Swan step too far

This is the greatest story i’ve read for a long time. A middle-aged Muslim man gets hungry after just two days of fasting for Ramadan, so what does he do?

a) Nip to McDonalds in secret for a Filet o’ Fish
b) Eat a biscuit
c) Go down to the local pond, slit the throat of a swan, then savage it with his teeth.

The enduring image for me is of the perpetrator, Shamsu Miah, being caught quite literally red-handed with blood on his shirt and white feathers in his beard. ‘Who me officer? I was just looking after it for a friend.’

Brilliant.

Munich life

This morning I was woken at eight by a pair of workmen who I assumed had come to fix the internet, which has been ‘am Arsch’ for three days now. No such luck. They had come, waking me from a particularly nice dream – I kid you not – to measure the distance from the bottom of my curtains to the floor.

Only in Germany could this happen. Presumably there’s some regulation that states that the building has to be evacuated if a curtain is that couple of perilous millimetres too long. I can’t explain it, so I’ve decided, as you do, to write a poem about it instead, in the style of ‘The Raven’, by Edgar Allen Poe. Don’t ask why, it’s been a long morning.

For any Poe fans out there, I know I haven’t mimicked the rhyme scheme perfectly, but then he was on opium and I’m not.


The Curtain Men

This morn as i lay snoozing, still slowed by last night’s boozing
Dreaming dreams of sultry sirens serenading me to sleep
There came a piercing ringing, slicing through the sirens’ singing
As of someone ringing, dinging, waking me from slumber deep.
‘Tis some workman type’ I thought, ‘come to break my slumber deep
‘Come to prise me from my humble Munich flat.’

I jerked awake a-mumbling, crossed the floor just slightly stumbling
As I pulled a pair of jeans on, subtle curse-words softly spoken
With my head so rudely pounding like a hammer beat resounding
Still wondering why had some token visitor my snoozing broken
‘Why on earth should I be forced to have my morning snoozing broken
By an early-rising, ringing, Munich sewer-rat.’

Two men were outside waiting, not a thought of hesitating
In they came, these workmen bold, a-pushing wide my door.
‘We’ve come to check the curtains sir, we’ve got to see for certain
If they’re hanging more than twenty centimetres from the floor.’
‘They must be joking,’ I surmised, ‘who cares how far above the floor
Are the curtains hanging in my cosy Munich flat.’

These noble curtain-checkers, early-morning slumber-wreckers
With their single tool a strip of standard measuring tape
Went over to the curtain while I watched on legs uncertain
Watched them as they ascertained the length from ground to drape
‘Don’t tell me that they studied, just to measure ground to drape,’
Thought I, ‘these goddamn Munich bureaucrats.’

And having spent just seconds, as my time-lagged brain did reckon
In an exercise that seemed to have no purpose whatsoever
They left again as quickly as they’d come, I stood there thinking sickly,
How could curtain length be grounds enough my morning snooze to sever
How dare they come to call at eight, my gentle morning snooze to sever
To break the peace that reigned once, in my humble Munich flat.

Bans don't work

The latest news from Germany is that senior politicians, including Minister President Edmund Stoiber of the CDU/CSU, are calling for a ban on violent video games.

The Bundesrat initiative is in fact old news, as Germany’s ‘grand coalition’ of the SPD and CDU/CSU signed a document agreeing to pursue a ban as long ago as last year.

But now, as is ever the case, unrelated events have sparked the debate into life again. Those of you who were able to locate the foreign news in the British press (usually afforded about as much space as the horoscopes) may have heard that a teenager ran amok in a school in Emsdetten on Monday, shooting eight people before eventually turning the gun on himself.

Investigations into his online activities revealed the gunman, Sebastian Bosse, had a keen interest in the computer game Counter-Strike. Bosse had used the game’s editing facility to create a mock-up of the school in which he was able to embark on a virtual version of his planned killing spree.

With the link between the shootings and the game so evident, the move to ban such games is likely to meet with considerable popular support over here.

But is it really so easy to establish a causative link to a computer game? It reminds me of the fuss over children’s TV series Power Rangers, in the 1990s. Parents complained that the posterior-kicking antics of the PR team were causing their children to batter each other senseless on a more regular basis than they had previously done.

Nearly twenty years later, it seems ridiculous that such a tame programme could have cause so much uproar. In 2026, it’s more than likely that we will look at Counter-Strike in the same way. To those of us happily free of psychotic tendencies, it’s just a good bit of macho, testosterone-fuelled fun, much like paintball or Quasar.

Of course, for Bosse it formed a virtual arena for preparing his crimes. But who’s to say that playing out his murderous fantasies in his bedroom didn’t prevent him from acting even sooner than he did. How many other hate-filled young men are taking out their anger on their keyboards, rather than on their schoolmates?

No-one will ever be able to prove that a film, computer game, or for that matter, book, has motivated someone to commit murder. Furthermore, any ban is likely to be ineffective, given the proliferation of download programmes which offer access to such games for free.

It is nigh on impossible to regulate human behaviour, whether you’re a computer games manufacturer or a politician. And once the video nasties and violent games have been done away with, who will we blame for the next atrocity?

