etc

What with Mrs. Penguin being from the Japanese archipelago and all that, I quite often find myself being expected to be an expert on Japanese cuisine in Berlin, which is always a bit of an embarassment because for whatever reasons we very rarely venture into the relevant establishments. I think it's because Mrs. Penguin has worked in too many and can't stand the sight of them. And the annual-ish Japan trip gives me ample of opportunity to eat more than twice my bodyweight in fish, before swimming several hundred miles through icy seas and standing on top of an egg in sub-zero temperatures all winter.

No, sorry, wrong train of thought. Anyway, it's the middle of August, which in Japan is the season of the O-bon festival, which is a festival of Buddhist origin to honour one's ancestors, or more prosaically a time to visit one's Heimat and generally eat, drink and be merry. Or if your Heimat is really too far away, just to eat, drink and be merry. Such was the idea behind smartdeli's O-bon event today, a place I'd never heard of until Mrs. Penguin stumbled across it on the interwebz.

It's in Friedrichshain, a little way east of the Boxhagener Platz, and while the website gives the impression of an ultra-cool designer location, it turned out to be the kind of place someone terminally uncool such as myself can feel at home in. It is run by genuine Japanese people (i.e. not one of those Vietnamese-run Thai-Sushi places) from, as a general impression, the alternative-arty end of the spectrum. The menu looks very nice, although today slightly more Imbiss style fare - served on cardboard at lower prices was on offer, such as this yakisoba (fried noodles) with chicken for a very reasonable EUR 3.50. Very nice - just like in Japan (though a little short on the pickled ginger), and not at all greasy. Definitely worth a return visit.

One of the joys of being a free agent is having to deal with health insurers directly, which in my case means having to complete the odd form every now and again. Now, as you may have noticed, there's this thing called the internet, and my insurers are very keen on promoting their website as the place to go for all your needs which don't actually require direct human contact, e.g. for downloadable forms, which you can download, print out, fill in by hand and entrust to the Deutsche Post so that some minion at the health insurers can input the data back into the system.

If only it was that easy. However, they seem to change their login system every 9 months or so, which means every time you want to access something, you have to fill out another online form before I can get any further. Then you get to the area with the forms and discover you need an extra "Freischaltcode" which they send by dead tree mail before you can get hold of the forms themselves, which are presumably extra top s1kr3t. Hah, thinks I to myself, they sent me such a Freischaltcode last time I went through this, and by a miracle I had actually filed it in the health insurance file, rather than the round one.

Did it work? Of course not. Grrr. Time to vent some spleen at an innocent hotline worker (hey, at least the calls are free). Turns out my login doesn't work because I haven't logged in since the last time I logged in, which was too long ago, and the Freischaltcode is only valid for 30 days anyway (not that it says so on the letter, of course).

To their credit at least, it's a very quick-to-answer hotline (none of that "Bitte warten Sie - pleaz holt ze lain" muzak which makes you want to pump sub-machinegun rounds into innocent bystanders, and let us be thankful that German isn't a language widely spoken in e.g. India), and it appears they're used to this kind of thing, and after some soothing words I was put through to the Department of Sending Out Forms To People Who Can't Download Them, who promised to pop one in the post today.

No, it's not my birthday. Last time I was 24, Helmut Kohl was still Kanzler.

That's actually 24 x 50 metres. You see, I've taken up swimming. You see, I've been suffering from the curse of the contemporary desk worker, viz a lack of movement in the upper body, apart from intensive but minute movements in the general vicinity of a keyboard, which have been bringing on the old RSI.

It's not even that I'm particularly unfit. Regular intensive cycling has given me legs like treetrunks and buttocks of steel, but leaves me with stickman arms and an abdomen which is showing signs of reverting into its natural, penguin-like state.

Something Had To Be Done. The obvious answer was of course swimming, an activity I've been studiously avoiding since I was about 14 because it's an activity I associate with loud, noisy pools filled with a mixture of chlorine, annoying small children, even more annoying large children and also annoying and irritating teenagers, all guarded over by cryptofascist whistleblowing Bademeisters.

So, off to the grandly named Europa Sportpark in the Landsberger Allee it was. This is a complex built as part of Berlin's chronically unsuccessful bid for the 2000 Olympics (and be glad it failed, because if you think Berlin is poor now, imagine what it'd be like if it had had to pay for an Olympics as well. We'd probably be lighting the streets with candles).

Unfortunately, without my glasses I'm as blind as a bat which had its sonar ruined by spending its teenage years in techno clubs, and it took me a while to navigate from the changing area to the pool itself. Partly because I had the impression the swimming was taking place in the actual Olympic pool, which is on one side, but there's a 50m pool on the other side which is where the hoi-polloi such as myself are permitted.

It turned out to be quite nice. Fairly quiet - lots of serious people doing serious swimming, no teenagers burning off their excess hormones or whatever it is teenagers like to do these days, and you can barely taste the chlorine. Even the Bademeisters are cool and laid back, sitting around their little glass kiosk for the most part, except for the occasional emergency massage.

