Topophilia, Vienna.

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It means nothing to me.... ooooooohhh.... Vienna.Well it does mean something to me, and thus making any further reference to Midge Ure and Ultravox songs of the early 1980s would be inappropriate, not to mentuion rather embarassing. Vienna meant much to me, quite a few yers before I got anywhere near it.

When I was a nipper in the mid 1970s (Slade, Sweet, Bay City Rollers, Domnny Osmond, Elton John), my family had Wolfgang and Ursula exchange student-ing themselves on us.

Those two Austrians were fabulous ambassadors. They showed us postcards of Graz, Salzburg and Vienna. Wolfgang gave me a little purse that looked like a pair of leather shorts. Leiderhosen... with a zipper on the front saying something like "don't be so nosey". Ursula taught me how to say gummistiefels even if she gave up on the spelling.

Vienna, when I wasn't confusing it with Venice, sounded well continental with the thought of salami and cold slice cheese for breakfast, and rather Sound of Music-esque.

Vienna sounded distant and exotic for amother reason, that makes sense when you are seven years old. There aren't too many towns and cities in England starting with V. (And yes, there was a slight spasm of disappointment when I discovered that Vienna is also spelt Wien.) England’s got bundles of W places. Winchester, Wycombe, Wythenshawe, Wigan, Wooton Bassett, Wimbledon, Weston-Super-Mare, West Hampstead, West Bromwich, West Ham, West Everywhere, Woolworths. But when you are seven you can;t call up the Vs. No cricket teams with V. Can't even think of a footie or rugby team. Darts players and golfers. V. Distant and exotic.

There was something else about Vienna. This only blossomed in my mid teenage years. It became apparent that Vienna had been on the receiving end of the architectural and artistic Vienna Secession. Gustav Klimt was in with the Secesionists; the man with the glittery paint and the strange looking women laying around in lakes.

When I finally got to Vienna I hopped off the train with my rucksack and went straight for the first thing on my-interrail-and-cheap-local-buses-tourist-in-Austria-for-four-days checklist. I got right up before the clean white Secession Building and looked at its strange, but near perfect, spangling golden ball on the roof. Gob smacker. Loved it.

I would have preferred Vienna to have been all Secession clean and Hundertwasser weird, but alas it was wedding caked with splashes of Baroque. Lake sized splashes of Baroque. I can't be doing with Viennese Baroque. I'm sorry. Twisty columns and twiddly decorations just doesn't do it. I know Saint Charles' Church should have made me oooh and aaah and hmmmm and I realise that the church is famous and that the locals are proud of it. But it didn't.

Baroque still doesn't score with me, I doubt it ever will. Baroque reminds me of 1970s over over garnished, insipid disco music, and the people who danced to it in Kevin Keegan haircuts, wearing sequinned blouses, tight yet flared trousers with high waistbands. I'm delighted that disco establishment Baroque was cleaned out and belted into touch. The unecessary visual twiddle at last wiped off the urban design charts.

Rather than ponder the architectural face of Saint Charles’ pile I was more impressed that there was even a Saint called Charles. Would his mate angels in heaven call him Chuck? Saint Chuck? Does Saint Charles he have his own nirvanic team, Charlie's Angels? Do they sport 1970s Farah Fawcett hair styles?

It was the authentic local lads in front of the Charlies Church that made the impression. Viennese blokes in the slightly grubby and ever so scruffy flesh. Standing and posing. Skiving, with their ciggies all edgy and Sex Pistol. Not minding the student banging off a photo.

I'll admit I'm now a smidgeon sad that I didn't got to hear any of Vienna's now decomposing Baroque composers in a live requiem, if you know what I mean. I'd have enjoyed listening to the strings giving Richard Strauss a lash, or when he'd landed the Vienna State Opera Director job. Hearing ‘Also Sprach Zaruthustra’ in Chuck's church would easily have been worth staying for an extra fifth day.

(Vauxhall. There's an English one. Verney Junction.)

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