Deutschland Weltmeister 2014

So Germany finally got its unified hands on that glorious golden World Cup trophy. Well done them.

Interestingly, Weltmeister doesn’t actually mean “Weld Master”. As everyone knows, the best country at welding is Uzbekistan.

The Fanmeile Fiasco

The best place to watch the carnival of sphere-kicking  mayhem in Berlin was the Fanmeile, (a creative German contraction of fan (fan) and meile (mile)) the meile long boulevard connecting the Victory Column in the centre of Tiegarten with the Brandenburg Gate. Unless you particularly enjoy German 2nd division football stadia converted into enormous living rooms by the addition of hundreds of sofas to the pitch and stand areas, in which case the stadium of Union Berlin, which was converted into enormous living room by the addition of hundreds of sofas to the pitch and stand areas would have been for you.

However, I do not consider myself a self-indulgent character, meaning I am suspicious of any room that contains more than two sofas. So the Fanmeile it was for me.

Alas, although I arrived at this magnificent boulevard several hours before kick-off, I was not to be successful in joining the thousands of Berlinois who would cram in around the many screens along its glorious length. As I approached the Fanmeile in the mid-afternoond sun I was to be thwarted by that most German of German stereotypes. No, I was not impeded by an efficient and punctual transport system. I was not defeated by an unusually bland national cuisine.

I looked along the length of the mile, the Brandenburg Gate barely visible on the horizon. I stood there, completely alone – not a soul was visible. But still, I could find no place to stand. Every inch of that enormous boulevard was covered in beach towels.

A hundred thousand Germans had risen at the crack of dawn, or perhaps even before, and slunk down to Mitte with rolled up beach towels under their arms and smug grins on their bleary-eyed faces. I had been well and truly foiled.

Divine Intervention

This misfortune turned out to be a blessing in disguise. The heavens opened an hour or so before kick off, meaning the crowd that had now taken its place on the Fanmeile spent several cold, wet and miserable hours watching their Mannschaft idly hoof a ball around before the late late moment of victorious joy. “No problem,” the observant reader might remark, “you claimed these people reserved their places with beach towels, meaning there were surely many thousands of spare towels on the Fanmeile for damp fans to use.”

An interesting idea, but sadly no. German beach towels are exclusively designed for their place-reserving properties. Consequentially they are as absorbent as tin foil and as soft as sandpaper, making them completely impossible to use as conventional towels. So cold, wet and miserable the over-zealous Germans remained.

By the time I arrived at the bar where I was then to watch the match the downpour had finished, so I took my place in the outside seating are, happily devoid of reserving towels. It was no Fanmeile, but there were still many thousands of cheering Germans with whom to celebrate once the inevitable happened late in extra time.

As my friend rightly noted, these are the happiest moments of our lives. In no normal joyous situation from everyday life do we burst out into uncontrollable cheering, hug strangers by the dozen, throw armfuls of red black and yellow confetti into the sky and burst out into a loud rendition of Beethoven’s Ode To Joy substituting ‘Deutschland’ for all of the words. Not on a wedding day, birthday, Christmas, never. Well I don’t tend to celebrate like that. Perhaps I’m just reserved.

Riotous Celebrations

The celebrations lived long into the night. Intoxicated on a fourth German victory on football’s biggest stage, and a first as a unified nation, the German people were so jubilant they even forgot their typically strict attitude towards traffic laws, spilling out from bars and homes and into the streets.

Crowds sung and danced at major junctions across the city, completely blocking numerous key arterial intersections. The cheers and barrages of irresponsible fireworks were joined with a chorus of car horns, but the beeping was not an irritated beeping but a joyful beeping, for those out in cars were those trailing red, black and gold from their windows, out to celebrate from the convenience of their vehicles.

Even as the flashing blue lights of the traditional party poopers arrived, the celebrations could not be quenched. The police were here to clear up the road junctions, but the facepainted horde were having none of it. As the hundreds dressed in the traditional Nationalmannschaft white sat down to block the advancement of the riot vans, I feared I was about to witness one of my least favourite things – disgruntled manhandling.

