Entries by Mount Penguin

And all that. Smoke-free Berlin begins today. (Theoretically).


A slightly surprising find in the balcony net: detritus from last night.

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Update

Received a (commendably speedy) mail from someone at moleskine saying they've deleted the offending entry, and also inviting me to either explicitly give them permission or write it myself for them, although why I should produce content at no charge for a commercial organisation is not entirely clear.

Recently it was That Time Of The Year once again, when by tradition the Penguins head off to Penguin Ancestral HQ in "Merry Old England" (sic), that mythical (and slightly foggy) place where the classic New Year's Eve film "Dinner for One" was shot. This year's departure date coincided with the anniversary of the Penguin Nuptials - in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea no less - and what better way to commemorate the event (which by chance both I and Mrs. Penguin had actually remembered) than with a day out in London?

Once we'd entrusted the left luggage service at Waterloo Station with our modest baggage for an immodest fee which had my wallet gasping and wheezing in shock'n'awe, it was off to Highgate for a once-in-a-lifetime visit to the grave of top deceased German political philospher Karl Marx, who would no doubt have disapproved of the current levels of left-luggage pricing. Old Karl hangs out at Highgate Cemetery, which is one of those odd bits of London you come across (such as the railway system) where not much has changed since the days of Queen Victoria. Full of Victorian stiffs in overgrown graves, the only signs of life (as it were) are around the monument to Mr. Marx, which seems to be the place to be buried if you're a bit of a lefty and can afford the presumably exorbitant fees to be done so. Former Private Eye journo Paul Foot is there right opposite the Great Man, and round the corner were former leaders of the South African and Iraqi communist parties. While we were there, a youngish guy of obviously foreign extraction sidled up to us and requested that we take his photo together with K.M., which we happily did. Turned out he was Brazilian, and as he put it, "of an extremist political party".

It's a well known fact that Germans have no sense of humour, and anyone who has been in Cologne in February can confirm this. But with the deadline for the implementation of the Single European Joke in 2009 fast approaching, the Federal Government has been busy implementing measures aimed at bringing the country's humour levels up to international standards and establishing it as a global player in the increasingly competitive worldwide laughter services market.

If you'll allow me to be so bold, I'll quote this comment by Karl-Marx-Straße over at Ed's blog in its entirety:

Whereever you move, you're right to only consider somewhere with a gas cooker. I'm glad I'm not the only one to abhor electric. There are gas-powered tumble dryers on the market, but I don't need one. If you could still get gas lighting, I'd probably go for it. Cos I live on the edge. And was brought up with some scary Public Service Information Films (ask any Brit what they are) which involved a couple smelling gas in their house and one of them going to turn on the lightswitch, and someone else screaming "DON'T!" at them (accompanied by scary music). And don't even mention wearing plastic wellingtons on an escalator.

For your scary Public Service Information Film requirements, check out the National Archives website. I couldn't find the film KMS mentions, but there is one called "Close To The Edge", a pyschedelic "1980s update of the Green Cross Code" which fortunately I seem to have missed, being as I am of the original Green Cross Code generation starring British street crossing superhero "Green Cross Code Man".

Stop, look and listen.

Indeed, the National Archives site is an excellent way of whiling away a dark winter Friday afternoon, and there are some real comedy gems in there such as The Fatal Floor, Seatbelt safety with Jimmy Saville and that old classic, Protect and Survive. Keep your kids awake at night with Lonely Water, or this hairstyle sported by Kevin Keegan.

I digress. For a real gas-based lifestyle I can heartily recommend Japan, where - despite a propensity for alarming earthquakes and the quaint, endearing habit of stringing electricity lines up on poles in the street - everyone cooks with gas. Some homes even have little gas sockets where you can plug in portable gas stoves so you can cook at the dining table: some Japanese meals such as nabe (a cross between a soup and a stew, very popular in winter) are made on a "cook as you eat" basis. Unfortunately I don't have any photos, but when I do I'll put them up on my recently renovated Japan Blog, where I'm gradually dumping miscellaneous pictures which need clearing out from my harddrive. (Added: overhead wiring in Tokyo).

Talking of clearing out, here at Penguin HQ we've been going on a bit of a unseasonal spring cleaning spree recently and have turned up some miscellaneous stuff surplus to requirements and which we'll make available to the highest bidder, or more probably anyone willing to take it away for free. In a desperate ploy to increase readership numbers I'll make a separate post with details, because I've just reached that point in the mid-afternoon where thinking starts to hurt, and I haven't seen all the films on the Public Information site yet.

