Ghost Stations

“…In the gloom there would be a guard: a Kalashnikov slung across his chest. He would watch us go by and, from the carriage, we would all watch him; the eerie platform slipping back into the darkness. As if it had never even existed…”

For some reason the routine intrusion of The Cold War into the everyday lives of ordinary Berliners is often overlooked in favour of high-octane, Hollywood-style, dramatics – dreamed up by people whose closest brushes with the Evil Empire came reading about it in their newspapers moments before getting miffed about their breakfast egg being over-hard. Forget all the James Bond nonsense. In light of the fact that this November sees the 20th-anniversary of the Berlin Wall’s destruction, what follows here is an authentic recollection of how the average citizens of Cold War-torn Berlin encountered a segregation that went beyond The Wall.

For Berliners either side of the divide, the winter of ’85/’86 was bitterly cold, with temperatures falling to minus 20 degrees. In the East all the heating systems were fired with cheap, dirty, brown coal and combined with the weather it created an incredible smog situation. “It stank!” recalls Silke, a student in West Berlin, 1983-1989. “That’s one time I really noticed the East because it literally came over the Wall.”

Originally from the rural Lower Saxony in northwest Germany, Silke said the situation in Berlin shocked her but often not in the ways usually portrayed in predictable novels or lazy stereotypical spy films. Although a monolithic symbol of division, misery and terror, the Wall did not always evoke such feelings by such obvious means. “When I first arrived I didn’t really notice the Wall that much,” admits Silke. “I saw it, but it wasn’t the first thing, y’know? You encountered it in different ways,” she says. And so it was with the U-Bahn metro: an unassuming and ubiquitous aspect of the ordinary modern city. Of course,  during the Cold War Berlin was no ordinary city.

Back then the Wall’s impact, like its foundations, ran deep. Literally. The political divisions even permeating below ground to incorporate a metro system spanning all sectors of the splintered city streets above. Metros were conceived to liberate city centres. However, for many years the U-Bahn (and S-Bahn) were fettered by the very city it was meant to set free. Lines that began and ended in the West but had to pass under and beyond the Wall’s boundaries, found their corresponding stations sealed off by the Deutsche Demokratische Republik (or DDR – the East German government). The West even had to pay an annual fee for the privilege of simply passing through.

The offending stations became known as Geisterbahnhöfe – Ghost stations. Places that, for the uninitiated, held quite an impact: “You would be sat in your carriage,” recalls Silke, “passing normal, colourful stations when, suddenly, you crawled past a darkened platform.  It felt like there was only one light-bulb on and in the gloom there would be this guard: a Kalashnikov slung across his chest. He’d watch us go by and we would all be watching him from inside our carriage.

“In the background there would be this ancient station, completely untouched possibly since WWII started never mind ended. They would be in great neglect – tiles falling off walls and ancient advertising posters flaking off billboards. Everything was just left to rot, with that lone guard among it all. Eyeballing you. Then everything would quickly slip back into the darkness. Almost as if it never even existed. It was very eerie,” says Silke.

However, Friedrichstraße station, a western-operated stop on the ‘wrong’ side of the Wall, was the permitted transfer point for German West-Berliners (with all necessary documentation of course) to cross into the East. Silke made the journey numerous times, giving way to a staggering revelation. “For the first time I saw how the real city centre was in the East!

“Up until then I hadn’t actually known that and had always sort of thought Berlin was just split down the middle. But all the museums, the Humboldt University, the big cathedrals, the theatres, these beautiful buildings, they were all in the East. Hardly any were in the West by comparison. I was absolutely amazed by its architecture, its grandeur,” says Silke.

But she was equally shocked at how it all looked. “All the facades on the Unter den Linden,” explains Silke, “were still full of bullet holes from the WWII.” Nobody had bothered to renovate anything. All that neglect,” sighed Silke shaking her head, “it was like a time warp.”

For Silke,  Friedrichstraße station was a gateway to another, previously unknown and invisited world. It also featured an anomaly in its Western section: the Intershop. Accepting only hard currency (West-Marks) these DDR state-run stores were not subject to Western taxes so sold the usual Western-brand booze, cigarettes, perfume and chocolates at duty-free proces back top West Berliners in a bid to give their own malnurished economy a shot in the arm.

Photograph by Jan Bielawski of an anonymous New Romantic standing outside an Intershop in the 1980s

Friedrichstraße station remained a microcosm of Berlin, divided by military checkpoints and with separate platforms for citizens of the opposed regimes. “I remember it being ugly – bleak yellow,” recalls Silke. “We had to wait in long lines to show our passports (they liked to make you wait) and go through a checkpoint. And I know it was used by both East and West Berliners,” says Silke, “but exactly where the others were, I don’t know. I can’t remember now if you could see them or not.” That gap in Silke’s memory, her non-recollection, feels an apt way to evoke those old Ghost Stations.

Indeed, the only references made to the Geisterbahnhöfe (an unofficial term) was that on Western maps they were struck through with, “Bahnhofe, auf denen die Züge nicht haltern,” (‘stations at which the trains do not stop’) written in the key.

