CeBit: Hannover 3rd - 7th March 2009
I’m writing this latest episode, sat sitting in the Business Class Lounge at Hannover airport, supping on a free bier, having just drunk my free latte. I’m currently contemplating whether or not to help myself to a free bagel and cream cheese. Actually, no, I think I’ll have another bier… Hang on; I’ll be right back… Right, I’m back. Decided to have the bier and the bagel and cream cheese. Oh, and a bowl of liquorice allsorts… Très tastee…
Hey, it’s a dirty job, and someone’s got to do it. It just so happens that I’m that man. But, Marky, I hear you mutter, why are you sat sitting anywhere in Hannover airport, let alone the Business Class Lounge? Well, mes petites cochons, I’m on my way back from CeBit, which is an exhibition of all the latest clever computery shit. Essentially, we went to look at toys; all nice and shiny and gadgety; very pretty. Or, maybe it was just the UK’s way of getting revenge on the Germans for landing Britain with a square-headed Royal Family. Now, I personally have nothing against the House of Hannover, nor their descendants. I fully acknowledge their right to breed with their own brothers and sisters, no matter how much it makes them look like haemophiliac, cabbage patch dolls with raging syphilis.
Still, I’d just like two things:
I’ll leave it to you to decide which one is the true reason…
Anyway, the fact still remains that I’m in Hannover. Jean-Michel (a ffrenchman), Karl (a Swiss), and moi, flew up here from Munich on Wednesday afternoon (today is Saturday afternoon). I won’t bore you with the dull stuff. Our hotel can only be described as post-nuclear Bauhaus, if you’re an optimistic type, multi-story car park chic if you’re a realist, or the box that the kit came in, if you tend look on the downside. At 250€ a night, I expected something a little less like a leftover set from Total Recall, but what ya gonna do? The bed was comfortable, the quilt warm, and the shower so powerful it could [still] revive Sunny von Bulow. As for Claus, fuck him! Murderous Nazi hump! He should burn in the ninth circle of Hell with OJ, for all eternity. See how I lose my grasp of grammar when I get all vituperative? Perhaps I’ll have a decaf latte… BRB… Yeah, like I’m about to start drinking decaf now! Ha! Full strength with an extra shot, that’s what I’m all about…
Hey, it’s a dirty job, and someone’s got to do it. It just so happens that I’m that man. But, Marky, I hear you mutter, why are you sat sitting anywhere in Hannover airport, let alone the Business Class Lounge? Well, mes petites cochons, I’m on my way back from CeBit, which is an exhibition of all the latest clever computery shit. Essentially, we went to look at toys; all nice and shiny and gadgety; very pretty. Or, maybe it was just the UK’s way of getting revenge on the Germans for landing Britain with a square-headed Royal Family. Now, I personally have nothing against the House of Hannover, nor their descendants. I fully acknowledge their right to breed with their own brothers and sisters, no matter how much it makes them look like haemophiliac, cabbage patch dolls with raging syphilis.
Still, I’d just like two things:
- the Family Windsor changes its’ surname back to Saxe-Coburg-Gotha,
- a shitload of chlorine for their gene pool
I’ll leave it to you to decide which one is the true reason…
Anyway, the fact still remains that I’m in Hannover. Jean-Michel (a ffrenchman), Karl (a Swiss), and moi, flew up here from Munich on Wednesday afternoon (today is Saturday afternoon). I won’t bore you with the dull stuff. Our hotel can only be described as post-nuclear Bauhaus, if you’re an optimistic type, multi-story car park chic if you’re a realist, or the box that the kit came in, if you tend look on the downside. At 250€ a night, I expected something a little less like a leftover set from Total Recall, but what ya gonna do? The bed was comfortable, the quilt warm, and the shower so powerful it could [still] revive Sunny von Bulow. As for Claus, fuck him! Murderous Nazi hump! He should burn in the ninth circle of Hell with OJ, for all eternity. See how I lose my grasp of grammar when I get all vituperative? Perhaps I’ll have a decaf latte… BRB… Yeah, like I’m about to start drinking decaf now! Ha! Full strength with an extra shot, that’s what I’m all about…
So, CeBit had its mirthsome moments, but attendance was low, due to the recession. That said, on the e-Learning side, there was still a lot of incredibly dull people talking execrable bollocks about shit they know nothing about, just because they’d once heard a couple of words they liked the sound of, and still have no idea what they mean. On the computer hardware side there are the freaks: the geek squad; obligatory anorak-wearing, game-playing, moon-bathing, socially-inept virgins with bad skin, fetid breath and no hope of ever getting laid, who giggle every time they come across a semi-naked oriental girl wiggling her arse as you walk past, in the hope you’ll buy a million power supply units. Then, there are the poseurs, the ones who look like they slept in the park last night, and the ones who just look like they wandered in to the place by accident. Which leaves about 50 people who are OK; we three, and 47 others who you can have a drink and a good laugh with. And, this is Germany, they know how to drink. Drink and eat sausage. They actually drink beer at breakfast here. Honest injun! They drink beer and eat sausage for breakfast. I know I say that like it’s a bad thing but, drinking beer is a way of life over here, and it’s healthy for you. My liver told me so when I woke up this morning. It was sitting on the bedside table smoking a cigarette and having a Long Island Iced Tea…
Still, CeBit was quite fun, but hard work on the shoe leather. You just spend all day walking around, and around, and around, and around.