But after just a few seconds of seated silence the crowd leapt to their feet once more, cheering and singing as loudly as ever. This routine repeated long into the night, but the riot police were not irritated by the non-cooperation, they too were smiling and laughing.  Undoubtedly they were wishing that like some German-themed Superman they could tear off the black body armour and heavy helmets they wore to reveal the black, red and gold underneath on their bodies and faces, and dive into the crowd to celebrate with their countrymen.

An evening not to be forgotten, an evening of quite remarkable joy. Germany is a nation still struggling to escape the shadows of the past, a nation often at odds with any hint of nationalism, historic guilt outweighing any pride in their national identity. But that night left them singing “Super super Deutschland” until the sun came up.

Minimal Techno

As I walked down the dimly lit concrete corridor leading to the main dance floor of one of Berlin’s most famous nightclubs, I was filled with a sense of nervous anticipation. The smell of synthetic smoke filling my nostrils, a heavy bass beginning to vibrate through my cartilage, I was about to throw myself into the very definition of ‘underground music’, what some people consider the sole reason for living in Berlin- the world of Minimal Techno.

I wasn’t impressed.

PART 1: TALES OF MINIMAL TECHNO

An aggressive strobe alternated between blinding light and pitch blackness. The vibrations were now so severe my pancreas was in genuine danger of being shaken clean out of my body. In front of me was a dancefloor of some few hundred people crammed into an industrial basement, all facing exactly the same direction, staring towards that life-giving strobe light like a swarm of flies transfixed by the neon bulb that would momentarily exterminate them.

I barged into the crowd and for a brief moment tried to ironically do the twist, but my biting satire was lost into the smoky gloom.

Most bemusing of all was the music. I thought perhaps an unnoticed blow to the head earlier in the evening had damaged my aural capacities, that some compelling element of the music was being played beyond my audible spectrum. Later research confirmed this not to be the case.

An extract can be found below:

The perceptive reader may notice a distinctly repetitive feel. If you didn’t just spend thirty minutes of your time listening to the entire thing, I’ll save you the effort- it doesn’t change. Perhaps there is the occasional ting instead of a tiss, perhaps for a minute or so an extra dum is added or taken away. But to all extents and purposes, it continues, the exact same rhythm, hour upon hour.

The art of music with it’s passionate melodies and harmonies, improvisation, syncopation and swing, reduced down, all unnecessary juices boiled away to leave nothing but the barest of bones. In many respects, minimal techno could be described as the anti-jazz.

The repetitive nature of minimal techno does however make it a great conversation starter. At the nearby bar area, many in-depth discussions of the music could be heard: “Oh, this sounds familiar.” “Yes, this is one of my favourites.” IT’S ALL THE SAME.

The overall experience, with it’s disquieting vibrations, severe flashes and mind-numbing bassline were remarkably similar to thrusting your head into the inner workings of a combustion engine.

As someone who has, for reasons that for the time being must remain private, put his head inside a great number of combustion engines, I can confirm that the comparison is highly accurate.

PART 2: THE INTERESTING HISTORY OF MINIMAL TECHNO

Modern minimal techno can be directly traced back to the Ultra-Minimalist movement that swept through the arts in the mid 20th century.

Yves Klein started the movement as a light-hearted joke to see if people would actually believe that a plain blue canvas was actually a piece of artwork, and spent many hours chuckling to himself over the lengthy analyses celebrating the work that were composed by art critics of the day.

Yves Kleins “International Klein Blue 191”, proving that putting the word ‘international’ in front of something is enough to make its veracity unquestionable.

It was experimental composer John Cage who first brought the movement into the music world with his piece 4’33”. The famous composition consists only of 4 minutes and 33 seconds of silence, yet inspired similarly deep analysis from music aficionados at the time.

An extract can be found below:

Many early recordings of 4’33” were ruined by Cage and Klein themselves, who from their seats at the back of the auditorium would burst into fits of uncontrollable sniggering, laughing to one another at the foolishness of the attentive audience members sitting in front of them.

Cage’s follow up piece, 8’12” of Repetitive Maraca Shaking, was less successful than its predecessor, and caused significant controversy in the music world after several eminent maraca players suffered terrible wrist strains due to the continued over-exertion. Cage continued to write ever longer and more arduous pieces that further pushed the limits of what was physically playable, and the movement quickly fell out of fashion.

