#12 – 1984 Week 15: More Berlin, Beer, and a Bass-tastic experience.

I must get to know some more jazz.

My 10 days’ holiday with my brother in Berlin continues:

Monday 9 April 1984
100-266 Week 15

Zoomed off into the old town centre, which is hyper new, raced around a few shops to kill a bit of time. I reckon you could go mad in Berlin if you didn't have any money. So we had lunch and went into the new aquarium. It was a little disappointing because I was expecting something much bigger. After an hour or so of that, we went back to the Kaufhaus des Westens specially to have a glass of champagne – Moët et Somethingorother. Only £2 a glass - I nearly had a heart attack when I got the bill for 15DM. It was pretty strong, although I have just decided I can't stand the stuff. Couldn't resist buying a load of very cheap jazz records. I must get to know some more jazz, it is brilliant.

In the evening we went out to the theatre to see a play about old people and their treatment by us. It was quite a funny play and easy to follow, but it wasn't in any particularly amazing theatre. Came home, had a beer, and extinguished my mind for several hours.

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Tuesday 10 April
101-265 Week 15

Up earlyish. Fetched breakfast and dashed off once more on the bus and tube to the Kurfürstendamm. We are about half an hour's travel from the centre. There we had a look about the Europa Centre, a really modern indoor shopping complex. So German. Saw a film about Berlin with all sorts of effects, had lunch in an ‘English Pub’ etc. Afterwards, we took the tube to die Kunstakademie, where we saw an exhibition by de Kooning - really modern. So exciting, but has it a worth? (You can read a NYT contemporary review of the touring exhibition) Then we walked to the Siegesäule and up it. But it was not sunny, so there was not really much to be seen. From there down the 17th of July Avenue to the Brandenburg Gate. Took the bus from the Philharmonie back home.

A few hours later, we are back at the Philharmonie for Oscar Peterson. It was half empty so we went and sat into some better seats. The music was great - Jazz is so romantic. The bassist was absolutely amazing. Can that instrument be played that fast? Afterwards we went and got their autographs, but we had to buy a record for him to sign because we didn't have any paper. The English drummer was a right lout.

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2024: Apologies to drummer Martin Drew (1944-2010) for that last comment. He was a great jazz drummer, a regular in Ronnie Scott’s band. But he did greet us with an expletive, surprised that some Englischers had gotten back stage. Here is his obituary. And double bass player Niels-Henning Oersted Pedersen (1946-2005) was simply the best, so glad we got to see him and even say hello. My brother and I approached him for an autograph, and having seen him play Bach Cello Suite no 1 pizzicato on the bass, my cellist brother commented, “I didn't know you could play Bach that fast.” “I can play any piece, in any key, at any speed...” came the deadpan reply. And of course Oscar Peterson – simply so exuberant and fluent! I’m surprised that the concert was half empty. In 1985 the same trio returned to Berlin and that concert became the now iconic Berlin Concert, released as a recording and video. Here is NHOP’s obituary, where his speed is also mentioned. “When he took over the job with Peterson, his predecessor Ray Brown observed that the newcomer was the only bassist he could think of who would be quick enough to keep up with Peterson.”

This is some of the 1985 Berlin Concert. Just look at the three solos in this clip! Wow. You can find the whole concert online if you fancy.

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Wednesday 11 April
102-264 Week 15

Got up starving because we eat so much in the evenings (biology) and knackered because we do so much in the evenings. So today we decided to do nothing for the moment. I attempted some homework in the morning, failing miserably with Hamlet, which I don't dare to touch. For lunch, as Auntie G. is at work, we went to a Yugo restaurant and stuffed ourselves so full that after a while it got painful. We then decided that we would go to the cinema to see a comedy about Hitler - To Be Or Not To Be - But oh, fatal decision, that was a total balls-up. We raced into town with not much time to spare, and I got the wrong road in the first place. Miles and miles we walked fast, and then we came to the end of it. So we went into a coffee shop for a bit of Erholung, caught the bus back and turned off on the couch. An evening of nothing doing and writing one or two or three Postkarten.

Back to the eating business again.

Well, that just about sums this place up.

2024: We missed the film in ’84. Until this day I’ve not given it a second thought, so it’s about time. Apparently it was a Mel Brooks remake of an earlier 1942 during-the-war satire on Hitler. An interesting back-story. Definitely going to catch up with the whole movie sometime.

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Thursday 12 April
103-263 Week 15

On the day after yesterday we continued in eternal bliss (10g of it) by taking a ride out to the Grünewald and der Wannsee. This took place in moderately cold weather conditions. After having wandered around and around in this wood, apparently, and having wandered around a little bit more, or less, we in fact returned home by car for a lunch, munch, munch. Deactivated by this meal, we lay back and did nothing and drank a cup of coffee. We have lots of that really, really strong stuff here. Terribly bad for the heart and really if you think about it, pretty foul. The other stuff that we - is generally drunk in Deutschland is that yellow frothy stuff. Gnats’ piss. Also terribly bad for one in large quantities. I was also tried out on some snuff stuff, which I did not find unpleasant at all, but rather nice. It didn't work.