But at least they were acknowledged – and, therefore, at least the souls beyond their bunker-like platforms were acknowledged. Mourned even. Ominously, Western stations, lines – people – were omitted from East German underground maps altogether. ‘Out of sight, out of mind’ was seemingly the mantra of the dismissive yet torturously suspicious East.

Yet this spectacular lack of documentation or acknowledgement could inspired. Well, it at least inspired Jan Bielawski who began making home made video-diaries of the idiosyncrasies of Berlin’s U-Bahns/S-Bahns – an act of citizen-journalism that seems weirdly before its time given that YouTube (where his footage can be viewed today) was still nearly 30 years away.

A Pole from Warsaw, Jan first visited Berlin as a 19 year-old with his professor father in 1976 but he can still remember where they spent their first night in town, the Hotel Newa on Invalidenstrasse in the East – as dilapidated and idiosyncratic place as East Berlin itself: A portrait of Eric Honecker (the DDR‘s leader 1971-1989) hung in the lobby while the rooms’ televisions were preset to Western stations. From this base, Jan crossed into West Berlin (and out of the iron grip of Communism) everyday on the Friedrichstraße S-Bahn to explore. It was “the perfect ‘detox’ from Communism,”  laughs Jan, whose freedom to travel abroad was restricted to “exotic” Berlin by his own (‘lapse’) Soviet state.

In following years Jan , in the West, now totally infatuated with the oddities of Berlin, would stay with a friend in Lankwitz and returned every year until 1988. “The whole situation and setup seemed so totally unique to me,” said Jan. “I was really surprised that any time I mentioned this to anyone, the reaction would be mild surprise. When I wanted to go to East Berlin to investigate, my Lankwitz friend would just wave his hand and say: ‘Yeah, right, like I am going to give my money to Communists!’ -  It cost 5 Marks for a West Berliner to cross into East Berlin – payable at the border,” Jan explains.

“Idiotic and humorous” situations, as Jan calls them, were commonplace: The Wollankstrasse S-Bahn station, that sat entirely inside East Berlin, had the Wall routed around it in such a way that it was physically sitting inside West Berlin. “The sign outside the building said something like, ‘this station is inside East Berlin territory,” recalls Jan, “but for all practical purposes this didn’t mean anything besides the odd fact that the West Berlin police therefore could not enter it.”

The Zoologischer Garten station had a similar status. “Although not formally on eastern territory,” continues Jan. “It was, for some reason, considered the property of East Berlin and the police could not enter it either. That was just fine with drug addicts there,” he smiles.

There were also entire streets falling one side of the Wall’s boundary but with the entrance to its buildings on the other side: “Once, on Bouchestrasse,” Jan says , “ I saw a policeman standing at the entrance ask a passer-by to buy him a pack of cigarettes from the machine in the street. The policeman could not step onto that street while in uniform!”
But it was the Geisterbahnhöfe’s combination of the sinister and surreal that really got to Jan. “For example,” he explains, “S-Bahn doors could be opened even at full-speed, a great rush it was, and people would simply open them before the train came to a stop. But this provided a headache for the DDR at the Geisterbahnhöfe, because the combination of a slowly moving S-Bahn (trains always slowed down to pass through the Ghost Stations) and its easily opened doors meant there was a potential escape route,” explains Jan.

Of course, as far as the official party line went, nobody wanted to leave the socialist-utopia of the USSR so these underground chinks in The Wall’s armour had to patched up so as to prevent a slew of rapacious Westerners wanting to get in. Consequently, all eastern S-Bahn stations on the only west-bound S-Bahn line passing under East Berlin (the Frohnau – Lichtenrade) had steel mesh curtains hanging near both edges of the platform. “Those curtains disappeared very quickly after November 1989 (when the Wall came down), let me tell you!” says Jan, with a twinkle in his eyes.

Encounter

I recently interviewed the founder/creator of a fascinating website/community for urban ‘online’ gamers. The person in question is Ivan Malyukov and his site is called Encounter. Briefly, the premise of the site is to set up local domains in a city, allowing people to participate in what is, essentially, “Challenge Annika” but with more cammo and less Health & Safety.

Basically, “Combat” missions are dreamed up by game authors and participants then play them out in real life, through the night. The text that follows the picture below is the longer feature-type version of an interview for B EAST magazine and, given the type of places the gamers tend to get sent to to solve their clues, codes and tasks, it follows my last post nicely:

Encounter: the game where no building is too rickety

The car has stopped. Time has stopped. For a split second there is total silence. Suddenly a twenty-something girl hunched over the blue-glow of her laptop shouts out the next clue from the passenger seat as it appears in pixellated iridescence. The other bodies in the car twitch into life. As night had closed-in the city, where their mission began, had receded. Now, all around them, loamy brown fields stretched out to touch clear powder-purple skies. A building that resembled a set of broken teeth is then caught in the beams of their jerky torchlight. With WAP-enabled mobiles, handheld GPS systems and some rope, all five press on towards it, in search of their final code and their prize – if they aren’t already too late. It’s 4.12am, Sunday morning, somewhere on the outskirts of Minsk. The endgame.

