Andrew Reid: Curb Your Enthusiasm

 

A single moment can sometimes sum up an entire history, and it happened to me one morning in Berlin, a German man waited on the edge of a busy road and suddenly in a scene which wouldn’t be out of place in a classic movie, his wife ran into his arms from across the street and they embraced as if meeting after a long time apart.

Berlin has been liberated from war by love.

It has that special spirit about it… and everything that happens in this great city feels heightened by it’s terrible history.

That doesn’t mean it doesn’t still have a dark underbelly. I was arrested.

It all started when we decided to go on a bike tour of the city. I’d missed it a few days earlier, because we got lost. I’d met an Australian fashion designer called Alicia the day before so we decided to catch the U2 line rather than walk to the pick up point. However she took 20 minutes in the bathroom, putting on makeup. It was OK though, or so it seemed, because we could make it to the station on time, with minutes to spare.

The underground stations of Berlin are huge, the trains a lot larger than in London. As I put my €5 note in the machine to pay for a €1.30 ticket it spat the note out again and again, when suddenly a haunting woosh arrived from the dark tunnel to my right and we got on the train regardless. It was a 10 minute journey when suddenly just 1 minute from the stop a plain clothed policeman emerged from nowhere, asking to see tickets.

Alicia had a few days worth of tickets on her, and as she went through them the inspector seemed irritated and impatient, and just as our stop arrived, he turned to me. “He’s just doing his job” I thought, “however this is awfully unjust”.

So I ran.

The German crowds were swarming up the stairs to daylight, so I took a right turn, ducked and ran towards what I thought was a tunnel under the stairs. The policeman shouted in German…”Polizi! Polizi” it all seemed very harsh.

He grabbed me. I was wearing a bright orange Superdry rucksack and he managed to get his hands on it, he pulled me back and dragged me to the ground. My head was forced backwards to the staircase, where I saw everyone staring in shock. Then I caught sight of Alicia looking at me open mouthed.

We’d missed the bike ride.

There was not much reasoning to be done with him now, and he didn’t speak English but he did fine me: the standard €40 and I avoided a night in a cell. 

The nightlife of Berlin is pretty dangerous too. I can’t see this happening in Health and Safety Manchester: whereby a bathtub of flammable beer froth is ignited by a madman with a flame thrower. The bar had a beach in the back yard meanwhile inside was a metal dragon overlooking the dance floor. With a loud THRUUUUUU every 20 minutes everybody’s shocked faces turned by instinct, glowing orange, to gaze up at the amazing flame throwing dragon.

Restaurants are open into the early hours of the morning, at midnight it’s not uncommon to see people chatting over candlelight whilst downstairs in the basement a DJ plays thudding beats.

At White Trash / White Noise, a gothic burlesque bar with geek chick waitresses and a roving palm reader, the restaurant upstairs provided the food whilst the indie club downstairs provided the music. In the middle was a pub.

It’s stylish and sexy.

The historic heart of the city isn’t quite real. It was flattened during the war, a few shards of burnt and bullet riven stone still remained pointing upright out of the smog. But they restored it so you’d hardly ever notice, other than the chips and blemishes they left behind as a reminder. In the East it was a different story, huge soviet concrete towers replacing the quaint German houses of pre-war times. 

I went for a massage in the East of the city and as I walked through the streets it was like being in Russia. It had a cavalier rogue heart of indie clubs and graffiti in the city centre, whilst on the outskirts the soviet fountains, parks with Eastern European sculptures, poured concrete tower blocks full of bohemian Russian looking girls, the circus on an abandoned field, the makeshift beach volley ball courts all have a charm of their own.

In West Berlin, it’s a political diplomat’s playground, Run Lola Run style. Expensive hotels recently visited by Barrack Obama, the huge park full of wi-fi surfing laptop dudes and dudettes. It’s still like a different city.

Berlin covers a huge area, with not a hill in sight. Bikes roam the streets, there’s fewer cars and less noise than in any other European capital. Although there are 3.5 million Berliners, they’re spread out over huge wide roads, tall residential blocks and chic new flats.

