Dear Stan,
Here is the link to the wonderful essay on modern atheists by in City Journal:
http://www.city-journal.org/html/17_4_oh_to_be.html
(Indeed, a brilliant essay. I actually believe
You can link it, spread the word and be free from copyright prosecution. As a follow up to Beckett's famous blast: "God doesn't exist - the bastard!", I am reminded of the old joke about the Irish atheist who went around wishing to God he believed in God. Trying to deny His existence is like the childhood game of trying to jump off your own shadow. As nature abhors a vacuum, other beliefs merely move in to act as unsatisfactory substitutes. Some of our most vocal British atheists sound like (and in some cases look like) religious crackpots in their propaganda zeal, especially on issues such as global warming which plainly play the role of surrogate religions for atheist advocates. George Monbiot and Johann Hari are prime examples, as in the recent case of a small but vocal demonstration against the expansion of Heathrow Airport. In his fervent denunciation of the demon air travel, the atheist Hari was reduced to raging against the gleaming streamlined shapes emitting CO2 and leading the planet "to Hell", which he does not believe in. Of course, Hari uses air travel, but only as a necessary evil in assisting his reporting on injustice in other parts of the world.....
Tuesday, November 27, 2007
Friday, November 23, 2007
English Language in Germany
I spent a few hours around the Central Rail Station in Cologne. In many cities (e.g. New York, Berlin, Turin, Prague) you are warned about the criminal dangers around the rail station - typically pickpockets, hustlers and drug dealers. But Cologne's station is brightly lit, well policed and busy nearly all the time. The historic station with its enormous curved glass roof sits on top of a good sized mall with numerous shops and cheap eating places offering cuisines from several countries. As the station is right beside the Cathedral, it was a very convenient spot to 
grab a quick meal before more sightseeing. But, best of all, it has a superb newspaper and magazine shop which illustrates the union of Europe better than any political speeches.The shelves displayed publications from Germany, Britain, the USA, France, Italy, Spain, Poland, Russia, the Czech Republic and Turkey. Cologne has been a European crossroads for centuries; the collapse of the Communist block and the expansion of the European Union has increased the numbers of people traveling in all directions for work and pleasure. After being brought up for decades on stories of the austerity of the Communist countries, it still seems strange to see glossy fashion magazines with Cyrillic letters surrounding the supermodels on the covers.
The English language selection was as good as you would find in many magazine shops in England and the main British "newspapers" (or Prolefeed as George Orwell accurately called them) were on sale on the same day as they appeared in London. If you wanted to learn the latest non-development in the eternal saga of Madeleine McCann (the little English girl lost/murdered/abducted/??? in Portugal) you could pay three times the London price and read all about it. But then you could check out the 1,720,000 references on Google for free and be just about as wise (or ignorant). As one of my cynical colleagues observed 20 years ago, here was more proof of the tens of billions of pounds we waste on education each year.The size of the English section is just another reminder of the worldwide triumph of the language. A friend who works for a large multinational told me that his German colleagues were ordered to speak English in business meetings - even if only Germans were present.
The English language is typically the only alternative to German provided in most public places. Despite the heroic rearguard efforts of the Academie Francais and other cultural bodies, the French language is never going to endure this sort of linguistic Juggernaut; this seems especially ironic for a city whose English name is actually the French one. You can get guidebooks for the city and the cathedral in 6 or 7 main European languages, and guided tours can be obtained in several languages. But the useful detailed instructions on signs and noticeboards can practically be displayed in only two or three languages and English is the inevitable choice.
Outside the station it is only a short walk to the pedestrianised shopping streets where you can max out your credit cards as quickly as in any other major city on earth. You could buy much of the merchandise in London (or in Reading for that matter), so there was little to excite my interest. The French might be losing the language wars, but they are triumphantly winning the shopping battles. The distinctive French labels like Louis Vuitton, Chanel, etc are as evident in Cologne as they are in the Far East cities I visited. Luxury goods have been a French specialty for decades and with the continuing expansion of many countries' economies they are uniquely well placed to reap the fruits of their carefully nurtured trade marks.
The local jewelery store named "Christ" has its name across the cover of the city's shopping guide displayed at the airport and elsewhere. For a while I thought that this would be the customer's stunned ejaculation on seeing their price tags, but in fact much of their jewelery and watch prices are mid-market by German standards.
