Keep Calm And Vote For Merkel

Interesting posters have recently appeared all over our town, calling for our citizens to vote for Angela Merkel in the upcoming German Federal elections at the end of this September. They appear to be the work of the Junge Union, the youth organization fraction of the CDU and the CSU, the two German conservative parties who, together with the FDP, form the coalition government of Germany, also referred to as the second Merkel cabinet.

The posters (see photo) appear to the unitiated eye to be very low-key and straightforward, with a pleasant blue background and a simple white font. The text is "Cool bleiben und Kanzlerin wählen" which literally means "Stay cool and vote for the Chancelloress" (that's Angela Merkel). In case you were unsure whether it was about Angela Merkel, the text is capped by a little logo of a pair of white hands with the fingertips pressed together, which is Merkel's signature pose. The hand logo appears, as mentioned, above the text, almost like a little crown.

Now I bet you're thinking, that sounds familiar. But most of our townspeople are walking past it without batting an eyelid. In contrast to this cupcake, who upon seeing it for the first time, chortled, pointed, chortled again, said, oh that's clever, and promptly took a photo.

If you ask the average German here what they think of the poster, they'll tell you that the blue background is very pretty, and also neutral - not the usual color of the CDU, whose colors are usually black or orange. They also find the little hand logo amusing. Anything else? I ask. Nope. Do you know where the idea for the poster comes from? Yes, the Junge Union.

What I love about this is that the Germans, long reproached with a lack of humor, have taken something quintessentially British and humorously turned it into their own. We've been seeing various humorous versions of the second World War poster "Keep Calm And Carry On" for quite a while now, but this is the first time I've seen a German version of it. And when I explain its significance to my fellow townspeople, they are surprised, even slightly amused, but I can tell that they don't really get the joke completely.

The irony of course is that the original poster was referring directly to a state induced by events that would be created by Germans. And it was intended to encourage the British public to show the Germans what they were made of. That was what was going to help the British win the war. So the poster really falls into the category of anti-German war propaganda.

I am wondering if the Junge Union's decision to customize this poster in a propaganda parody was a bit "tongue-in-cheek" or whether they just thought it would be a really good idea to use (what they thought was) a well-known slogan. Basically, it's falling a bit flat here, and that's sad. The Junge Union, clearly staffed with a bunch of Bright Young Things, might just have been a bit too clever.

Duties And Lessons

An extract from my diary of 1972, when I was 13. All names have been changed.

I had to read the lesson in church this morning. I have to tell you it was not a success.

I wish I didn’t have to read the lesson. Mum asked Father Clement if I could read every few weeks and Father Clement said yes, but otherwise only a couple of men used to read it, and I am the only young person and also female to be doing it. And I have to read it about every three weeks. It is awful, I hate being up there and in front of the whole church, I feel that they are all thinking that I want to be the centre of attention or something. And I don’t! It’s like getting up on the stage every time, and if I don’t rehearse, my performance is very bad. But I can’t let Mum down. I think she’s so proud of me.

Dad doesn’t come to church, he’s a Protestant, and he actually doesn’t go to church at all, except on Christmas Day, but because we’re Catholics we have to go all the time. I mean, every Sunday and Feast Days. Mum always takes the children and me, although sometimes the children can get away with not going if they’re sick.

At least it’s not in Latin any more.

Anyway, why Mum wants me to read the lesson is a long story. The thing is, when we moved to London, I started to talk with a London accent. That really annoyed Mum. It’s difficult, because everybody I know talks with a London accent, that’s because we’re living in London. But Mum says you won’t get anywhere in life talking like that and you should speak with an “accentless accent”. Although frankly, everybody always thinks Mum talks with an Irish accent and is always asking where she comes from in Ireland. Mum has never been to Ireland in her life, so this is a kind of joke. She says it is because she grew up with Irish nuns.

Stolen Time

This is another excerpt from my unpublished novel The Mummy and Daddy Christmas Present Fund and follows the chapter Fish and Chips in the Park

The week after the meeting with A.J.F. and Peter Grisham, John requested two day's leave. It was only about five weeks until Christmas, but John still had several days leave due to him for the year, and he explained to A.J.F. that he needed to start decorating the house, in preparation for the sale, and that he needed to spend some time with his family.

It still seemed uncertain whether his relocation would take place in the following summer, or several months later. Of course, John could travel to Peterborough on day trips for the initial period, A.J.F. explained. Maybe on one-week trips. Complete relocation, however, would be required by the summer of 1973 at the latest. That was a whole eighteen months away. But eighteen months could pass by very quickly. It had been nine years, this month, since they had moved to England from Calcutta, and they had really only just started to feel that this was their home here. Although deep inside, John knew that he and Aileen would never really be at home here.