And similar missions are being carried out all across Belarus by groups of young friends, every weekend. In fact, there are as many as 69,371 players in 6,841 registered teams throughout 159 European cities, from Riga to Kiev, Prague to Tashkent. Although Encounter’s (EN for short) missions tend to be enjoyed mostly in the old Eastern Bloc, there have been domains set up in London, Tel-Aviv, Basel, Berlin, Lyon and Paris too.

EN: Like "Challenge Annika" but with more cammo

But just eight years ago, none of it was happening. Eight years ago Ivan Valentinovich Maslyukov had finished school and had just completed his military service. Eight years ago Ivan entered the rat race as a web-designer. Eight years ago there was a girl Ivan loved, “but I didn’t know how to seduce her,” he explains. “I decided then to create something great, to impress her imagination.” Eight years ago, Ivan created Encounter.

Encounter (EN for short) is an online-driven community of “active urban games” and gamers, a world that blurs the boundaries between the real and the imagined. And, for most, it’s all about the high-octane thrills of the nocturnal “Combat” missions, which has become the runaway favourite among EN gamers. “It’s for sure,” confirms Ivan. “The other types are just for taking a break from combat.”

The “other types” include Photo-Hunt and Photo Extreme, where participants must set-up scenes or interpret tasks (usually comic, always unusual) and record them on their digital cameras, usually during the day. Geocaching amounts to a 21st century treasure hunt using GPS systems while Wet Wars sees players become prey and predator, each hunting the other with water-guns, the last man left unsoaked declared the winner.  Games have been known to last days, weeks even.

An hilarious "PhotoExtreme" set-up. I hope.

Whatever the format, the common theme shared by all is that the parameters, instructions and objectives are always set out by the game’s authors and then relayed to participants in real-time, online, from the relevant domain-pages of the EN site (en.cx). And this, Ivan believes, is what makes EN distinct.

“It’s not simply an online game,” explains Ivan. “Online means ‘communicating via the Internet’ but EN happens right on the streets of your city. It’s not only the best online game; it’s something different too. It’s real.”

Combat games, which by the way, don’t actually involve any actual combat – think reconnaissance, involve a team of friends split into a “coordination centre” and “field players”. The coordination centres (they don’t have to be stuck behind a laptop, they can be part of the field team as each page of the site has a WAP-friendly mobile phone version) of each team involved in the game receives instructions from the website and relays it to the field team. The clues are then deciphered to reveal the tasks/location they must solve/drive to next (cars are crucial to EN combat games) in order to find the next code.

EN "Combat" games attract both sexes, even if they might involve wading through industrial silage.

In turn, that code is then entered back into the website by the coordination team who, if the code was correct, receives the next task for the next level/location and the routine is repeated. The winning team is the first to complete all the tasks, find all the codes and enter them into the game site first. With game authors and domain owners able to personalize each campaign, and tending taking their inspiration from various action movies from Indiana Jones to Fast and the Furious, it makes for engrossing and unpredictable experiences.

But for who? What kind of young person wants to spend their Saturday nights/Sunday mornings wedged up a disused industrial air-duct instead of the dancefloor, or other online games even – one’s that are less demanding? “We all have something in common,” ventures Ivan, “the desire to live.”

“We pretend all kinds of living organism on our planet have this desire,” Ivan continues, “but there’s a difference between, ‘I want to survive,’ and ‘I want to live a full life!’ Most people are happy with survival but there are some for whom it’s not enough. They want to make their lives active, bright, beautiful, audacious, rich and full – EN souls are longing for the sensation of being alive.”

Given the current economic climate, alternatives to nights spent shelling out on fancy clubs and overpriced drinks clearly appeals in Eastern Europe, to guys and girls. Especially as game fees are only a few dollars of web-money and the prize for winning– in addition to any domain community-kudos – includes a percentage of the subs. But does EN itself turn any profit? Well, apparently so and all of it goes to the numerous programmers “who constantly improve the engine of the project,” says Ivan.

East Europe has a plethora of derelict potential locations, all dangerous all irresistable.

So far, so successful. But for something that deals in the currency of fun, what has been the impact of the recession,  a time when optimism is so strongly tested? Amazingly, according to Ivan, “President Lukashenko says that there is no crisis in our country, we don’t catch any crisis effects.”
It should be noted that Alexander Lukashenko is often referred to as Europe’s last dictator, presiding over a nation where 80 per cent of the people are still employed by the state. “So, the recession playing a role in project Encounter? It’s out of question,” Ivan continues but with more than a hint of playfulness. “Thanks to the crisis,” offers Ivan, “I’ve managed to recruit the best programmers from the top software development services companies in central and Eastern Europe. Now they work all for Encounter.”

In fact, Belarus is currently attempting a change of image and has already recruited British PR company Bell Pottinger for rebranding purposes. According to a recent article in Monocle magazine, Belarus already combines a Soviet-post-Soviet blend of political and social systems, where young students have access to wi-fi, roads are full of mid-range European cars and technology companies enjoy zero per cent tax.

