THE fall of the Berlin Wall, 25 years ago on Sunday past, helped precipitate the implosion of Communism throughout Eastern Europe.

Official German reunification came in the autumn of 1990, prompting my little poem about the fate of a once feted GDR institution.

BLEAK DAYS FOR THE EAST GERMAN

STATE CIRCUS

Circuses and bread, the Romans used to say,

Were just the job to keep the plebs at bay.

The format also served the GDR

Along with steroid-fuelled athletics star.

But now the subsidies and crowds have gone,

The deutschmark rules, the East is lost and won.

The clowns cavort to absent children's glee,

Their painted grins mere masks of Pagliacci.

The bear flaunts his indignity to empty benches,

The bitter smell is more than faecal stenches.

To be unloved is worse than be unpaid.

The Party's over and won't come to their aid.