We’d already had a few, even one with the girl behind the bar who was mixing the drinks, she was in such a bad mood we felt we had to invite her, but she said that she wasn’t allowed to, so we said, c’mon and learned she was on antibiotics. We were standing in this apartment in the middle of the red light district, it was about five hundred square meters big, and the music was too loud and we had a few more and talked. I soon found myself entangled in a discussion about the production of The Black Rider in the Schaubühne, then about Frisch and Brecht and—quite inevitably—about eating animals and bullfights. (When I lived in Zurich and received Spanish television, I didn’t miss a single fight during the fiesta. It was a feast.) As always, there were arguments to be considered and mental states, the definition of culture and so on, and morale was an argument. “Morality is not a basis for discussions”, a cunning friend said, and we all loved that and agreed that it was time to party.
However, I have to come back to morale for a moment. I’ve taken up a somewhat eerie habit: I count the number of SUVs—no reason to add a color, they’re shiny and always black and sometimes silver—I pass on my bicycle on the way to work. The ride is short, say between seven and ten minutes. The average number of SUVs I count is between thirty and thirty-five. Thus about three per minute. According to the spokesman of the Rheingold Institut für Markt- und Konsumforschung in Cologne, people like the “Welcome-home-feeling” of these cars. They feel safe and sound in them. They don’t feel threatened by “private turbulences and diffuse fears of terror or the Euro crisis”. The fact that these bugaboos for grown-ups pollute the environment a lot more than the average car and that they are a threat to all the other road-users seems to be of no importance at all.
Home is where the cart is.