But, like the rest of the former Eastern Bloc, Belarus still retains many abandoned man-made landscapes, full of derelict industrial plants and former factories. They, of course, play a huge role in EN as the dramatic stages where the final scenes of missions are often played out.

A gamer emerges to find a code

However, in a country where the secret police are still called the KGB and bureaucracy can reach giddying levels of complexity, is there not a risk of running into trouble when entering one of the many weird locations that EN can takes its gamers? “We’re well known in Belarus,” dismisses Ivan casually, “so when players run into the authorities they just say that they’re playing Encounter. Often, though, there’s no one around abandoned buildings at night.”

A glance through the photo gallery on EN’s website brings to mind scenes from (legendary Soviet film director) Andrei Tarkovsky’s Stalker. It’s a dense, nightmarish science-fiction film that sees a group of men, on a quest to find answers, navigate their way through a hazardous and overgrown industrial landscape where dreams and reality merge.  It’s a parallel Ivan likes: “You are quite right. Both the film and EN are enigmatic experience. Every game is like a little film, with its own scenarios and actions. But in EN you are not simply a viewer; you are a very active part of the live in-game plot. And, of course, it’s not fiction,” he says.

No ropes, no ladders, no sweat.

Clearly, it is this very real sense of danger, adventure and excitement, created by the game authors who have in the past instructed participants to wade through brackish waters, scale crumbling towers and abseil off industrial precipices – with only a rope lashed around a girder and a sturdy mate for safety – that makes EN so compelling for so many.

Ivan concedes that EN gamers are often grouped with those fond of extreme sports but maintains that, for him, it’s not a wholly accurate comparison: “Our intellect is also important! Simply being strong and brave is not enough; you should be clever and creative to win,” he says.

And so, did the inventor of this real-world online game, where the victors are a magic blend of action hero and brilliant tech-nerd, get the girl after all? “Yes,” confirms Ivan, “but many years later!” A suitably cinematic ending that any EN gamer would be pleased with, don’t you think?

Game Over

Finding Neverland

While going through some photo files on my computer I came across a few images of a town that my girlfriend (knowing that I have an odd liking for abandoned landscapes) took me to see when I last visited Latvia:

The Jūrmala region, just outside Riga, has long been associated with health resorts, sanitariums and spas. During the country’s time as a satellite state of the USSR, it attracted many high-ranking Party officers – Brezhnev even had a holiday home there.

But times change and while many parts of Jūrmala remain favoured holiday destinations (namely the lovely beaches) an eerie, almost apocalyptic, corner of the town of Kemeri has become a forgotten relic of Jūrmala’s past.

Just beyond the pretty, pastel-coloured wooden houses stoops an anaemic high-rise block. Dodging the open man-holes (the stolen covers sold for scrap), passing street lights stripped of bulbs and wiring, then pushing through head-high grasses at the end of a dirt track, this huge concrete complex appears, sitting decrepit in a birdless silence that’s broken only by the wind groaning through its weathered  skeleton.

Construction began in the late 1980′s to provide accommoation for visitors to the local curative waters. But it was a victim of shifting politics and with Latvia’s independence gained  in 1991, the state-funding of the Old Regime disappeared. The site, along with its tourists, jobs and income, never materialised.

Today, it has been reclaimed by local youths. Colourful paintball shots dotting the faded corridors and courtyards the only indications of life and vibrancy, bar a few trees and scrubs that have somehow sprung up in 3rd storey rooms and concrete concourses. On one bare wall, pregnant with biting sarcasm and black humour, Nekurzeme – Latvian for ‘Neverland’ -  has been graffitied.

1-0 God

Why is it only the team in maroon that’s affected? Does this mean the other team (in celestial white – coincidence?)are some kind of ubermensch collective? Also, look out right at the end, just as a decimated player is being helped off, one little urchin decides that it’s all a bit of fun and gratuitously waves into the camera as if there hadn’t been some near cataclysmic ‘act of God’. Good lad!

The Revolution Will Be Televised

Strong arm of the law

This weekend, in effect, brings to light the importance and the power of protest. By which I am of course referring to the G20 ‘riots’ of some 17 days past.

Of course, the actions of a few thousand (mostly) youthful people have not, will not and would not change the climate of economic recession. But this is not/was not the point (or it shouldn’t have been anyway).

The point, it seems to me, was one of vocalisation: physically showing displeasure in regards to what has been a wholly unnecessary crisis for the majority, prompted by particularly selfish and greedy individuals. In doing so – much like the marches in protest of the UK’s decision to go to war in Iraq – the people have exercised their right to free speech. Even more importantly, the people made the statement: “Look, we don’t agree with what’s going on. We’re angry and we want you (bankers/politicians) to know it!“

Now, I hasten to add that I am talking solely of protest, something very very different to rioting. Even ion a democracy, the majority cannot always have its wish. This too is a good and wholly necessary fact. However, the majority can vocalise their opinion, just as with G20. And this is immeasurably important as it forces politicians et al to notice. Noticing is, of course, different to Listening. But to force a politician to turn their head and to hold their gaze, however fleetingly, when they are usually cloistered in their corridors of power is a powerful thing.

