Guten Morgen Berlin!

One of the sad things about freelancing is that you always have to curry favour. You never know which of your clients might recommend you to their mate, dad or boyfriend, if you stay on their good side. Which usually means that I’m reluctant to write about my clients – even the craziest ones – out of paranoia that they will read this and be offended. And this is a tragedy, because there are so many excellent stories I could tell you, friends. But last week I had a project so deliciously funny that I cannot stand to keep it...

Dear America, As you know, in my home country (the UK) we recently had a vote. And it went drastically wrong, making our country a chaotic laughing-stock and drop-kicking our economy into the trashcan. Well, now you’re in the same position as we were. You’re standing in front of a very scary precipice, my friends, and the scariest thing of all is that you might not get the choice of whether to jump off; you are likely to be pushed. Pushed by a horde of people who fail to see the precipice in the first place. So let me share...

July is turning out to be a bit of a cruddy one this year. The sky looks permanently like a huge blanket of grey felt has been spread over it, and the rain fluctuates between ‘gentle drizzle’ and ‘downpour so intense that you’d be drier submerged in the sea’. But that doesn’t mean you have to have a lame summer! Here are my top tips for making the most of your 2016 summer months even when skies are dreary!

Once again, I am in an airport, waiting for a flight back to Berlin. Usually I am excited, calmed, relieved to be going back. But this time I am embarrassed. I have to go back to wonderful Germany and become another unwilling representative of what my home country has done over the last week and a bit. I have to join the ranks of British expats living in Berlin, palms superglued to their faces as they try to digest the constantly spiralling idiocy that is taking place. What happened as a result of the referendum was a calamity. Hearing the...

I’d like to tell you about a referendum.

For those of you who don’t live in the UK, this is what it’s like going to the doctors’ there: You: Hello, I’m here to see Dr Frimbly. Receptionist: Great, take a seat and she’ll call you through shortly.   For those of you who don’t live in Germany, this is what it’s like going to the doctors’ here: You: Hello, I’m here to see Dr Schlampitz. Receptionist: OK, and what is wrong with you?   In case it’s not clear, there is a key difference between the two scenarios. In Germany, the receptionist expects you to DESCRIBE YOUR HEALTH...

Today, as I quite often do on a Sunday, I went for a jog. Once a week I like to do something exercise-y that doesn’t involve being in the grey, technopop confines of the gym – but for a very long time I was too anxious to go running or do any exercise outdoors. I was too ashamed and worried about what people would do and say to me as a female runner out in public; particularly as one who was neither athletic-looking nor adult-looking at all. These days I just don’t care as much about what people might think...

To my shock, I have started 2016 with over 1000 followers on my Facebook page. Granted, the majority of those will be bots and fake accounts ‘like’-ing everything indiscriminately, from personal blogs to violent pornography to artisanal mustard. Nonetheless, I like looking at that number. I’ve been thinking for a long time about what the point is of writing this blog anymore. When I started writing in 2010, it was to journal my year abroad as a gift for my future self, who would surely want to look back at the photos and stories from that manic year which made...