Der Himmel über Berlin

So there I was, in the bus shelter with my two buddies in a small town in northern France, shivering in the freezing December wind. Our search for booze yielded nothing more than a large number of closed pubs, the town deserted. The best we found was a drunk passed out in an alleyway, but none of us were brave enough to ask him for a swig of the elusive elixir that had conferred such an enviable state upon him.

Our chatter petered out as the night progressed, our watches seemingly refusing to approach the magical 0500 that would allow us to sit on a nice warm train bound for Lille. We were drifting into an uncomfortable half-slumber when the silence was interrupted by an ear-splitting scream, as sudden and unexpected as it was frightening and brutal. We were immediately wide awake and saw a young woman across the street, the wind whipping her long dark hair into a frenzy. The devilish sound was undoubtedly coming from her. Aside from us whimpering Micks in the bus shelter, and the frightening apparition some 200 metres away, there wasn't a soul to be seen.

Some thirty seconds after she started, and just as suddenly, she stopped. She retreated calmly back into the building that one of my buddies saw her come from.

I am convinced she was a banshee. Thus, number one is, as far as I am concerned, true.

-----

Almost a year later, I took off to visit some friends in Finland. Due to the vagaries of budget airline travel, I went via Riga and decided to spend a few days there on the way back since I had never been there before.

As I was undertaking this leg of the journey by myself, and am not such a huge fan of travelling alone, I booked a bed in a dormitory in a city centre hostel, certain that this would help me meet some fellow travellers to keep me company.

The dorm, on the top floor of a ancient building, ramshackle on the outside but pleasantly renovated on the inside, was completely empty. Curses. Flying solo after all then.

After an exhausting day of rambling around and being lonely with a couple of beers, I hit the sack early. From the thirteen beds on offer, I chose a bottom bunk in a corner by the window and soon drifted into a perfectly normal sleep.

I woke with a start some hours later, with a strong feeling that I was not alone. My sleepy mumble of 'hello' went without response. My whole body felt strangely itchy, much more than simply a mosquito bite or any normal itch. I slowly became aware of a presence standing at the bottom of my bed, but, oddly, I felt no malevolence. I perceived the presence to be that of a little girl, who circled my bed along the side tight against the wall. She seemed to be quite intrigued by me, and nothing more.

Still far from awake, I reached out to turn on the light on my phone to get a better look. As soon as I did this, she was gone.

And thus ends the story of my meeting with a friendly ghost.

So I am pleased to report that number three was the lie, I have never encountered a poltergeist. I hope I never do, as I would certainly poop my pants with extreme petrification.

...is what I am.

Yes, you were ALL right, I can't play the bagpipes. I blame the music I was listening to at the time for making me come up with such a pathetically unbelievable lie.

And I thought going through four countries in six hours was pretty unbelievable. If anyone is interested, it was Berlin to Dublin to Brussels to Lens in northern France. My team only needed a draw to advance to the next round but conceded two late goals to get knocked out, stranding me in one of the shittest towns in the world for the night, since no trains were in operation until 5a.m. Even though the local team had pulled out all the stops to go through, there was not a single pub open to celebrate their unlikely victory. Consigned to a night of shivering sobriety in France - my idea of a nightmare.

I had written a lot more about this story, as something quite odd happened that night. But then I realised that this oddity actually makes for a much better lie game.

So here goes, round two:

1). I am convinced that I have seen a banshee.
2). I am convinced that I have met a friendly ghost.
3). I am convinced that I have encountered a poltergeist.

And then I think it will be time for a good, old-fashioned exchange of ghost stories. Anyone have any to offer?

Go on then, pick the one lie out these three. Might not be very difficult, as I tell everyone everything anyway.

1). Despite always claiming to have no musical ability whatsoever, I can play the bagpipes to a very competent level

2). During that scene in Brokeback Mountain, the female companion I was watching it with became, shall we say, very frisky and forced me to miss the rest of the movie

3). I once passed through four different countries in six hours to see my favourite football team play a game.

I was in Latvia at the weekend.