This is a very important role that we, the masses, should involve ourselves more – especially as, in the west (well, the UK) – we are not only increasingly secular but also increasingly apolitical. Apathy rules. We’re not helped by crushingly boring politicians but our politics, as Europeans, is as important as ever. Involvement, ie Protest,  is therefore a way of politicising – something that we, young Britons, could do more of.

Now, the reason why this weekend brings  the importance and the power of protest to light rather than that April Fool’s Day over two weeks ago, is because it highlights the wholly unpredictable nature of ‘the importance of protest’.

The reason behind the G20 Meltdown (as the protests were billed) was the crisis brought about by banks. However, nearly three weeks on, the significance of the protest in the UK has been the exposure of the police, their conduct, their tactics and, maybe even more importantly, their independent watchdog the IPCC.

This weekend the possibility that Ian Tomlinson died as a result of abdominal haemorrhaging and not of a heart-attack, as concluded by the IPCC, has been exposed. Over recent weeks the Police and the IPCC have had to make a thoroughly shameful climb-down over the whole affair.

In addition, it has come to light that numerous baton-wielding officers present on 1 April 2009 actually covered up their ID epaulettes , seemingly so that they could act in ways that, shall we say, are not in the rulebook and then escape culpability should anyone wish to make a complaint (presumably to the IPCC!) – a shameful and rather worrying incident given that a nation’s police force is meant to uphold law and order as a means to protect the citizens. It is a legal requirement for any police officer to remain identifiable by their rank and number at all times.

The natural question that leads on from all this is “if the police have been acting in such underhand ways in this instance, how many other times have they acted like this in the past? How many deaths and/or other unfortunate incidents were actually the result of such wayward conduct and should have been avoided?” With these questions issues of transparency and trust are thrown into disarray.

It now seems clear that the Police and IPCC wanted to sweep this whole thing “under the rug” – a direct quote from the anonymous man whose camera-film footage from the g20 protest has helped uncover the whole Tomlinson scandal. The irony is that this do-good individual is a hedge-fund manager form New York, exactly the type of person that inspired/enraged so many people on that fateful day to march.

Film and fists

Protest then is one of our most important and powerful tools as citizens of democracy. Indeed, it’s power is only multiplied by our increased potency for citizen-journalism and our sheer ability to broadcast any event in a multitude of mediums in this digital age.

Germany. 70s Germany.

Friends, Romans, countrymen… I have not blogged for a long time now. Many things have been and gone – namely the G20 riots, which I attended. A man even died – and some of my previous witterings have borne truth (ie Jo Whiley actually is now telling me via my TV how she’s just discovered Fleet Foxes!) but nothing has really moved me to create a new post. Until now.

Just like manna from Heaven, a dear friend (you know who you are) has just sent me the following video. I have no idea what’s going on or what it means. All I know is it’s German and it’s from the 70′s. My favourite dancer is too close to call, though it’s probably a toss up between the penultimate ‘Borussia Dortmund’ man in Black and yellow and the number 3 in white and orange hoops who follows him.

Please, please, please send in your comments and opinions as to what the fuck is going on here!

Do androids dream of Dubai?

Les Gobelins // Elektrozavodskaya // Theydon Bois // Csepel // Titan // Kliniklak // Concha Espina

These are all stops on various underground networks somewhere in the world. But they also moonlight as subterranean portals of the imagination, to places of potential intrigue; their exotic, enigmatic and poetic names all at once conjuring a sense of adventure, excitement and romance – the very essence of travel. Whether such places are of actual interest or are beautiful in their reality is unimportant. The fact that they may lead one to imagine is.

You see, the foreign signage or simple names of foreign places are what contributes   to the perception of ‘exotic’, a term that doesn’t simply have to create in your mind’s eye a scene of palm trees. No, the exotic is whatever appears alluring. But crucially also unknown, or at least, unfamiliar. And this can be enshrined in the most unlikely and thoroughly oblique things. It may be a smell, a trick of the light, even the name of a foreign subway station perhaps? All at once then, these senses provoke questions, dreams, thoughts. After all, curiosity is also a central theme to travel, or at least, the appeal of travel and the sparks of excitement that inspires its first steps.

So imagine my disappointment to learn that in Dubai (a seemingly artless place, full of rancid machismo, forced labour, vanity projects and Babylonian Towers) there are plans afoot to launch a new marketing project whereby all the Road & Transport Authority is to sell the naming rights for of the forthcoming metro’s stations.

In this vacuous metropolis of the damned then, passengers will alight at stops named after First Gulf Bank or Etisalat (telecoms provider). And it doesn’t end there; owners can broadcast audio content (so brand X will also fill your journey with inanities about how you need their product as you watch the world go by). They can even pay to name entire lines.

Just as our modern day Cathedrals have parted with time-honoured names that reflected their ‘Holy Sees’ in favour of  corporate brand-naming schemes (eg the Reebok, the Emirates or the Allianz-Arena) so will Dubai’s forthcoming metro system.