The huge department store Kaufhof (rough equivalent of Sears or JC Penney) had a huge window display which will probably linger in the memories of local children for decades. It showed dozens of soft toy animals animated in a range of gestures - so the monkeys swung from a beam, the elephant nodded its head and the tiger crouched and twitched its tail. It provided a well designed and executed entertainment for the Christmas/Carnival crowds and children of all ages.
One shop outside the main shopping area had a range of beautiful Christmas manger sets and other religious statues which you would not see in many cities. The individual museums and galleries stock memorabilia specific to each site.
One big difference between Germany and Britain is the brewery distribution. The local beer Kolsch has to be brewed within the city limits to be called Kolsch; there are various breweries making their own beers so you can get Peter Kolsch, Sion Kolsch and so on. Practically every town and city in Germany has its own beer and brewery, just as Britain had before the national and multinational firms took over or bankrupted the local firms. A surprising number still hang on determinedly in various parts of Britain and their products are relished and publicized by the Real Ale movement. But the local brews' position seems much more assured in Germany.
Thursday, November 22, 2007
Beethoven, Germany, Things that Fly in the Air
After visiting the Beethoven Haus in Bonn, I walked down the the Museum of the History of the Federal Republic. The title was not particularly inviting or exciting and I would not have seen it if a German friend had not recommended it. But it was wonderful! Everything from the Berlin Wall (building and destruction) to an old Miele washing machine to a Trabant, a piece of moonrock and one of the Beatles' drumsticks. As the museum covers the period of German history from 1945 to the present, it also chronicles many major European and American events, such as the 1960s student upheavals, the space race and European unification.
The exhibits start in the desperate days after May 1945 when staying alive was a constant battle. One room recreates the stark interior of a refugee camp hut. In 1945 at least 6 million Germans fled from the eastern provinces of Silesia, Prussia and Pomerania ahead of the Red Army, plus more who were expelled by the newly liberated Czechs from the Sudentenland areas of Czechoslovakia. They arrived in areas of Germany where the existing inhabitants had no homes due to the bombing and there was no public transport, electricity, gas or clean running water. It puts into perspective the current hubbub in Britain about the influx of less than a million East Europeans arriving in a peaceful prosperous country with adequate housing and all public services functioning.
The exhibits are arranged in date order, so you get some sense of economic, political and social changes decade by decade. Much of the emphasis is on the West German perspective, though changes in the Communist East Germany get some coverage. The museum covers my whole life, so it was a thrill to see the smallest BMW car ever made - the two -seater "bubble" car (with only one door - across the front of the vehicle!) they produced in the 1950s and which I dimly remember seeing gleaming new in a showroom when I was a small child - at a time when British car buyers were very patriotic and any foreign car was a rarity on British roads. It was so strange seeing this tiny, slow, bizarre vehicle sporting the familiar blue-and-white round badge which now adorns some of the most powerful and advanced sedans in the world. BMW are of course one of the major contributors to Germany being the biggest exporting nation on earth. Despite all the fuss about Chinese exports, Germany, with 7% of the population of China and 25% of the US population, out-exports both countries.
Most of the labels in the museum are in German, though I bought the very fat and informative English language guidebook to steer myself round the complex layouts. For film buffs, there was one amazing surprise - a huge temporary exhibition dedicated entirely to "Das Boot" (The Boat), the 1981 classic about WW2 submarine warfare. Surely one of the best war films ever, the exhibition brought it to life again, showing many details of the production, such as the make-up, custome design, camera work and the model submarines used for exterior shots, plus the numerous awards the film justly won.
One hilarious episode which is not mentioned in the museum is the prelude to the introduction of the Euro in 2002. The roads down to Switzerland and Liechtenstein were packed with top-of-the-range BMWs and Mercedes loaded with Deutschmarks which had never been declared to the taxman.This loot needed to be paid into suitably discreet banks before the marks became obsolete.
Walking down the road to this museum there were several surprises. There was an "Old Catholic" church; I had read about this breakaway group, which left the Catholic Church after the First Vatican Council, but had never seen one of their churches. Right next door was the Newman institute for Catholic students. A few minutes on there was the old foreign ministry and the old residence of the President of the republic. In the best civil service tradition, the united German government have built a new foreign ministry and a new Residence for the President in Berlin - but still keep the huge redundant old buildings in Bonn. And I suppose that , somewhere in East Berlin, there is a third foreign ministry left over from the DDR.... As long as there is only one foreign policy. It is difficult enough keeping up with one set of foreign policies (especially if they are French).