The stories from the past are incredible. The Nazi party lead by Adolf Hitler has been quite rightly banished from sight. The site of his final days - Hitler’s WWII bunker is now a car park next to some flats. The locals, fed up of tourists asking where the bunker is, have now got a discrete sign with a map on it of the car park which shows the layout of the bunker below. Hitler’s legacy quite rightly is not something to be proud of but there is no doubt he created some incredible infrastructure. The transport system means you’d rarely need a car at all.

Riding on the underground train, the U2 line this time with a ticket, I arrived at the Zoo Station whilst listening to the track of the same name on U2’s album Achtung Baby, recorded in Berlin. The sound of this album perfectly sums up the ambience in Berlin. It’s still industrious but it’s confident and laid back…Berlin is getting less poor, but it’s still sexy.

David Bowie came down from his drug ravaged mid 70’s high in Berlin to record Low and Heroes. It’s still a fertile ground for creative people. Freedom of expression, having been downtrodden for so long has been restored.

When the city was split in two by the Berlin Wall, the death strip separated families, lovers and friends. Many were shot in the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s trying to cross from East to West. The East was controlled by the Russians whilst the West was run by the allies from the war, America, France and the UK. The Russians erected a huge TV tower as a show of strength. Immediately after it’s completion in the late 60’s it began to sink into the ground. They had to secretly enlist Western engineers to sort it out. There was mistrust on all sides where today there is trust and togetherness.

A woman was shot trying to escape to the West and now there is a small memorial on the edge of the park to some of those killed crossing the wall. Others were more devious. One man found himself separated from his East German girlfriend one day. Alone in a bar, he met someone else who looked just like her. After a few months he’d take her on holiday, but not to Paris or London, but to East Berlin. In a hotel they made love and in the morning she woke up alone, her passport and papers missing along with her lover. Meanwhile her charming lover drove his reunited East German girlfriend through the checkpoint, papers in hand. What he didn’t know was that the woman he’d just used so badly had a politician father, and the man was later jailed for 15 years - separated from his East German girlfriend forever.

I had a Beatles mid-60’s moment when I explored Tantric massage. Incredible. On relaxing days off from sightseeing and nightlife I visited the huge thermal baths, health spas which would cost a fortune in the UK are just part of everyday life for the Germans. 

On the final few days of the trip I met a girl named Joey, and wanted to visit her in Munich when she left the next day. So I missed my flight and made plans to stay until the next Monday. I’d have an extra weekend in Munich but because of the Oktoberfest it would cost me £200 to travel there and back for my flight from Berlin. But I hope to see her again.

I’ve left behind a city I really connected with and this is what I saw on returning to Manchester: a student girl weeing in the street, squatting and rocking after a night out of too much drink.

Razzmatazz from a stage show echoes over the wall of a school on a hill.

The building is glittering and modern in contrast to the city centre residential tower blocks.

“A relative oasis of tranquility. We have one aim - for the school to accommodate each child on a permanent basis.”

A billboard slogan on the way up the hill catches my eye. Why permanently, you ask? Well the private school does a better job of bringing up the kids and the parent’s are too busy administering it.

A gun of confetti and glitter is fired from the stage show high into the air, it rains down outside the school’s courtyard into the rain swept ground against a panoramic backdrop of the city. 

“Eventually, for the school to exist at all, they brought in private business from America to invest in the facilities. Now the school is the pride of Manchester. The parents are so proud of this achievement, it means their kids can have an upbringing and education. Without these private businesses, their kid’s wouldn’t eat at night.” explains a rolling video on a giant screen outside the school gates. The video is slightly sinister in tone.

The ghost progresses towards the school, leaving behind a scattering of sodden confetti on the muddy ground. The ghost points to the sky.

Now all we can see are clouds from a birds eye view - a magpie in fact - as she swoops down through the drizzle, rain pelting the magpie’s wings and we come to settle on the roof of the school overlooking a court yard where the kids are playing. A silver glint catches the magpie’s eye, and our view averts down the line of the magpie’s stare, out to the court yard where around 70 children play with their mobiles, some are wearing jewellery, everyone wears sponsored Nike trainers and the teachers are decked out in race-driver like uniforms adorned with corporate logos.

