June, 2000

Following a BBC News 24 report, Jim Carlucci sent the following email to the BBC Radio 4 Today programme.

Sir/Madam,
Can I please persuade you to consider producing a 'compare and contrast' report on the recently opened Hannover EXPO2000 and the doom-laden Millennium Dome?

As a German speaker and media-watcher it seems to me that the Germans have created a brained-up, mind-expanding, entertaining and fascinating version of the too populist, too dumded-down Dome. The German media's coverage too has been equally intelligent, sometimes rapturous. Vorsprung durch...what exactly?? Certainly not 'durch' Schadenfreude: the German Expo organisers seem also to have succeeded splendidly without the promised 'savoir faire' or mysterious 'je ne sais quoi' that Monsieur Gerbeau is still hoping to bring to the Dome's salvage operation.

Above all though, as a BBC News 24 report pointed out yesterday, it is the Expo's spectacular yet substantial treatment of major 21st Century themes - such as Technology and the Environment - that not only distinguishes the Hannover exhibition but also vividly illustrates the German government's GENUINE commitment to those 'greener' issues that Blair & Co - and much of the UK media for that matter - find so awkward, tedious and 'unsexy'....