Hacked Off

Blimey, is it really 20 years since the Berlin Wall was first opened? I can remember that evening as clear as if it were yesterday. I’d visited Berlin for the first time that July, and at the time it seemed that the wall was there to stay. Even when the TV pictures of the hoardes of East Germans going on permanent holiday via Hungary started to be shown, I thought “no way.” So when I came home from work that night and saw the pictures of people streaming through the Bernauer Strasse checkpoint I was utterly amazed. Had to get a takeaway pizza and a four-pack of McEwans Export to celebrate, right there and then.

20 years, eh? Incredible. In theory 20 years is a long time. In reality it’s nothing. On the Liesenstrasse in Humboldthain there’s still a section of the wall that nobody seems to have done anything about. It’s not an official monument, but it also hasn’t been torn down. It hasn’t been hacked to bits by souvenir hunters, either (well, I admit I’ve got a big chunk of it on the shelf in the box room). It’s just there. Still.

And I’m still a programmer. 20 years – blink and you miss it.