As the bird twitches it’s head to look to the side we now view a loner, a kid outside the throngs and gangs. He clutches a gaggle of marbles, and delicately rolls one forwards. The shiny marble rolls into the middle of a group and they stare down at the brightly coloured object as it slows to a halt. The magpie flies off the ledge toward the gang, lands next to the marble and juts its head out to pick it up. But suddenly a Nike adorned foot kicks the marble against the wall, it shatters into dust. The startled magpie flies off, and looks down to see the gang of children approaching the loner, the ‘marble boy’ is backed up against the wall.

“Dixon, the stupid marble boy! Why did you chuck the marble at us Dixon?”

Dixon looks to the side, avoids eye contact and sees the reflection of his tormentor’s shiney silver trainers in the classroom window, and in turn his own reflection in the shoes themselves. Before he has time to contemplate his fate, Dixon is thrust face first into the window with a shudder, his distorted head slivers against the glass, and children inside suddenly turn to see poor Dixon’s cheeks and tongue slivering manically flat against the window. They laugh, and the smirking teacher who is only 18 years old walks elegantly to the back of the class.

With one hand she reaches out for the cord of the shutters and tugs it downwards. The light fades in the room and the kid’s turn back to the front of the classroom, where a tutorial is playing on a giant 150 inch organic LED screen.

Afterwards, the shutters are opened again and Dixon is nowhere to be seen. The court yard is empty but for a stage at the back. In the class room the beautiful young teacher, wearing an expensive neckless, ends her ‘lesson’ by asking her kids what they want to be when they grow up.

Donna rolls her eyes skyward, dreams for a little. “A glamour model”.

Madonna shyly looks to the ground. “I want to be a porn actress!”, she giggles. The other children shout over one another for attention, the teacher intervenes. “No”, she says. “Let her finish what she was saying, it’s important that everyone have their say.”

“I want to have the biggest breasts, so all the men will like me.” she continues. The teacher looks blankly onto the next kid after muttering ‘yes’. “Now David, it your turn now - what your ambition and your goal?”.

“I want to be a footballer!” says David. “I want to have a big house”.

“Look here…” asserts the teacher loudly. “Why don’t we make our way outside, where a show is about to begin.” The kids pour into the courtyard once more, and sit cross legged in front of the stage. Suddenly a huge neon billboard is hoisted above the stage, and a man enters from a doorway at the side.

“Hello kids…what’s that? I can’t hear you! HELLO KIDS! Come on shout louder, you can all do better than that…HELLO!”

Suddenly catwalk models elegantly mount the steps up onto the stage and parade a range of clothes. The kid’s sit silently, their eyes tracking the every move of the model’s as they strut across the stage. Eventually the models line up at the back, occasionally giving their attentive audience a wink.

“Hello kids, I am the CEO of one of the biggest new clothing companies in the North West of England, and it’s a pleasure to be here today to speak to you all…”

He glances up and something is a-miss. Magpies begin to line the roof of the court yard, one after the other. But he continues…

“Once upon a time, I was a young person just like you, I knew I had ambition, I had talent, I had dreams! But I also knew I had the RIGHT dreams going forward. It’s something I’ve come up here to talk to you all about today…”

Distracted, he looks now to his right hand side, where a huge number of magpies now line the roof of the other building. The diamond encrusted underwear on the model, gleams like a ray of sunlight across the stage, shines off the skin of the children, shooting it’s way across the dusty ground of the courtyard and up onto the roof. The first magpie takes flight, and then another - they converge on the stage, pecking out the models’ jewels and attacking their hair. The businessman fleas from the stage and the horrified children run, spreading out in all directions for the cover around the edge of the court yard.

Now the models are bleeding, cut and crouched down on the wooden stage. All is silence, and a bemused Dixon, his head soaked from a toilet bowel, staggers out into the middle of the courtyard. He looks around at all the scared kids pressed up against the tall courtyard walls.

The magpies fly away with glittering shards of fabric, gemstones and broaches until one bird remains. It hops along the courtyard up to Dixon before jumping into the air before him, taking flight and as it does so drops a marble which Dixon catches in his soaking toilet water drenched hand.

He faints.

Well - it’s not all bad, because now he’s dreaming. He flies like the magpie over rooftops, factories and highways before landing in a bird’s nest surrounded by gems, jewellery and shiny coins. And outwardly, his limp dreaming body lying on the dusty courtyard floor curls into a ball, and he smiles at the thought of his newfound riches.