SNOWBLINDED!

Astounding effect created by sprinkling 150,000 tonnes of talcum powder over Kotbusser Tor from hot air balloons.

After what seemed like months of miserable rain, probably because it rained miserably for months, WINTER has stamped its frozen flippers and whitewashed the city. It's like the washing powder adverts on tv where the housewife holds up a large European city in the sunshine and exclaims "I never knew Warsaw could be this white!" (or it may have been a bedsheet).

Skalitzer Strasse - boy band approaching fast.

Anyway, what I'm trying to say is that it snowed this morning and I love it. "weather experts" predict minus 14 for tonight. One thing's for sure, I'm going to be filling my shoes with hot porridge.

Victim Of Senseless Nostalgia

I was just in the supermarkt (exciting, thrilling life) and noticed these "English Style" (because of course they don't have them anywhere else in Britain) Salt and Vinegar crisps.
I couldn't help it, I fell into a sort of drooling hypnosis and bought them.
I made three big mistakes.
Mistake 1:
I should've been warned off by the word "chips".
Mistake 2:
Salt & Vinegar crisps NEVER come in red bags.
Mistake 3:
I'm not known as "the Karlheinz Stockhausen of food" so I should stop experimenting.


Next time I will be buying the Scottish, Welsh or Irish style ones.

I shall not be buying them again, ever. Nauseating.
Although I ate half of them (reflex action).
Please excuse me while I go and incinerate the remnants of the pack.

BAKED!

I've been away from this blog for a long time. Several seasons have passed, I've travelled all over the place, eaten some incredibly disturbing food, discovered more best music ever, started to learn German, bought too many records, drawn a lot of (but not enough) drawings, danced with penguins, played chess with squirrels and what was it that made me finally post here again? What astounding, shocking revelatory event slapped me around the face and brought me back here?

Well I'll tell you.
I was in Kaiser's the other day and I saw they sell HEINZ BAKED BEANS. To think of all the times I almost violated the maximum baggage weight flying back from London with 6 cans in my suitcase when all along the answer simply lay on Schonhauser Allee!

It's such good news it's almost deeply upsetting - in a good way!
And they even have a German label.
Why do they have a German label though?
Surely no Germans eat them.
I've only seen Germans laugh at them.
Maybe that's why they buy them.
Bored Germans needing something to laugh at in the kitchen?

HERE is Spring.

It all happened so quickly.
Mauer Park this morning on my way to work.
I swear you could almost hear the leaves unfurling like in some eerie timelapse film.
Why is spring called spring?
Because it's BOUNCY!

Schlager Army

Ah, fewer things are stranger than another culture's collective nostalgia for something they actually want to forget. But can't. Living here in Germany, my own nostalgia for the weird television of my childhood is meaningless to anyone but me. I can't share it. So I'm actively trying to find connections to the childhood memories of my German contemporaries - to gain access to the the collective cultural consciousness of Germany! No more lonely memories.

"Disco" was a popular music show here in the 70s and 80s that mixed international pop hits with the domestic Schlager musical terror. the more I hear schlager from this period, the more I'm convinced that it was actually a clever invention of the German avant-garde elite.

In this clip you'll see schlager singer Tony Marshall (?) leading an hysterical marching, clapping conga line of guests into the show, including a fairly enthusiastic ABBA at the front. Just when you think it's about to end, it starts again with double intensity. No escape. My favourite moment has to be around 1:22 when two surly youths stubbornly fold their arms instead of clapping (probably communist radicals). And look out for the policewoman posing as a dancer, standing on the piano and freaking out around 3:08!

As I said, soon I'll be able to actually remember this from my childhood, even though I was definitely elsewhere at the time.

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.