching us… watching them… watching us.
These visits left their mark on me. On reaching the border, I used to feel nauseous, as if approaching a person that I knew had murdered hundreds of people in cold blood.
Have a democratic day, won’t you!
The place: Bordar House Cafe, Masham, North Yorkshire.
The year: 2003.
The time: 11:00.
Sunray and I are both enjoying a 10 000 calories belly-buster. If you want to eat well in England, eat cooked breakfast three times a day.
A random stranger walks in, decides he is God’s gift to comedy.
Looks like you two are enjoying that! Is that your third one of today?
I look at Sunray. Sunray looks back at me. He nods and winks to me. Mr Comedian wants to have some fun at us. We’ll have some fun with him.
I am wearing my DDR (German Democratic Republic t-shirt).
I speak:
Wie bitte? Ich hab’ überhaupt keine Ahnung was Sie sagen. Tut mir leid.
Mr Comedian:
Oh, you don’t speak English. Foreigner, yeah?
I point to my DDR logo:
Ja ja ja! Bear-leen, Cher-mun-ee, ja. Sorry, my English ist not gut.
Mr Comedian:
Oh right, bloody krauts, yeah?
G in G:
Ja, ja, crowd of chermans here, ja. Big crowd at ze market place, ja!
Our man finally leaves us to our maple-cured bacon, baked beans and black pudding and sup our tea in peace.
Two minutes later…
Mornin’, Sunray! Mornin’, Ginge in Germany! How are you doin’, fellas?
Ron, one of the locals, had just walked in to order his Saturday bacon sandwich and had decided to greet us.
Sunray replies:
Morning, Ron! Good to see you. Come and sit down with us.
Mr Comedian hears Sunray, me and Ron chatting away (in English). He realises the laugh is on him. He scowls. He purses his lips so tightly, that they look a cat’s anus. He curses us as he leaves the cafe.
You two tw*ts think you’re so clever, don’t you!
Sunray and I laugh uncontrollably. Ron asks:
Er, what’s the joke, fellas?
Have a Teutonic day, won’t you!
Do you like quizzes?
Q: What happened on 13 August 1961?
A: The Berlin Wall went up. (Pretty much overnight. German efficiency.)
Next question.
Q: Who was Conrad Schumann?
A: A picture describes a thousands words.
So, he managed to escape from East Berlin into the West. Was it a happy ending? No. Yes, it was good news at first. He had escaped to freedom. But 37 years later, after difficulties with his family still living in Saxony, Eastern Germany, the iconic freedom icon committed suicide. A very unhappy, tragic, ending.
Have an iconic day, won’t you!
I’m not high up enough in the food chain to have my memoirs published or to have my diaries forged. I do, however, have many a quiet evening on my own. Occasionally I’ll get the glue out and stick a few items in my scrapbook.
Where did I get this habit? Sunray started it all back in 1978, when he was posted to the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst (RMAS). He was constantly cutting and pasting gluing into his Ministry of Defence A4 hard-backed book:
Fast-forward to 1998, and I am visiting Sunray, having been estranged from him for nearly a decade. There among his photo albums is his RMAS scrapbook.
Dad, can I have a look at your scrapbook, please?
Aye, feel free, son. I’ve not had a look at it myself for years.
Flick, flick, flick, flick, flick, flick, flick, flick, flick, flick, flick, flick, flick, flick, flick…
I resolve to go start myself a scrapbook the very next day… Ahem… Well, at least, the intent was there.
1 November 2003: I finally get round to buying a suitable scrapbook. Masham post office (which also did have 2nd class stamps). I also buy a small bottle of PVA glue, so beloved in British primary schools (where it normally comes poured out of huge gallon bottles).
Come on, you must have used gallons of this in your school days!
Within two years I had filled my scrapbook with, well, er scrap. I took a leaf out of Sunray’s book. I just had to collect local non-news articles from the local paper, such as the following two horror stories:
Oh, the sleepless nights…
A very unhappy pub landlord, scowling for the camera…
Not only the local news items, but also the souvenirs of travels (address redacted).
Sunray was enjoying himself in Berlin. His return air fare just £40 – bargain!
But if you can’t take the plane, let the train take the strain. £6 there and back: another bargain.
And finally… no newspaper clippings of Sovereign’s Parade, but this headline mocking a Sandhurst graduate, Mr Ian Duncan Smith MP (ex-Guards), one-time “leader” of the Conservative Party, who was about as useful as an ashtray on a motorbike.
Who remembers Comical Ali from Gulf War II?
The people come and go, but thanks to the scrapbook, the memories remain. Oh, the winter (and summer) evenings are going to just absolutely fly by, I’m sure.
Have a scrappy day, won’t you!
Writer, photographer, soldier.
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