Doubtless it will be hailed as a stroke of genius among marketing circles but where is the poetry, the romance? Where now do people’s fleeting moments of escapism and adventure disappear to? Chased into the arid desert, company only for the vultures and bedfellows of the mirage? Reducing the opportunities by which a person may unfetter their mind seems a sad and cruel thing to me, especially when they’re bought out so shamlessly and substituted with something as infuriating and mind-numbing as advertising.

Of course, my hope as far as Dubai is concerned is that the people using the metro will be so preoccupied with their own reflections (if, indeed they have any) that they will have no real need of other stimulus, let alone appreciate the excitement purported by a simple name on a simple map – the beauty of a random collection of letters arranged upon a laminated square of a carriage wall no match for the intoxicating scent of another smouldering petro-dollar on the wind?

But all too often a precedent is dangerously set. In these times I truly hope that other transport authorities neither choose, nor are forced, to follow Dubai’s lead. After all, what price your dreams?

Architecture of the Soul

Last week I met a hero of mine. I was rounding a corner onto Shoreditch High Street when a figure, wrapped in dark overcoat and trademark scarf, passed me at a crossing. My feet carried me on a few paces before I did a double-take, turned and began a rather embarrassing though totally unintentional Alan Partridge impersonation.”Dan! Dan! Dan!” I called to the figure I recognised as Dan Cruikshank.

Dan Cruikshank

The meeting was brief. I simply told him how I’m a fan of his programmes and how nice it was to meet him and that was it. Simple pleasures. But a pleasure none the less. And all in the knowledge that come bed time on Thursday 2 April, I will have met (well, been in the presence of) another of my academic heroes – Alain de Botton. I’m attending a talk at the National Theatre but that’s sure to be a post for another time.

I remember clearly watching his 2005 series Around The World in 80 Treasures religiously, the timing being particularly fitting as in May of that year I would begin my own Odyssey around eastern Europe so the excitement, intrigue and wonder of travelling was extra strong in me. The combination of my own enthusiasm for the adventure ahead of me and that of Dan’s for the many places and things that he visited and bestowed with his unique vitality helps me remember that specific time in my life as a very happy one. All, of course, contributing to my love of Dan Cruikshank who had already won me over with his effervescent and rather dandyish tendency to always wear a scarf and a hat whatever the native climate. Often resulting him to drenched in sweat. Eccentric bastard.

Though our meeting was swift, I know he’s have approved of my other highlight of the week: visiting the Barbican’s  Le Corbusier – The Art of Architecture exhibition. In another life I wouldn’t mind being an architect. The idea of creating something that is then built, lasts and interacts with its environment appeals to me. I also like looking at plans of cities/buildings, their lines, avenues, streets, corners and elevations coming together to create, to my mind, quite beautiful forms and shapes that I’d happily hang on a wall.

Le Corbusier's grand vision for central Paris

Being the last truly Utopian urban planning project in London, and being very much inspired by the man himself, Barbican was a great setting for the exhibition. It was also my first ever visit to a museum/exhibition centre’s late-night opening slot which also gave a nice feel to it all. A whiff of intellectuality and slight pretention was detectable – and I’m all for that; if you’re gonna do it, do it properly (and yes, my partner in architectural adventure for the night, Mr B.Lewis, and I were dressed in black. Bren even had his glasses on which tipped things in his favour).

The Barbican

The exhibiton itself was very cool. Monsieur Le Corbusier is one of the most influential, celebrated and maligned architects of history. To laymen such as myself he’s the Daddy, the name that we all know. Bren and I spent a good two hours learning about Modernism, L’Esprit Nouveau, concrete, the house as a machine, and Le Corbusier’s conviction that a rationally planned city, using his standardised housing types, would offer a healthy, humane alternative to the foetid ‘prisons’ that were the old Victorian cities.

Looking back from 2009, many of his plans looked too related to the maligned everytowns of 60′s and 70′s Britain, or even the Orwellian “social condensers” of Soviet Russia to leave me convinced. But, of course, hindsight is a very distorting looking-glass and such a criticism (as well as being totally lacking in expertise) is pretty unfair.

Le Corbusier’s stuff reminded Bren of a town in Holland he visited called Bijlmermeer and me of a town called Nowa Huta that is to be found to the north-east of Krakow. Nowa Huta means “New Steel Works” in Polish, and has become a suburb of Krakow although it was created to first rival the great ‘bourgeois’ city and then devour it. Of course, that never happened.

Bijlmermeer

Nowa Huta is one of the only surviving places on Earth that was designed along the tenets of Social Realism, an architectural style where form was subservient to function, socialist ideals were to be embodied and expressed and the individual was to be transfigured into the Community. The architects therefore were expected to be “engineers of the human soul.”

