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.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article