Explosive New Year's Eve for Berliners

The first bang went off yesterday morning, startling two old ladies and myself as we made our way into the supermarket and heralding the terrible prelude to Silvester, or New Year's Eve, when Berlin resembles a war zone. After the Christmas lull each year, when most people stay at home or leave town to visit relations, the city wakes up sharply in time for Silvester, which is celebrated in an orgy of fireworks.

Vegetable shops are transformed overnight into firework shops, to take advantage of a window of legal opportunity which allows the sale of fireworks between December 29th and 31st each year. The fireworks may only be used between 6 p.m. tomorrow and 7 a.m. on New Year's Day but the explosions usually start as soon as they go on sale.

Like so many elements of life in Berlin, Silvester has changed since the city was reunified and the Brandenburg Gate has become the most popular place to congregate. When the wall still stood, West Berliners liked to climb Teufelsberg, a hill outside the city centre which was home to a giant Allied listening post and afforded a fine view of the pyrotechnics below.

Almost every restaurant, bar and nightclub in the city holds its own Silvester party, the best of which are booked out months ahead. But most Berliners prefer to celebrate at home before streaming out into the streets to greet neighbours, set off fireworks and scoff iced doughnuts and sekt (German sparkling wine).

One part of the German New Year's Eve ritual which perplexes English-speaking visitors is the multiple television screenings of an old comedy sketch called Din- ner for One. Recorded in English during the 1950s, the sketch features an obscure actor called Freddy Frinton as a butler who serves dinner to his aged mistress and five imaginary guests. He becomes drunker as each course progresses before finally carrying the old lady upstairs to bed.

The piece, which is always broadcast in English after a sombre German introduction, is so familiar to German television viewers that many can recite every line. Even those who speak no other words of English can usually repeat the recurring catchphrase: "The same procedure as every year."

Technicians at Germany's premier television channel apparently felt that the phrase fitted Dr Helmut Kohl's annual New Year's broadcast some years ago when they broadcast the same message two years in a row. The chancellor will find it hard to present a cheerful picture to his countrymen this year, with unemployment expected to top five million by spring. The chancellor could be out of a job himself by the end of 1998, if the electorate punishes his centreright government for mismanaging the economy.

Taxi drivers and shopkeepers in Berlin complain that they have had their worst Christmas for years and few expect an improvement before long. But nothing will stop Berliners from celebrating Silvester and many were already carrying bundles of rockets and Catherine wheels yesterday.

Plans are already afoot to stage the world's biggest New Year's Eve party in the city in 1999, with an hour-long firework display next to the Brandenburg Gate; 200 stages will be set up on the boulevard that runs through the Tiergarten to the gate, on which thousands of performers will re-enact historical high points from the current millennium.

The chancellor will deliver a speech to the nation from the Brandenburg Gate and the entire event will be broadcast live throughout Germany. The city government recently shelved plans to spend £7 million on the end of millennium celebrations but private sponsors insist that the party will go ahead.

In the meantime, party-goers have no shortage of venues to choose from tomorrow night and one nightclub is expecting a full house on New Year's Day, too - for a special event called "The Hangover Treatment Centre".