The only problem remaining was the actual swimming, as it occurred to me I've never actually learnt to swim. I am well acquainted with the art of not drowning though, and I can wave my arms and legs around in a manner which propels myself through the water in the general direction of forwards, but that trick where you pretend to be a whale on acid has, up until now, eluded me. So I tried my luck in the lanes reserved for the elderly, infirm, obese and anyone else who likes to keep their head above water all the time. The first time I managed a whole 7 lengths before various extremities started failing in differing, alarming ways, and was constantly being overtaken by people who can probably still remember the war. It would probably be more efficient, from a transport point of view, to just walk.

However, every time since then has, to my delight, been a slight improvement, and last Friday I was not only overtaking people as young as 55, I also managed a record 24 lengths. Although by the time I got to the last two, I believe I was wheezing and gasping, but that was alright because it was late in the evening and all the types with the Moses complex (i.e. who seem to take it personally that the waters fail to part before them, and attempt to make it do so by imbibing half of it and splashing the other half over the side of the pool) had gone home.

Some rough and ready calculations show that if this rate of improvement keeps up, I'll be breaking the sound barrier by 2013 or so. So if any time you see a wet and dripping penguin suddenly flying past, it might be me.

Dontcha just hate it when you're waiting for One of Those Phone Calls That Might Change Everything, and have no idea when it will come (or if in fact the people on the other end have forgotten about you completely). Time... goes... by... very... slowly...

I couldn't take the suspense any more and risked dashing off an email - formulated with extreme caution in a "terribly sorry to disturb you but I'm running out of fingernails to chew on" sort of way - to the person I'm supposed to be hearing from. Turns out the wheels on the other end are grinding far more slowly than I was initially given to understand, but they did actually remember me, which is a Good Sign.

Must put some mustard on those nails.

I must confess to not being terribly well endowed in the gourment-appreciation department. I do of course have a valid excuse, viz that I was a) born and bred in the English provinces and b) have lived almost half my life in Berlin, and compared to the latter the cuisine available here is positively world-class.

It's that time of the year when a big fat envelope from the Hausverwaltung sets me and my bank account full of trepidation and fear. For the dreaded Betriebskostenabrechnung is here.

I have no idea whether there's an appropriate translation in English, but it's the final statement of accounts for the various costs incurred during 2006 to the Hausverwaltung by actually having people live in their apartments. That includes things like property tax, refuse disposal (that reminds me, if I ever catch the person who keeps putting plastic bags partly full of paper and partly full of non-paper in the paper recycling bins, there are Words To Be Had) and miscellaneous payments to people to clean the stairs, polish the letterboxes, stomp about on the roof and stuff like that. Part of the rent is actually pre-payments towards this set of bills, and tradition has it that there'll always be more to pay (Nachzahlung) once the final figures are in.

This year it's a rebate. Almost a whole 100 Euros. I'd go out and celebrate, but Mrs. Penguin has just been to IKEA again for additional shelf mileage, and that sort of cancels it all out.

Still, my travel plans for last weekend very nearly involved the general vicinity of the River Severn, so mustn't grumble.

Is your capital city blighted by a Soviet war memorial you never asked for or ever really wanted? Are you still a little embarrassed by it, even though it's fortuitously tucked away down a side plaza well off the main tourist trails? Then you need Disguise-o-Fountain™, which cunningly makes that ugly memorial blend into the background and become easily mistakable for a slightly deformed chimney. Order yours today and get a free pack of HistoryWhitewash™ ("Washes your country's doubtful past whiter-than-white").

Just a note to any concerned readers... Busy... Too much internet, too little time. Normal service will be resumed "soon".

Ever wanted to ride your wire donkey^[*] along an autobahn? It's your big chance on Sunday (June 3), when the annual ADFC-Sternfahrt takes place. It's a big event, with around 250,000 cyclists expected to take part. There are a number of routes starting from around Berlin, all coming together around the Siegessäule, where a sort of political-in-a-greenish-ecological-way event takes place.

Participation is free and no boring registration or whatever is needed - just join in at any point on the route. See this page: http://www.radzeit.de/gallery2/v/Sternfahrt/2007/ for the route map in various formats, together with the approximate expected times at key locations. While the Sternfahrt is taking place, roads will be closed to other traffic. It's not a race, though maybe not suitable for very small children.



The two autobahn segments are: the A100 Südring between Grenzallee and Tempelhof; and the A115 AVUS from around Nikolassee to Autobahndreick Funkturm. Due to the routing it's only possible to ride on one of those stretches. The Südring section is shorter, but runs part of the way through a tunnel, and along the south side of Tempelhof Airport, and is much more fun.

^[*] Drahtesel

Some more info, in German: http://www.adfc-berlin.de/home/termine2/sternfahrt

If you are reading this, it means you are very probably - like me - an expatriate citizen of an English-speaking nation which is currently engaged in at least one ground war in a largely Islamic country. (If you're not sure, pay a visit to your local embassy - if the street in front is frequented by solid concrete blocks and MG-toting policemen, you are). Of course, living abroad, in the midst of foreigners, means you are virtually on the front line in the War Against Terror. And although the area you live in may not have been recently carpet-bombed because someone mistook Abdul's brother's sister-in-law's second cousin for Osama bin Laden, it's highly likely the Bad Guys are operating within 45 minutes of your place of residence.

So in light of recent terror alerts (at the time of writing the US Department of Homeland Security is broadcasting a "Significant Risk of Terror Warnings") I've been taking a serious look at how to maintain personal safety while doing your bit in the Fight Against People With Long Flowing Beards.