Vegemite is wrong

Got soaked today for the 10th time this week. Found myself fancying leak and potato soup for lunch instead of my usual salad. Also had to put my heating on. All these things point to the fact which I’ve been thus far reluctant to admit – the hot weather is now a dim and distant memory and we’re heading into the countdown to winter again. God. And I never made it to swim in any of the lakes. In fact the only time that I even saw Berlin’s lakes was the time that I flew out on a clear mid-winter day and they were all spread out and frozen underneath the plane, looking like a set of mirrored dinner plates.

Here in Deutschland the big news is that Gunter Grass turns out to have been in the Waffen SS. I’ve read a couple of his books and liked them, so was inclined to take the position that what you do at 17 shouldn’t necessarily always be held against you (my own 17 year old self echoes down the years to second this view), especially as there was nothing gas oven-lich involved. However according to the locals it’s the fact that he set himself up as some sort of ‘voice of their conscience’ and preached at them for years that sticks in the collective craw.

I finally made it to Weekend in Alexanderplatz, and got to see the aerial view of all the GDR street planning and architecture. I really love the deliberately anti-corporate, keeping it underground character of Berlin’s clubs, but I wish it didn’t involve eschewing any form of air-flow system or ventilation. I’m not sure I can remember being so hot, and my hair frizzed so much that it ended up looking like a dead sheep on top of my head.

I ran out of marmite so took a risk and bought some vegemite. It turned out to be a grave error and will never be repeated.

Really, that's your girlfriend?

I’m still struggling with the German. Given that it’s such a logical language, you would think that they would have separate words for friend and boyfriend/girlfriend. I’ll admit that I’ve found the all-encompassing ‘freund’ useful when a little ambiguity was called for (when getting chatted up, for example). However I feel very bad indeed that yesterday I told the lonely man in the flat downstairs that the cat he’s taken to feeding is now his girlfriend.

Belgian rock

I had a lot of fun at Pukkelpop. My diet for the three days consisted of nothing but fine Belgian beer and chips. It made me nostalgic for my early 20s, when whole months passed this way (substituting nasty cheap cider for fine Belgian beer). I’m not sure, but I think I may have set a new world record for the most luggage ever carried by one person. Still, it was good to be prepared, as the weather lived down to expecations, and Flemish mud doesn't appear to differ in any significant way from the British variety. The music was great though, especially Hot Chip, Gogol Bordello and of course the magnificent Radiohead.

Note to UK festival organisers – it is in fact possible to run a festival which has queue free and fairly sweet smelling toilets.

And some more

Am finding myself obessively checking five day weather forecasts, prior to the upcoming festival shenanigans in northern Belgium. There are far too many large raindrops and forks of lightning on them for my liking.

On a cheerier note, I just bought some wellies for €2.50 in Karstadt's reject shop in Neuköln. Neuköln is fabulous. The wellies are somewhat lurid, and as I'll have to wear them on my journey to and from the festival site due to the already weighty nature of my backpack, I expect to be attracting a fair bit of attention.

Disappointing weather

Cycling is nowhere near so much fun in the wind and the rain. Particularly the wind, which for some reason is always blowing right at me no matter which direction I'm taking, and which makes me feel as though I'm cycling up a mountain. If it goes on like this I shall have to start taking performance enhancing drugs.

Healthy living

Today I swam for over a kilometre despite having a moderate to severe hangover. That's what's known as defeating your inner pigdog. I won't deny that the inner p.d. put up quite a fight of it.

Good news

Just heard that the insurance are going to cover the rent for my uninhabitable (recently waist deep in sewage) house in the UK.

If that doesn't call for a glass of Aldi €1.39 Cabernet Sauvignon, I don't know what does.

Baking peculiarities

What is it with the sandwiches they make here? They take a bread roll, make a very small incision in one side of it, and then delicately balance the sandwich filling so that it is mostly hanging out of this incision. Certainly only ever about 2% of it is actually in the sandwich. The solidity of German bread means that you can't just pull it apart and force the filling further in, so you basically have about 2 bites of a sandwich and are then left with a dry bread roll. There are better ways to make a sandwich, I would venture to suggest.

DJ Beast

I felt that my DJing debut was a success, though lessons learnt for next time include:

1. stay sober enough to remember that when the music stops it's up to you to put some more on

2. be tougher on homeless men who come in and start busking 'Stairway to Heaven' in the middle of your set

3. the Cocteau Twins is never going to get them twisting in the aisles

Bureaucracy and banging tunes

Have been attempting to fill out my UK tax return. Among other details, they want to know exactly how many days I've spent in the UK since April 2002. After three hours, I was audibly whimpering, and still no nearer completion of the form.

On a brighter note, DJ Beast makes her debut tomorrow night. I'm a little bit concerned that the technology will defeat me (I haven't yet mastered my DVD remote control), but if I can get to grips with it I'm confident of treating everyone to a fine eclectic mix of the best of modern beats.