Berlin FAQ Blog

Notice of Blog Suspension

nospam@example.com (Mount Penguin) — 2008-03-01T14:13:58Z

I've just received notification from the International Weblog Licensing Organisation that as my Berlin blogging days are effectively over (at least for the forseeable future), I am required to post an appropriate announcement.

So I therefore invite you to join me 9 hours ahead of GMT in this totally other capital city where I am currently trying not to get embroiled too much in a debate about charisma.

There's nothing like the taste of home

nospam@example.com (Mount Penguin) — 2008-02-10T07:55:05Z

It's nice, when you're in a strange place full of even stranger foreign food which is likely to be having tentacles sticking out of it at odd angles, to you know you can always get a good old German döner kebap when you need one.

Cheesecake at 30,000 feet

nospam@example.com (Mount Penguin) — 2008-02-08T17:46:00Z

Just a few years ago, a telephone in an aircraft was a rare and hideously expensive sight. Now, thanks to the unstoppable march of technology, mere mortals can blog live from somewhere over the Urals, and how much better life has become now I can inform you almost in real time about the sumptuous meal I have just enjoyed. Wanting to get into the swing of things I went for the Japanese meal: fish, including the sushi-like thing on the right, and for desserts there was the very un-Japanese cheesecake on the left, which was surprisingly tasty if a little on the small side. Although I would certainly never fly just for the meals, as airline food goes it was quite good: it seems the competition on this route keeps standards fairly high, I have only experienced one high-altitudte gourmet disappointment, and that was on British Airways, surprise surprise.

In three or four hours there'll probably be instant noodles for anyone that wants them, and breakfast will no doubt be served somewhere around the longitude of Peking.

Well, the flight assistants are coming round tucking everyone into bed (normally rather early for sleep, but in 6 or 7 hours it will very suddenly be 9am), so I'll have to stop here (Internet access over much of Siberia is apparently not very reliable anyway) so as not to disturb one's fellow aviators. This will probably be the last post on this blog for a few weeks, but you should find me here on this totally other blog where up until now I've mainly been recycling old photos.

BVG Strike from midnight!

nospam@example.com (Mount Penguin) — 2008-01-31T18:23:56Z

For anyone not glued to the radio: a BVG strike will take place from around midnight tonight (Thursday) until 3pm Saturday.

S-Bahn and Regionalbahn are not affected. (Glad I live almost next to an S-Bahn station

For the record: the last major BVG strike I remember was 1992.

Hard Gay

nospam@example.com (Mount Penguin) — 2008-01-29T07:40:18Z

One of the disadvantages^* of living outside of Japan is that one is somewhat isolated from the latest entertainment trends circulating in that sushi-soaked archipelago. For example, it was not until very recently that I was made aware of the "Hard Gay" phenomenon, and due to a lack of bloggable material I think it's high time I made use of YouTube as a space filler.

So with no further ado, Mr. Hard Gay himself in all his leather-clad exhibitionist glory:

Check out the official Hard Gay site, which plays the YMCA song in Japanese, but please note if you feel strangely attracted to him, the guy is actually married to an actual female.

^* By "disadvantage" I may mean "advantage"

Fernweh

nospam@example.com (Mount Penguin) — 2008-01-24T11:23:40Z

(Strangely, my German - English dictionary translates "Fernweh" as "wanderlust", although in German "Fernweh" and "Wanderlust" are similar but not exactly synonyms).

The return date is provisional. Blow-by-blow minutae and / or photos of silly stuff may be available on this totally other blog.

Added: having just checked the flight details, turns out it's a Boeing 777.

Dear Berliner Zeitung

nospam@example.com (Mount Penguin) — 2008-01-22T19:58:30Z

I was delighted to read your article about Deutsche Bahn buying up various railway companies in the UK, it gives one a small ray of hope for future rail journeys through parts of Albion.

However, I was somewhat concerned about the caption in the picture you used with the article:

which reads "Einfahrt in den Bahnhof Shropshire in Wales" (train entering Shropshire Station in Wales).

What the fuck, precisely, do you put in your subeditors' drinks? Would you seriously consider writing a caption like "Einfahrt in den Bahnhof Niederbayern in Thüringen"? If so, please let me know and I will cancel my subscription forthwith. (Especially as the photo shows a very long modern electric train running on what appears to be a 4-track main line: I'm not terribly familiar with Shropshire's railways, but if they're anything like those in the neighbouring county of Herefordshire, two-car diesel units running on tracks the former Deutsche Reichsbahn would have been ashamed of are far more probable.)

Thankyou.

"Insider's guide to Berlin"

nospam@example.com (Mount Penguin) — 2008-01-20T01:22:47Z

Love couldn't tear actor Sam Riley apart from girlfriend Alexandra Maria Lara. He's just moved to Berlin to live with her

http://www.guardian.co.uk/travel/2008/jan/19/insiderguides.berlin

Full of hot tips on the hippest places to go. Print it out and put it in your wallet. I'll never be leaving home without it.

Taking fingerprinting to ridiculous extents

nospam@example.com (Mount Penguin) — 2008-01-17T14:48:46Z

While looking for a low-cost route to a certain Far Eastern archipelago, I was somewhat concerned to find this information on the Uzbekistan Airlines website pertaining to new entry procedures in Japan:

(source).

Unfortunately they don't seem to fly from Berlin, though I was impressed by the way they consider aircraft maintenance important news worthy of note on their home page.

Stuff Divestiture

nospam@example.com (Mount Penguin) — 2008-01-07T10:49:00Z

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.
Continue reading "Stuff Divestiture"

Happy New Year!

nospam@example.com (Mount Penguin) — 2008-01-01T14:39:14Z

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

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

Dear Moleskine

nospam@example.com (Mount Penguin) — 2007-12-30T16:43:52Z

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.

Llanfair Llythynwg

nospam@example.com (Mount Penguin) — 2007-12-30T12:21:51Z

Workers of All Lands Unite

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".

Continue reading "Llanfair Llythynwg"

Not a joking matter

nospam@example.com (Mount Penguin) — 2007-12-19T15:21:49Z

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.

Continue reading "Not a joking matter"

Living on the edge

nospam@example.com (Mount Penguin) — 2007-12-14T13:17:56Z

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.