But to return to my student days for a moment, while I was sitting in dusty lecture theatres and playing protester, half a world away students my age rose up and tore down the Berlin Wall with sledgehammers and their bare hands. Those people were prepared to die for their freedom, so to me this was no longer a laughing matter; it actually seemed pretty inspiring. So after a while I quit my arts degree and went to see for myself. West Berlin was glitzy and modern, charming and traditional at the same time. At the famous Checkpoint Charlie, where captured spies were traded between East and West, I marvelled at all the way our fellow humans had tried and often died to escape their workers' paradise. Using high-tension power lines for a flying fox escape is still the highlight for me and it confirms pretty much everything you see in a James Bond movie is real. But as you can see parts of the Berlin Wall preserved, you cannot miss the warning from history—the warning to those who take their freedom for granted. 