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.