Falling In Love At Fatty George’s Saloon

Just before my 21^st birthday in 1980, I went to spend six months in Vienna as part of my university degree course. I had a place at the Wirtschaftsuniversität to study banking for one term, followed by a three-month internship at a small paper-manufacturing company. Two friends from my university course in England were also on placements in Vienna at the time, and we all stayed in rented student accommodation in the southern part of the city. I was particularly lucky as I got to share a large room with an English student from another university called Hannah, who played the guitar and sang, and who was full of exciting, spontaneous ideas.

All the others were already on their internships so I spent the first few days journeying by myself to and from the university, which was at the other side of Vienna from where we lived. I did that until one of the most prominent and popular professors, who also taught one of my classes, made a pass at me. He had invited me and a few other students in my class to dinner at his apartment, and while the others were carrying the dishes into the kitchen afterwards, he grabbed hold of me, put his hand up my sweater and in one swift movement removed my bra and grabbed a breast. I stopped going to the university after that.

We celebrated my 21^st birthday in the Heurigen, the local wine restaurants which are plentiful in Vienna, and particularly in the southern district where we lived. It was there and then on that night that Hannah decided I needed a boyfriend, and she knew just the chap – her boss. Hannah worked at the most prestigious bank in Vienna, the Zentralsparkasse, which in 1980 was The Bank To Bank With. The Viennese have a strict social and professional hierarchy, in which those with both social and professional titles are attributed due respect. Where you work and live play an important part in this system, as does being seen at the right places with the right people. And Hannah’s boss was placed quite highly in a lot of these categories.

There Will Be Sad Memories

There will be sad memories
To replace these sad memories
They will be new and fresh
They will burn brighter and
Singe those others like charred paper or
Turn them into shadows flickering behind a candle
And the old sad memories
Will be almost forgotten till
A word or smell or color or place reminds me
And the pain will be sudden and very sharp
And I will cry instantly and
Spontaneously but very briefly.


There will be sad days
To replace these sad days
I will be older and less adaptable
I will remember times
When I was younger and
Life was easier and all before me
And the old sad days
Will be almost forgotten till
A voice or touch or sound or view reminds me
And the pain will be fast and deep
And I will cry instantly for what was lost
Spontaneously but very briefly.

Before

Another excerpt from my unpublished novel "The Mummy and Daddy Christmas Present Fund"

Tuesday 9^th November 1971

John came into the office to find a note from Lynda on his desk: “Mr Parfitt would like to see when you come in.”

So A.J.F. was already up and prowling. John removed his coat and hung it up on the coat-stand. Well A.J.F. wasn’t going to make him jump through a hoop like a tiger at the circus. It was raining and the tube up to Mayfair had been packed. And the train up to Cannon Street had been packed as well. John sat down at his desk, and checked his calendar. There was just one phone call he had to make, and it would be sufficient if he called this afternoon. And Lynda had also left the usual file containing the typed-up letters awaiting his signature. Normally, this would be a casual day. He hoped A.J.F. would have coffee served, if it were to be a serious meeting. But probably it wouldn’t.

He waited exactly 10 minutes and then called A.J.F.’s extension.

“Parfitt,” A.J.F.’s clipped voice answered.

“Oh good morning, A.J.F., it’s John Osborne here. You left a message for me?”

“John. Could you come up to my office straight away? There’s someone I’d like you to meet.”

Oh. Someone he’d like him to meet. Really. Who might that be then.

John took the stairs to the 4^th floor. He made the formal knock on A.J.F.’s door and entered almost immediately, only just overlapping A.J.F.’s confirmation of “Come.”

I’m An Alien, Get Me Out Of Here

During my last year at primary (elementary) school in England in the 1960s, we had a girl in our class who, for the purposes of data protection, I shall call Martha Ann Dickens. Martha managed to inform all of us several times each day that her initials spelled out MAD, and that she was indeed mad. That was her claim to fame apparently.

Having, myself, a mother who managed to inform me at least once a day that all four of my grandparents were “off their heads”, I lived in constant fear of the crazy gene spontaneously and uncontrollably leaping out and manifesting itself in myself, thus alerting all around me to my own inherent madness. So Martha’s pride in her craziness astounded me – she was not trying to hide but to advertise it, and if you didn’t get it straight off after a couple of minutes, she would jump out and bang you on the nose with it.