Parents will be the only ones left. Perhaps we should be looking for answers closer to home.

Rebel rhino

Good news from Kenya (if you’re a British soldier that is), where the army is proving considerably more adept at taming local insurgents than it has in Iraq.

Four soldiers, believed to be from the Gurkha regiment, sprang into immediate action when they were targeted as the victims of a callous ambush by a white rhino (one of a dangerous and bloodthirsty contingent of about 200 in Kenya).

The disgruntled rhinoceros, presumably angered by the presence of foreign troops on rhino soil, lumbered towards the startled soldiers with murder in its eyes. Thankfully, all those years of training came flooding back and, in a heroic stand, the men were able to subdue the beast by pumping it full of bullets.

It is not yet known whether the rhino was armed, although intelligence sources say Russian-made assault rifles have fallen into the hands of rhinoceroses via Iran in recent years.

Defusing explosive language

I’ve been growing increasingly frustrated with the coverage of the war on terrorism in the British media.

Not because I feel it is in any way intrinsically biased, in fact, I think the British press has operated with an uncharacteristic degree of restraint. Even the tabloids seem to have recognised that this cannot be an ‘us and them’ issue, because we are them and they are us.

What annoys me though, is something I am sure has developed on a subconscious level but is extremely damaging, namely the juxtaposition of the word ‘Islamic’ with the word ‘terrorist’. On a basic level, the mere conjunction of the two ideas is enough to associate them with each other in people’s minds.

But how else are you to describe terrorists who claim adherence to Islam? There are, after all, very few Hindus, Catholics or atheists planting bombs on the Underground. Very true, but if there were, would we be linking their faith to their actions?

I’m not so sure. Take the IRA for example: at the height of its activities, it was a terrorist organisation which used religion as a front for actions that were, primarily, political. Sounds pretty similar to al-Qaeda.

But 20 years ago, can you imagine the headline ‘Catholic extremist sentenced to life in prison’. I think not. The emphasis would have been on his affiliation to the IRA, not on his faith.

And yet, within the last 6 months I have seen countless headlines in which the idea of ‘Islam’ and the idea of ‘terrorism’ are directly associated. The only effect this can have is to create mistrust on both sides. It has to be time to change policy on this in the media.

What about using the phrase ‘pseudo-Islamic’. Or even biting the bullet and simply adding caveats like ‘…terrorist, who claims his beliefs have a basis in Islam.’ At least then we would be openly acknowledging the fact that Islam does not, per se, advocate terrorism.

It seems a minor point, but it’s easy to underestimate the power that words, when they are not used with caution, have to plant seeds in people’s minds. And no, this is not, as the Daily Express might have it, political correctness gone maaaad, but a legitimate factor in the division of our society.

It must be the responsibility of the media to recognise the impact a misjudged phrase can have without automatically assuming the responsibility of the reader to read around to attain a balanced viewpoint.

This can only start with a concerted and cooperative effort on the part of Britain’s editors. So please write to your local rag. If it achieves nothing, at least you’ll give the letters editor something to think about.

Berlin whimsy

Berlin was the host for the second leg of the IJP conference, and once again we embarked on a whistlestop tour of politicians and spin doctors, pausing only for the odd sandwich. I've been to Berlin before and there are few European cities with more to offer for fans of history, art, theatre and music.

But, if high culture leaves you cold, here are my insider tips for the best things to see and do in Berlin.

1. The Hounds of the U-Bahn - These vicious beasts are best viewed from a distance. Preferably behind bullet-proof glass. They patrol the underground, dragging uniformed transport police behind them, their slavering jaws clamped shut by muzzles which, i can only imagine, are made of titanium. The muzzles came into use after a particularly persistent Schwarzfahrer jumped one queue too many.

2. The Rubbish Rifflers - A breed of smartly-dressed gentlemen who walk the streets peering into every nearby dustbin, rummaging around, then going to the next like some sort of refuse bee. At first i assumed they were tramps, but they are far too smartly dressed for that.

Germany being what it is, i assume they belong to a fearsome, many-tentacled (and made up) organisation called the Quasi-Stasi, who are checking to see if the Germans are really recycling as much as they claim to be. Should one of these fearless lawmen come across a rogue glass bottle, he dusts it down for fingerprints, then kicks down the door of the perpetrator in the middle of the night. The offending litterbug is then 'disappeared.'

3. The Gleisdreieck Triangle - Some say it's due to an ancient tribal burial ground far beneath Berlin, others say it's the result of building works...but Venture onto the semi-mythical U2 underground line at your peril. An uninitiated adventurer could find themselves going back and forth betweem Gleisdreieck and Potsdamer Platz for the rest of eternity, too committed to the journey to get off. Although they'd have to be pretty stupid not to notice. Right?

4. The Rum Trader - A dimly lit bar roughly the size of a postage stamp serving, amongst other things, some of the best rums in the world. An old-fashioned barman in a tuxedo serves you your drink with a courteous nod, although anyone with elbows may have to venture outside to drink it.

5. The lobby of the Radisson SAS Hotel - Travellers at a loose end can relax here watching the fish swim round and round the huge aquarium that dominates the middle of the room. The staff are know for their tolerance of bored bloggers with another four hours to go until their flight.