Back in Cologne, the preparations for the Carnival season were well advanced. I had a meal with Annette, my German friend who I met when she was a member of one of the St James music groups for a year in 2004/5. She then did a year's teacher training in Ludwigshaven, the very industrial home town of BASF, the huge chemical company. Happily she has now moved on to a teaching job (English and geography) in the much more attractive city of Koblenz, where the River Moselle joins the Rhine. She explained that Carnival (called "the Fifth Season") runs from late November to Ash Wednesday, with a break for Christmas. The area south of the cathedral is covered with rows of solidly made wooden huts which will house the Christmas Market - one of several around the city.
Germans are reputed to travel abroad more than any other nation on earth and Annette and her family certainly live up to this stereotype. She spent two weeks in Iran last summer, with no trouble whatsoever. She found the Iranians incredibly friendly and hospitable, ready to engage in conversation and exchange email addresses at the drop of a hat. Of course, she had to observe basic proprieties, dressing very modestly and covering her hair with a scarf. She also attended the wedding of a American friend (of Egyptian parentage) whom she met while studying in Chicago. The wedding took place in an idyllic village church in the Loire valley in France, followed by the reception in one of the beautiful chateaux for which that region is famous. Unfortunately, the bride's parents were absent, objecting to her choice of a Jewish husband. This did not deter her numerous other relatives who flew in from the Middle East and elsewhere. The local French villagers applauded and threw flowers as this wedding procession of total strangers progressed past their homes. The bride was originally Orthodox, but converted to Catholicism so that she and her Jewish fiance could get married in church. It was a reminder of how "globalised" people are becoming.
Annette's parents had been around much the same area as me this year, visiting Hong Kong, Singapore, Bangkok and Kuala Lumpur. I have not seen the last city, though it is certainly on my list for future holidays. But despite all this globe trotting, she was delayed in getting to our rendezvous outside the cathedral. It is only a hour by train from Koblenz, but there was a strike on! The train drivers were seeking a hefty increase. Still, most trains ran and she was only twenty minutes late.
When I took the trains to and from Bonn, they ran absolutely on time. It was a single decker train down to Bonn, a double decker on the way back - one of very few occasions I have ever been on a double decker train. Both trains were quiet, smooth and spotlessly clean. As with Singapore and Hong Kong, I felt very safe out at night in both Bonn and Cologne. It was such a pleasant change to going out after dark in Reading or London, where the massive alcohol abuse by thousands of people makes you all too aware that violence is never far away.
I went to Sunday Mass in Cologne Cathedral. The bishop lead the entry procession, which was swelled by a huge all-girl choir. The latter were mainly 10-13 years old; they looked suitably angelic in their white robes and sounded angelic as well. I checked out the wonderful St Gereons Church west of the Cathedral - no wonder Cologne is described as a Cathedral surrounded by Cathedrals. Several churches would be cathedrals in any other city. I then went to the City of Cologne Museum which boasts a winged car on its roof - this a tribute to Ford, a major employer in the area. A 1960s Ford is one of the exhibits inside.
The museum covers all of Cologne's history from Roman times to the present day, through the Middle Ages when it was the largest city north of the Alps, bigger even than Paris or London. A very frank area describes the Nazi period of Cologne's history, when swastika flags were hung even on the Cathedral. I had heard of the special cheap radios which the Nazis mass produced so that Germans could listen to their propaganda; sure enough, there were two samples in a display case. The WW2 destruction was apocalyptic; exhibits and photographs depict the devastation of the city's buildings, bridges and transport. 20,000 citizens were killed, 4,800 on one terrible night in 1943, more than a year AFTER the "Thousand Bomber raid". Other fascinating exhibits show the numerous industries and trades in the area. Most unexpected was the model of the enormous rafts of logs floated down the Rhine from southern Germany. The exhibit said that these were up to 300 metres long, which in one sense would make them the biggest vessels ever built up to that time.
I am now safe at home after a short but eventful flight from Cologne. We had a delay boarding the plane because it had been held up at another airport during its constant hops around Europe. Apparently one document said there were 137 people on board, while another said there were 134. Somehow three passengers were issued with duplicate boarding cards, which accounted for the three extra bodies. So by the time it reached Cologne/Bonn Airport and we were able to board, it was already well behind schedule. We thought that we were ready for take-off, but then there was a further delay because there was still one woman passenger standing without a seat. The crew argued over a cello which a musician passenger had brought on board. There were several other bulky instruments stuffed into the rear toilet compartment, which meant that no one could use that toilet for part of the flight. But this cello had a seat to itself, which the owner had paid for. This precious instrument was going into the cargo hold only over the owner's dead body.