It was tremendous, reassuring, old-fashioned fun.

And my mindless disregard for my own financial well-being might even manage to haul Latvia out of the depressed fug of overpriced everything and underpaid everyone.

Either that, or it will remind all Rigans that every English-speaking tourist is there to be utterly fleeced, especially the ones that rent out paddle boats and deliberately paddle under fountains. Five times.

Most especially the ones that impersonate well-known members of the Latvian Green Party.

Other highlights included an amazing 8-1 win for FC Skonto over their local rivals Olimpjs, that we would have seen had it 1). been played in the stadium it was scheduled to be played in, and 2) had it taken place at the time it was scheduled to have taken place at;

the Latvian seaside:
The most amazing diagram ever, EVER, at an open-air museum:

Creepy nouveau-traditional Latvian sculptures:

And and even creepier former Soviet government building

MIght have some more to say about the weekend tomorrow, might not. Time will tell.

Those who know me know that I am not a very ambitious or motivated individual. This has always been the case, through my late teenage years with admonishments of wasted talent ringing in my years, all the way up to modern-day mid-twenties me. The only difference is that now the admonishments come more from me than those nearest and dearest to me, concerned for my future.

Attempts to change this generally follow the same pattern - a couple of hour's dedicated job hunting, or soul searching, or checking out university courses, followed by me getting bored, taking a break for a cup of tea and forgetting all about my malcontent for another few months.

Reflecting on these pathetically brief mustering of energy always upset me. Am I really that incapable of hauling myself out of a rut?

But this last week has shown me why I am so tragically uninterested in professionally developing myself - I haven't seen anything that is truly right for me. When I do see it though, the application gets finished and sent in record time, and fingers get crossed to the point of making me look like a polio sufferer.

Like the private school in Charlottenburg looking for a part-time English teacher to work with sixteen to twenty year olds preparing for the school-leaving exams. Or like the translation agency looking for native English speakers to translate Italian football websites into English.

I'm quite vastly underqualified for both of them, but I want them both so badly and know that I would be very good at both of them. And they wouldn't interfere with my BCUK work or camp work.

*recrosses fingers even harder*

A friend of mine just sent me this link. He said that it reminded him of me.

Feel free to watch, but do not feel free to ask why. Be warned, it's a little vulgar.

(it's probably blatantly obvious anyway)

When I lived in Italy, one of my students game me a ticket to an Italy v Spain friendly game. Result, I thought, until I found out that the ticket was in the Genoa section, the hated rivals of my beloved Sampdoria. Undeterred, I went along anyway and spent the ninety minutes biting my lip - the only course of action available to a true and loyal Samp fan surrounded by the vitriol-spouting inbred oiks that are Genoa fans. I was Luke Skywalker among twenty thousand Darth Vaders, and they had no inkling of my true identity.

When I am back on the island, sometimes going to a religious occasion is unavoidable. Be it a christening, a funeral or Christmas mass, I have to sit quietly in the pews between my folks, trying my best not to burst into devil flame while sprouting horns and a forked tail. I might perhaps manage to muster up a prayer or blessing or two to continue the pretence. I bet even one or two of the blinder members of the congregation have mistaken me for a believer.

What I am trying to say is that sometimes, despite generally being something of a blunt loudmouth, I can manage to suspend my beliefs and blend into the background when necessary.

Tonight, however, these abilities will undergo their sternest examination yet.

I am going to a vegetarian buffet with my two favourite veggobblers, sweetymon and nittygritty, and am skeptical as to whether I will be able to resist the urge pick up the nearest animal and start chewing on it.

I promise to try my best though. I just hope nittygritty doesn't bring her dog along.

Oh you triangular wedge of joy
You are better than bananas
In the way that my favourite aunt is better than my second favourite aunt
Your tomato slice
Falls cheekily out
As I unwrap you
I want to eat you all in one go
But then you'd be all gone
And that would make me sad
Even though I wouldn't be as hungry

With all this BNP and election talk bouncing around my ears, all of which genuinely interests me, I think it's time I made a little confession.

I've never voted in my life.

