Back To Shore

I had tickets for a gig in Cologne – about 70 km away from where I live – last night (Saturday). I went to that and there hopefully will be another post about it in the next few days. All week I considered on and off to stay in Cologne overnight for the whole weekend. It wasn’t that I had urgent / clear plans to do other stuff in Cologne. I just felt like I needed a break. To just be somewhere else for a bit. Take myself out of my regular environment to get some rest and clear my head. Treat myself to something nice.

For the longest time I couldn’t make up my mind, because it’s such an expensive indulgence to pay for a room (or apartment in my case) in a city less than one hour drive away and for parking and for eating out and such. Though latter was part of the “treat myself” plan. On rather short notice I decided to go ahead and book and do it anyway.

All in all I’m glad I did, even though there were issues with the apartment. before I started typing all of this I sent an “I expect compensation” mail to the company I booked from. But I’m determined to not let this nuisance and the lack of enough restful sleep spoil the otherwise good time I had.

• I caught up on some reading (not as much as I had liked, but that’s fine).
• I wrote a blog post yesterday and am determined to keep doing that more often. Case in point this one right here Thees Uhlmann, the German singer/songwriter I went to see last night has a lyric which translates to “If you can write, write!” and I’m determined to take that to heart more often.
• I went shopping for some new outdoor / hiking pants.
• I had yummy vegan food yesterday and a big breakfast / brunch today.

Before I got in my car to drive back home I had a stroll around the old town / cathedral area in preparation for a visit from UK friends in a few week’s time. One of them has never been to Cologne and we’ll have a few hours in town after I pick them up from the airport. So, where to go?

This whole “first time in Cologne” idea made me think of my very own view of and relationship to the city and to think of “must see / do” in the inner city. And I realized I should brush up on my limited knowledge of Cologne history to not just bullshit my way through being a tour guide that day 😉

I don’t consciously remember my first trip to Cologne. I assume our parents took us at some point for a trip to a museum or basic sightseeing. There had been several school trips in middle school, because it is one of the biggest cities in our state and the one with the most (interesting) history, I guess. The Romans and the Cathedral and all that. A friend of mine went to uni there and for quite a while from the early 2000s till mid 2010s I was a big fan of the town’s ice hockey team. At some point – when they won the championship unexpectedly – I was among the crowd of fans welcoming the team back in the town hall. I didn’t quite pass the town hall today but was in the area and that made me remember it.

A TV show / actor fandom I was engaged with from the late 1990s till the mid 2010s had ties to Cologne, which made me go there for events and for meeting other fans quite often as well. In the past two decades there also were gigs of all kinds of course.

Ever since the school trips over 30 years ago though I never really cared all that much about the classic tourist-y / sightseeing bits of the city. I don’t recall if I really cared back than either. It was school and we were young and with our mates.

I’m going to end this with a list of possibly random stuff I feel I should refresh my knowledge of or have resources ready on my phone, while I take my friends around:

• Basic Roman history of Cologne
• Basic history of the Cathedral
• Origin of 4711 (I have a vague memory)
• the culture of “Kölsch” (the beer brewed in Cologne)
• Why is the Gürzenich called that?
• Tünnes & Schäl (not really necessary, but I passed a restaurant with this name and it made me wonder, because I don’t know the history, just the names)

And yes I know, I don’t NEED to be a proper tour guide and these days everything can be looked up on our phones while we stroll around anyway. But where is the fun in that? And it is interesting and fun to actually read up on some of the information.

Lyrics: “Try This At Home” – Frank Turner, 2009

At work this week I offered to rework / copy edit a text which had been generated by ChatGPT. Why anyone uses ChatGPT or any other AI to produce some words instead of writing those words themselves might be topic for another post (which might turn into quite a rant, I’m afraid). But people were grateful that I willingly offered my services even though copyediting is not part of my job description.

But it served a good reminder to me that I do enjoy writing and working with words in any kind of way. And that I’m quite good at it. So why don’t I make more use of this space I’ve got here, was a follow up thought of mine. Not thought right away, but over the course of a few days. I think over the last decade or so I might have raised the bar of what I myself consider a worthy content for this space to some impossible standard. Not everything has to be meaningful. Or essay length. I should just start writing here more often instead of typing my thoughts into the limited space of an Instagram story.