After much negotiating and some surreal debate as to whether it was a "female" passenger, the cello was moved up to the flight deck the woman got her seat and we took off! I suspect the question of the cello's gender might have arisen from a head count of male and female passengers. There is always a spare seat (the "jump seat") on an airliner's flight deck, but the obvious solution (put a passenger in the jump seat) was forbidden by security rules. Part way through the flight, some of the musical instruments were taken out of the toilet so that passengers could use it, but don't ask me where the crew put them. The flight to London was less than an hour, but it was easily the bumpiest I have ever experienced. The aircraft flew only at 23,000 feet, which is much lower than most jets. I love flying, but was mighty glad to reach the ground this time. I was surrounded a a crowd of 10/11 year old children from a diving club who had been to a competition in Germany. Their harassed supervisors managed to retain their sense of humour while keeping the bored kids in order throughout the delays.
Back at Gatwick, you are inevitably reminded what total dumps the major London airports are in comparison with just about every other airport in the developed world. Going down the steps from the departure lounge to the tarmac at Gatwick was like descending to a 1950s urinal. Heathrow is little better. The enormous Terminal 5 finally opens at Heathrow next March; it has taken 20 years of arguing to get that erected after enquiries and planning consent delays and appeals. Unfortunately the ancient Terminals 1 to 3 will still be in business. Luton and Stansted are much more modern, but they are difficult to reach from Reading and offer fewer flights. But the real fun starts when you leave the bus to track down your car in the enormous long-stay carpark. Even with the benefit of a zone letter and a row number, I was wandering up and down for ages in the rain before I found it. I was 1:30am before I crawled into bed; up again at 6:30am for work on Monday......
The exhibits start in the desperate days after May 1945 when staying alive was a constant battle. One room recreates the stark interior of a refugee camp hut. In 1945 at least 6 million Germans fled from the eastern provinces of Silesia, Prussia and Pomerania ahead of the Red Army, plus more who were expelled by the newly liberated Czechs from the Sudentenland areas of Czechoslovakia. They arrived in areas of Germany where the existing inhabitants had no homes due to the bombing and there was no public transport, electricity, gas or clean running water. It puts into perspective the current hubbub in Britain about the influx of less than a million East Europeans arriving in a peaceful prosperous country with adequate housing and all public services functioning.
The exhibits are arranged in date order, so you get some sense of economic, political and social changes decade by decade. Much of the emphasis is on the West German perspective, though changes in the Communist East Germany get some coverage. The museum covers my whole life, so it was a thrill to see the smallest BMW car ever made - the two -seater "bubble" car (with only one door - across the front of the vehicle!) they produced in the 1950s and which I dimly remember seeing gleaming new in a showroom when I was a small child - at a time when British car buyers were very patriotic and any foreign car was a rarity on British roads. It was so strange seeing this tiny, slow, bizarre vehicle sporting the familiar blue-and-white round badge which now adorns some of the most powerful and advanced sedans in the world. BMW are of course one of the major contributors to Germany being the biggest exporting nation on earth. Despite all the fuss about Chinese exports, Germany, with 7% of the population of China and 25% of the US population, out-exports both countries.
Most of the labels in the museum are in German, though I bought the very fat and informative English language guidebook to steer myself round the complex layouts. For film buffs, there was one amazing surprise - a huge temporary exhibition dedicated entirely to "Das Boot" (The Boat), the 1981 classic about WW2 submarine warfare. Surely one of the best war films ever, the exhibition brought it to life again, showing many details of the production, such as the make-up, custome design, camera work and the model submarines used for exterior shots, plus the numerous awards the film justly won.
One hilarious episode which is not mentioned in the museum is the prelude to the introduction of the Euro in 2002. The roads down to Switzerland and Liechtenstein were packed with top-of-the-range BMWs and Mercedes loaded with Deutschmarks which had never been declared to the taxman.This loot needed to be paid into suitably discreet banks before the marks became obsolete.
