Sunday, July 19, 2009

Lost in fantasy

Following up my Parthian shot about Waldsiedlung in the previous post, I looked up Erich Honecker and discovered that one of his slogans in the 80s was "Vorwärts immer, rückwärts nimmer" ("Always forwards, never backwards").

Perhaps you remember Tony Blair's "Forward not back" in 2005? Or his "the People's Princess" (I thought I heard his throat tightening in a desperate attempt to stop the awful phrase coming out - Diana was an Earl's daughter - but maybe it was only a stage sob). And how about "In the years to come, wherever I am, whatever I do, I'm with you", weirdly echoing Matthew 28.

A schlock PM, turning eclectic sources into a mishmosh of gibberish less meaningful than Queen's Bohemian Fantasy, for the sake of a momentary, meretricious glamour. An extension of the "Spacematic DISCO with LIGHTS!!" of his Oxford student days.
Did he ever understand what he was playing with?

4 comments:

dearieme said...

He's like a Russian doll, but in his case he's a nonentity, inside a void, inside a vacuum.

Nick Drew said...

well Cherie always understood what she was playing with

m-o-n-e-y

James Higham said...

Vorwärts - they sound nasty. Are they worse than ordinary warts?

Sackerson said...

It's the magic school German Commies went to.