A little piece of Cuba in Germany - cubed apple.

Bremerhaven is generally considered - even by it's inhabitants - as being the ugliest town in Northern Germany. This is not, as you might think, due to the combined efforts of the RAF during WW2 and the heroic rebuilding by local architects in the following years - just the opposite.

The town was simply the last place that Bomber Command could drop any unspent bombs before crossing the coast after raids on Hamburg, Bremen or Berlin (as a town devoted almost exclusively to fishing, it was not an industrial target, despite a bit of boat-building), and the architects who were and are permitted to put up buildings in Bremerhaven seem to be the laziest, most greedy and untalented of any in Europe - and that's saying something. There was not much 'effort' put into it's destruction or it's rebuilding.

All of the pre-war buildings that survive seem to have been built around 1900 - there must have been a massive splurge of building just before WW2, and I guess that many nicer, earlier buildings were demolished to make way for the German equivalent of 'Art Nouveau' architecture at the same time.

I promised some recipes from 700 year-old England when I returned and you will get them I promise, but I need to overcome my feeling of nausea and feed myself up before I find the strength to post them. Every single meal I had in Bremerhaven was shite - except some scrambled eggs I cooked for myself one night. The only thing worth eating in North Sea Germany is fish, but don't make the mistake of ordering it with any kind of sauce or side dish. It is difficult - even for Germans - to fuck up a piece of fried fish, but they often do.

Handy hints on how to fuck up fish:

Throw as much salt over it before serving as would keep it preserved in a hot climate (let alone a Northern European one) for two months.

If you want to turn this simple dish into an 'Hawaiian' speciality, then add an equal amount of sugar as the salt. That's it.

If you want to offer a 'Cuban' version of fried fish to your customers, then treat it the same way as you would the 'Hawaiian' version, but add large pieces of chopped apple, orange and/or mango (when in season) to the thing before serving, and make sure it is cooked and served by someone from Poland.

Lecke!

The above photo is of a book written and signed by Rommel, the only high-ranking officer in the Germany army to be respected by both sides. It belongs to Thomas, and he has promised Rommel's grandson (now in his 80s) that he will donate it to a museum for his Grandad, rather than sell it on eBay.

When not being a dentist, Thomas is a party animal and part-time D.J. He favours African music or God-awful German bands who I would travel miles to get out of earshot from. This glitter-ball in his cupboard sort of sums up his slightly melancholy attitude to his duties as a disc-jockey, and is probably a memento 'from former times' - one of his favourite expressions.

One of the ironic side-effects of a relentless diet of bad or simply mal-nutritious food is obesity, and young Germans are getting fatter and fatter on a combination of very bad Big Macs (TM) and very good beer. This photo of an American Grey squirrel posted up on the fridge at the dental practice by the female assistants is a warning to each other of the dangers of opening the door too often during the day. The squirrel is in California, but it's only a matter of time before it reaches Northern Europe and eats all the Nutkins red versions which exist in isolated spots around the North Sea.

Thomas's practice is right on the fish harbour, where the best restaurants are to be found in the Bremerhaven area. I spotted the gayest Neptune I have ever seen, standing outside one of them, advertising the fruits de mare of the establishment inside.

The other thing of which Germany excels in badness is Art in general, and Sculpture in particular. There is a new museum right in the centre, which towers over the local theatre in industrial menace and banality. Inside it, the artwork is so absolutely and unspeakably awful, that it is a national disgrace that so many millions of tax-payers euros have been spent on it.

Posted to the outside of it in 5 foot high, red letters is the word KUNST. I suggested to Thomas that this might be an anagram to describe the people that run it and the people that exhibit inside it, but I don't think he got the joke.

Sometimes, art is so fucking bad that it turns good. About 5 miles outside the city centre, there is a sculpture park created around 1900 (again) by a man called Thiele. He worked with his brother (and wife - who many people think he shared with his brother) creating dozens of life-sized concrete sculptures which have been finished with paint to look like bronze.

To my mind, his absolute masterpiece is this sculpture of The Birth of Venus, which is - by far - the best version I have seen in my life. It was almost worth the horrible nightmare journey via Amsterdam and airport security checks to see - almost, but not quite.