Walking down the road to this museum there were several surprises. There was an "Old Catholic" church; I had read about this breakaway group, which left the Catholic Church after the First Vatican Council, but had never seen one of their churches. Right next door was the Newman institute for Catholic students. A few minutes on there was the old foreign ministry and the old residence of the President of the republic. In the best civil service tradition, the united German government have built a new foreign ministry and a new Residence for the President in Berlin - but still keep the huge redundant old buildings in Bonn. And I suppose that , somewhere in East Berlin, there is a third foreign ministry left over from the DDR.... As long as there is only one foreign policy. It is difficult enough keeping up with one set of foreign policies (especially if they are French).
Back in Cologne, the preparations for the Carnival season were well advanced. I had a meal with Annette, my German friend who I met when she was a member of one of the St James music groups for a year in 2004/5. She then did a year's teacher training in Ludwigshaven, the very industrial home town of BASF, the huge chemical company. Happily she has now moved on to a teaching job (English and geography) in the much more attractive city of Koblenz, where the River Moselle joins the Rhine. She explained that Carnival (called "the Fifth Season") runs from late November to Ash Wednesday, with a break for Christmas. The area south of the cathedral is covered with rows of solidly made wooden huts which will house the Christmas Market - one of several around the city.
Germans are reputed to travel abroad more than any other nation on earth and Annette and her family certainly live up to this stereotype. She spent two weeks in Iran last summer, with no trouble whatsoever. She found the Iranians incredibly friendly and hospitable, ready to engage in conversation and exchange email addresses at the drop of a hat. Of course, she had to observe basic proprieties, dressing very modestly and covering her hair with a scarf. She also attended the wedding of a American friend (of Egyptian parentage) whom she met while studying in Chicago. The wedding took place in an idyllic village church in the Loire valley in France, followed by the reception in one of the beautiful chateaux for which that region is famous. Unfortunately, the bride's parents were absent, objecting to her choice of a Jewish husband. This did not deter her numerous other relatives who flew in from the Middle East and elsewhere. The local French villagers applauded and threw flowers as this wedding procession of total strangers progressed past their homes. The bride was originally Orthodox, but converted to Catholicism so that she and her Jewish fiance could get married in church. It was a reminder of how "globalised" people are becoming.
Annette's parents had been around much the same area as me this year, visiting Hong Kong, Singapore, Bangkok and Kuala Lumpur. I have not seen the last city, though it is certainly on my list for future holidays. But despite all this globe trotting, she was delayed in getting to our rendezvous outside the cathedral. It is only a hour by train from Koblenz, but there was a strike on! The train drivers were seeking a hefty increase. Still, most trains ran and she was only twenty minutes late.
When I took the trains to and from Bonn, they ran absolutely on time. It was a single decker train down to Bonn, a double decker on the way back - one of very few occasions I have ever been on a double decker train. Both trains were quiet, smooth and spotlessly clean. As with Singapore and Hong Kong, I felt very safe out at night in both Bonn and Cologne. It was such a pleasant change to going out after dark in Reading or London, where the massive alcohol abuse by thousands of people makes you all too aware that violence is never far away.
I went to Sunday Mass in Cologne Cathedral. The bishop lead the entry procession, which was swelled by a huge all-girl choir. The latter were mainly 10-13 years old; they looked suitably angelic in their white robes and sounded angelic as well. I checked out the wonderful St Gereons Church west of the Cathedral - no wonder Cologne is described as a Cathedral surrounded by Cathedrals. Several churches would be cathedrals in any other city. I then went to the City of Cologne Museum which boasts a winged car on its roof - this a tribute to Ford, a major employer in the area. A 1960s Ford is one of the exhibits inside.
The museum covers all of Cologne's history from Roman times to the present day, through the Middle Ages when it was the largest city north of the Alps, bigger even than Paris or London. A very frank area describes the Nazi period of Cologne's history, when swastika flags were hung even on the Cathedral. I had heard of the special cheap radios which the Nazis mass produced so that Germans could listen to their propaganda; sure enough, there were two samples in a display case. The WW2 destruction was apocalyptic; exhibits and photographs depict the devastation of the city's buildings, bridges and transport. 20,000 citizens were killed, 4,800 on one terrible night in 1943, more than a year AFTER the "Thousand Bomber raid". Other fascinating exhibits show the numerous industries and trades in the area. Most unexpected was the model of the enormous rafts of logs floated down the Rhine from southern Germany. The exhibit said that these were up to 300 metres long, which in one sense would make them the biggest vessels ever built up to that time.
