My reflections on an event from Berlin before Google indexed everything! And updated with the Jimmy Saville news…

My post was originally inspired by watching the film ‘No’ in 2012 about the 1988 Chilean national plebiscite using marketing techniques, to help make change happen in Chile. It just so happens due to the time its set in that the film contains a bunch of retro Sony TVs, which was pretty funny to me as I’d just finished working for Sony in their EU marketing department.

What was the event? I attended the Foucault Tribunal on Psychiatry where we had the cheek to put the entire psychiatry profession on trial! Held in East Berlin. the event now features key speaker video extracts, including translations. Eccentric, but fun.

Pros: met some v. interesting ppl, eg Kate Millet. Cons: Outside the event venue there was a weird anarchic demo with folks wearing helmets and balaclavas (which you normally only see in weird arty films) which was a little scary.

Fun factor? For a heavyweight subject I had a v.good time, managing to swipe a rubber Trabant car logo off a vehicle in Berlin with the number plate ‘SPY666’ which seemed appropriate as only a few years before thanks to my British Army colonel uncle I had attended a trade show in the communist Czechoslovakia where the only new kit was a shiny Skoda, and an aircraft simulator!

Entertainment At the end of one day at the event a young singer took to the small stage and screamed into a microphone, it was memorable. Her name is Djatou Touré.

Postscript I attended the tribunal event in Berlin after a stint working with Mental Health Media in 1997, including working with Broadmoor Patients’ Council. This was well before the news of Jimmy Saville’s sexual abuse was made public.