Spreewald Pickles

Daughter needs collecting at noon which means we can't make the orienteering in Wakefield. Disappointing but it means we can have a lie in. Which is excellent, we even manage to arrange for the paperboy to bring us a newspaper. So we have an excellent morning, fresh coffee, juice, the newspaper and double sex.

Take Doggo for a ball session on the park. He survives without getting mugged by any dogs but we have a dodgy moment with the deer. We take a wide detour because a pack of male deer complete with antlers are pacing across the park towards us. Unfortunately before we get a safe distance away from them a rather fragrant smelling pile of leaves calls to Doggo and he spends ages getting better acquainted with them. I stand there bellowing at him while all the time the lynch mob of deer move closer. When he's finally done, what does he do, he sits down and does a dump on the leaves. Dogs. Somehow he gets home without sustaining any damage to his other ear. Either from the deer or via a clip round the lughole from me.

Daughter gets home and is very concerned that we might have pigged out on a take away while she was away. L tells her very truthfully that we have not.

Spend the afternoon actually doing some jobs. Clean and vacuum the car. Test the new roof rack. Tidy up a bit in the garden. Get on the computer and finally book the accommodation in Austria.

In the evening we watched Goodbye Lenin. This is a German film set in East Berlin in 1989. The story is of Alex, whose mother, a devoted member of the Communist Party, suffers a heart attack and falls into a coma on the eve of the fall of the Berlin wall. In the meantime a tide of Western goods and values comes flooding eastwards. Eight months later, when she regains consciousness, Doctors, fearing that the shock of finding such a radically changed world will lead to a second heart attack, warn Alex not to cause his mother any anxiety or excitement. He therefore, goes to ludicrously lengths to keep her convinced that communism in East Berlin is still alive, right down to making sure that her pickles appear to come from Spreewald, a now defunct manufacturer.

As the situation becomes more and more impossible Alex creates false newscasts to explain the increasingly Westernised elements of the society that his mother now observes. Alex in effect recreates history to suit his needs. He creates a form of reverse capitalism where West German refugees, oppressed under capitalism, flee the West and seek refuge in the cosy communist East. He even explains that coca-cola was invented by the communists.

I think the film was supposed to be comedy but I think perhaps some of that was lost to us non-Germans. Although it does show a near satirical view of East German society rushing madly to embrace the coca-cola culture. It is still though a very good film that gave a good insight in to the changes in Germany's at that time and it includes some good actual news footage.

27 units for the week.