As M says in Casino Royale, 'God I miss the Cold War'. I must agree. And today, it looks like it might be back.
Now that everywhere is readily accessible to us, including the former Eastern Bloc, there's no mystery or romance or intrigue left in the world.
When I was at school, at the height of the Cold War, I used to wonder what life was like behind the Iron Curtain. It sounded bleak, stark, cold, with it's functional brutalist buildings, controlling dictatorships and lack of comfort. I thought it was great. We only got snippets of what life was really like.
Here, there were Russian spies in Royal palaces and men killed with poison-tipped umbrellas. Over there were food queues, unrelenting suspicsion and vast displays of military might in city squares against a hammer and sickle backdrop.
I remember when I was really young being horrified when my cousin told me that people weren't allowed to wear make up or listen to musci in Yugoslavia, as in White Horses. This of course was a lie, but it got me fascinated.
And now I hear there's much nostalgia for the bad old days in the former East Germany, with a Cold War era-style hotel just opened up, as people romanticise the past. I looked at the link on the net and it's like a dream to me (sorry can't remember what it's called). But it's suspiciously cheap which means it not really a boutique hotel, more of a labour of love.
When Mrs F-C and I went to St Petersburg about three years ago, we hired a tourguide who asked us what we'd like to see. 'Anything Soviet', we replied. She seemed rather shocked that we would rather see concrete monoliths over 18th century palaces restored to their former glory. But show us she did, and we saw the KGB headquarters, what was once the only department store, the remaining statues of Lenin, vast, spartan housing complexes and the amazing looking former only state-run hotel, among other charms. It was the same when I went to Lithuania, though the most interesting thing there was the statue of Frank Zappa.
The downside to the Cold War was of course the constant threat of nuclear war, but didn't that somehow make it more appealing, knowing that deep down it was never really going to happen? I love Threads, don't you?
So as long as things don't spiral horribly out of control, with Britain now being told there will be 'serious consequences' following the expulsion of those diplomats, then any kind of cold war is just fine by me.
16 comments:
Ooh, I love the cold war too. I think it stems from living in a part of the country where nuclear bombers flew low over our house on an incredibly regular basis. In fact, my Grandad once took me, in his Mini, to look at the bombers on the ground, but we were moved on by the RAF police. If you go there today there's a sodding grandstand and snack bar for any passing plane spotters.
Try visiting an opened nuclear bunker, they're dotted all over the country. They really do bring back those halcyon days of mutually assured destruction.
Yes I'm dying to visit a bunker. I must get around to that.
Let's have a blogmeet at the handily-signposted Secret Nuclear Bunker near Ongar!
What, you mean this one?
http://www.historyhouse.co.uk/kelvedonhatch/bunker.html
I'm up for it, come on Five Centres, lets have you.
I did once discuss having a party there, as it can be hired. Imagine sleeping over in those bunkers, and you can ride bike along the corridors, too. But you have to be out by ten, I think, so boo!
Perhaps we should hold our rock disco there.
I've tried a nuclear bunker's bed before - NOT comfy.
We still need to sort this out 5C, I've already had one blogmeet disappointment this week.
I can buy into Cold War nostalgia these days, but as a kid I always felt shortchanged whenever Russian villains or Soviet military turned up in TV or movies. They always felt like peculiarly drab second division Nazis.
I remember growing up convinced that with each passing day we might be blown to smithereens by a nuclear bomb - happy days. Isn't nostalgia a wonderful thing.
I visited East Berlin in 1980 on a trip that was supposed to take us to Moscow. Unfortunately the invasion of Afghanistan (the Soviet one!) put a stop to that.
Going through Checkpoint Charlie as a schoolboy was a real adventure. The East German guards with their mirrors on sticks looking under the coaches for defectors. The towers over the Wall overlooking the River Spree.. Sends a delicious chill up me back...
There's a Cold War exhibition at RAF Cosford just up the road from me. I've not been, so I'm not sure what's on display. I'd like to think is was Harry Palmer macs, huge spool tape recorders and secret passwords though...
You should go Valentine, and come back and tell us all about it. Just don't accept any dinner invitations from any Russians once you have done mind.
I wanna go to that thing at Cosford. There's a shitload of cold war aircraft under one roof. Hooray!
I've been meaning to go and have a look actually, but when thing's are right on your doorstep you kinda forget about them.
Maybe I should leave a secret message somewhere for Rich?
It's free to get in I think and easy to get to. About 500 yds from Junction 3 of the M54.
You see, drab poor man's Nazis aside, we all loved the cold war.
I went to a fantastic spy museum in Washington, where on show were Russian tie cameras, and cameras in hats, and shoes with secret compartments, cars with eight people hidden in them and that sort of thing.
Marvellous. Cosford here we come.
I went to Moscow and (then) Leningrad about three weeks before the Berlin wall came down, and it was soul-detroyingly horrible (for all that Gorbachev had already achieved in terms of modernisation). The people I managed to meet were stoical, but exhausted by the weight of their miserable everyday lives. As 'Westeners' we stood out like sore thumbs by virtue of not having scrofulous complexions through poor diet, and having good teeth (or just having teeth, in many cases).
It was all about as far from ingenious spy gadgets and romantic plots as you could get. Though there WERE lots of very attractive women looking for 'assignments' with Western men.
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