I am now safe at home after a short but eventful flight from Cologne. We had a delay boarding the plane because it had been held up at another airport during its constant hops around Europe. Apparently one document said there were 137 people on board, while another said there were 134. Somehow three passengers were issued with duplicate boarding cards, which accounted for the three extra bodies. So by the time it reached Cologne/Bonn Airport and we were able to board, it was already well behind schedule. We thought that we were ready for take-off, but then there was a further delay because there was still one woman passenger standing without a seat. The crew argued over a cello which a musician passenger had brought on board. There were several other bulky instruments stuffed into the rear toilet compartment, which meant that no one could use that toilet for part of the flight. But this cello had a seat to itself, which the owner had paid for. This precious instrument was going into the cargo hold only over the owner's dead body.
After much negotiating and some surreal debate as to whether it was a "female" passenger, the cello was moved up to the flight deck the woman got her seat and we took off! I suspect the question of the cello's gender might have arisen from a head count of male and female passengers. There is always a spare seat (the "jump seat") on an airliner's flight deck, but the obvious solution (put a passenger in the jump seat) was forbidden by security rules. Part way through the flight, some of the musical instruments were taken out of the toilet so that passengers could use it, but don't ask me where the crew put them. The flight to London was less than an hour, but it was easily the bumpiest I have ever experienced. The aircraft flew only at 23,000 feet, which is much lower than most jets. I love flying, but was mighty glad to reach the ground this time. I was surrounded a a crowd of 10/11 year old children from a diving club who had been to a competition in Germany. Their harassed supervisors managed to retain their sense of humour while keeping the bored kids in order throughout the delays.
Back at Gatwick, you are inevitably reminded what total dumps the major London airports are in comparison with just about every other airport in the developed world. Going down the steps from the departure lounge to the tarmac at Gatwick was like descending to a 1950s urinal. Heathrow is little better. The enormous Terminal 5 finally opens at Heathrow next March; it has taken 20 years of arguing to get that erected after enquiries and planning consent delays and appeals. Unfortunately the ancient Terminals 1 to 3 will still be in business. Luton and Stansted are much more modern, but they are difficult to reach from Reading and offer fewer flights. But the real fun starts when you leave the bus to track down your car in the enormous long-stay carpark. Even with the benefit of a zone letter and a row number, I was wandering up and down for ages in the rain before I found it. I was 1:30am before I crawled into bed; up again at 6:30am for work on Monday......
Saturday, November 17, 2007
Bonn, Germany
Dear Stan,I am currently in Bonn, which makes it the 3rd ex-capital city I have visited in just over a year. (Turin used to be the Italian capital and East Berlin was the capital of East Germany). I have so far seen only the Beethoven House. He is plainly the city's most famous son, as you can tell from the numerous statues and signs pointing to
the Beethoven House. It is well worth the €5.00 admission fee, as it contains the largest collection of Beethoven memorabilia in the world - his pianos, desks, viola, portraits, letters, manuscripts and, most poignantly, the ear trumpets and conversation books which he was forced to use as his deafness progressed. 
It also contains his death mask and a lifemask made 15 years earlier. I must confess that I had never even heard of a "lifemask" until I saw his, though it is a obvious procedure to use in the pre-photography age.I had a fascinating few hours in the German-Roman Museum in Cologne. From the outside it is the sort of hideous square concrete box which gives neo-Brutalism a bad name - all the worse as it is right beside the peerless Cathedral. Once inside, it is endlessly enthralling. The interior design is far more appealing than the exterior, with one stairwell designed around a large Roman mosaic discovered in 1941 when building an air raid shelter. It boasts "the largest collection of Roman glass in the world" and I would not argue with this claim to fame. The beauty and intricacy of the craftsmanship in glass and ceramics surviving 2,000 years is a marvel in itself. It brings everyday Roman life back to life in a way better than any other museum I have seen. It includes children's toys, rings, hairpins and cosmetic pots used by the ladies, cooking pots, recreated domestic interiors, part of the Roman walls of Cologne and a rebuilt Roman carriage.
There was a wedding in progress when I visited the Town Hall, with the radiant bride and groom oblivious to the traumatic history of the building (totally rebuilt since WW2 leveling) and the nearby glass pyramid which covers the deep shaft of the Jewish ritual cleansing bath discovered at that site. The local Jews, as in every part of Europe, suffered pogroms well before the Nazis arrived. Round the corner from the Town Hall is the enormous tower of Great St Martin, a church which would be a cathedral in any other city, also totally rebuilt since 1945.
