Guten Morgen Berlin!

Last week on the 24th of January was Compliments Day’, a highly official and ceremonious event indeed. Now, I’m not sure whether this great occasion is a national day of celebration or an international festival, but sadly I let myself down and didn’t pay a single compliment to anyone on that day, preferring to call people a buttface in a low murmur as I usually do. Luckily, however, some male colleagues of mine discovered two very interesting and useful articles helpfully put together by the radio broadcaster Antenne Niedersachsen: ‘What compliments to give a man’ and ‘What compliments to give...

Introduction A few months ago, the other web developer in my company suddenly was released from his job as a reward for being a colossal prolapsed rectum. This meant that I became, by default, the ‘lead’ and only web developer. Today I sat in a meeting featuring one other woman and a substantial troop of men. My new web dev project was mentioned, and immediately the testosterone-havers in the room began confidently and eloquently making decisive statements about the project. My project. Let me re-emphasise: none of these people are professional web developers who will have anything to do with...

A few weeks ago, I wrote a travel blog post all about Iceland, giddy with the prospect of going there but with very little actual knowledge about the place. Then I actually went to Iceland, did the holiday thing, came back, organised a Cold-War-themed spy mission team building activity (don’t ask), and now here we are. Time for a debrief to see what I got right in my first article and what was fake news.

Yesterday I moseyed on down to my adorable little neighbourhood cinema/public living room to watch a film I’ve been excited about for ages. Blade Runner 2049. This film has 89% on Rotten Tomatoes at the time I am writing this; that’s pretty much 9/10. 9/10 is a terrific score. If your career performance is 9/10 you’re probably reading this on a much nicer laptop than mine in a much nicer apartment than mine drinking a glass of good Shiraz rather than the plastic cup of sugar-free grapefruit Fanta I am unashamedly chugging. If your product is endorsed by 9/10 housewives,...

“Don’t be so sensitive.” “Jeez, learn to take a joke.” “Wow, you really can’t take constructive criticism, can you.” “Lighten up!” “Don’t take these things so personally.” If you’ve ever said this or something like this to another person, this post is for you. If you’ve ever had this or something like this said to you, this post is for you. If you are a human who lives and/or works with and/or around other humans, this post is for you. And also, in a pretty major way, this post is for me. You have to have a bloody thick skin...

When life gives you lemons, make lemonade. Except sometimes life gives you lemons and, like, kale, so you begrudgingly make a green smoothie and feel simultaneously self-righteous and deprived. Sometimes life gives you a cold bottle of artisan lemonade and you get to enjoy it in the sunshine. And sometimes life gives you lemons, bitchslaps you across the face as you are squeezing them, runs off with the juice and leaves you with just the rinds, which leaves you confused and means you now have to take out the compost bin because it was already overflowing. ANYWAY, none of that...

Hello everyone. Yes, here I go again, sheepishly squirming my way back onto this blog after another long period of doing other things. Let’s just forego all the apologetic excuses and dive right in. For the last few months I’ve been off working an actual Full Time Job. This is the first Full Time Job I have had since 2015 when I left my old role of buying underwear for a large American man. This is also my first ever professional post as a proper actual front-end web developer. But most importantly this is my first ever proper job in...

Guys guys guys! Sorry for yet another long absence, but I have an excuse this time! I’ve been on holiday in Costa Rica and Nicaragua! And then of course the question was how to write about it in my blog, because how can I not write about going to freakin’ Central America? Except how can one write about an amazing holiday without sounding like a total arse? Also, how to write about a holiday without sounding like some two-bit travel blogger – especially since travel is not the theme of this blog (not that this blog has much more of...

“So what’s going on with that bike referendum thing now Rose?” I hear you ask. Good question, helpful ice-breaker person. Here’s the deal. We had our initial petition over the summer; this petition was to show the government that there is widespread public interest in the issue, meaning that if we were to get over 20,000 signatures (and we got about 105,000) the Senate would have to approve our application to have ANOTHER petition, which would then allow us to have a referendum about the city’s bike infrastructure. Please accept my apologies for the boringness of that sentence. Anyway, the...

As you may already know, I am on the campaign team for the Volksentscheid Fahrrad, a campaign to have a public referendum about massive improvements to our cycle infrastructure here in Berlin. We had a few manic months of signature collecting and media junket whoring, but at the moment we’re on a kind of autumn hiatus, waiting to see what the new city government will do about us and Berlin’s streets. Nonetheless, biking is always one of the big things on my mind. Half the time I am gleeful about just how much fun it is, especially since I discovered...