Martha was, according to her own statement, an alien. I don’t mean that in the resident without a British passport sense, but in the like she was from another planet sense. She would attach herself to her person of choice for that day and spend the rest of the day following them about spouting on about herself. Usually it was me. With Martha there was not much in the way of conversation, it was more of a long monologue for whom she required a listener. She talked as much as possible in school, during breaks, in the lunch hour and on the walk home – unfortunately we lived only two streets away from each other.

Fish And Chips In The Park

Another excerpt from my unpublished novel "The Mummy and Daddy Christmas Present Fund"

John had almost finished making breakfast by the time Aileen came into the kitchen. She closed the sliding door behind her, the one he had made and fitted last year after he had had all his ideas about saving space in the kitchen – installing a sliding door, making a table by fixing a large piece of wood to the wall by brackets and dispensing with table legs. She sat down at the bracket table and looked away as he placed a cup of tea in front of her.

"There's toast," John said.

“I don’t want toast.”

“Well, there’s… eggs.”

“I don’t want any damn eggs.”

He sighed. He helped himself to a fried egg and some toast and sat down with a cup of tea.

“Why do you have to humour her like that, Lizzie’s just a bloody spoiled child! Needs a damn clip over the ear!”

Christmas

For my beautiful Beanchen at Christmas. Have a wonderful day.

Bina Writes an Essay

This is another chapter from my unpublished novel "The Mummy and Daddy Christmas Present Fund".
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Saturday 19^th June 2004

Bina comes into my bedroom without knocking and stands at the foot of the bed.

“Mama.”

It can only be about money or similar. My clock says 10:31. It is Saturday morning.

“Yes.”

“You said you would put the Internet on the other computer. For me to work.”

So I did. Last night. I forgot.

“OK.”

She leaves. I drag myself out of bed. This is a good reason to get up. It is one of Life’s Important Reasons. My daughter needs to write an essay for school, she has to research in the Internet. It is a reason to live.

My pyjamas smell of sweat, I hate it because I never sweat. But six weeks ago I had a hormone coil inserted, something to stop the awful bleeding. The doctor suggested this alternative method to having a hysterectomy. And since then I sweat every night, towels full, and everything is drenched and I hate it. I hate waking up in the morning and smelling it. I wish all of this, all this sadness and all this pain would go away. It is a reason not to get up in the morning.

In light of the Jimmy Savile scandals, I remembered that back in the 1970s, when I was a teenager and Jimmy Savile was apparently doing his thing, young girls falling for and having affairs with older men really wasn't considered anything unusual or even frowned upon. In fact, at least in the circles I moved, it was the ambition of many young girls to find themselves what we used to call a "Sugar Daddy".

Of course, this can't be compared with Jimmy's activities, and I was never a fan of the chap anyway. But back then, it was simply a different time and people looked at many things of this nature in a different way.

This is a story I wrote as a chapter in my unpublished novel "The Mummy and Daddy Christmas Fund", which tells a little bit of a story of one girl and her Sugar Daddy.

Flambeaux 

Sunday May 2nd, 1976 

We’re pretty sure that Simon Lyons is Yu Lin’s Sugar Daddy. Ashley and I plan to acquire at least one Sugar Daddy. We’re just not quite too sure how to go about it.

Ashley, Tessa and I are so sure about this because Simon Lyons picks her up in a dark blue Ferrari every day after school, and sometimes in the lunch hour. That’s a Ferrari! And she also told me that sometimes she visits him before she comes to school. So sometimes she comes in late to Assembly. Simon Lyons is a diamond dealer who lives in the town and also owns a restaurant, which is called the Flambeaux. He is a friend of the family, she says. But the thing is, he is obviously very rich and very keen on Yu Lin and she is of course very beautiful. Apart from that, he is 35 and Yu Lin is only 17! And she has been seeing him since she was 16. So why would he be spending so much time on her if he were just a friend of the family!

Anyway, Ashley and Tessa and I asked her about it but Yu Lin just continues to maintain that he is a family friend.

One day, a while ago, I had a row with Ashley. It was really stupid, and it only lasted one day. Ashley and I have been friends for years, and we had never ever had a row before. But we just got cross with each other about one small thing, and then I went into the cloakroom at lunchtime and hid in amongst the coats, and just cried to myself. And then Yu Lin came in to the cloakroom, because she was getting dressed to go out. And she found me hiding on a bench between a few coats.

“Oh, Lizzie, what are you doing here?” Yu Lin asked.

I just mumbled something about being miserable because I’d had a row with Ashley.

Yu Lin put on her hat and coat. “Do you want to come to lunch with me?” she said. “I’m going down to see Simon Lyons.”