Regarded the TV.
    Ate.
        Slept. (Tried to)
            Woke up.

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Friday 13 April
104-262 Week 15

Friday the so-what-I-don't-bloody-well-care 13th. Today we besichtigt the Berlin Funkturm and went up it and came down again, and next to that we had a quick look around the ICC (Congress Halls). Outside of that there was a big statue with a massive dick, which some children were playing with. Into town to BUY. Want, want more. Ethan bought a jacket and, after trying on about ten pairs, I bought some trousers. As usual the only ones that fitted me and that I liked were the most expensive. So cool, so cool. We spent ages and ages in town looking and looking. The thing to be here is a psychologist so that you can sit on the street corner looking at people. We had lunch out – the usual Bratwürstle and Sauerkraut. Unfortunately I feel inadequate for a town this big. I would prefer not to have to buy anything even though I have and do buy expensive things.

I sleep really badly in this place and so I am dead tired. I wish I was just dead.

2024: I couldn’t find a picture of the penis sculpture. But from this 2024 article about unusual phallic landmarks, apparently it’s quite a Berlin thing. Here’s the view of the ICC from the Funkturm - I took this picture at the time.

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Saturday 14 April
105-261 Week 15

The weather is beautiful. It is summer. In the morning until 2:00pm, we went to the Flohmarkt on the 17th of June Strasse. Even the jumble sales are bigger in Berlin. Well, it wasn't exactly a jumble sale. We spent over 150DM there. There were some worthwhile things to get. Shirts of good quality. I got a fine trilby. We got a jewellery box for Katya, a fan. Etc. Etc. After several hours there, it got claustrophobic. We had a beer - in that heat - strong German beer. After you have emptied the glass it begins to work and renders one incapable. German beer is stronger. Definitely. Got home and went to sleep for half an hour. How come? I wrote this, but it was only halfway through the day, so I had to stop until I knew what else had happened.

What else happened was that we went to a friend’s and ate pizza. Massive pizzas. Una bella pizza. They're not such a bad thing after all, but oh, I hate olives.

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Sunday 15 April
106-260 Week 15 Palm Sunday

After the usual breakfast we went by car to Spandau Citadel. The weather is even hotter than yesterday: 22°C. That prisoner place is quite impressive, but as usual, they are working on it so it looks a mess and all the modern bits and pieces added to it completely destroy the atmosphere. Wafts of food coming from a restaurant, I mean, it's just not on. And the guide was a load of rubbish too. Still, it is only the boring who get bored. Actually that was after lunch, I remember me, and then we returned for the habitual Sunday coffee and cakes - three fat slices of Torte, coffee, schnapps. I need desperately to go for a run or something. (Rather the ‘or something’) Finally, we made it back home. And now I must pack for tomorrow. I am sure I won't fit everything in, we have added so much. Oh dear, oh dear.

Sorry I forgot Palm Sunday.

2024: This is a photo I took back then in Spandau on a Pentax ME Super. For some reason I had always thought we had visited the nearby prison where leading Nazi Rudolf Hess was kept until his death in 1987, and I imagined this being his view from his cell. But presumably that prison, now demolished, was not a tourist attraction, so this must be the Citadel, and we must have talked about Hess, a direct connection back to the war 40 years previously. In April 1984 - shortly after we were there - for Hess’s 90th birthday, according to this article Nazi sympathisers threw roses in front of Spandau Prison. Studying the war at school, it seemed like a different age. But it was only the same number of years as my 1984 diary now is from today. And today now it is - still only - 80 years ago.

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2024: Even though I measured eternal bliss in grams on Thursday (and I get my first and last experience of trying snuff), this is definitely not a reference to drugs, which I’ve never taken. Admittedly, alcohol does feature quite heavily this week in its various possible forms, mainly due to my aunt, who liked a beer. Well, I was 17. Though my brother Ethan was 15 and it seems I was buying him Moët and Chandon, very impressive! (“When I got the bill” suggests I was paying.) Last week my aunt, who is now in her mid 80s in an old people’s home with Parkinson’s but mentally sharp enough to tell us about when they were compelled with millions of other Germans to leave Silesia and the East after the war when she was eight, when I asked if she had a wish for me to bring anything to the home, requested some cans of beer. Good on her.

And so 10 days in Berlin draw to a close. I was in Berlin again just after 9th November 1989 for my grandmother’s funeral, when I also experienced the first days of the Wall coming down, watching people celebrate, climb it in amazement, hammer at it, and I stood in the gap where a section had been taken down at Potsdammer Platz for East German Trabant cars to drive through and I took this photo of the Wall in cross section (below). With others in 2014 I wrote some memories of the Berlin Wall that were published in the Guardian online here.