Berlin 3: Out and About

Having finally got ourselves to Berlin and - on my part - survived the vertigo, we found our hotel (a hostel just north of Alexanderplatz, vaguely bohemian, near fun restaurants & cafes).Next day we went out and about...

This is a slightly unusual shot of Freidrichstrasse station, which acted as a border between East and West Berlin during the cold war.   I was amazed to discover (at the DDR museum) how the Berlin Wall affected  the undergound lines (S-Bahn etc).  Of course, the wall wasn't a straight line division of the city, and the trains crossed the broders and travelled under both parts of Berlin.  In the East, those stations on lines which lead to or from the West (or both) were closed.  Under Friedrichstrasse, two lines from the West met, I gather and it could be used as an interchange by West Berliners while remaining wholly under the East.  The DDR authorities set up a border control in the station and it became one of the few places where people could travel between the regimes.  

Poem of the Week

Embarrassment
Madness (Michael Barson, Lee Jay Thompson)

Received a letter just the other day
Don't seem they wanna know you no more
They've laid it down given you their score
Within the first two lines it bluntly read

You're not to come and see us no more
Keep away from our door
Don't come 'round here no more
What on earth did you do that for?

Our aunt, she don't wanna know she says
"What will the neighbors think, they'll think
We don't, that's what they'll think, we don't"
But I will, 'cause I know they think I don't

Our uncle he don't wanna know he says
"We are a disgrace to the human race", he says
"How can you show your face
When you're a disgrace to the human race?"

No commitment, you're an embarrassment
Yes, an embarrassment, a living endorsement
The intention that you have booked
Was an intention that was overlooked

They say, "Stay away
Don't want you home today
Keep away from our door
Don't come 'round here no more"

Our dad, don't wanna know he says
"This is a serious matter
Too late to reconsider
No one's gonna wanna know ya"

Our mum, she don't wanna know, she says
"I'm feelin' twice as old", she says
"Thought she had a head on her shoulder
'Cause I'm feelin' twice as older
I'm feelin' twice as older"

You're an embarrassment

High Anxiety

But on the subject of vertigo, I have to admit that I last felt pit-of-the stomach, height-induced fear and awfulness while sitting on the grass in Peckham Rye near the cafe. 

This was in early August, and we were sprawled out late one evening watching the pop-up cinema, which was showing Safety Last!   It's the one they always cite when discussing Harold Lloyd - the one with the clock and the high building.

I had been told that many of the stunts were done for real - but even if I had thought at the time that they were faked, I think it would still have left me wrung out.  Funny yes, but rather nerve jangling (can I say that?) also.

On why Dr Who can do Hauptbahnhof better than Berlin...

And yet, and yet, despite my last post, one of the joys of the last Dr Who was the steampunky beginning, which included an anachronistic London with the Flying Scotsman, on elevated railway, entering the side of the Gherkin.  It reminded me enormously of Berlin Hauptbahnhof, but it was jazzy and fun instead of overwhelming.  (Of course I would have hated it if I actually had to go on that railway).  Churchill as Caesar  living in Buckingham Palace, and that was just the first five minutes.

And the tying-up of the complexities and loose ends of the last series was both sufficiently straightforward and yet still quite subtle.  A spottable solution, but still nice and quirky.  And a little less frenetic in feel than some of the other highly-plotted episodes have felt. 

And included amongst all of the running around was a gentle eulogy for Nicholas Courtney, who played Brigadier Sir Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart, and who sadly died recently.  

Well done.  A good effort all around.

Berlin 2: Hauptbahnhof

If I enjoyed the swish DB railways, I really disliked the vertiginous feelings around Berlin Hauptbahnhof, the big new city station:

A massive, modernist glass and steel building, it does, I know, look fantastic.  But I am not a heights person, and it has just too many levels for all the trains that come and go.  It just left me feeling a bit wobbly...

Shed near Derby

Anyway, as we drove down the M1 from the far North, just by Derby, up front we could see the bright sunny blue skies of the South.  And behind?  A gray wall of dark heavy cloud.  Sad.

Who's that?

Finally got to watch the last Dr Who of the series (the Wedding of River Song) - we had to i-Play it because we were away at the weekend.  Up North in the rain, away from the sunny South.

It was great!  If you haven't seen it watch it now before it fades away from the BBC Web site into the Silence....