This is not completely my fault. Soon after my eighteenth birthday, I registered to vote in what I think was probably the 2002 General Election, only to find out on my arrival at the polling station that my registration had been cocked up and that my barely-broken voice would be smothered by the marvellous party of ineffiency that takes place in Irish administrative services on a daily basis. Add my departure for foreign shores soon after into the equation and I almost have a valid excuse.

I always declare that I have very little interest in politics, but I am beginning to see that that is not strictly true. I couldn't care less about Presidential or General elections - I don't feel that they affect my life in any real way. I would vote if I had the chance, but more to prevent someone I didn't like from getting into office. There is no BNP equivalent on the Little Island, and since I don't believe that Ireland will have an O'bama anytime soon - a radiating beam of light, vanquishing all the feckless rogues that have populated the Irish political scene in the interest of self-service for as long as I can remember, my voting card is quite likely to remain dusty and invalid for quite some time.

Certain referenda, however, I would like to vote in. The Lisbon Treaty, for one - if I had thought for one moment that it would be rejected, I would have registered. Maybe I'll sort that out for round two.

Maybe.

Someone I know has just moved into an apartment near Berlin's well-known Bergmannkiez - an area full of little cafes, restaurants, pubs and shops of every description.

Going to visit this person is a monumental effort of willpower for me.

Not because I don't want to see her, quite the opposite.

But when I am assaulted by the delicious smells of Tibetan, Italian, Thai, Turkish and Indian food from all angles (and this only on the one-minute walk from the u-bahn station), my desire to eat goes out of control, regardless of how full I already am.

So, in an effort to restrain me, we have decided to systematically eat in every single restaurant and cafe on the block, in order. We started last Monday in the Tibetan place directly downstairs (thank goodness the glorious aromas don't waft up to the living room - if they did I would surely have jumped out the window in a frenzied fit of gluttony by now).

It's probably going to take the whole summer to get through them all, but we are determined, we are focussed, and most importantly, we are gluttons. Or, at least, I am - and that will be enough to see us through.

Of course, if anyone wants to help us, you are more than welcome to pop by for a feast. Just be warned - it won't be pretty.

This morning, two people were having a blazing row right outside my bedroom window. They were standing face to face, bellowing at each other.

Even though they were speaking German, it was still a language I don't understand. Shouting really is beyond comprehension for me (disclaimer: not when it is to do with football) - how can anyone possibly think that the best way to get someone to see your point is by raising your voice and getting aggressive?

There is a large part of me that tries as much as possible to avoid conflict, due to general pacifism and apathy but much more so due to how frustratingly emotional and close to tears I get when dealing with difficult and belligerent people.

However, on the few occasions in my life that a discussion has resulted in someone shouting at me, it's been like an enormous weight off my shoulders. At that point, I calmly ask the person to stop shouting at me, and then calmly walk away. I am safe in the knowledge that that person is not in possession of the requisite brainpower to have a discussion, and is therefore no longer worthy of my time.

By the time I came down the stairs to head off to blog HQ, the pair were still standing face to face, but in a far different pose from the one I had witnessed from my bedroom window.

Different strokes for different folks.

My sofa has been transformed from a bed back into a sofa, the living room is no longer a bedroom and my little bed is my own again.

The washing machine has been going non-stop, cleaning stinky fart-ridden sheets and clothes caught in unpredictable and aggressive summer downpours.

The kitchen has been sterilised from top to bottom and leftovers polished off in swashbucklingly gluttonous style, well in keeping with mood of the previous few days.

Yes, the Second Berlin Blogmeet is over and done with, and I am filled with the warm contentment that comes with knowing that a long and sober sleep is coming my way very shortly.

I want to thank everyone that came all the way over here to hang out and see Berlin and blog HQ. And to anyone who was disappointed by blog HQ, I did warn that it was just a boring office, albeit one always stocked with a crate of beer...

I love this town and I love blogging, so if you all left here feeling a little more positively towards those two things, then I feel that it was a very successful and worthwhile weekend.

