international news _ JONTY SKRUFFF _ 14th October, 2005
Ewan Pearson: Don't Mention The War
Englishman in Berlin producer Ewan Pearson praised Germany's pragmatic approach in acknowledging and moving on from 2nd World War atrocities this week and admitted that he's lost his sense of humour as far as German quips are concerned.
"What we tend to do in Britain is pretend lots of terrible things we've done to people didn't happen and just brush it under the carpet, " he told DJ Mag.
"German jokes that maybe I would have laughed off, now that I live here- especially in a place as forward thinking as Berlin- they've really started to bug me."
Chatting to Skrufff, the former college lecturer turned international DJ lashed Britain's education system also reacted angrily when asked about the expression 'those that can do, those that cant, teach, storming 'I hate that expression, it tells us a lot about the worst sides of the UK mindset. Education is so undervalued in Britain and the way we treat and pay teachers is a national disgrace."
"We berate them for failing at the same time as we starve them of resources and expect them to work for a pittance out of some sense of public service," he continued, "And then we say that huge pay in the commercial sector is necessary to attract the most talented people to the job. As an index of how civilised a country is you should look at the size of the prison population and the status accorded to educators. The UK does particularly badly on both counts."
The prolifically busy producer also dismissed suggestions that Berlin's low cost lifestyle encourages laziness, though cheerfully admitted he sees himself as 'someone with an intermittent work ethic'.
'Just before I moved here, someone else referred to Berlin as 'the graveyard of ambition'. There are certainly people here who talk the talk but don't seem to be getting much done, but then I remember London being full of them too," he pointed out.
"On the other hand there are people here who are getting to design clothes, run shops or make records for a living and survive that would struggle doing it elsewhere. The stress of constantly worrying about where your rent is coming from is not necessarily conducive to doing good work anyway."
Ewan's (excellent) mix CD 'Ewan Pearson: Sci Fi Hi Fi Volume One', is out now on Soma Records.(Jonty Skrufff)
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