etc

It's Winter Sales time at Penguin HQ, and we're giving away a Whole Lot of Useless Stuff for Free (Or For A Small Sum)! If you see anything on the list below that grabs your fancy, feel free to call dibs on it either via a comment or an email to mountpenguin [that curly-a character] gmail.com . "Buyer collects", can bring to Stammtisch or residents of nearby parts of the hip and edgy Prenzlauer Berg.

The list is currently very short, but will be added to as and when items become superfluous to requirements and / or we can persuade ourselves that their sentimental value is not enough to keep schlepping them around.

Books

# "Teach Yourself Gaelic" (Boyd Robertson, Iain Taylor; ISBN 0-340-55923-3); mint condition reserved by Marsha
# "The Lost Continent / Neither Here Nor There" (Bill Bryson)

Furnishings etc.

# two shelf boards (85cm x 25cm) of GDR origin, somewhat scuffed and marked but have "character"; mount them on some bricks for that "impoverished student" atmosphere.

# 1 laptop bag, approx 38cm * 28cm main compartment (should fit 14" or 15" laptop), other compartments for paper and pens etc.; decent quality (slightly dusty), however has logo "Online Educa Berlin" on the front.

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


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

Please don't plagiarize my original content. Especially as you claim to "respect the rights of photographers and other original rights holders. As such, we do not steal, borrow, or reuse protected images or other content (video, audio, etc) without permission in advance from the content creator or owner." (Image/Content Use Policy).

You may want to check out the "Legal Notice" hidden away at the bottom right of this blog.

Thankyou.

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.

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.

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.

This time affecting all services, i.e. everything from S-Bahns to ICEs. To take place between Thursday 2am and Saturday 2am at a train station near you. Not a total all-out strike, but presumably enough train drivers will be stopping work to cause general confusion, delay and disruption.

I've just struggled out through the snow to my local Backshop and was vaguely surprised to see it festooned - in a very lacklustre way - with colourful decorations. My mind being concerned with more important matters, such as whether I should need to get the husky sled out, I failed to make any connections regarding the significance, until I was asked whether I would like any Pfannkuchen to go with my Bonjour Baguette (my apologies to the entire French nation on this one, but it's Mrs. Penguin's favourite bread ever). "We've got a lot left! It's the eleventh of the eleventh, you know!".

Having survived the arduous treck back across the street battling off the local wildlife (Penguin: 1 - Polar Bears: 0, sorry Knut) I checked my calendar, and the lady in the shop was right. For the eleventh minute of the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month marks the start of some regional ethnic German festival called "Fasching" or "Karneval", which appears to involve some foolery entailing silly hats and confectionery throwing. It's a seasonal festival which seems to have originated on the southern and western margins of this great nation and has been brought to the capital during the past few years by migrants from these regions, flocking to Berlin to seek their fame and fortune no doubt. Like Halloween (another festival which involves silly hats and confectionery) it was virtually unknown in the city until fairly recently, and it's nice to see another set of ethnic minorities (Swabians, Bavarians etc.) being integrated into Berlin's multikulti way of life.

A Pfannkuchen is - despite the literal translation - not a pancake, but a sort of doughnut - known outside of Berlin as a "Berliner", and first created 1963 to mark the visit of John F. Kennedy to West Berlin. Thanks to its presidential endorsment it became popular throughout the rest of the then West Germany and because of its association with "freedom" it has come to mark the beginning of the Narrensaison with all the Narrenfreiheit that entails.

"The Penguin. Doing Battle With The Behörden Since 1991."

This, for example. Warning: do not view while eating. It spoiled my breakfast.

(With thanks to the Tagesspiegel London Blog).