And Hannover? I hear you ask. Well, it’s a weird burg, let me tell you. By German standards, it’s a city. By my standards, it’s no’but a largish town. Not really a great deal to recommend it, in my opinion. Maybe you just need to spend more than four days here to appreciate it. Then again, four days here and I think I’ve seen enough. It lacks charm, style, and grace. The old bits of town look like they could be anywhere in Northern Germania. The new bits look very much like they could be anywhere in, well, anywhere. I didn’t see anything that was in the least bit worth investigating further. Apart from Peek and Kloppenburg’s… Is it wrong that I find their clothes rather stylish? P&C is a bit like a German version of Moss Bros. Only they are infamous for making the SS uniforms that Hugo Boss designed. Quaint.
That said, we did carry out some research into the cocktail happy hour in Henry’s… Very bad. I think I had eight Long Island Iced Teas, but I can’t be sure. Sorta lost count really. I did meet a Norwegian chap, Christian, in the hotel bar though. I was reading a German rock mag I’d bought in town, having a Weiss bier, and he was looking very bored, or maybe just looking Norwegian, I can’t be sure. He thought I was German and, having recently consumed my own body weight in cocktails, I was trying my best not to fall off my bar stool, eating complimentary peanuts (only because they were in what looked like a small sample flask that fingers couldn’t get inside!) and we just got talking about Norwegian heating systems. Then we got talking to a group of assorted Dutch, German and Swiss folks, with me translating their German into English for the Norwegian. Quite bizarre, when you think about it. But, it was quite amusing.
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Still, CeBit was quite fun, but hard work on the shoe leather. You just spend all day walking around, and around, and around, and around.
And Hannover? I hear you ask. Well, it’s a weird burg, let me tell you. By German standards, it’s a city. By my standards, it’s no’but a largish town. Not really a great deal to recommend it, in my opinion. Maybe you just need to spend more than four days here to appreciate it. Then again, four days here and I think I’ve seen enough. It lacks charm, style, and grace. The old bits of town look like they could be anywhere in Northern Germania. The new bits look very much like they could be anywhere in, well, anywhere. I didn’t see anything that was in the least bit worth investigating further. Apart from Peek and Kloppenburg’s… Is it wrong that I find their clothes rather stylish? P&C is a bit like a German version of Moss Bros. Only they are infamous for making the SS uniforms that Hugo Boss designed. Quaint.
That said, we did carry out some research into the cocktail happy hour in Henry’s… Very bad. I think I had eight Long Island Iced Teas, but I can’t be sure. Sorta lost count really. I did meet a Norwegian chap, Christian, in the hotel bar though. I was reading a German rock mag I’d bought in town, having a Weiss bier, and he was looking very bored, or maybe just looking Norwegian, I can’t be sure. He thought I was German and, having recently consumed my own body weight in cocktails, I was trying my best not to fall off my bar stool, eating complimentary peanuts (only because they were in what looked like a small sample flask that fingers couldn’t get inside!) and we just got talking about Norwegian heating systems. Then we got talking to a group of assorted Dutch, German and Swiss folks, with me translating their German into English for the Norwegian. Quite bizarre, when you think about it. But, it was quite amusing.
Click here for the next bit