Attempts to bring Ultra-Minimalism to the world of literary arts were likewise unsuccessful. Before coming to late success as a science fiction writer, avant garde author L. Ron Hubbard published what he described as “the first great Ultra-Minimalist Erotic Novel”, a three volume work that consisted of almost 700 pages of uninterrupted punctuation. An extract can be found below:

…!…,…??…,…”!!”…,…??…?…?…!…”…:…:…;..,,;,,..:..&,,,,,{

Critical reception was overwhelmingly negative. It remains unclear whether or not L. Ron was in on the joke.

It was only with the advent of electronic music that Ultra Minimalism could be reborn for a new generation in its current guise- minimal techno. It’s popularity may be at an all time high, but it remains, just as it was upon its inception, a joke designed to test exactly how far you can push people before they realise it isn’t actually music at all.

CONCLUSIONS: HOW TO ENJOY MINIMAL TECHNO

Presumably the only way to enjoy minimal techno must be to prepare by taking a heady cocktail of drugs. I can imagine that certain combinations of sedatives and stimulants would make the repetitive, reliable, unerringly familiar drone a desirable input for the mind.

What that exact cocktail is, I do not know. But my combination of a small amount of beer and a large amount of Indian food was some way short of satisfactory.

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For another interesting taste of Berlin nightlife, take a look at Into the Depths.
Pictures via Flickr: looking4poetry,dave_7, Alison Curtis.

The Turkish Quarter Of Berlin

It is all change in Berlin. I have moved from the sleepy backwater of Wedding to Kreuzberg- the heart of Hipster Paradise. I have finished one unpaid internship and begun another. I have learned several new and impressive magic tricks and forgotten a handful of old derivative ones. And so begins a new chapter in this Berlin Fiasco.

My old apartment was in Wedding in the north of the city, in the Turkish Quarter of Berlin, an area I once amusingly claimed to contain more kebab shops than people per square metre. I have since moved to what could be accurately described as the geographical opposite side of the city. I now live in the Turkish Quarter of Berlin, an area that contains more kebab shops than people per square metre.

After several months of living in Berlin it becomes apparent that the very notion of a Turkish Quarter is nonsense, as almost all of Berlin (apart from the Museum Quarter and the Gourd & Legume Quarter) is the Turkish Quarter.

Following WWII the Turks, a famously helpful and considerate people, flocked in their thousands to West Berlin to help the German capital move onwards and upwards from its troubled past. As a result, today Berlin is crammed with more Turks than a Bernard Matthews preparation facility.

After spending several months immersed in this Turkish immigrant culture, I feel myself becoming more Turkish daily. I feel a casual and vaguely historical dislike whenever Greece is mentioned and a sense of ownership over half of Cyprus. I find myself laughing with little old ladies over our mutual fond memories of the good old days of Atatürk and the Ottoman Empire.

Incredibly poor advice for almost all emergency situations.

One of the best things about be surrounded by this Turkish community is the ubiquity of the delicious Turkish cuisine, in particular it’s most famous son – the humble Döner.

In fact, it has been claimed the Döner Kebab as we know it was invented here in Berlin in the 1960s by Turkish migrants who adapted the traditional middle eastern kebab for the refined pallet of German tastes.

This claim, much like the claim that Chicken Tikka Masala was invented in Glasgow or that Christopher Walken discovered magnetism one afternoon whilst out enjoying the summer sunshine in a neighbourhood petting zoo, is one that can be neither objectively proved or disproved, and will undoubtedly live on as legend.

Of course, Turkish cuisine extends far beyond those comforting chunks of greasy mystery meat accompanied by sauce and salad in bread.

In fact, the kebab is such a versatile food type that all manner of culinary wonders are on offer. Meats, vegetables, soups, you name it, the Turks can find a way to impale it on a skewer and grill it to perfection.

And what to drink to wash down your hearty Turkish platter? Why not the traditional tasty yoghurt drink? Sounds good eh? So go ahead, grab yourself an Ayran.

Wait hold on. Ayran. Ayran. A Y R A N.

Nothing potentially controversial about that. In Berlin. A place in Germany. Nothing at all.

Into the Depths

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So, I went to a Berlin sex club. Read on, if you dare.

