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Welcome to Berlin’s film festival, and a not so special relationship in Deutsche Brooklyn Welcome to Berlin’s film festival, and a not so special relationship in Deutsche Brooklyn
(7 months later)
Related: Zero Days review – a disturbing portrait of malware as the future of war
Here in Berlin for the film festival, I came across a slang phrase for the city I didn’t know: Deutsche Brooklyn. The place is absolutely heaving with American hipsters who reckon that Berlin is the supercool artistic place to be – the kind of expat Americans that Jonathan Franzen writes about. A Berlin website, thelocal.de, has written in somewhat exasperated mood about the various American types in the city. There is the Artist, who dresses in black and talks incessantly about their “work”; there is the Startup Bro/Gal, a techie pinching the Wi-Fi in a hip cafe in the Rosenthaler Platz called St Oberholz; there is the Bowie-era Lifer who came here before the Wall came down and goes on about how the Prenzlauer Berg district, or “Prenzi”, has been overgentrified. Does this mean Berlin has fallen in love with America? Currently the city’s political classes are debating with some scepticism a plan to let US consultancy McKinsey advise on their migrant situation. And when I was at the festival premiere of Alex Gibney’s film, Zero Days (about America’s secret cyberwarfare against Iran), the US ambassador to Germany, John B Emerson, was in the audience and invited to stand up and take a bow. There was booing. Clearly America’s relationship with Berlin is still tricky.Here in Berlin for the film festival, I came across a slang phrase for the city I didn’t know: Deutsche Brooklyn. The place is absolutely heaving with American hipsters who reckon that Berlin is the supercool artistic place to be – the kind of expat Americans that Jonathan Franzen writes about. A Berlin website, thelocal.de, has written in somewhat exasperated mood about the various American types in the city. There is the Artist, who dresses in black and talks incessantly about their “work”; there is the Startup Bro/Gal, a techie pinching the Wi-Fi in a hip cafe in the Rosenthaler Platz called St Oberholz; there is the Bowie-era Lifer who came here before the Wall came down and goes on about how the Prenzlauer Berg district, or “Prenzi”, has been overgentrified. Does this mean Berlin has fallen in love with America? Currently the city’s political classes are debating with some scepticism a plan to let US consultancy McKinsey advise on their migrant situation. And when I was at the festival premiere of Alex Gibney’s film, Zero Days (about America’s secret cyberwarfare against Iran), the US ambassador to Germany, John B Emerson, was in the audience and invited to stand up and take a bow. There was booing. Clearly America’s relationship with Berlin is still tricky.
Speedy boarders get me downSpeedy boarders get me down
I flew in to Berlin’s Schönefeld airport, the old Soviet sector airfield given a colossal new lease of life by the cheap flights revolution. Once again I was using easyJet, and was struck again by the most bizarre ritual of British life: the concept of “speedy boarding”. People pay extra to get on the plane quicker – despite the fact that everyone has an assigned seat. I have seen a bunch of speedy boarders get on a transit bus quicker than the rest of us common folk: we shuffled aboard last, but when the bus finished its stately journey across the tarmac, the slow boarders were the first off and first on the plane. Similarly, people are enraged by mobile firm EE and its speedy boarding-style phone-queue offer. While you’re on hold, you will be offered the chance of jumping the queue – for 50p. How incredibly annoying and petty. But all those 50ps mount up, and help EE to sponsor the Baftas every year. Perhaps the company should have a special “queue jump” offer next year, allowing nominees to be mentioned first in the list. They won’t necessarily win. But being mentioned speedily might make them feel more important.I flew in to Berlin’s Schönefeld airport, the old Soviet sector airfield given a colossal new lease of life by the cheap flights revolution. Once again I was using easyJet, and was struck again by the most bizarre ritual of British life: the concept of “speedy boarding”. People pay extra to get on the plane quicker – despite the fact that everyone has an assigned seat. I have seen a bunch of speedy boarders get on a transit bus quicker than the rest of us common folk: we shuffled aboard last, but when the bus finished its stately journey across the tarmac, the slow boarders were the first off and first on the plane. Similarly, people are enraged by mobile firm EE and its speedy boarding-style phone-queue offer. While you’re on hold, you will be offered the chance of jumping the queue – for 50p. How incredibly annoying and petty. But all those 50ps mount up, and help EE to sponsor the Baftas every year. Perhaps the company should have a special “queue jump” offer next year, allowing nominees to be mentioned first in the list. They won’t necessarily win. But being mentioned speedily might make them feel more important.
That delicious bullying thrillThat delicious bullying thrill
Related: Stephen Fry deletes Twitter account after Baftas 'bag lady' criticism
I sympathised with Stephen Fry’s latest exit from Twitter this week, enraged at idiots being sanctimonious at his jokes about Bafta-winning costume designer Jenny Beavan looking like a bag lady. Actually, even that sanctimoniousness is faked. A huge number are people pretending to be upset, or talking themselves into being upset, just so that they can enjoy the delicious thrill of bullying and ganging up. Anyone who has been trolled online can see how it works. But what was really startling was the poem Fry quoted in his blog about the way Twitter has declined into a fetid swamp of backbiting and abuse. He says it was once “a secret bathing-pool in a magical glade in an enchanted forest. It was glorious ‘to turn, as swimmers into cleanness leaping.’” This is from Rupert Brooke’s poem Peace, and the “cleanness” into which the swimmers are leaping is the pure action and martial honour of the war, after the unwholesome torpor and dullness of the world before 1914. It is a startling allusion, especially as Fry is sick of the warfare of Twitter. But the endless strife of social media will create these strange ironies.I sympathised with Stephen Fry’s latest exit from Twitter this week, enraged at idiots being sanctimonious at his jokes about Bafta-winning costume designer Jenny Beavan looking like a bag lady. Actually, even that sanctimoniousness is faked. A huge number are people pretending to be upset, or talking themselves into being upset, just so that they can enjoy the delicious thrill of bullying and ganging up. Anyone who has been trolled online can see how it works. But what was really startling was the poem Fry quoted in his blog about the way Twitter has declined into a fetid swamp of backbiting and abuse. He says it was once “a secret bathing-pool in a magical glade in an enchanted forest. It was glorious ‘to turn, as swimmers into cleanness leaping.’” This is from Rupert Brooke’s poem Peace, and the “cleanness” into which the swimmers are leaping is the pure action and martial honour of the war, after the unwholesome torpor and dullness of the world before 1914. It is a startling allusion, especially as Fry is sick of the warfare of Twitter. But the endless strife of social media will create these strange ironies.