Nowa Huta: The social condenser

Rather unsurprisingly, the human soul could not be caged by its ‘patriotic avenues’ nor its symmetrical grid plan nor its huge industrial folly (the steelworks was built hundreds of miles from any iron ore or coal deposits). Instead, it rose to bite the hand of its creator and Nowa Huta became a hotbed of politcal unrest and was a major player in Poland’s push for freedom from the Communist yoke under the Solidarnosc movement of the 1980′s.

Ode to the Bundesliga

Willkommen to German football. Stay a while...

I love the Bundesliga. I love its great games, I love the huge crowds but most of all, I love it’s personalities. And this picture of Steffan Effenburg from the ’94 World Cup sums up the Bundesliga for me: “Fuck you”

The Bundesliga consistently enjoys the highest average attendance of any football league in Europe, eclipsing even the self-titled “Biggest League in the World,” the English Premier League. To those who put down the ‘inferior’ Bundesliga, it shrugs: “Fuck you.”

Currently, there have been a massive 2.96 goals scored per game in Germany’s top division. The Barclay’s Prem has a figure of just 1.23/game, Italy 1.22/game and Spain 1.47/game. But is the Bundesliga generally considered as exciting or as glamorous as the others? The Bundesliga says,”Fuck you.”

Who’s got the joint highest goals scored in the Champions League this season (24) AND broken the record for the highest aggregate win ever (12-1)? Bayern Munich of Bundesliga fame. “Fuck you.”

But the best part of German football cannot be conveyed in mere statistics: the personality cult of the Bundesliga.

Contrary to jingoistic national stereotype, I do not ‘hate the Krauts’. I love Germans. Never met a wrong’un and they have always made me laugh. They just do things differently in Germany, a place that seems always to incubate oddity and humour. They posses rogue elements in their collective character that rise to the surface so much more readily than in Britain. And this, of course, shows in their premier football league.

While watching yet another captivating match (Wolfsburg 4, Schalke 3) last week Daniel Keane Esq and I were honoured with the appearance of one Herr Danny Latza, a young whippersnapper who clearly adheres to the vera moda strictures of, what I like to call, Der EuroBorg. Sure, I’ve made that up. But if it were a real style I’m sure you’d agree it’s befitting of the man whom would surely be its poster boy.

It’s awful isn’t it. Frankly it’s ridiculous. But it made me smile. You just don’t see this sort of thing in the Premier League. Naturally, we began Googling him to find more public displays of his hideous creation. And we found them:

But we also stumbled across another disciple of Der EuroBorg, one who may even eclipse Herr Latza. May I introduce to you Timo Kunert:

I strongly suggest that, quite apart from whichever team you adopt as your own (and you should; the team I adopted is Hertha BSC Berlin who have shot to top of the division, in blatent disregard of their pitiful history – zero championships), everyone ought to keep tabs on both Latza and Kunert. Kunert especially. I like to think that Kunert is the more maverick, the man whom Latza looked up to and learned from at Scahlke (Kunert is now at Hamburg). A kind of Teutonic Mr. Miyagi.

Plus they, especially the older Kunert, are displaying all the hallmarks of becoming Journeymen (ie. piss-poor appearance figures).  This is excellent news. I often think that the Journeyman is the most interesting character to follow. By virtue of the fact that he never really have the talent nor inclination to stick around in one place very long, he often takes on the roles of the Outsider, the Wanderer, the Flaneur. Throw in the fact that these guys are German and there’s all sorts of scope that only too rarely befalls your average English leagues tinker.

Before long I expect Latza and/or Kunert to be embroiled in steamy Art-House cinema scandals, forays into exitentialism, or even a sudden disappearence followed by a dramatic return 2 years hence. When asked where he’d been the reply will be something like: ‘I gave all my possessions to a blind Turkish gypsy in Oldstadt before hitch-hiking the silk-roads east where I finally settled as a monk in the Tibeten foothills. I’ve returned because, as it turns out, my failure to have ever started 4 league games in a row prevented me from finding inner peace.’

Basically, your emotional investment in the Bundesliga goes far beyond the agony and the ecstasy of results. They become wrapped up in the enigmatic persona of the league at large. A league that distills the wit, arrogance, flagrant individuality and many, many idiosynchrasies of the German character and blends it with a myriad of traits and tropes of all sorts of nationalities, from Albanian to Japanese to  Somalian. This and the fact that there are some stupid haircuts, fashion statements that make grown men look like the fifteen year old foreign-exchange kid at school (peruse any of the pics from this link to see what I mean. Also, be aware of the two odd uber-fans, whose raison d’etre seems to be stalking the poor bastards, and the fact that faces never ever change. Chilling). Oh, and silly names also feature (Jan-Ingwar Callsen Bracker is a current favourite).

Plus you get brilliant quotes, rather than the regular post match blandness from anyone in our media-trained charisma-drained league. Such as the pearler from Hertha’s star srtriker Andriiy Voronin (yes, star!) who claimed his goal at the weekend was due to his “sexy chest” and that a slimmer player than he could never have scored in the fashion he had – basically, the ball hit him and bounced off his ample frame and into the net. It beats Michael Owen dribbling into Garth Crookes’ mic any day.