In order to enjoy the full spectrum of Berlin’s nocturnal offerings, one cannot limit oneself to the jazz bars, pub quizzes and 80s nights I usually call home. So it was that when the opportunity arose for me to experience Kit Kat Klub, one of Berlin’s more notorious S&M clubs, I felt it my responsibility to investigate.

From what I had heard about this shrine to debauchery I anticipated that from the off I would be clambering through a pit of writhing naked bodies, the repetitive drone of minimal techno barely audible over the continual crack of leather whips against red raw flesh.

For better or for worse, this was not the case.

Rather than a sleazy dungeon inhabited by perverts there was a general ambiance of welcoming and acceptance allowing you to be just as naughty or nice as you so desired, safe in the knowledge you were free from judgement. The vast majority of the people in attendance were gay men and women, which in my experience tends to mean that everyone has a grand old time.

Most people were dressed in normal clothing, with the remaining fraction either sporting strictly non-functional leather attire, or opting to abandon the notion of shirts or in a few cases the notion of clothing altogether. 

As the night wore on the general level of clothedness began to decrease, and after spending a few hours exploring the various dancefloors I had witnessed more unsecured meat flailing around than that time I saw a hurricane pass through a butcher’s shop.

Slightly disappointed that I had not yet been exposed to the rampant fornication around every corner that I had been promised, I headed off to inspect the deepest darkest corners to find out whether or not this was all an urban myth.

Stumbling upon a suitably secluded staircase up to a mezzanine overlooking the dancefloor I climbed to finally discover that yes indeed, despite the almost impenetrable darkness it was possible to make out the general outline of extremities being thrust into orifices.

My curiosity satisfied, I promptly left, else I slip on an unseen spillage and tumble face-first into the sort of environment that tumbling face-first into should be avoided at all costs.

I am reliably informed that as mild spring blossoms into balmy summer so the overall ratio of naked flesh to covered flesh increases exponentially, understandable as the threat of hypothermia is rarely an aphrodisiac. Only the bravest/drunkest were to venture into the Kit Kat swimming pool during my visit.

Although I would be interested in returning when the hedonism is ratcheted up a few notches, it would take an enormous amount of persuasion for me to venture into the Kit Kat pool’s murky waters, as the mix of miscellaneous diluted bodily fluids present in the waters of a normal swimming pool is enough to make my skin crawl.

My Poignant Closing Remark is how sad it is that even here in Berlin, by far the most open-minded place I have ever experienced, that people still need the anonymity of a dark pit, masked by smoke and strobe lighting, to be able to fully express themselves in terms of gender and sexual identity. Of course, a certain element to the appeal of the place is the taboo associated with sex clubs and S&M, and the day when it will be socially acceptable to walk around in crotchless chaps is distant in the extreme. However, we can hope that the day will come when the appeal of places like Kit Kat is exclusively the hedonism and S&M, rather than as the only place where people feel safe to fully express themselves, free from judgement.

A Surreal Dinner

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Berlin is a very alternative place. A restaurant is not an alternative place to eat. A restaurant is a conventional place to eat. A bookshop is an unconventional place to eat. In Berlin we go to eat in bookshops. I am yet to buy a book in a restaurant. But that day will come. 

As I stepped through the doors of this Kreuzberg English second-hand bookshop I entered a shrine to forgotten literature, floor to ceiling overflowing with battered paperbacks, while men with pencil moustaches and girls with strange shoes sat and smoked and drank red wine and discussed obscure authors.

This was exactly the sort of Bohemian lair in which I had envisaged spending most of my time during my European adventure, entertaining myself by irritating highbrow intellectuals with my unrelenting whimsy. Things didn’t quite turn out like that, and a great many intellectuals have been spared a great deal of whimsy, but here I was at last.

Food was served downstairs, in the cosy underground science fiction section. I took my seat amongst the 1960s fantasies, with their cardboard characters and orange pages, telling tales of planets and creatures with unpronounceable names.

I overheard the conversation of one of my fellow diners, a bespectacled American, thick black dreadlocks spilling out from beneath the brim of a bowler hat. His rich southern drawl reminded me of my childhood growing up in the jazz clubs of New Orleans.

Fittingly, the conversation was on food, and the man began to explain his dislike for establishments where the same member of staff serves the food and handles the money. Understandable, you might say, a coin picks up a lot of filth on its merry voyage of circulation. Alas basic hygiene was not the reason for this gentleman’s concern.

