Berlin Wall:

Be There or Be Square

31 October 2016 | Culture

I wish I’d been in Berlin on 9 November 1989 to see the wall come down. I finally got there on 21 October 1991, nearly two years later, and totally because a collection of my German Berlin friends had all insisted I had to see Berlin before it was changed forever. At ...

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An Unter den Linden address

28 June 2012 | Living

◄  I’ve posted about how I came to inherit a pair of cufflinks my great grandfather was given by Kaiser Wilhelm. The little box they came in had the address Unter den Linden 30 in Berlin, that would have been East Berlin before the Berlin Wall came down.   ...

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Travelling Germany

26 June 2012 | Places

Maureen and I, two German friends and four Australian ones, two cars, starting Frankfurt, finishing Berlin. A trip of castles and forts, churches and museums, wineries and factories, lots of food, perhaps a little too much drinking, some of the Euro 2012 football cham...

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Extreme Rambling

27 December 2011 | Media

I missed British comedian Mark Thomas’ ‘walking the wall’ performance when I was at the Edinburgh Festival in August, but I have done the next best thing, read Extreme Rambling, the book of his walk. Rambling is walking British fashion, A to B, not necessarily by ...

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In Search of Mengistu

15 April 2011 | Places

▲ Security in Gunhill is clearly a concern as this typical array of signs on a Gunhill villa shows. Before I left Zimbabwe I had a drive around the flash Harare suburb looking for one of the city’s most famous residents – Haile Mariam Mengistu. ◄ In his book Zanz...

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