Giving English the big kiss-off
The one piece of good news in a week that was not full of joy came from, where else?, Deutsch Bahn. Not only is DB boss Rüdiger Grube going to get rid of Flyers, Hotlines and Call a Bike, he also ordained that the kissing has to stop. More precisely the “Kiss and Ride” zone in the forecourts of stations. Kissen and Riden used to be called Kurzparken and the idea is this: you take your partner to the station and you are given just enough time to kiss goodbye before someone shouts at you to move on. I suppose this is a relic from the Mehdorn era, an attempt by his feckless Bahn-branding advisors, to solve a banal problem (too many cars blocking the entrance to rail stations) into something charming, a quality for which Mr. Mehdorn is justly famous. And while English may not be the language of love (this honour going to Italian, French and Bayerisch), it is supposed to be the idiom of world-openness and so HM’s advisers probably regarded Kiss and Ride as one of their greatest PR triumphs.
But, of course, it wasn’t. It managed to upset native English speakers, Germans fed up with the anglicism invasion, muslims who prefer not to kiss in public and above all, serious kissers. There’s a deep cultural misunderstanding at the heart of all these Bahnisch idioms. “Kiss and Ride” is not like “Click and Buy” or “Wash and Go” which are mechanical processes without emotional overtones. A kiss by contrast has to do with touch and smell l and passion-. Unless, of course, one were kissing the signet ring of the DB-chef in which case it would be an act of submission to unchallengeable authority. In England we talk of “kiss and tell” – ex-lovers who sell their memories of unfaithful Promis to the boulevard press – but even in that case, a kiss is shorthand for a romantic entanglement. There is nothing romantic about parking your car at a station. You cut your engine, take your bag out, start the engine again. Kurzparken, halt. Kissing needs time. If you really want to kiss before the 07.31 leaves for Dortmund, then you take a taxi.
The DB has kidnapped my language, and I want it back. Of course others try the same trick – Telekom and all the others – but it is the Bahn that causes me most anguish. The use of English- or rather BSE, Bad Simple English – is supposed to show what exactly? That DB is now a global player? Or that its staff is competent to help non-German-speaking passengers? Neither reason seems to be true. DB, despite the pre-privatisation trumpeting and clashes of cymbals from the Mehdorn Symphony orchestra, has little international clout, and even that is evaporating because the Bahn management is failing to deliver at home. I know that people across Europe are dissatisfied with their train services at the moment. But Germany seems to be complaining the most. Perhaps it is a sense of a great national institution crumbling. The “Adler” in 1835, Friedrich List’s ideas for using railways to unite Germany, the post-war TEE, the rebuilding of east German stations after 1990: all this was a source of national pride and the Eisenbahner saw themselves as a kind of proletarian elite. And now what? According to the best-seller Schwarzbuch Deutsche Bahn, train drivers have to pee into bottles because they are not given adequate toilet breaks – they could endanger punctuality targets. A case, perhaps, of Piss and Ride. Wages are low, pressure is put on ticket staff to sell the most expensive product.
The Bahn-englisch is I think not just a joke, a buffoonish attempt to be interconnected with the outside world, but an instrument of power; part of a system that says to customers – you have to do things our way because we have a monopoly. You can’t understand the ticket tariff system? Just pay up. You would rather be served by a human railer than a machine? Bad luck. You can’t understand a word that we’re saying on the loud-speakers? Learn German. Every company, but especially one that enjoys a monopoly, should have a monthly meeting with customers to ask: are we doing this right? What impact is this or that policy having on ordinary fare-payers?
The full absurdity of this refusal to enter a dialogue with customers emerged the other day when the train service to Schönefeld airport did not stop there. The driver did not want to arrive unpunctually at Königs Wusterhausen. That is when you need staff who can speak English, to explain why the travellers have missed their air connections in order to create the illusion of efficiency. Soon, too, tourists will be able to travel in the RB 22 from the airport to Friedrichstraße – via Potsdam and Golm.
So that is the second bit of good news. Golm (population 2.474) is at last going to get the recognition it deserves. Yes, the journey along the Aussenbahnring will take an hour and involve an extraordinary Safari along the southern fringes of the city. But perhaps there will be an English-speaking Schaffner on hand to point out the main attractions of Golm through the window – the Havelland Kaserne is the only one I can think of – and explain why the German railway has been unable to coordinate with the planners of the BBI