His theory had its origins in physics, in the science of energy transfer and resonance. When you play an instrument, you transfer energy to it, or so he postulated. So far so good. It follows that when you touch or use any object you transfer to it a certain energy, manifested in each object as its own distinct vibration. The frantic and ceaseless pursuit of money in modern society gives its vibration an urgency and distress that is discordant with the nourishing and life-giving vibrational frequency of food. Herein lies the unsavoury contamination.

Resonance can be a very dangerous thing.

He went on to express his similar dislike for restaurants in which the kitchen staff shout at each other, as this equally disrupts the karmic balance and therefore flavour of the food.

Sadly I do not have a refined enough palette to taste the ambiance of the kitchen in which a meal is prepared, nor was I able to hear any audible angry curses about overcooked blancmange or woops of culinary joy at the perfect Béchamel sauce,  so I had little clue of what to expect as the food was brought down from the mystery kitchen somewhere on high.

This picture is not particularly relevant, but it is inspiring.

The bookshop owner brought down the wide selection of home-made dishes: an aubergine pasta bake, a spiced meaty Kofta-type construction, Tortilla Española, braised pork and roast lamb. It was a dangerous yet satisfying melange, and as far as I could tell all members of the culinary team had transferred sumptuous amounts of positive energy into each dish. 

As I reclined in a state of satisfied post-gluttony I browsed through a couple of the old science fiction books on the shelf near to me. One blurb in particular stood out to me:

Knot, mutant-bred and exiled from mankind to serve on an alien world, has personal reasons for opposing the Galactic Empire’s omnipotent Coordinating Computer. But Finesse, a sensuous, seductive imperial agent- aided by Hermine, a slyly psychic weasel and Mit, a telepathic hermit crab – lures Know into serving the computer.

If that passage can’t persuade me to read a science fiction novel, then surely nothing will.

So to confirm, nothing will persuade me to read a science fiction novel.

Teufelsberg: The Devil’s Mountain

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This blog has a reputation for taking certain liberties with the truth, embellishing the facts with smatterings of fiction to enhance the excitement of my sometimes dull Berlin adventures. It would therefore be understandable for the reader to take everything they read here with a pinch of salt. But let me assure you, this is all true. Please allow me to describe for you the tale of Teufelsberg, Berlin’s top spy-station-rubble-mountain-former-Nazi-base.

Our story begins in the aftermath of World War II. As the dust began to settle the city of Berlin lay in ruins, almost completely obliterated by a highly destructive Allied bombing campaign.

As any responsible adult knows, the best way to tidy up a large mess is just to push all the debris into a huge pile, ideally somewhere out of sight, and try to forget about it.

The question then came as to where to situate the enormous mountain of rubble that was cleared from the derelict city.

While one group of administrative officials attempted to find a good location for the debris, another was concerned with demolishing the partially-built Nazi military college, Wehrtechnische Fakultät, in Grunewald to the west of the city centre. This relic of Hitler’s tyrannical vision for Berlin as “World Capital Germania” was so sturdily built that no amount of dynamite or wrecking balls was sufficient to destroy it.

Thanks to a chance meeting in a shoe shop, the heads of these two administrative groups shared their problems over a pair of brogues, and came to the conclusion that through cooperation they could kill two birds with one stone, or more accurately bury one Nazi training facility with one enormous pile of rubble.

So the rubble mountain was built atop the site of the Nazi military college.

Its name: Teufelsberg, literally ‘The Devil’s Mountain’. The name is derived from that of the nearby lake, Teufelssee, literally the Devil’s Lake, which is itself named after Teufel, literally the devil, so named because of the large number of nudists who visit the lake to shamelessly bask in the German sun, and the attempts by German conservatives to link nudism with devil worship.

Some years later, in the height of the Cold War, the Americans were in the mood for spying. Spying on people is one of the NSA’s top most favourite things to do, and as the Cold War gave them a fairly legitimate excuse to spy on people they went on an espionage bonanza, spying at levels rarely seen before or since.

Back then when email snooping was a lot more difficult, spying was largely performed by peeking through gaps in the Berlin wall, as seen above, and by listening in on conversations using ear trumpets.