And if not, well, I still laughed a lot, ate a lot of excellent food, drank a lot of excellent beer and all in all had a bloody good time.

Thanks, y'all.

There's been a violent thunder and lightening storm going on for the last couple of hours, providing us with some much-needed relief from the sweaty humidity of the last few days.

I am safe from it up here in blog HQ, and not just because I have my earphones in and music blaring at maximum volume.

Yes, I am a little uneasy about wild streaks of pure power flashing through the sky, followed by inexplicable (keep out of this, scientists amongst you) rolling growls of brute force.

I think it stems from the behaviour of the dog we had when I was a kid, who would positively lose his mind before the storm had even started. He was a pretty big guy, and caused no small amount of panic in the youthful Rampage household upon deciding that he wanted to jump out a (closed) window.

Quite often, he'd succeed in escaping and would be absent for several days. My folks would drive around the neighbourhood, looking for the insane and bedraggled figure of Shep, still trying vainly to outrun the danger. After a few unsuccessful forays, they'd have to gently start preparing us for the worst.

He always turned up though, either of his own accord or recognised by a neighbour who would either try to catch him or let us know his vague whereabouts.

Shep's in the Happy hunting Ground now, and I hope he has enough sticks to chase and arses to sniff to distract him from what's going on down here.

When in class with my adult students, I generally find myself presenting opinions that I don't actually have, or forming opinions on things right there and then, in order to provoke conversation in English. Playing the devil's advocate, so to speak, if the devil were grammatical and syntactical correctness, which it probably is to my long-suffering learners.

Anyway, today we were talking about Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, a dark and depressing depiction of a future in which people no longer feel love or emotions, and where there are no more pregnancies or births as babies are grown artificially. As well as many other miserable things that we can have nice chat about over a cyanide or two at a later date.

So, being as provocative as I can be while fully clothed, I formed the opinion impulsively that the ability to love stems from the act of growing within a human body for the first nine months of existence. Not that the love is specific to the person inside whom the infant is developing, just that the ability to love comes simply from the fact that another person has given up their body to allow you to exist until you're ready to pop out and start getting fecked up on soma.

Removing this sacrifice from the act of creation would remove the ability to love.

Any thoughts?

(Grammatical and syntactical errors, you will be glad to hear, will be overlooked.)

I just remembered something I've been intending to post for ages now. It might have been the fact that I saw the (dreadful) Wolverine movie this week that reminded me...

Anyway, I think I feel the need to insert a little disclaimer before we get down to business.

I am a very shallow individual. I like beautiful things - from pretty flowers to mountains to architecture to cute baby animals to attractive people. And although I am much more of a fan of the female form, sometimes I see a man and think 'pwhoar!'.

These are my man-crushes, the men that make me go 'pwhoar!'

1. Me
I am self-obsessed as well as very shallow.
No pics forthcoming on this one, there is a limit to my arrogance.

2. Desmond from LOST

Phwoar! Look at him there, with his billowing hair, running around the beach saving everyone. Brown eyes, too. I have a thing for brown eyes. Let's not forget the Scottish accent too. Hot, hot, hot.

2. Hugh Jackman

Grr! I think I like Mr.Jackman because he is versatile. Want someone to beat up a bad guy, just because he can? Done! Want the clean-cut, dapper and sophisticated look? He can do that too, once he has wiped the blood splatters off his face. It's not his blood, of course.

3. Thierry Henry

Aside from his amazing footballing abilities, this man personifies elegance. And look, ugly ducklings! Thierry wasn't always the hot shit that he is now, oh no. He rose from those mustachioed days, throwing the necklace in bin and shaving off the perm while simutaneously scoring a hat-trick and saving baby dolphins from being eaten by hungry sharks.

And that's my list.

I am off to wait from a call from my mother, asking me (again) if I am gay.

I really have been a quite dreadful blogger of late.

Aside from the fact that not much of interest has been happening, I am really quite distracted. It is common for me to have my attention wholly occupied by a single thing - usually football, mountains or bikes. When this happens, I think of little else until the phase has passed.

What is unusual though, is that this time my attention is completely focussed on a person rather than a pastime.