“I know my fate. One day there will be associated with my name the recollection of something frightful” said Friedrich Nietzsche, but it could also be applied to the Bundesliga. It may appear, in some ways, frightful because it’s so different in all it’s many sided aspects to what we in England are used to. This is why it should be embraced. It’s the other side of the coin, it’s football outside the box. It’s brilliant.

And if you disagree? Well, I refer you to the top of this post: “Fuck you.” The Bundesliga is as the Bundesliga does. Your loss.

Just want to finish with some images as they say a picture is worth a thousand words (judging from the length of this post you probably wish I’d used more):

Evidence that Bayern Munich is the most fun club to be a pro for - Attendance at Oktoberfest is mandatory.

Ok so there may not be much else to do in the Ruhr valley but this is still impressive

Before plumping for Hertha Berlin I briefly thought about adopting Hansa Rostock. Given that Mike Werner once graced their rostas I'm almost tempted to go back on my decision. WOOF!

Me, the moon & Carlton Palmer in a bath

I have been abroad – abroad in the badlands of Nottingham. And I have had a revealation: Television sans adverts.

At my brother’s house they have some sort of Virgin-Sky package. With it comes the ability to watch programmes that have already been shown. Now, I realise that this is hardly new and such technology has been around for ages. Indeed, I first experienced Sky+ around 4 years ago. Never-the-less, the option to catch up on stuff that you may have missed at the time is great.

And it got better! For when part one of Heston’s Medieval Feast came to an end, the outtro scene merely played out again (“Hold on,” I thought, “we’re having an ITV moment”) and Heston’s large head was back infront of me. Wonderously, all trace of an ad had been circumnavigated – or else I had been sat in the chair way longer than I realised and Heston had simply entered into my unconscious mind buy osmosis or some other form of dark artistry concocted (no doubt) in one of his nitrogen cookers…

Nah, it’s just there were no adverts. Bloody brilliant. BLOODY BRILLIANT! With my first fumblings with Sky+ all those years before I had exitedly, fumblingly, been able to fast forward through the bog rolls, the insurance bastards, the perfume morons etc and just skipped to the end – or, rather, the start. But this time it was different. It was more mature. It felt like we both knew what we were doing the, TV and myself, we just hit this thing, this rythm time and time and time again. With each climax of another shot of Heston’s massive head another surge of his ridiculously entertaining brand of wizardry thrusted back onto the screen. Unrelenting and uninterrupted.

When it was over – the actual viewing experience as much as the programme itself – I felt euphoric. Of course, my mind slowly started to shuffle these feelings aside, replacing it bit by bit, with musings and the moment was gone. In its place my brother (who had now entered the room) and I began talking about how this great technological turn-on kind of spells the end for TV as we know it. I mean, now that you can just tailor it all to exactly what you want when you want it, factoring in the internet options of BBC i-player or C4 On Demand, the idea of breaking off whatever it is you’re doing at 9pm of a Tuesday evening seems ridiculous. It’s a Mary Antoinette moment: I’ve been allowed my cake and I’m eating it (actually, I wish to rub it on my body a little before devouring it – but C4 On Demand doesn’t work on Macs. This is a thorough and very much surprising annoyance).

And this led us to return to talking about adverts, our joint bête noire. Basically, we’ve decided that while the PR gurus of this world have been missing a trick, it is surely just a matter of time before we get adverts beamed onto the moon. A few satellites (funded by Coke, or Tesco etc) will be sent into orbit and will transmit the gaudy logo onto that blank celestial body that has hitherto been a beacon for human kind to gaze at, ponder over and wish upon. Unfortunately, it will most probably return more than just dreams and wonderment but also a strange urge to buy a can of syrupy-sweet tooth rot.

Girl: “Wow. Just looking up there, at the stars and the moon, it really gets me. Straight in the heart. To think, there could be so much out there. And to know I have you here, with me tonight, looking up at all that possibility, it’s so inspiring. It’s so romantic.”

Boy: “Bloody hell! Bog roll’s now only £2.68? I’m off down the shops. Catch you later Cindy, yeah ?”

Well I don’t want to be Cindy!! What’s worse, we decided that on overcast days when you can’t see the moon, we’ll just have ads plastered over the underside of the clouds. Lord knows we have enough cloudy days in the UK so this is even more of a shoe-in than the moon. And it can’t such an expensive endeavour – so for the most part we’ll just get all the really toss, cheapo ads (the Moonpigs or the thrush creams) in our faces, taking up that vast unused expanse above our eye line.

Needless to say this depressed me. And all because I dared to dream of a life without the things I want to watch being interrupted with shit, annoying, inane adverts. My only hope was this: In the near future, all ads will follow suit of the programming and just as my ‘TV’ becomes personally tailored to my exact likes, so the advertising will become more personalised. Ergo, my life will become devoid of ambulance chasing lawyers and Kerry Katona. Hopefully. In their place will be loads of football gumf. Not ideal but given the recent attempts by Paddy Power (who have somehow stumbled upon my love for the more bizarre and tragi-comically glorious aspects of footy nostalgia) perhaps not too bad, all things considered?