My actual one has a nice little story:
It is the East German version of the pedestrian traffic light. After the reunification it was supposed to "die" and be replaced with the Western version. But some people decided to mount a campaign to save the Eastern "Ampelmann". In a way it's a little symbol for the fact that not all things from East Germany were bad! In fact this one looks much nicer. And the funny thing is that not only has he been saved, but he has become ths standard and can now be seen on brand new LED traffic lights all over Germany.
There is a company who sells all kinds of merchandise with the "Ampelmann" (
www.ampelmann.de) on it. One t-shirt even found it's way to the testing room of Eclipse trumpets in Luton. And that's not enough: The little guy charmed one of the Eclipse artists... Guess who?