One day an enthusiastic American spy went for a cheerful walk with his trusty ear trumpet, and found that the top of the rubble mountain was a perfect spot for listening in on the secret conversations of the Commies on the other side of the wall, so was chosen for the location of a permanent listening facility: Field Station Berlin.

Field Station Berlin: Mk 1

Today the spy station atop Teufelsberg lies in ruins. As recently as a couple of years ago it was possible for brave Berliners to freely explore the abandoned corridors and collapsing towers of this mysterious building. More recently, groups of “Security Guards” with questionable legitimacy have set up camp, forbidding trespassing and charging exorbitant fees for access to the site in the form of “guided tours.”

A visit to the spy station is a surreal and intimidating experience.

Guards armed with blunt weapons patrol the barbed wire fence that encircles the building, a fence haphazardly repaired with pieces of scrap metal and decorated with hand made signs reading “Keep Out.” The structure and threatening ambiance is reminiscent of the stronghold of a gang of bandits in some post-apocalyptic world in which society has fallen and barbarian scavenger gangs are the only form of civilisation that remains.

It was not the first time that I have feared for my life because of the threat of being eaten by cannibals during my time in Berlin, and it will surely not be the last.

Tiki Taka Target Man

Have a look at my new project… satirical football website Tiki Taka Target Man!

“This is a new football website which tries to cast football in a more honest light. Away from the harsh twisting machine of the mainstream media, the average footballer is a family man, he goes about his job as any other, is grateful to be paid just enough for him and his family to get by, he plays for a team with a group of colleagues whose only priority is loyalty to the club which employs them and is run by a chairman who acts with the best interest of the fans, the lifeblood of the club, at heart. All of them can carry out their business safely under the watchful guidance of FIFA, a governing body whose only concern is the well-being of the players they represent and maintaining the integrity of football itself.

Here at Tiki Taka Target Man we pride ourselves on having the least fact to word ratio of any online publication portending to be news related.”

 

A Very Berlin New Year

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One of the few positives I can draw from my life so far is that I have never been thrown into a war zone. Thankfully, after spending a New Year’s Eve in Berlin I will never have to, having experienced the exhilarating yet inherently terrifying thrill of explosions going off in every direction with marginally less risk of immediate death than being on the front line of a major conflict.

In the UK it is a well known fact that there are few more dangerous things in this world than fireworks. Why spend many billions of pounds on a successor to Trident, people cry, when a sufficient nuclear deterrent would simply be to aim a Roman Candle in the direction of hostile nations?

1. Never go back to a lit firework.
2. Always wear gloves when holding a sparkler or when within earshot of someone holding a sparkler, regardless of whether or not the sparkler is lit.
3. Never look directly at a firework.
4. Never enjoy fireworks.

These are the unquestionable rules of UK fireworks pumped into the nation’s psyche by a steady stream of advertising campaigns and subliminal messaging, leading to a state of resigned terror where the only time people encounter fireworks is from a distance of miles at an Official Licensed Display.

The sale of illegal fireworks is arguably the greatest threat to the safety of the average Briton.

The true joy of fireworks cannot be enjoyed from a distance of miles at an Official Licensed Display. The true joy of fireworks is drunkenly running through the streets with a Roman Candle in one hand and a Fountain in the other, launching a rocket from your hand unable to see where it lands because of the thickness of the billowing smoke that surrounds you, the incessant banging drowning out the sirens of the fire engines that speed along the streets.

This is New Year’s Eve in Berlin.

Why the madness? Well Germans love fireworks, but like the British govenrnment, the German authorities thought it inappropriate to allow the reckless pyrotechnic madness to proceed uninhibited, so completely banned the sale and use of fireworks for 51 weeks of the year. As any economist will tell you, high demand and limited supply leads to low low prices, and so it is that fireworks are literally given away for centimes at Aldis, Lidls and Nettos across Germany in the week leading up to December 31st. What in the UK would cost £30 and can only be purchased from a special fireworks stand sold by specific licensed members of staff in select branches of larger supermarkets can in Germany be bought for €7 from any corner shop by anyone whatsoever, the younger and more reckless the better. (Paragraph actually true.)