Added for gas afficionados: Berlin's streets are still partially lit by gas lamps.

Had a phone call from DHL at Frankfurt Airport earlier today regarding a packet addressed to Mrs. Penguin which had just arrived from the Far East. They were concerned about a possible mismatch between the contents declaration and the actual contents, because one of the items was "ein Notebook", which appeared to be missing (and even if it wasn't, the declared value was way too low).

There was a brief flurry of confusion before I was able to point out that in English, a notebook in its original meaning is a small, low-value item made from paper, and something one might expect to find in a shipment from a stationery company.

So, it's Sunday night and you have a screw loose. Or you need a screw. Or a screw-wall-interface plastic thingy. Or some stuff to fill some gaping holes with. Or some batteries for your vibrator. Or a hinged measuring stick for whatever purposes. Or just some plain old Lüsterklemmen. Then Eisenwarenhandlung Günter Menge in Pankow is at your assistance. 24 hours a day, right around the clock with their 60-compartment miscellaneous items vending machine (which looks suspiciously like the one featured here).



Located at Hermann-Hesse-Straße 4-8 in northern Pankow. The machine doesn't give change, and most items are priced at €1 or €2, which might be a little on the steep side but maybe worth it if you really need those batteries.

When I am old and my remaining plumage is greying, no doubt there will come a time when the grandchicks will run up to me and ask excitedly "Grandpenguin! What did you do during the war?" And I will have to answer that that is a hopelessly outdated question, and I belonged the last generation who could legitimately ask it. Not that I ever did, but the subject came up in educated German company the other night, and without thinking I casually mentioned one grandfather was a "Flakhelfer in Coventry". Really, after 16 years in Germany I should have known better, and I had the ensuing slightly shamed-cum-sympathetic silence coming to me.

Anyway, instead of spending my youth lobbing munitions at the Hun and his erstwhile Far Eastern ally, I instead went to live in both their capitals and learnt their languages, so I will have to say something like "I engaged in a passive war of nerves with the German tax authorities" and did wild and crazy things such as spending the evening at a sort of informal seminar on Mehrwertsteuer, aka Value Added Tax (but which is not quite the same as the US American sales tax, apparently).

It was, as these things go, interesting. Or to be more precise, comforting, because it seems that after several years filling out the forms by myself, I have got hold of largely the right end of the stick when it comes to the general principles (I won't bore you with the details, but they involve string theory and the occasional ritual sacrifice of small rodents). However, having recently carefully completed my return for 2006 and spending a day or so coming to the conclusion that I owed the state about €800, which I could claim back next year, I was somewhat consternated by their opinion that they owed me about €400 instead. Also, there are still vast swathes of material which are best read while sticking ones head into a bucket of sand, involving numbered paragraphs and three-way intra-European exchanges of goods and services, where I have until now just hoped they don't apply to me. Nevertheless, among others I learnt that there is a §13b, which could be useful if paying invoices to entities in non EU countries because you can count part of the sum as a sort of virtual Mehrwertsteuer. Or something. As is the way with Mehrwertsteuer, it exists in its own world, related to but separate from the more intuitive business of money coming in, money going out and the (ridiculously small) difference between the two.

So it was basically productive use of an evening, and if anyone out there has any questions about Mehrwertsteuer, I will happily forward you the name of someone who is more passionate about the subject than I am.

Added: I seem to have ranted about this last year too.

As I write this, snow is actually falling and my grandmother - dogged by the fear of postal strikes from which the UK has evidently been suffering - has just broken all records.



Well, I'm off to buy vasts amounts of tacky flashing lights and crappy blinky reindeer to decorate the windows here at Penguin HQ. Unfortunately planning bureaucracy has thus far prevented completion of more ambitious plans to place a 15m tall giant illuminated Santa on the roof, but rest assured I am working on it.

Mrs. Penguin's favourite. Made in the traditional English style with finest pure 100% sunflower seed oil and when you open the packet there's a little puff of London fog and "God Save The Queen" plays.



Anyway, just booked the Yuletide flights to "Merry Old England" (sic). The logistics of provincial relatives and provincial airports mean I was unable to avoid having my soul violated by the RyanAir booking system (at a service charge of £3 per violation; ian in hamburg has a more detailed list). Fortunately the Euro seems to be nice and strong so the cumulative charges for requiring a seat, breathing oxygen etc. weren't too painful, and EasyJet had a nice offer on the inbound leg which means the money left over from selling the cat might just cover the cost of a London Underground ticket.