German January days.
Listen to “Fischer-Z January Picks” while you read:
I was being told yesterday that January always seems to be the longest month of the year. After the excitement of Christmas and the New Year and a holiday break for most people. It also seems to be a month when bad news predominates because people are indoors forced to spend more time with their televisions and mobile phones. As good news doesn’t predominate, we are bombarded with Chinese pandemics, nuclear proliferation and a non-ending diet of Brexit and right-wing diatribes.
I’m dictating this blog into my phone which annoyingly doesn’t seem to be designed for someone with even a reasonable lexicon at their command. I said ‘nuclear proliferation’ but the machine wrote ‘pro-life refrigeration!’ That is artificial intelligence for you. Would you put it in charge if your nuclear arsenal, automatically control all the cars on the roads or do a heart operation?! (I recently encountered a psychotic automatic vacuum cleaner which chased me around a friend’s house.)
On the waterfront here in Hamburg I am still astounded by the substance that is called water. How amazing it is and how we take it for granted. Today is physically glorious because I don’t have to share the views, the atmosphere and the marauding seagulls with any more than about five people. At the weekends in the holidays and when the sun is shining you can’t move along this stretch of quayside for ‘touristies’ of all nationalities crowding onto the fleets of smelly diesel ferries.
Today it’s extremely fresh and spacey with plenty of room to breathe. Yesterday I encountered hordes of people in the Berlin main train station; including a group of Chinese tourists with their masks on. I’m not sure whether they were concerned about giving or receiving infection. In the short-term, airports are going to be places to avoid until they get this most recent health threat under control. We’ll all have to be careful to avoid people that cough and sneeze or look excessively hot. Oh my God, I’ve just nearly bumped into somebody wearing a green surgical mask. I don’t believe it!
All the sights and sounds bounce and resonate off the water, creating a wide screen film effect. Even the great tower cranes cutting geometric lines through the sky contrast beautifully with the undulating water and the billowing grey cumulus clouds. (My phone just wrote humorous clouds!) In the distance the infamous Hamburg concert hall rises like a giant teetering cheese grater in the sky.
Enough!
My hands are getting cold and I want some fries! Keep warm and well folks! JW.