Obama speech in Berlin

Barack Obama called for nations to cooperate to increase freedom and peace in the world. A strong European Union would be good for the world and good for America.

We all share the burden of ‘global citizenship’ he said and the task ahead is more challenging than ever before. The advance of technology has made the world smaller, but also more dangerous.

Obama recalled the events of the Berlin Airlift 60 years ago. Only three years after the end of the Second World War, America was ready to provide a lifeline to its former enemy.

Ideas, not weapons were what, eventually defeated Communism. Obama argued that this achievement should bring hope and strength for the challenges ahead.

Obama said that a world without nuclear weapons is a major target. The superpowers of the Cold War came close too many times to destroying everything.

Using the metaphor of the Berlin Wall, he called for walls between Muslims, Christians, Jews and different races to be brought down.

He admitted war is objectionable, but said that the battle in Afghanistan must be fought on by US troops and German troops. German Chancellor Merkel will certainly have been listening closely to this part.

Obama avoided echoing JFK’s ‘Ich bin ein Berliner’ and also his own ‘Yes we can!’ slogan. His delivery was sober and balanced.

Repeatedly addressing the ‘People of the world’ as well as the ‘People of Berlin’, Obama seems keen to take on the real power and responsibility of being a world leader.

“Thank you Berlin. God bless you.” He ended to spontaneous applause from the large crowd.

German Wikipedia in book form

Forget your laptop, forget your blackberry and smash up your i-phone, because soon you'll have all the information you need at the flick of a page. Well, if at least if you can read German and let's face it, who can't?

Full of composite words such as 'Zeitgeist' ('Zeit' = time, 'Geist' = spirit), it takes only half as much time to learn German as any other language. And on top of that, it's so logical, isn't it?

So make sure you pre-order your copy of Das Wikipedia which is due out in September. Factually checked and colourfully illustrated, its a snip at 20 Euros.

The free online lexikon will print 50,000 of the site's most visited subjects.

So we can expect poppy entries on Carla Bruni, Tokio Hotel and Playstation3. Time to flog those dusty Britannica's at a carboot methinks.

German news round-up

Germany was alive and kicking this weekend with several unusual headlines hitting the news.

Thousands celebrate German pop song festival in Hamburg
I thought that the only person that actually enjoyed German 'Schlager' lived a few doors down from me. 'Schlager' are folky German pop songs that are sung by mustachioed orange-tanned grinning Bavarians and have plenty of accordion in them. Actually, I think the songs are specially designed to be carried by a gentle breeze, propagating themselves like pollen.


I was astounded to discover that 300,000 fans celebrated this music in Hamburg on Saturday. And the organisers had expected half a million! Several lorries were converted into huge 'Schlager' floats which blasted the music out through the streets during an all-day procession.
Check out some images from the 5th Schlagermove, here, at Stern.

World's longest concert continues
The church organ in Halberstadt played the next - sixth - chord of John Cage's As Slow As Possible work to much rejoicing amongst locals. The performance began in the year 2000, so with one chord ringing out for more than a year on average, the tonal change must have been a breath of fresh air.

Hitler head torn off
Minutes after the opening of Madame Tussauds wax figure museum in Berlin on Saturday, an angry German visitor attacked the wax effigy of Adolf Hitler. He jumped over a rope supposed to separate the exhibit from the public. When another visitor tried to stop him, a melee ensued and the result was a headless Fuhrer. The man in his forties came from the leftist district of Kreuzberg police said after they had detained him. Museum officials swiftly removed the damaged waxwork.

Today, media reported that the museum is fixing the figure which will remain a part of the exhibit of politicians.

'Fidelio' by Beethoven

There must be something special about the Neue Oper in Frankfurt. 'Fidelio' is the third opera I have seen there and it easily matched the other two for sheer musical brilliance and modern theatrical style.

If you think opera today is about fat singers in period costume melodramatically prancing around cardboard cut-out sets then think again.

The Neue Oper is clearly at the cutting edge. Again the audience was treated to an ultra modern stage design. The entire back and side walls were an invigorating full yellow. Clever use of lighting either took you inside the prison or to the exercise yard.

Basically the piece is about a woman, Leonore, who rescues her lover from prison by pretending to be a man called Fidelio. Surprisingly nobody dies. This is an uplifting moving opera about heroism and justice.

Swedish-American soprano, Erika Sunnegardh, is simply outstanding as Fidelio/Leonore. She sang like a nightingale and her athletic figure was ideally suited to the demanding dual role.

The other stand-out performance was that of bass singer James Cresswell who played the prison master Rocco. As demanded by the music, his voice was deep and commanding, but at the same time he somehow managed to convey a sense of irony about any situation.

It is a credit to the performance that the two characters with the biggest parts were also the most enjoyable to watch and hear.