Über alles

Just back from a short break in Germany.

I was staying with an old schoolfriend who's been working for the MOD since leaving university and is currently on secondment to NATO at the JHQ Rheindalen military base. He assures me he is but a lowly data analyst, but he's signed the Official Secrets Act and I honestly couldn't begin to guess what he actually does on a day-to-day basis. There's every possibility that he's involved in deniable ops, so just to be on the safe side I'll identify him only as Mr. L [I was going to advertise his PS3 username, but that's probably still enough for him to be contacted through PlayStation Network and "persuaded" by whoever the other side is these days. Blimey, you never can tell in this game, can you?].

JHQ Rheindalen is a truly bizarre place - a vast, town-sized network of semi-detached properties that physically resembles an eerily underpopulated Chatsworth Estate from Shameless and is uniformly rendered in that green-tinged light grey so beloved of Cold War decorators. Featuring such incongruous street names as Queens Avenue and Cumberland Drive, it's a surreally skewed slice of British life planted slap bang in the middle of Europe, with its own shopping arcade, supermarkets and cinema: The Truman Show with added squaddies. Apparently the local town on pay day is a mass brawl waiting to happen, with hordes of both local and military police on patrol just waiting for it to kick off.

Outside the regimented Petri dish of existence on base, German life is noticeably cleaner, more efficient and more polite than its English equivalent. Mr. L's theory is that you're more likely to respect other people when you respect yourself, which, if true, would be a compound rule that draws impetus from all facets of cultural identity. For instance: in marked contrast to our once-competitive industries, German manufacturing is still a force to be reckoned with - a fact that can readily be deduced at the airport drop-off rank, where a steady stream of VWs, Audis, BMWs and Mercedes makes up a conspicuously high percentage of the road-going traffic. German people evidently buy German brands over and above anything else on the market, in the relative certainty that the product has been sourced, forged and marketed domestically. Our home-grown brands, meanwhile, have been brazenly flogged off for a transitory profit. Still, at least we won World War II, eh? And the World Cup in '66. In your face, Germany!

Another point of interest - not unrelated to the above observation - is the fact that Germany's Autobahn features numerous entirely unrestricted stretches: the road sign to the left heralds a section of road where there is literally no speed limit. In a country where every other car is a high-end Merc or Beamer, this means that the general pace on the roads is in an altogether different league. As a perhaps unsurprising consequence of this, German drivers are incredibly aware and will quickly pull over if a more capable vehicle signals its intention to overtake [usually by roaring up behind you and then sitting on your arse until you get out of the way]. Mr. L is a confirmed speed freak and once took the opportunity to fly as a passenger in a BAe Hawk T1(A) - of Red Arrows fame - the unprecedented G-Force of which caused him to yack his NAAFI lasagne up all over the inside of the cockpit. Needless to say, the hands-off approach of the German road system rather appeals to his get-there-quick sensibilities. "We're doing twice the UK speed limit," he said to me at one point, as distant objects in front of his 5l supercharged V8 Jag - I think they might have been other cars - became close objects in improbably short order. I could just about acknowledge this with a strained "Nng," and was about to add that I was sure it was 70mph for a reason, when he decided that we might need to up the ante slightly. Not much, just another 20 miles an hour or so. My facial expression contracted into an entirely involuntary rictus and, had I been able to tear my terrified gaze from the road for long enough, I'm pretty sure I could have located the individual sweat glands in the palms of my hands simply by tracing the gushing rivulets of adrenaline-rich perspiration to their roots.

The unalloyed fear was all worthwhile, however, as I'd traded five years of my life in for a delightful trip to the Mosel Valley, where much of Germany's white wine and Sekt is produced. This is an aesthetically aggreeable region typified by chalet-style architecture, impossibly steep vineyards and at least one imposing hilltop castle, the Reichsurg Cochem, whose gothic spires dominate this picture postcard panorama. We followed this with dinner in the revolving restaurant at the top of Düsseldorf's Fernsehturm and - just to bring me crashing figuratively as well as literally back to Earth - a tour of some of cheesiest late bars I've ever experienced.

Yes, the UK's industrial machine may be in tatters, but at least we've got the clubbing scene sussed. In your face, Germany! Feel the burn!