Poppa's Gang

This is a short story I wrote in 1982, when I was 23 years old. At this time, I wrote a set of stories called "Anglo-Indian Tales" loosely based on characters in my family and on friends of my family, some of whom had been a part of the Anglo-Indian community in and around Calcutta up to the early 1960s.


We used to play chess with Poppa when we were small – Mama had bought us two volumes of ”Chess for Children“ from which she had painstakingly taught us (and herself) the game careful move by careful move, diagram by diagram. Poppa lived and played by often ferocious animal instinct, coupled with a fanatic meticulous desire for order, reason and logic. To some greater or lesser extent, we all inherited these traits, perhaps his daughter, Mama, and his grandson, my brother, most of all.

Poppa, an Anglo-Indian ex-Captain in the Indian army, had come to England for the first time shortly before my own family’s migration in the early 1960s. At Liverpool Street station he met a porter – the man was white. Stunned by the encounter and the man’s humble position, he presented him with ten shillings, together with instructions to buy himself some respectable attire and make application for honourable employment.

Mama told me that Poppa had moved house at regular intervals throughout his life – the reason for this being that he was persistently and tortuously hounded by “The Gang”. Mama would always be annoyed to hear of the “The Gang”, furiously condemning it as sheer fantasy, idiotic imagination. There was no “Gang”. Stubborn as a mule, Poppa could never be wrong.

The Big Fat Hen

Another excerpt from my unpublished novel Lizzie Goes To Japan

It was nearly four o'clock when Lizzie arrived back at the hotel from Asakusa.  Maybe Colin had called already, she thought.  She went to the Front Desk and asked, ‘Do you have any messages for me?’

The attendant said, 'Yes, Miss Chichele, we have one message for you.  Voice mail.  Would you like to hear it?'

'Yes,' said Lizzie.  'Yes please.'

It would be Colin.  He would be saying, Sorry, I can't come.

The attendant handed her the telephone receiver and pressed a button, then another button.  Lizzie listened.  It was Colin.  He said, 'Hi Lizzie, this is Colin.  I have to go into the office this afternoon, I have to collect a PC that I need for working at home.  I will only be about an hour.  So I will be coming through Takeshiba.  I can meet you somewhere.  I will call again later.'

Ypres, Messines and Passchendaele

I have written about the First World War before in this blog but a TV documentary about the fighting has once again appalled and moved me to write on the subject anew.

I think that it is the extremely high level of death, violence, sacrifice of life and seemingly total inconsideration, heartlessness and callousness by those "in charge" for human life that is so shocking. One is forced to realize that these people - and there must have been actual people in charge who made these decisions - did not view a solider as a living being with a soul and a right to live his life on this earth but rather as a commodity to be expended to the point of being killed if it was in the interest of strategy or policy.

It seems that if incidents or events lie more than 30 years in the past, we have a problem remembering them. Even in this age of image documentation (film, photographs) and recording of sound and vision, nobody actually remembers anything very much about the First World War, or of any individual events occurring in its duration and it is spoken of very little. The point is mainly, I think, that it has been completely eclipsed by that other terrible event, the Second World War, which is documented to a much greater degree, is still in the memories of many living people and to which even some level of glamor, thrill and excitement is attached.

Afterwards

This is another chapter from my unpublished novel The Mummy and Daddy Christmas Present Fund. In this chapter, Lizzie is grown up with her own children and her Dad John has just died and is about to be cremated. Lizzie, in Germany, cannot attend the funeral in England. John (Dad) is the main character in the chapters Fish and Chips in the Park and Stolen Time.

Wednesday 31^st May 2006

Lizzie woke up. Today was the day. Her father was going to be cremated and she wasn’t there. But it didn’t matter, he had died already. It was just his body, wasn’t it? He wouldn’t feel anything. He was everywhere, she had said to Brigitte, he wasn’t right there in the church, not right there in the crematorium. He probably wasn’t on Earth at all. They could say goodbye to him here, couldn’t they?

Couldn’t they?

Still, it was a significant day and it meant looking nice. It meant washing one’s hair and dressing up. It meant getting up, not lolling about in bed although you had work to do. Lizzie got up at 8:30; it was early for recent weeks, showered and washed her hair. You couldn’t be depressed today, you had a commitment. You had to get out of bed.

It was important to look good. There was hardly anything in the wardrobe that fitted her any more, since she had recently put on some weight, but she had made an effort to do all the washing yesterday, so the wardrobe was at least full. Everything was several years old and falling to bits but there were some dark clothes that she could still manage to squeeze into. At least a skirt and t-shirt, and some tights without holes.

