The revolution is not a banana

In my ongoing search on the internet for free articles of mine to recycle on this blog (‘a luxurious task, this cobbling up of ancient toil,’ as Ronald Blythe puts it), I found this site where you can access for free an article I wrote for History Workshop Journal on Berlin:

http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/history_workshop_journal/v057/57.1moran.html

I now think this article is a bit of a mess, to be honest, but fans of the film Goodbye Lenin may find some of the more evocative details of GDR life interesting. I particularly like the idea of the Berlin wall being ground down to make roads, and the graffito that was seen in East Berlin in the weeks after the fall of the wall: ‘The revolution is not a banana’. In these fractious political times, I feel that this is something on which we can all agree.

SOME UPDATES ON EARLIER POSTS:

Not only am I not the Joe Moran who is the Brad Pitt of the Cornish Coast (All My Googlegangers, 17 March), I am also not the Joe Moran who is, according to the Sunday Times rich list, the 63rd richest person in Ireland, with an estimated personal fortune of £125m. I am happy to clear up the understandable confusion on both points.

And more UnReithian TV (see post for 7 March):

Ghost Hunting with Girls Aloud (ITV2)

My Weapon is a Dog (BBC3)

Mundane quote of the day: ‘The newspaper, incapable of seizing the insignificance of the everyday, is only able to render its value apprehensible by declaring it sensational. Incapable of following the movement of the everyday insofar as it is inapparent, the newspaper seizes upon it in the dramatic form of a trial.’ – Maurice Blanchot