I took this image in Arezzo in Tuscany when I was there in the summer. But I came across it when I was thinking about something that happened twenty-five years ago today. I know this is Remembrance Sunday but one of the things we have to be grateful for is the freedom that was fought for in our names. Twenty-five years ago the Berlin Wall came down and, it might be said, the last brick built against European democracy came down with it. Of course that has not turned out to be the whole case but surely it was the start to something new, something better? The unbelievable optimism of that event was a major part of my life, no longer need the East Berliners climb trees to peer over at the west, knowing that an attempt to cross could mean certain death. But the crossing itself was symbolic and the difference between Communism (gone wrong) and Democracy (still not right), and even now Mikhail Gorbachev, the former leader of the Soviet Union is saying the potential for a new Cold War is still with us - and with what is happening in the middle east we do rather have a propensity to shoot ourselves in the foot. But today is one of remembering and remembrance, lest we forget. This clip is of people mixing cultures, through the ages and getting on with it - I adore this track and often play it at my desk in Winchester before my evening teaching session - and I just remembered, it was also brought to a wider audience through the TV show, Queer as Folk - there are nowt as:
