One Weekend in Amsterdam...

I'm ashamed that it has taken me over three weeks to write up my three-day sojourn in Amsterdam, but as they say, better late than never.

I've been to Amsterdam a few times before, but I was too young to appreciate it properly. It is an absolutely lovely city, lined with attractive three/ four-storey townhouses and inhabited by people almost as tall - or so it seemed to me from my 5ft 1in point of view. Although lethal when on their bikes (everyone cycles in Amsterdam), the Dutch people I encountered were without exception kind and helpful to us.

The first day was uncharacteristically warm for the Netherlands, so my fellow travellers and I decided to make the most of the glorious weather. We walked alongside the Bloemenmarkt, home to innumerable tulip bulbs; basked in the sun on a jetty by the canal; and looked over rooftops and church spires from the tower of a church-turned university. We also managed to stumble upon an Auschwitz memorial in Wertheim Park: a set of broken mirrors distorting the reflection of the sky, to symbolise how what lies above us has been irreparably changed by the horrific events of the Holocaust.

We started the second day with a visit to the world-famous Anne Frank Museum, and followed up this sombre event with pancakes (as you do). The impact of the museum hit me later on as I traversed the city, aware that this was a luxury not afforded the Frank family and other Jews living in the Netherlands in the 1940s.

My post-lunch solitary stroll allowed me to really take in the feel of

the city. Just to walk parallel to the endless rows of manicured townhouses and become lost in thought, was to me a highlight of the trip. When the afternoon rain made an abrupt appearance, I took cover in a church being used as an exhibition space for a wildly varied collection of designer wedding dresses.

After an amusing-yet-harrowing evening in the Red Light District, off to the Van Gogh Museum we went for a wholly different, but equally surreal experience . Having only really been exposed to his famous sunflowers, it was a pleasant surprise to see that there was so much more to Van Gogh than his better-known still life paintings, including his series of early paintings idealising the peasant lifestyle and a number of works inspired by Japanese prints. I will leave you with my favourites from the museum, chosen because I'm so fond of the vibrant and surrealist colour palette used to craft them.

The Sower

Flowering plum trees (after Hiroshige)

The Garden of St. Paul's Hospital

Watch Me Move

For a slice of on-screen nostalgia, I strongly recommend a visit to Watch Me Move:The Animation Show at the Barbican Centre. The exhibition showcases short films and clips from feature lengths spanning the history of film, and ranging from family-friendly familiars to the experimental, to the downright disturbing!

The numerous screens and projections are the prime focus in the minimal space. Some of my highlights:

The Serpentine Dance (1899) - The Lumière Brothers

This short is one of the first films ever made. It was shot in black and white, and then hand-coloured frame by frame to create beautiful colour transitions that complement the fluidity of the dancer's graceful movements, injecting vibrancy and spirit into the dance.

Duck Amuck (1950s)

In this cartoon, the ill-humoured Daffy Duck is mocked by his creator, who humiliates the character by sketching unfortunate situations for him and threatening his very existence with the rubber on the end of his pencil. These actions provoke the most indignant squawks you are ever likely to hear from a duck. In the closing scene, the shot pans out to reveal that it is none other than Bugs Bunny who is responsible for Daffy's suffering.

Le Nez (The Nose) (1963) - Alexander Alexeieff and Claire Parker

This film by husband and wife team Alexeieff and Parker is based on Russian writer Nikolai Gogol's tale of a young man who loses his nose. The story of the desperate search and the need to conceal the missing facial protrusion is not quite as impressive as the animation itself; the directors used a black canvas full of pins and pushed these in to greater and lesser degrees to create changing shades of grey.

Dimensions of Dialogue (1982) - Jan Svankmajer

I'd unknowingly watched one of Svankmajer's films before seeing Dimensions of Dialogue, as a good friend of mine presented me with Little Otik a few years back. This feature-length film is based on a Czech fairy tale about a tree trunk carved into the form of a baby and adopted by a family, who then struggle with the creature's insatiable appetite for human beings. Clearly, this director has a penchant for the bizarre, and Dimensions is no exception. This short film is very clever in its portrayal of two-person interaction, and beautiful in its own way. On this note, I feel I can only do it justice by describing it in more depth.

The film begins with the confrontation of two heads: one crafted out of vegetables and one constructed from kitchenware. One devours the other and vomits out a hybrid of the two; this demented rock-paper-scissors-esque sequence continues until two bald human heads remain.

In the second 'dialogue', a man and woman made out of clay become intertwined and melded together in a passionate embrace. A clay sex scene ensues, in which they become one indistinguishable entity but for the odd fleeting emergence of a face, hand or other body part. After the figures have separated again, a small lump of clay appears between them. The clay baby is rejected by both and prompts them to become increasingly angry, to the point that they begin to claw chunks out of each other's faces!

The final scene shows two heads engaging with one another through the medium of everyday objects. They start with complementary pairs, such as a pencil and pencil sharpener, or a toothbrush and toothpaste. Yet before long, the heads fall out of accord and the toothbrush is met by the sharpener, the pencil by the toothpaste, etc. The tension climaxes with the implosion of the two.

****

Watch Me Move has reaffirmed my belief that animation is not just, or even chiefly, for kids. The relatively boundless creativity for which it allows is great for expressing adult subject material as well as 'Disney emotions' (which, looking back, aren't all that child-specific in the first place - the witch in Snow White frightens me today as much as she did when I was four). So pop along to the Barbican Centre to sample the wonderful world of animation, which seems to err between the surreal and something much closer to home.

Out of this World

This is the second time I’ve been to an exhibition at the British Library (the first time being last summer when I stumbled upon Magnificent Maps), and fortunately I was as impressed as I was first time round. Out of This World showcases an array of books that represent the science fiction genre of literature. I hope to familiarise myself better with the genre; a number of books from the exhibition have made my reading list since my visit.

The antecedents of science fiction date back much further than you might expect. Voltaire’s Micromégas (1752), for example, recounts an extra-terrestrial man's visit to Earth and comments on western culture from the perspective of the outsider. However, the genre only really took off a century later. The popularity of science fiction literature grew in tandem with the advent of a great age of discovery; in the late nineteenth century to early twentieth century, archaeological finds such as the tombs of Egypt’s Valley of the Kings fascinated the public and thus inspired a ‘Lost World’ sub-genre to form. Scientific intrigue was prolific during this period, giving birth not only to notions of different life on Earth, but also life on Mars, hence the rise of a 'Martian' sub-genre. Real-life political and social events were also integral to the development of science fiction.; case in point: the ‘Superhero’ sub-genre was influenced by Nietzsche’s Ubermensch. History also features in science fiction literature: counter-factual novels speculated on what would have happened if Hitler had won WWII, if Napoleon had won the Battle of Waterloo, etc.

A collection of science fiction novels on display focus on the future, looking into how mankind would be affected if current developments were to continue or increase in intensity. The prophetic Man after Man: An Anthropology of the Future by Dougal Dixon, for example, imagines the evolution of humans after an era of extensive genetic engineering. Morphed with various creatures, human beings can adapt to survive in environments they currently cannot, e.g. the vacuumorph described in the book can live in the vacuum of space, and the aquamorph can breathe underwater.

Within the section dedicated to the future, 'End of the World' novels dominate. Real-world events such as the development of the nuclear bomb and climate change awareness informed these novels, with authors using them to weave apocalyptic yarns. Of particular note is Earthdoom, a satiric novel that mocks this sub-genre.

Overall, Out of this World is cleverly and thoughtfully put together. It challenges the unfavourable stereotype of science fiction perpetuated by 1950s B-movies, with little green men and frisbee spaceships, and highlights the scientific, historical, political and cultural influences prevalent in this oft-bashed genre.

Condensed London

A couple of weeks ago, I whiled away a drizzly bank holiday Monday in the Museum of London. The museum encapsulates seven major time periods, allowing visitors to journey along the city's extensive lifeline. It illustrates the evolution of the small Roman town of Londinium into the heaving, sprawling London of today.

As I progressed through the eras, what struck me was how much London has endured; from the the Great Fire and the Black Death to the Blitz of WWII, the city has been dealt more than its fair share of adversity. London as a centre of culture and high civilisation, the economic heartbeat of the country, the hub for imperialist endeavors, etc. - this image of the city as a 'success story' is generally impressed upon us more than one of a city afflicted by death and devastation. I'm glad that the MoL does not assign more weight to the former image (and I always enjoy the more gruesome bits of history!).

The museum does not miss a beat: it includes archaeological findings, animated disaster stories, paraphernalia from social movements and wartime, mock Victorian shops and much more. A day is definitely needed to explore all the galleries... and perhaps a second visit.

Cake, Communists and Culture in Budapest

At the end of March, I jetted off with my special someone to Budapest for a three-night getaway. The city is beautiful but for the endless roadworks and some signs of under-investment in building renovation; the food will see to it that you leave slightly more convex than when you came, even after walking constantly; and the people will make you contemplate how communist and post-communist life can affect 'the national mentality'.

Our first foray into Budapest life was in the Jewish Quarter, very close to our hotel. Spinoza Cafe provided the eats, which were sweet dumplings and apple strudel, and strong coffee - fuel for our exploration of the district. The Great Synagogue was strikingly ornate for a synagogue (synagogues are typically austere, as places of worship go), and I thoroughly enjoyed my Muslim fellow traveller adorning a kippa inside the building - even more so when the thing kept falling off (sacrilege!). On a side note, the site on which the synagogue was built was the birthplace of Theodor Herzl, the founder of Zionism.

After admiring the Great Synagogue, we wandered on into the Memorial Park. We attempted to assimilate into a guided tour to find out more about the place, but were ever so slightly conspicuous in the over-60s group. The tour guide was keen to highlight the presence of Hungarian Schindlers during WWII; a running theme of Budapest seemed to be the desire to stress homegrown heroes, evidenced not only by their mention in the Memorial Park but also by statues across the city. In that particular instance, it was certainly a nicer picture of history to paint than one of the million member-strong fascist Arrow Cross Party and the severe depletion of the Hungarian Jewish community (800 000 became 80 000).

Tree of Life

Great Synagogue at night

Day Two of the trip saw us cross over from Pest into Buda via the Chain Bridge and take the shortest uphill tram ride imaginable to reach the Castle District. After appreciating the view, we went on to visit St. Michael's Church and the Fisherman's Bastion (a structure built purely to provide a nice vantage point).

Next was a cake and tea break, which would've been decent if not for the appalling service. Generally the service we received in Budapest was lukewarm at best, possibly because Hungarians are not the most positive people, to the extent that they are apparently known for their 'patriotic sorrow'. However, our spirits rose when we got to explore the Buda Castle Labyrinth - a surreal experience to say the least! The underground caves first appeared to contain historical features and artifacts, but it later dawned on us that these weren't exactly genuine - a realisation reinforced by the toilet exhibition near the end of the labyrinth and a 'fossilised' Pepsi bottle. The Hungarian sense of humour is somewhat baffling.

Not satisfied with the fake history we'd seen underground, we headed for the National History Museum, a museum that gave the (wholly unfair) impression that Hungary has no history whatsoever! It's easy to sum up the place: sparse rooms, the smell of cigarette smoke, and dead ends. The museum map suggested that our visit should take hours; we spent less than ten minutes wandering around in a state of bemusement, before deciding it was time to escape the Castle District for greener cultural pastures.

Unaided by signposting, we trekked 'up' in search of Gellert Hill. Not for the first time that day, we were treated to stunning views of the Danube and both halves of Budapest.