Thursday, November 15, 2007
Museum Politics
Sometimes the simplest things are the hardest. Like now, when I am trying to access my Hotmail account from Cologne public library and it has taken me ten minutes to find the keystroke combination for @. Just try using the Internet without it! Even with a Roman keyboard, there are numerous ways of arranging the characters enough to confuse the foreigner.
I am enjoying a few days in Cologne and have so far seen the Chocolate Museum, the Sports Museum and the Dom (cathedral), the largest church in Germany. Among its numerous claims to fame is the golden reliquary containing the skulls of the Three Wise Men. Cologne was the target of the first Thousand Bomber raid in history in 1942. Actually, the Royal Air Force scraped up considerably less than 1,000 aircraft for that mission, but it looked good in the tabloid headlines of the time. As a result of that raid and numerous others, there was not much left of Cologne by the time peace came. But you would never know it today. The rebuilding of the city, like that of Berlin, is little short of miraculous.
As you might suspect from earlier postings, I always enjoy the quirky and unexpected aspects of any city and Cologne certainly has its share. The Chocolate Museum was founded by a local chocolate company owner and contains 3,000 years of the history of chocolate and the cocoa bean - everything from its origins in South and Central America to modern incarnations like the Mars bar, Kitkat and Toberlerone. A complete chocolate production line, a tropical hothouse nurturing the trees, chocolate animals, moulds, advertising, technical innovations, plenty of free samples - in short, a glorious afternoon for anyone with a sweet tooth.
The Sports and Olympic Museum next door is equally enthralling. It contains everything from Steffi Graf's 1991 Wimbledon trophy to Leni Riefenstall's 1938 epic Olympic documentary to Michael Schumacher's Grand Prix winning Renault. It does not duck the uglier aspects of German sporting history under the Nazis, but is curiously silent about the East German mass doping scandal. Some of the German Olympic medal winners gracing the walls are from the East German glory days of the 1970s and 1980s, about which an embarassed silence might be the only diplomatic recourse. Also at one end of a gallery, there was a bank of TVs showing sporting highlights from the last few decades, with the inevitable Chariots of Fire theme running in a continuous loop. Of course Chariots of Fire was set at the 1924 Paris Olympics - where Germany was banned as ongoing punishment for WW1. The Olympics have been political from the start, with one country or another being banned or trying to impose bans on some else.
I am enjoying a few days in Cologne and have so far seen the Chocolate Museum, the Sports Museum and the Dom (cathedral), the largest church in Germany. Among its numerous claims to fame is the golden reliquary containing the skulls of the Three Wise Men. Cologne was the target of the first Thousand Bomber raid in history in 1942. Actually, the Royal Air Force scraped up considerably less than 1,000 aircraft for that mission, but it looked good in the tabloid headlines of the time. As a result of that raid and numerous others, there was not much left of Cologne by the time peace came. But you would never know it today. The rebuilding of the city, like that of Berlin, is little short of miraculous.
As you might suspect from earlier postings, I always enjoy the quirky and unexpected aspects of any city and Cologne certainly has its share. The Chocolate Museum was founded by a local chocolate company owner and contains 3,000 years of the history of chocolate and the cocoa bean - everything from its origins in South and Central America to modern incarnations like the Mars bar, Kitkat and Toberlerone. A complete chocolate production line, a tropical hothouse nurturing the trees, chocolate animals, moulds, advertising, technical innovations, plenty of free samples - in short, a glorious afternoon for anyone with a sweet tooth.
The Sports and Olympic Museum next door is equally enthralling. It contains everything from Steffi Graf's 1991 Wimbledon trophy to Leni Riefenstall's 1938 epic Olympic documentary to Michael Schumacher's Grand Prix winning Renault. It does not duck the uglier aspects of German sporting history under the Nazis, but is curiously silent about the East German mass doping scandal. Some of the German Olympic medal winners gracing the walls are from the East German glory days of the 1970s and 1980s, about which an embarassed silence might be the only diplomatic recourse. Also at one end of a gallery, there was a bank of TVs showing sporting highlights from the last few decades, with the inevitable Chariots of Fire theme running in a continuous loop. Of course Chariots of Fire was set at the 1924 Paris Olympics - where Germany was banned as ongoing punishment for WW1. The Olympics have been political from the start, with one country or another being banned or trying to impose bans on some else.
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