After the fireworks comes the partying. Across the globe New Year’s Eve is the biggest night of the year, when even the most conservative of people stay out merrymaking until the wee small hours of the morning. Of course this is a normal Thursday in Berlin, and in fact, Berliners look upon Silvester as a slow one, the traditional midnight countdown necessitates that the evening’s festivities be started some time before midnight, several hours earlier than desired.

Of course, all good things must come to an end. Some time early evening on New Year’s Day the majority of Berliners have just about called it quits and crawled back to their squats to get a few hours sleep before doing it all again. An occasional bang can be heard echoing through the hungover silence from those who found a forgotten stash of fireworks stored in a cupboard or underneath a child’s pillow. Mounds of charred firework casing and launching rods litter the streets, a few brave souls emerge to begin the cleanup, already counting down the 11 months and three weeks for it all to start again.

Berlin on New Year’s Day. The cleanup begins.

So, in conclusion, fireworks are great fun. Berlin New Year involves a great number of fireworks. Berlin New Year is great fun. I broke most if not all of the UK’s unquestionable firework rules and somehow lived to tell the tale.

German Christmas: True or False

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This is Part Two of my Festive Content Exravaganza. For Part One, click here!

Germany is a country of great tradition. Christmas is a time of great tradition. However some of the famous festive traditions we all know and love are not as straightforward as they first seem. People, like magpies, see only the bright shiny Christmas joy and forget to rigorously source every story they are told. So pull up a chair, pour yourself a mug of steaming Gluwhein, take another bite of your hot meaty Bratwürst, bring your laptop/iPad/blog printout close to that roaring fire and prepare for the truth behind some of Germany’s most famous festive tales.

The Christmas Tree is a German invention

Although trees have been around for decades, the Christmas tree in its modern form has only recently come into existence . It is often rumoured that the much-loved festive tree, along with the Glockenspiel, Playmobil and the Richter Scale of Magnitude, a German invention, brought to the English speaking world by Prince Albert, German husband of Queen Victoria.

True or False?

This is of course entirely true. Prince Albert had two passions in life: the first, decorating things with shiny objects, the second chopping down plants and putting them in the corners of rooms.

His wife Victoria loved Christmas but struggled to articulate her feelings through any of the usual channels. As a loving husband, Albert helped his wife spread her inner festive joy by combining his two passions in the name of Christmas, chopping down a nearby fir tree and covering it with the variety of shiny objects he happened to have on him at the time.

The Christmas tree was born.

Prince Albert loved shiny things. He was like a magpie.

Krampus, the  Anti-Santa

While all nations benefit from the benevolence of St. Nick, the Germans have an added incentive to get on the Nice List. Those who are deemed to have strayed too far into the dark side throughout the year are visited by Krampus, a grinchy demon-like character with large horns and a love of bad crime fiction who puts misbehaving children into his sack and carries them off to make into presents for the good children.

True or False?

While no one can question the existence of Santa Claus, the celebrated Scandinavian toy magnate with a dubious business plan, a minor sherry problem and a questionable history of exploiting child workers and exposing reindeer to dangerously high G forces, Krampus provokes far more scepticism.

The putting of children in sacks against their will is a crime in most civilised countries, and Germany is no exception. Meanwhile, the making of children into presents, although not specifically a crime, is frowned upon throughout Europe. With the famed efficiency of the German law system, it is highly unlikely that a conspicuous beast-like individual could get away with repeated acts of vigilante behaviour policing without being reprimanded by the German authorities.

In reality, the story of Krampus dates back to the mid 1800s. The scene, a farmhouse in rural Bavaria. The eve, Christmas Eve. The farmer, his wife and their children, Wolfgang and Gertrude, were playing a friendly game of Canasta. Young Wolfgang, disappointed with the hand he was dealt attempted to sneak a hidden joker from his sleeve into the deck. He was spotted by his sister and reprimanded severely by his family for his misbehaviour. Suddenly, an angry horned goat somehow burst into the farmhouse, filled with a furious festive rage, and began rampaging around the room leaving a trail of knocked-over stools and damaged curtains in its wake. The father attempted to wrestle the beast but was tossed aside by its powerful shoulders, the mother, paralysed in fright, did nothing. Young Wolfgang, terrified of goats as all children are, dashed off to hide in the first appropriate place he found: a large empty sack. Alas, poor Wolfgang was not quick enough and the goat saw his tiny Bavarian feet poking out of the sack’s opening. The beast charged towards the sack, clamping its feral jaws onto the frayed fabric and stormed off into the night, dragging the sack and unfortunate boy within it.