The Liberation Monument

Cave Chapel

Cave Chapel (interior)

Dinner that evening was at the über smoky Castro Bistro for meaty soup, followed by more meat - mine in the form of a stuffed cabbage dish, which consisted of a generous amount of ground pork wrapped in cabbage and topped with bacon and sausage.

The night continued with a well-earned chill-out session at Budapest's best-known 'ruin bar', Szimpla kert. The dilapidated building and surly bouncers on the door were not exactly inviting, but we were pleasantly surprised by what we found inside. The bar had a wonderfully bohemian atmosphere, fun decor and lighting, and cheap and cheerful plum wine. It left me questioning why London can't have places like Szimpla kert: so cool and yet so unpretentious!

We started Day Three with a look around the elaborate St. Stephen's Basilica before journeying to Margaret Island, a 2.5km strip of land in the middle of the Danube between Buda and Pest. A highlight of our stroll down the island was the church ruins. We crossed back into Pest and skirted the river bank downtown, to catch the afternoon tour of Parliament.

St. Stephen's Basilica

Ruins of the nunnery on Margaret Island

Margaret Island

Parliament

The evening started rather disappointingly, as we struggled to seek out the city's nightlife. Having vetoed the poor offering at one of Budapest's main cultural centres, we found the Cotton Club and hoped for the best. The decor was pretty cool, mimicking a 1920s American bar, and the cocktails were also well-received! The music was an entirely different story; our pianist for the evening seemed to be Budapest's answer to Michael Buble, complete with a songbook of said Buble (for shame, fellow traveller who recognised that the guy was playing a Buble album!).

Day 4: what better way to round off a lovely stay in Budapest than with a visit to the House of Terror? The museum has a rather harrowing history; the actual building was once the HQ of the fascist Arrow Cross Party, and then the HQ of the secret police force of the Hungarian Communist regime, representing a continuity of terror in 20th century history. In its Communist days, The HoT served as a centre of torture as well (we had the privilege of visiting the cells in the basement). We both found the exhibition bizarre in parts, not least at the start when inappropriate ominous music was playing (do you really need Hollywood-esque theatrical music to convey the horrors of the Holocaust?). There's some controversy relating to the Hungarian (right-wing) government du jour's motivation for building the museum; some accused it of trying to tarnish the current Socialist party by dredging up the Communist past. It did seem strange that so much room was given to the Communist era at the expense of the fascist period, although the former was far longer lasting.

In stark contrast to our morning in the House of Terror, we spent lunchtime in the up-market Gerbaud cafe, with its luxurious interior and artisan cakes. The experience epitomised holiday indulgence; it was the perfect - and most delicious - way to end the trip.

Consumer Time Travelling

Last weekend I visited the Museum of Brands, Packaging and Advertising (MBPA) – a little piece of heaven for a nostalgia junkie such as myself. This large-scale time capsule buried (sort of – it was difficult to find!) somewhere between Notting Hill Gate and Westbourne Park contained thousands of packs, poster ads, toys and games from the mid-nineteenth century to the present day. It was astonishing to see how much consumer culture – and the sociopolitical environment influencing it – had changed over this period; you certainly wouldn’t see a Golly figure in an advert today, or outlandish claims about the benefits of cigarettes and alcohol.

There was one particular story of social transformation told by the posters and packaging of the museum that struck me: the story of women’s emancipation. Near the entrance, women were portrayed through ads as entirely domestic creatures, primarily concerned with cleaning products and the family's dietary requirements. Later on postcards ridiculing the feminist movement served as signs of women's desire for reform, but also of the mounting resistance to reform. It is significantly later on in this time tunnel of a museum, past the World War II propagandist images of the gardening/cooking goddesses of the Home Front, when women begin to be presented in a markedly different way. Seemingly out of nowhere, Sexualised Woman appears on the scene – and it appears that she can’t stay away from ads for alcohol or other products just a tad more glamorous than washing powder. Keep walking and you reach Spice Girls memorabilia, which somehow failed to inspire any “girl power” in me but did oddly signify progress.