German news magazine DER SPIEGEL last week had a title story presenting their “World’s 100 best books from 1925 – 2025”. I’m often on the fence about these kind of lists, because it’s all so subjective, isn’t it? In the editorial they explain that they are aware of the European / North American centric view of literature tradition so to speak and thus they put German academics with interest and knowledge in African, Asian literature on the jury. For some reason they obviously didn’t consider putting a German academic or writer with an ethnic minority background on the jur.

48 of the chosen books are written by Europeans. 24 in USA / Canada. But “at least” (they state almost proudly) 28 were written in the Caribbean, Latin-America, Africa or Asia. To put it in perspective: Europe and North America are about 1,5 billion people (~ 20%) to the 6,5 billion (~80%) in the rest of the world. But they have produced 75% of the “World’s Literature” to mere 25% of the rest of the world. I can’t be the only one who thinks this is a very skewed way of thinking.

28 of the 100 books were written by women. That’s another discussion I’d like to have with this jury. At least it’s not a “top 100 list, counting down from THE #1 book”.

Like I said I don’t really care much about these kind of lists. I have only read 3 or 4 of those 100 yet. A few more are on my “to-read-shelf”. A few more I added now after I’ve read this article. Mostly from female writers, if I’m honest. I probably have read more than enough books by (white) men in the first 35 or so years of my life.

Lyrics: “Letter To Myself” – The Lottery Winners, 2023

Oh look, it’s already over a week since I posted here last. I’ve been busy. You know. Work. Life. Sadly not in any balance. Plus the whole.. everything. Everywhere. Again, you know what I mean. Anyway: let’s tell you a little bit about the The Lottery Winners gig I saw in sold-out venue in Cologne on Saturday, 15th Marc. Sold out! 450 people, I think. Which is about 10x the amount of he audience they played to the last time I saw them in Cologne in autumn 2023. How times have changed. Next time headlining Palladium in Cologne? A girl can dream, right?

The show was lots of fun, because Thom (lead singer) is talking to and interacting with the audience a lot. I think it’s palpable that the four members of the band are close and old friends, they enjoy experiencing this together. I remember other bands (not naming any names), where (by the end of their band career) they didn’t really interact with each other at all. Not the Lottery Winners, they are having the best of times together. 

At some point Thom was wondering, where all the people knew them from and he said “Nickelback, I guess?”, because they were a support on Nickelbacks’s last tour in mainland Europe and I saw quite a few in Nickelback swag in the audience. In protest to that assessment, I pointed to the FTHC shirt I was wearing and Rob (guitar) at least noticed that, because I stood right in front of him and he gave me a thumbs up. 

Later on Thom was talking about [Instagram link] how his biggest talent is doing things – being on stage, sharing his emotions through songs and all – despite being scared about doing those things. But doing them anyway. 

By the end of the gig he then asked for six volunteers to do a dance routine on stage with them and I found myself raising my arm. Half of me was scared about embarrassing myself up there, because I’m a klutz. The other half was determined to do it anyway. I then was picked indeed and climbed up and did the routine, which I sort of already knew, so it wasn’t such a big deal. But OMFG! If you had told me I’d do something like that a decade ago, when I started out as introvert, hyper self-conscious, worrying (Frank Turner) fangirl, I would have said “No way!” If you’d told me I’d do something like that 5 years ago, I probably still would have said “No way!”. Look how far I’ve come. Go Me!

I haven’t found any photo or video proof of it all online (yet), I’m not joining The Lottery Winners Facebook group just for that. I don’t need proof that I did it. I know I did. (And I’ve got a photo of the crowd from the stage to prove it). The Instagram post I shared above has a bit of the routine, but it’s filmed centre stage from behind the volunteers and I was at the right side, out of the frame. 

Anyway, it was a fun night. Next time I see the Lottery Winners they will open for Robbie Williams in a stadium. Far far far away from my seat up on the side somewhere. But I can’t wait to see them win over the next big crowd.