Unter den Linden: the Telegraph goes soft

Every time someone accuses us of being some kind of spoof, we point to the Daily Telegraph and Daily Mail and say "if we are a spoof, then these two papers must also be". They aren't -we view them as fellow-travellers.

That's why we are pretty shocked to see that the Daily Telegraph has published an article praising cycling.

Their points

1. It's cheaper than driving or public transport
2. It's the only way to avoid the repressive "film all the cars" state we are still in, despite the coalition taking over from NuLabour.
3. Berlin managed to transform their city to make it nice to cycle round

Obviously, we object to all of these. As, fortunately, did enough people in the article's comments, that perhaps now the Telegraph will know their place better. If we wanted to read articles praising cycling, we'd read the Guardian or other socialist rags.

1. Cycling is only cheaper as they don't pay their dues, because the cost of congestion caused by bicycles, the danger they pose to children walking from the 4x4 to the school gate isn't taken into account.

2. Yes, Cycling may avoid the repressive state we read about in the Telegraph and the Mail, but we want that corrected by having every cyclist, every pedestrian registered, number plated, third-party insured and billed. And the speed cameras removed. Because we drivers are not the criminals, the cyclists are. Look at this man: threatening pedestrians on Karl Marx Allee, Berlin.

And Berlin? Well, whoever wrote that article missed their history. The liberation of Berlin in May 1945 left vast quantities of open space due to the actions of allied forces, and even today the population of the city is way below that which it was designed for.

Then the partition of E and W, on the photographer's side of the Brandenburg Tor, took away the German's rights to drive their cars through this, the centre piece of Deutschland. When the wall came down they kept it closed to traffic, and now, with the US and UK embassies behind, it, it's going to stay that way. This is wrong.

We should be able to drive our cars through the Brandenburg Tor then park them here, on Unter den Linden, the most famous street in Berlin. This is the road where the Nazi government cut down the trees for their marches and rallys. And what did the communists put back: the trees.

The fact that central Berlin is a nice place to walk and cycle is not due to to planning or well-meaning government, it is due to WWII and the repressive, communist, socialist state that followed, and a failure of the FDR to push through the changes this city needs to be a modern European city. After the war, we rebuilt our centre, to give us Broadmead, Lewin's Mead and the Queen's Square dual carriageway. What did Berlin do? Let the pedestrians and cyclists go back to the 19th century on their pre-motor toys.

This may be Europe, but it is not Britain, and any attempt to encourage walking or cycling in our streets must be opposed by the coalition as the EU trying to control our lives.

Anniversaries

 Berlin is the pivot-point of 20th century Europe.

This week, the 20th anniversary of the fall of Berlin Wall; the end of the cold war.

Not one Bristol Traffic contributor has been asked for a "where were you when it fell?" quote, which is a shame as one intermittent contributor's answer "in East Berlin doing my military service for the DDR, wondering if the order to start shooting would come in" is more interesting than most journalist's memories.

Now, all is peaceful, quiet. They have even taken down the Palace of the Republic, the centre of government of the DDR, so this photo of that building is now a rarity; the sight of BMWs and Mercedes parked in the car park outside it something to treasure, even if our eyes didn't always light up at the sight of low-cost car parking in an inner city.

And we do treasure it -it was a key event in the 20th century. In a reunited Deutschland, Merkel and Gorbachev celebrated the end of an undemocratic political system that got involved in a futile war against insurgents in Afghanistan, and imposed state industries like nuclear reactors without any community discussion by walking from old East Berlin to old West Berlin.

In the UK, the government celebrated the anniversary by announcing a plan to put up nuclear reactors without any community discussion except the colour of the paint, and announced yet more losses in a futile war against insurgents in Afghanistan.

Nov 9 is also the anniversary of the end of the 1923 Bierhall Putsch, when National Socialism first became a name to fear; another city in Germany -Munich, and another beautiful square, Odeonsplatz, tainted. Then in 1938, Kristallnacht 

November 9, 1989 may mark the end of the cold war, but all that led up to that event is so very dark.