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   As I mentioned before my brief hiatus, this week was Winterferien (winter half term – so that the kids can go out and do wholesome winter sports) and in the spirit of Winterferien I went off to Austria with my parents super awesome and smoking hot snowboarder friends for the week. Hence the silence over here. Also hence the photo; we were in Obertauern, a place so surrounded by stunning landscapes that I was stumbling around saying ‘Whoa’ like everyone in the world’s impression of Keanu Reeves in the Matrix. Oddly, this is a skiing location which is relatively...

A typical Berlin juxtaposition: charming fish sign, screaming graffiti face. If you don’t have a particularly advanced knowledge of cultural stereotypes, you may not realise that it’s a common assumption that German people are very, very…direct. If you have been living inside an old cereal box for your whole life you might also have missed out on the one that English people are awkward and overpolite. I would like to take this opportunity to announce that both of these prejudices are based on a foundation of truth, a solid cement foundation which I spend every day here stubbing my toe...

Yeahhh, gritty urban decay, that’s what we were looking for! Sadly though, it’s not Kreuzberg so it’s not cool. Admittedly the photo accompanying this post has woefully little to do with the subject of the post, but it’s not the kind of subject you can really take a photo of without getting people to sign release forms. This Saturday my sweet and optimistic new flatmate brought me along to a taster session of tango-dancing at a dance school in Kreuzberg – although after three whole hours of tango it felt less like a taster and more like a socking great...

Imagine this looking even more decrepit and you’re on the money. This blog has grown legs in a way I never expected it would. When I started this little project, I decided to begin with the assumption that no-one would read it except for the occasional leant-on-the-mouse-while-searching-on-Google accident. I wrote every entry for the audience of me, imagining myself as some kind of rogue Charlie Brooker-type character who had the multitudes of urbane and sophisticated readers inside my head nodding with approval, in order to make it seem like less of a waste of human energy.  Yet in a dramatic...

Fig. 1: A cat demonstrating the exact position in which I slept on my first night back in Berlin. Well, where do I begin, really. It’s been a long time without the internet, and as with every typical millisecond of my existence, practically every day has thrown up something eminently blog-about-able which has unfortunately had long enough to stew in the limbo of non-anecdotehood that it is now unlikely ever to be told. Schade, as the Deutsche would say. Suffice it to say, these last few weeks have indeed been memorable and intense and have felt simultaneously brief and endless....

Hi, Internet. I miss you too. I know, honestly I do, but I can’t do anything about it. They cut the internet cable in the wall apparently. You know I think about you all the time.  Yes, I do! Of course I’m not just saying that! I know I haven’t written anything on my blog in a while. I know, I know. Yes, you’re right. Well ok, let me think. I guess I could write a quick one about what’s been happening since we last saw each other? Yeah? Ok. It’s now six days before I finally go back to...

This post will have a corresponding photo tomorrow after I am once again able to swap my woefully slow internet stick for the merely laughably slow stick; in the meantime please imagine an image of lots of people standing in the snow at a remote train station in the middle of nowhere, all of them looking disappointed. It snowed in Berlin at the beginning of this week, which was an utter surprise as every Winter in Germany is accompanied by tropical heat, a gentle cheek-tickling breeze and the migration of thousands of lime-green parakeets into the city centre. Oh wait...

Before I begin, I would like to pay tribute to a beautiful dog who very recently died after being the most gorgeous and famously sweet-tempered pet I have ever encountered. He belonged to a good friend of mine and while I knew him, he was a constant source of fun and comfort and love, and if any of his family should read this, I would like them to know how sorry I am for their loss. RIP Pickles; you were a treasure and one of a kind. ******************************************************************************** A few days ago, my mother came to visit me here and...

I’m going to the Ostsee and may be some time. A weekend, to be exact. In the meantime, here’s an oddly N’y’Orleans-sassy translation of a sign I found in a hostel bathroom. Catch you after the break! They just ain’t useable, Benjamin, ya hear?

6kbps maximum upload speed. That’s what you get for annoying O2. Thus from now on blog post will be accompanied by the best thing I can scrawl on Windows Paint using my Wacom. Apologies in advance. Now that I’m over ‘hump-week’, the week the language school warn you about where everything is terrible and you think about quitting every minute you aren’t trying to stop children killing themselves and each other, my actual physical hump is starting to grate like NEVER BEFORE. What I mean, of course, is the rucksack which is an essential part of the kit and without...