The real ‘Krampus’. Marginally less terrifying.

Putting two and two together the rest of the family presumed that the reason for the goat’s unprovoked attack was surely Wolfgang’s act of naughtiness, and the father, unwilling to admit he had been outwitted by a goat, claimed the beast was in fact horned demon like creature. The terrifying tale quickly spread throughout the surrounding villages and worked its way into the modern Krampus legend.

The Christmas Pickle

Perhaps the most famous German Christmas tradition of all. Each German Christmas tree is decorated with one hidden shiny pickle. On Christmas day, the children excitedly hunt for the hidden pickle, the child who finds it is blessed with the Pickle’s Festive Blessing and gets an extra present.

True or false?

My sincerest apologies to everyone who has spent a lot of money buying “traditional” German pickle decorations, but this one is entirely false.

The truth: In 1976 a young American was in Germany attempting to promote his new computing business “Pickle Inc.” Eager to raise his company’s profile but unable to afford a professional marketing team, he chose to follow the one piece of advice his adoptive father had given him before he set off for Europe to seek his fortune. “You know Stevie,” said his father, “people over there love shiny things. They’re like magpies. They’ll buy anything at all if there’s something shiny involved.”

Inspired by this grand advice he spent the rest of his budget on a box of 1000 shiny plastic pickles that he would hand out at conferences and computing conventions. Sadly the advice turned out to be poor, the computing elite of Europe having little interest in shiny knick knacks of any variety.

With a box of 997 pickles as his only worldly wealth and the threat of bankruptcy looming, the young American returned to his father for a final piece of advice. “You know Stevie,” his father said, “people over there love Christmas. They’re like magpies. They’ll buy anything at all if you tell them its to do with Christmas.”

This piece of advice turned out to be far better than the first, as the German people lapped up the festive story the young American concocted and bought pickle after pickle, the news of this all new long-standing tradition spreading throughout the country like pickle-based wildfire.

Years later the young American would change the name of his computing company to that of a more popular fruit, and make his fortune. But what outlasted him, and the company he founded, is the legend of the Christmas pickle that he created and sold to the German people as their own.

Have a good Christmas everyone.

Weihnachtsmarkt: German Christmas Markets

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Ask any German what their country is most famous for and they will proudly respond “German Christmas Markets”. Indeed, over the last decade this festive phenomenon has spread like a deadly virus across Europe, ravaging every city in its path with a plague of small wooden huts, salted meat sausages and hot wine.

Berlin’s Weihnachtsmarkt offerings are by far the most impressive I have encountered in terms of scale and variety, going far beyond the standard fare of  ice rinks and heart shaped gingerbread. The market at the Berliner Weihnachtszeit even abandons the traditional wooden hut motif, redesigning its stalls with beautiful 19th Century Rococo facades.

Quite why this has been done remains a mystery, as none of Berlin looks anything like this. Berlin looks like this.

My personal favourite Berlin Christmas market is at the Gendarmenmarkt in the city centre. Entry is charged at an exorbitant €1, but it is the best €1 you will spends at a Christmas market. Although your €1 won’t get you 33% of the deposit on a mug of Glüwein, it will give you access to the hoard of Gendarmenmarkt artisans, who spend their time gleefully hacking lumps of wood into christmas sculptures, hacking strips of leather into Christmas shapes and hacking flame grilled meats into meal sized portions. I was even treated to a concert of classic Disney hits performed by an acoustic trio which although not particularly seasonal was marginally more enjoyable than a lone trombone honking out a lacklustre Oh Come All Ye Faithful.

Christmas is on its way whether you like it or not. There is no way to halt its approach, or even delay it. Unless you convert to the Orthodox Calendar in which for a variety of florid reasons Christmas is celebrated on January 7th, meaning converting back to a normal calendar and correcting for time differences etc. the current date is somewhere around mid November. However the constant switching back and forth between calendars to work out what date you are on and what date the rest of the world is on is likely to cause a great deal of confusion and lead to at least one mis-scheduled rendez vous, so all things considered it is probably not worth it.