It was interesting to see how the changing face of brands, packaging and advertising reflects more than shifts in consumer tastes. You can take them as frivolous, or recognise that consumer artefacts also convey important milestones in history - albeit in a way that can be quite tongue-in-cheek.

Anyway, the MBPA is good fun and one for when you want something a bit quirkier than your average London museum.

Weihnachtsmärkten + Schnee = A Successful Trip to Deutschland

In early December, I was lucky enough to score a work trip to Germany, to brief two agencies working on a research project I'm managing. Two things I was told prior to my trip that proved to be invaluable:

1. the German Christmas market trumps any other country's equivalent

2. try the Glühwein (mulled wine; literally translated as "glow

wine").

And the markets and the wine did not disappoint. In fact, almost as soon as I'd arrived in the Old Town of Nuremberg, it became clear to me that nobody does Christmas quite like the Germans. (Oh, and that hot alcoholic beverages are an absolute necessity when the sun goes down and the temperature plummets to an extremity-numbing, foot-freezing low.)

Despite epic snow fall in England and Germany, my plane wasn't too delayed and I arrived in Nuremberg in the morning, giving me a couple of hours before my first briefing to explore the Old Town - and in particular, the famous Nürnberg Weihnachtsmarkt. The Nuremberg Christmas Market is the oldest one in Germany; it has been providing pre-Christmas joy to the townspeople since the mid-sixteenth century, and now attracts tourists from across the globe for the good eats and the general festive ambience in the market square.

After my briefing, I picked up where I left off and found some somewhat strange Christmas-related fun around the Old Town, such as a nativity scene that included a camel and goats (or rams?).

I also skirted the edge of the Old Town to take in the castle, walls and moat; I should point out that the latter was being used for sledding purposes.

As the sun set, the temperature plummeted and I headed back to the Christmas market for comfort food and a hot drink. The market served Glühwein in charming mugs for which you paid a deposit, and then you were welcome to have a wander or huddle around the fire pit next to the bar - very civilised boozing from a Brit's perspective!

My evening in Nuremberg was cut short because I had an early train to catch, and by 6.30pm the pain caused by extreme cold was starting to override the charm of the market anyway. So I was off to bed embarrassingly early, and on the platform waiting for the Deutsche Bahn at 7.15am. Unfortunately on this occasion, the Germans did not live up to their reputation for efficiency; the DB was pretty late and I almost missed my briefing in Hamburg. The saving grace of the five-hour journey was that I got to see much of the picturesque German country.

By the time I had done the briefing it was late afternoon, so my first exploration of Hamburg was in the dark. This made the Christmas markets more pronounced; I pretty much navigated the city centre by means of festive lights. The main market, located in the Rathausplatz (Town Hall Place), was a particular draw.

On the Saturday I only had a few hours to explore before heading to the airport, so I planned to see as much as possible. I'd come to terms with the fact that I wouldn't achieve depth of experience in so little time, so I was aiming to at least achieve breadth of experience. Keeping in the spirit of Christmas, I went on a walk that I have since dubbed a "church crawl". I ventured inside as many as possible, and lingered for a couple of choir performances (sitting in on a performance = an experience and an opportunity to thaw).

St. Michael's Church was particularly special for me because it treated me to a bird's eye view of the city...

... and unlike the other German church interiors I'd seen, which were uniformly austere, St Michael's was relatively ornate.

Near to St. Michael's, I stumbled upon this rather imposing monument to Bismarck. The whole scene took on new significance when the offspring of a chavvy British family began sledding down the hill on which it sat. Surreal.

I managed to circle the city, returning to Rathausplatz to visit Hamburg Town Hall.

Just as I thought I'd seen everything Hamburg could offer me in half a day, dancing Christmas trees and gingerbread men shimmied past me down Mönckebergstraße. Lesson learned: the more ridiculous the costumes, the better the parade.

So that, in a nutshell, was my Germany trip. Readily accessible comfort food, some great architecture, and an endearing enthusiasm for Christmas.