Britain Seeks The Superstar

Britain’s Got Talent started up a new season last night on British TV and I was glued to the box, watching it via satellite. As regular readers of this blog will know, I am a big fan despite my constant criticism of everything to do with the show, from the incomprehensible dialect spoken by hot hosts Ant and Dec to the capabilities of various performers and the attitude of the judges.

And today I’m moaning, amongst other things, about the title. Although the show is called Britain’s Got Talent, I think the last thing it’s actually looking for is talent. So many of the acts presenting are loaded with talent but get buzzed off, often before they can even complete the gig. Others manage to finish and have the audience and myself cheering and egging them on, and maybe even one or two judges give them a Yes. But they need at least three Yesses to get through (under the new system, there are four judges) and so they don’t make it through to the next round. What the show actually seems to be doing is looking for a superstar rather than proclaiming that the country has talent. Hell, some of the acts don’t even come from Britain!

Are You Old? Call Me!

This morning I was driving along on the way to work and just before a green traffic light I passed by an elderly lady who was running to catch the tram. I could see the tram, which had pulled up at the tram stop, and I could see that the elderly lady probably wasn’t going to catch it. I think she realized that too, her body language even from a distance was kind of helpless and desperate. She was quite small and her shoulders were hunched up and she was carrying an elderly lady’s handbag (which I have to say, so do I! maybe not in elderly lady’s colors, but I think the shape has come back into fashion. Those short handles and the structure a bit on the large side).

As I realized that the elderly lady might not be going to make it, a whole scenario of what she would be missing went through my head. Maybe she needed to catch that tram to make a hospital or doctor’s appointment, or maybe to help a friend get to a hospital or doctor’s appointment. I realize now that that was a bit of an ageist way to think, maybe the elderly lady actually had a job and was trying to get to it on time. Either way she was going to be in trouble.

In The Tokyo Bay Coffee Lounge

Another excerpt from my unpublished novel Lizzie Goes To Japan. In this part, Lizzie has just arrived in Japan for the very first time with her boss, Richard, and they are staying at the Intercontinental Hotel in Tokyo.

'Hello, Richard?' Lizzie said into the telephone. She had pressed room-to-room call on her multi-role telephone in the hotel room and dialled 608. Lights had come on and gone off again. Amazingly, Richard seemed to have answered.

'I'm ready,' Lizzie said. She was so excited, she could hardly keep still. She had unpacked her new navy suit, still with the shop tags on, and donned it. Underneath this, she was wearing brand new white underwear. She felt wonderful.

'You're what?' She could tell he was flabbergasted, floundering. 'I'm just pottering here. I've only just cracked the safe.'

'What's taking you so long?' Lizzie asked. 'I already cracked the safe, unpacked, showered and dressed.'

You Not Lucky, You A Mama

These next two pieces are excerpts of a novel I tried to write in the late 1980's, called "Heavy On The Wire", which was about my life as a young single working mother of two very small children.

The title of this piece here "You Not Lucky, You A Mama" comes from something my little daughter said to me at the time. I was telling my children how lucky I was to have work, because it meant we could afford to eat and buy toys (I received no help from the state and my ex-husband was not paying any child allowance at the time). My daughter's reply was "You not lucky, you a mama".

Living as an Englishwoman in Germany, I had my children in Kindergarten in the mornings and worked as an interpreter and translator during this time. At one point, I had a part-time job for a few weeks as an interpreter for one of the immigration authorities, and was assigned to one of the civil servants (in this piece called Herr Zantl) assisting in interpreting statements of refugees seeking asylum.

It was a very difficult job for me, as I was unable to hear their stories and go home and forget them. They did affect me emotionally, and Herr Zantl, who was very smart, realized this. He told me I would lose the job if I could not hide my emotions better, which is in fact what ultimately happened.

Heavy On The Wire

In this piece, which follows on from You Not Lucky, You A Mama, I invented the phrase "heavy on the wire" which is a literal translation of the German phrase "schwer auf Draht" that was popular in the 1980s, meaning more or less the equivalent of "hot" today.

When I go to pick up my babies, you know the Kindergarten is in the red-light district of town, it is situated between the Oasis Bar (Life Show - yes, life) and the Femina Bar (Girls, Singer and Life Show) and the Singer in the Femina Bar is, funnily enough, singing, at 3 o'clock in the afternoon, she is called Sydne and she is blond and beautiful and tall and willowy, and her warble warbles all down the street so you could hear it in the Kindergarten if you hung out of the window:

"I heard him speak and I heard my heart's desire,
I felt my heart burn and my limbs on fire,
I knew I loved him with his sex for hire cos
He's so heavy man, he's so heavy, heavy on the wire."