Scottish New Year Special

The new year began just over two weeks ago, in a small wooden cabin somewhere in the Scottish highlands. Here's the first sunrise of 2009. It's official!
I'm back in Berlin now, and as far as I can tell, the sun has yet to rise.
One must be patient with these things.

Nothing Rhymes with Porridge

So, here is winter in Berlin. Winter is here. No doubt about it.
But where's the snow? At the moment, the weather's pretty much like London - but worse! Cycling through the city, miniscule droplets of freezing water vapor crystalize on my face making me grimace like a confused gargoyle, but at least the pedestrians turn and flee when they see me trundling towards them.

A few weeks ago, a worrying thought occurred to me.
"No porridge in Berlin. I need porridge. Winter come. Need porridge. Must find porridge". Seriously - that's exactly how it occurred, word for word.

And find porridge I did. Except here it's called Kölln Flocken. The bag that I've almost finished is called Kölln Flocken anyway. Not sure if they're all called that, or even exactly what it means. Maybe each bag has a different name. Modern art. That's ok, I'll memorise the colours instead. Maybe it means "flakes of Cologne", in which case I should probably go to a doctor tomorrow.

So yes, it's exactly the same as porridge and exactly as cheap as it should be, it works out at about 7c a bowl, not that I'm trying to save money or anything. Of course not!
Spend! spend! spend!
It's tough to make porridge LOOK attractive though - hence the candles.
Nice huh? I do it every day!

PSYCHEDELIC PSUPERMARKT!

So there I was the other evening cycling up Fehrbelliner Strasse on my way home, remembering that we needed some more bread. Magically a Kaiser's supermarket appeared ahead, its big red sign glowing through the mist, a beacon of grocery shining through the foggy Berlin night.
They had plenty of bread in stock, and I bought some milk too, but the real bonus was they they now have a PSYCHEDELIC LIGHTSHOW instead of a delicatessen counter! Don't ask me why, ask them! Call up Kaiser's headquarters and say "Excuse me, but is there a reason why you're trying to recreate the UFO Club circa 1967?". On second thoughts, don't mention it at all, it's probably some secret thing the employees have - a wednesday after-hours ACID ROCK PARTY.
This week's star guests, The Grateful Bread.

Anti Yuppie Graffiti in Berlin (Yups & Downs)

This is something I've seen a lot in Berlin. On the surface it looks like Anti Yuppie graffiti - anyone can see that. Graffiti by people who hate yuppies.
But I have my suspicions. Could it be that the culprits are the yuppies themselves? Is it possible that this angry brigade wishing to cleanse Berlin of all yuppiness are in fact none other than the yuppies they claim to hate?
My theory then, is that this is nothing more than some sort of urban "exterior design" sport enjoyed by genuine yuppies who are disappointed that the vibrant and slightly dodgy inner city areas they moved to have started to look too tidy and well, normal. Gotta keep up appearances! Gotta keep the place looking "urban"! Undercover urban yuppie activists - that's it.

Here's a favourite of mine. Near a car park in Prenzlauer Berg.
One or two yuppie-type cars there, clearly driven by the yuppies responsible for this very "authentic" urban scrawl.


And the person responsible for this one is clearly someone used to writing a lot of CHEQUES.


Here's rather half-hearted attempt in Kreuzberg, written with Tipp-Ex, from the office dear!


A nice little stencil number with made up language.
So LAST YEAR, so YUPPIE!

I think I'm onto something.

SAME SUN SETS

Do people really visit blogs to look at pets, children, family holidays or kitchens?
I think not. Sunsets fall into the same category. No-one goes on the internet to look at sunsets - why should they? It's just a bloody sunset!

But think of this as an intermission. A little pause. You're here on my blog and while you're on your way to look at something else... "oh look! A lovely sunset!". Ah how nice.

This very bloody sunset took place on Frankfurter Allee two weeks ago. I like Frankfurter Allee a lot, but I think I may be in the minority. What makes this sunset important is that it marked THE END OF SUMMER. I've started wearing gloves.

schmalz? ... SCHMALZ!

Until very recently I had no idea that something actually called SCHMALZ even existed.
It's been lurking in the fridge for weeks. Looked innocent enough, but with huge potential for being hideous. In addition, none of The Germans could adequately describe what it really was, other than"it's Schmalz!".

So what's it like?
Not bad. Nice even.
It tastes like fried onions!
How about that then?

RINTI TIN

A very definite joy about moving abroad is the constant barrage from your new country's advertising agencies. Sometimes the message is clear (in Germany, it's difficult to misinterpret some ads, they're so blatant) and sometimes almost nothing makes sense and the feeling of confusion is hard on the brainbox.

So, here's a billboard that was pasted up last night on Behmstrasse.

WHAT HELL IS GOING ON HERE?
At first I assumed it was an Animal Rights charity, with the familiar red/white/black colours and strangely clinical atmosphere. But no, I THINK it's a genuine ad for dog food! It's very very sinister. The white tiled background - what's that, a kitchen? A slaughterhouse? A butcher's? The slaughterhouse/ butcher theme is pushed even harder with meathook device... the dog looks absolutely teased to distraction and you can just imagine the pool of drool on the slaughterhouse. All that's missing is dripping blood. Pretty clever.


I can't recall an ad for dog food that makes such intense use of base canine meat lust! Not cutesy-wutesy at all. The dog doesn't even look like a pet here... he's a predator!

Or is it a completely left-field clever clever postmodernistic parody thing that I'm just not getting?

PAULUS PILLKOPF!

Mind you, on the way to the fleamarket, we saw this shocking and blatantly genius window display in a pharmacy on Apostel Paulus Strasse.
Something in there for everyone!
Would you get this in the UK?
I think not.

The Flohmarkt That Wasn't.

Can you feel the level of excitement in this photograph?
Today we decided to head over to the WEST to check out the flohmarkt outside the Rathaus Schöneberg. Last time I'd been there was back in the meed-90s when the market was on Fehrbelliner Platz, and it was a good solid fleamarket with plenty of odd stuff on offer.
But now... this is a shabby fleamarket! Quite a lot of books, but nothing amazing, and the record situation was dire: only scratchy James Last, Demis Roussos, Culture Club, Leo Sayer - and even then, not the good stuff!

What I'm beginning to suspect is this: Fleamarkets in the West used to be better than the ones in the East, but slowly the whole system has totally reversed and now truly the best stuff has shifted to the East.
Oh well, I guess that's ok then, because that's where I live.
The search continues.
The theories get more tangled.
Will I ever find that elusive "Staff Carpenborg & Electric Corona" LP?
Not at this rate.
(... and I'm beginning to think every Can single ever pressed now lives abroad.)

BADGES IN BERLIN, BUTTONS IN BERLIN, PINS IN BERLIN.

In Britain we call them badges, in Germany they're called buttons, in the USA they call them pins, but they also like to say buttons as well.
Anyway I had a design emergency recently and neeeeded to make some badgebuttonpins here in Berlin. I tried several places but in the end I found the BEST.
His name is Patty, he makes 100% classic trad 25mm metal badges from the designs you give to him.
Wonderful stuff. Not expensive either.
There's something cool about badges that'll probably always be cool, and when you have a bag full of new ones they make a lovely jingling sound.
Here's Patty's website: www.maechtigeshaeuflein.de.vu

... thanks to Nils for the tip!