I Didn’t Believe This For One Second

It took me about half the article before I finally figured out what was going on.

April

But I’m a real sucker for this kind of stuff: Formula 1 racing is coming to Berlin in 2017?

Anyone who knows anything about Germans knows they love cars. So it wasn’t immediately obvious that the Berliner Zeitung’s joke about plans for a new Formula One race on the streets of the capital wasn’t true – all the more so since Berlin already hosts a Formula E (electric) race each year.

A mocked-up image showed German Red Bull driver Sebastian Vettel doing donuts on the Pariser Platz, site of the Brandenburg Gate. The supposed 5.85-kilometre course through Berlin is similar to the lengths of the actual races in Monaco and Melbourne. And they even considered the impact on residents: the F1 cars were allegedly to be equipped with silencers designed to limit the noise for complaint-prone Berliners.

April, April (April Fools’ Day) or something.

Zu Promozwecken war Sebastian Vettel schon mal mit seinem Boliden in Berlin. Im kommenden Jahr darf er hier auch ein Rennen fahren.

PS: I think anybody who thinks up pranks like these ought to be sent to German prison. As a reward, I mean.

Drop In Number Of Refugees Due To Merkel’s Asylum Policy?

I think not. Try Austria’s asylum policy of enforcing real border controls.

Tempelhof

The Berlin government is going ahead with plans to expand the big refugee center at Tempelhof airport, even though its population has dropped. According to Berlin’s latest official figures, only around 50 refugees are arriving in Berlin every day – a long way below the 1,000 that sometimes arrived daily last fall…

While Merkel officially has stuck to her line, thereby isolating herself in Europe, Austria has made a drastic about-face within a matter of weeks. In September 2015, Faymann criticized Hungarian Prime Minister Victor Orban’s policy of deterrence, and now, Austria is following suit.

Austria has imposed a cap on the number refugees it will allow into the country and the authorities will now only accept 80 asylum applications per day. A four kilometer long fence has been erected near the town of Spielfeld at the Slovenian border. When Hungary built a fence along its border with Serbia in the autumn, Faymann fiercely attacked the activities. Now, even the armed forces are deployed at the Austrian border.

Data Protection, Data Protection, Data Protection…

This mantra is suddenly not quite as effective as it used to be in Germany.

Data

“We have to expect a long period of terror. London, Madrid, Paris, now Brussels. Even German cities will not be spared in the long run. So far, we have been lucky”, stated Rainer Wendt, chief of the German Police Union at newspaper Passauer Neue Presse.

On this frame, German politicians ask for an increased exchange of information between European authorities, in a country that is really sensitive over privacy issues and has some of the strictest rules on privacy and data protection in the world, partly as a heritage from Germany’s surveillance history through the East German and Nazi dictatorships.

“The best remedy against such attacks is information exchange,” stressed Germany’s Interior Minister Thomas de Maizière.

And remember all the NSA, “friends don’t spy on friends” hysteria? U.S., Germany eye ways to deepen cyber collaboration

De Maizière will an die “Datentöpfe.” “Datenschutz ist schön, aber in Krisenzeiten hat Sicherheit Vorrang.”

Secret Swagger Or Bausünde?

I know that beauty is in the eye of the beholder and all that but I think I’ll still go with Bausünde here.

Bausünde

Berlin’s post-war high rises were built with practicality, not beauty, in mind. The hulking buildings were designed to house as many families as possible, and though they were once desirable, today they aren’t generally considered great places to live. But photographer Malte Brandenburg casts them in a new light with his series Stacked…

The photographer started the project late last year, and shot over a dozen high rises throughout Berlin. He lives in Copenhagen and scouts locations whenever he visits Berlin, seeking out buildings set against an uncluttered skyline. Brandenburg shoots from nearby buildings, parking garages, and other elevated spots so he can capture the towers as directly as possible, using a telephoto lens to help correct the perspective. “I would ring the doorbells of the tower buildings across the street and ask the people to let me in so I could shoot from the stairways,” he says.

365/24 = 24/7/365

Or 15.20833333333333, if you prefer.

Berlin

And here you thought my math was bad. And it is. But Berlin’s tourism experts seem to be even worse at it because their new slogan just does not add up at all: 365/24. At least it doesn’t for the numerous people around town making fun of it these days.

It is supposed to imply that Berlin is a way cool place that never closes, of course, but a lot of citizens here don’t really see it that way. Lots and lots of stuff and places that never close are broken/closed/being rebuilt here all the time and it is not at all uncommon to wait around way more than 365/24 for them to open up again. And they aren’t impressed with the slogan’s lack of originality, either.

And while we’re at it (laughing at Berlin, I mean), there’s a new book out that’s got a number in its slogan, too. It’s called “111 Reasons to Hate Berlin.” Here is one of them that all Berliners love, I mean hate: Whether in the summer heat, the snow, the rain or even if it’s just an uneven hour of the day, the S-Bahn craps out along the entire line.

“Berlin ist nicht nur scheiße. Es ist noch scheißer, als es mal war. Und das muss man erst mal schaffen. Berlin gibt Scheiße eine ganz neue Definition.”

That Photo Says It All

Berlinale

About this year’s Berlin Film Festival, I mean. Or Berlinale, if your prefer.

“A dud line-up… A competition film lasting eight hours… The Berlin competition DOES tend to be serious… Misguided inclusions… Films about German characters played by English actors who speak in English but with German accents… Meryl Streep… Disappointment… Acute no-frills psychological realism… An extraordinary docudrama of sorts… More Meryl Streep… More Disappointment… George Clooney.”

Ya’ll come back now next year! Ya hear?

 

Good Enough For Government Work

A convicted murderer and RAF terrorist working for a representative of The Left party in the Bundestag?

Christian Klar

So what? Ain’t no big deal. Christian Klar is apparently more into web design these days so it’s time to let bygones be bygones. You know, like The Left party and its agitating world socialist friends over at the International Committee of the Fourth International have done?

His new boss, Dr. Diether Dehm, did, however, run into a bit of a snag trying to get Klar a security pass to enter the Bundestag as his personal guest – some revisionist imperialist a-hole over at the pass office turned down his request due to something he called Sicherheitsbedenken (security conserns), but you know the deal, folks. Left it up to your imagination. Where there’s a will there’s a way.

“Der Feind der Demokratie hat nichts im Herzstück der Demokratie zu suchen.”

Speaking Of Life Jackets…

Anybody who voluntarily goes to this event needs to be wearing one at the very least. Und zwar (namely) a get-a-life jacket*.

Life Jackets

That’s right. It’s Cinema for Peace time in Berlin again and this year’s theme is, how the hell do I know? Nobody knows. Refugees? Whatever it is it looks like only those with good connections to the cereal industry are allowed to take part this year (same procedure as every year). You know, you’ve got to be either a nut, a fruit or a flake?

Like, what is any of this supposed to mean?

Den Mist mache ich nicht mit, ich kacke ja auch nicht auf den Tisch im Namen der Kunst.

* Space blankets are of course also angesagt (hot) this year.