HERE'S TO OLD ST SILVESTER

Germans. The world's most sensible people. Conservative, straight up and down, no messing around. Someone forgot to tell Berlin's new year revellers. I'm not sure what I was expecting from a new year's eve in Berlin. Probably a quiet drink, a quiet meal and to then to join the Germans for a couple of well calculated official fireworks. The evening started predictably enough with a wander up to the Brandenburg Gate to join in the official street party. The Hoff was supposed to be here, but I was in no such luck. I must have timed my visit wrong. But wouldn't you know it, luck would have other plans for me and instead I got to experience, "the world's greatest party band". I'm not sure what world they were from. Obviously not mine. But it was nice to see Eurovision in the flesh. So far so good, German enough, you might say. So when midnight came about and I was confronted with a war zone, I was more than a little surprised. The best way to describe new year's eve in Berlin is if you can imagine cracker night as a kiddie. You bought your plastic bag full of explosives and carefully presided over them for about a week. By the time of the big night, you knew exactly which one you were going to let off and when. You knew all their names and what to expect. Then the big night came. It was too exciting for words. You'd sit back at a safe distance as Mum or Dad lit your crackers one by one. All those bright lights filled you with awe and wonder. Right…now you have that image planted firmly in your head. Now imagine that image on steroids. Imagine everyone bringing their own personal cracker night onto the main street and celebrating together. Imagine not worrying about what order those crackers will be let off in. Imagine rather than have people stand a safe distance back, you actually try to aim your crackers at them, at cars, at buildings, at anything at all, really. And why restrict yourself to the great outdoors? The acoustics in a train carriage are pretty good. Never mind the youths walking down the street firing guns off into the air either. Your only wish at that stage is that those very real looking guns are toys. Sirens pierce the air as fire engines and ambulances battle their way to the less fortunate party goers who had been in the wrong place at the wrong time. Or the right place at the right time if you look at it from the marksman's perspective.

Who said the Germans are boring and conservative? They seem to love a good annihilation like any human worth their salt. The next day showed the remains of the battle. I didn't think "litter" was part of the vocabulary over here, but the debris and fallout from the overnight craziness was obvious. Spent firecracker cases everywhere. I've never seen such a mess of squelched red that had by now become as one with the melting snow. They would give those Jordanians with their black plastic bags a run for their money for world's most littered town. Let's be fair though, it was a good laugh and I heard no reports of any deaths on the German news. Having said that, my German isn't all that.