Column: Bangers and Mash A Brit in Bratwurstville: Boo! Bonn is not boring!

Bonn · In this column, the author looks at life in Germany, as a Brit who is living in Bonn for years. In this edition, he confronts all those trendy people who turn up their nose at smaller cities, and says it loud and clear: Bonn is far from dull!

Why does living in Bonn always seem to attract odd looks, the occasional smirk and the inevitable response: “Nice, but isn’t it a bit boring?”Saying you live in Gelsenkirchen or Greater Manchester or Bremerhaven or Bognor Regis is unlikely to raise much more than a nod. But Bonn gets an entirely different response.Mention you actually love to live in this pretty city on the Rhine — especially to trendy, arty friends in Berlin or mates living abroad in London or New York — and you might even get a wink of the kind that happens between friends sharing a hilarious in-joke.

Worse, some might speculate that you’re attending sessions with a psychiatrist as you may, as they say in Peter Pan, have finally lost your marbles.I was pondering Bonn’s image as in the next few weeks I go away to work in the USA for a few months.I am already missing the crunchy, sour-dough bread at the new Max Kugel bakery on Bonner Talweg, run by a phalanx of formidable ladies; Nick’s Konditorei in Bad Godesberg, where the balance of drool-inducing flavours has you dreaming of the next slice of cake before the first is even finished; and countless other little pleasures that make Bonn and its environs such a joy.

I was also reflecting on the ‘Bonn is boring’ question after attending yet another magnificent May Bonn Theatre night where the rich theatre scene opens its doors to old and young, professional and amateur thespians alike, in a frenzy of plays and comedies.Recently, I was even lucky enough to star in a show at Brotfabrik in Beuel where performing at midnight was no handicap with the seats packed and the audience enthusiastic: Oddly, nobody was bored — far from it!Last November Bonn hosted 34,000 people from all over the globe for the annual UN climate conference without hardly a hitch.

Sure, there was a bit of local panic over a possible re-run of the G20 violence that had happened in Hamburg earlier in the year.And an even greater one over the loss of some flower beds and dog walking paths in the glorious Rheinaue Park due to temporary structures being constructed — but that was all.The city put on one of the biggest events in the world without fuss and to world-class standards — oh, and it was far from boring!Nor is the intellectual life dull, with Bonn host to so many United Nations entities, institutes and over 100 NGOs dealing with environment and sustainability.It makes the city multicultural and the heartbeat of ideas and solutions to the greatest challenges mankind faces.The German government’s art gallery is not in Dresden, Frankfurt or even Berlin but in Bonn: Indeed, a couple of years ago I had much mirth pointing out to big city friends that I had already seen the Pina Bausch modern dance exhibition before — rather than after — it turned up in Kreuzberg.

Okay, today Bonn may not be as racy as John le Carre’s 1960s novel A Small Town in Germany when there was cloak and dagger stuff and Soviet spies in Königswinter. But if you need a shot of adrenaline and the travails of the world pound down on you, grab the bicycle and pump the pedals along the stupendous Rhine marveling at the knuckle shaped Drachenfels hills and the parade of ships making their romantic way to the Netherlands or Switzerland.So why does Bonn attract such sniffy, smirky responses from Germans and foreigners who may have once visited the city for a conference?I suppose it is obvious really, because it was once the capital of Western Germany and many find that an absurd, amusing concept or even a pretension.

It is also a kind of arrogance — I mean how ridiculous that a relatively small Rhineland city like Bonn could even have been considered to be the capital of such a great country!For some the idea is silly, so Bonn must be silly too — well, that is what I guess runs through some minds.It is probably impossible to imagine in 2018 that Bonn could have held onto that status in a sharply, politically, changing world.But lest anyone forget, the vote to take the government back to Berlin was far from overwhelming with 320 voting for Bonn and 338 for Berlin.

A former Minister under Helmut Kohl once told me that Bonn was actually more practical and impactful as the capital precisely because of its size.Cutting deals with other political parties and colleagues is easier in a smaller city like Bonn, because you are bumping into everybody every five minutes whereas in Berlin your friends and your enemies can hide!But forget politics and think about livability — in the UK there has been a big debate about what is the best size for a city and the number that keeps coming around is roughly 300,000 residents.In other words, a city big enough to have infrastructure like good public transport, theatres, cinemas, sports facilities and so on, but not so big that it is intimidating, a sprawl, unmanageable and lacks cohesion and community.

Bonn has all this in spades, in part because it was once the capital, plus many other features that make it special including its beauty, nature, fairy tale Christmas markets, parks and fine public buildings.I have lived in and visited many cities and places around the globe. Many have their charms and some a few challenges.

Not least when, as was the case in a major city in East Africa, I had to watch out for groups with AK-47s welcoming me in the bushes on the nighty drive home.So, when people say to me now “Oh, you live in Bonn, isn’t that boring?” I say, “No, not boring, it’s calm.”“I can find something to do every day and every night if I want, I can cycle to work in five minutes, don’t need to own a car and… oh… no one tries to shoot me when I come home.”If that’s Bonn and that is boring, fine — I’ll take boring every day!

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