She'll be here in just over a week, and maybe then normal service will resume.

Cyclists all over Berlin, my name is Rampage and I'm here to recruit you!

We are victims. Evidence suggesting that we have been identified as the main evil in society has been mounting over recent months. Do those in power really believe that targetting us environmentally-friendly, efficient and cost-effective commuters will really reap positive rewards for society in general? What about the inattentive drivers who attempt right turns across bike paths without looking behind them? What about the cretinous pedestrian who is unaware of the difference between cycle paths and footpaths? Who controls the driver who opens his the door of his fume-belching vehicle onto the road, crippling one of our kind? WHO, my brothers and sisters, WHO?

Just yesterday, my two wheel-loving comrades, I was a victim once more. Despite what the pedants, fuel-guzzlers and mouthbreathers in our society will try to make you believe, we cyclists are aware of the rules that govern our presence on the road, and we adhere to them.

I know I'm not supposed to cycle on the footpath. I know this. However, when I have NO CHOICE, and when I cycle on the footpath for a total of ONE METRE, I expect a certain amount of discretion to be shown.

But no. No chance of that. I actually thought it was a joke. I started laughing. Completely inconceivable, isn't it, that someone crossing two roads to get to a different cycle path, a path that is impossible to reach by the road alone, could be halted for not dismounting, walking for two steps and remounting.

Apparently not.

Luckily, I have been able to employ the latest satellite technology to highlight the injustice of the case.

Look for yourselves.

Enjoy my €5, Ordnungsamt, because when my regime of civic disobedience begins, you won't be seeing any more of them for a long, long while.

At the weekend, I helped a friend move house.

She lives in the area where I used to live over a year ago, and I hadn't been back there since I left. To say I have negative memories associated with that area of town is quite the understatement. My moving duties didn't actually take me right to the area in question, but I decided to go there anyway. There didn't seem to be any point in avoiding it any more.

First, the street where I lived on my own for six months, and had huge problems with water damage and a landlord who did nothing about it for four months. There was a new shop open just across the street called 'Britain in Neukölln' and sells all sorts of island produce, including cheddar cheese and Walker's crisps. Result!

Despite enormous temptation at that point to end my expedition into the murky depths of my past, I decided to continue on to the next street, where I lived with my ex for a year.

I don't really know what I was expecting. Just a normal street with normal people walking on it, going about their normal business, just like me. The big stretch of wasteland by the railway tracks is now a huge shopping centre. Some nice cafés have sprung up and normal people were sitting at normal tables outside in the normal sun, drinking their normal coffee.

Normality. Not a war zone, no bombed out buildings, no corpses strewn around the streets, no fear, no desperation, no pain, no suffering.

It's even a better version of the normality that I knew there. There's a new energy to the area, it's revitalised, it really isn't such a bad place to be.

That's what it's like in my head too.

Finally.

...and, surviving a late assault by Cedric, HUGO is the winner!

Hurrah!

Thank you all for voting. Hugo and I appreciate it very much.

We have been spending a lot of time together recently, and are beginning to understand each other quite well. Yesterday we covered almost 50km, today around 20km and tomorrow will probably be about another 20km.

My legs feel like lead sausages, but it is definitely worth it.

At John Lennon airport last Monday, after I said my goodbyes to sweetymon (which, for some reason, attracted the ire of some onlookers - I can't imagine why...) I had some spare sterlings to get rid of.

Cheese, of course, was the highest priority on my shopping list, closely followed by crisps. Yes, yes, I know, even after a weekend of the most preposterous indulgence imaginable, I was still thinking of eating. You'd understand if you lived in the cheese and crisp desert that is Germany. And were a glutton. And had no shame whatsoever.

Anyway, there was no cheese to be found, so I stocked up on crisps. A quick check of my remaining funds (it wasn't quick. It was a prolonged examination. I find it impossible to count sterlings quickly, the stupid tiny 20p always throws me, as does the stupid enormous 10p) indicated that I might have enough to purchase a book. I like books. Maybe not as much as cheese and crisps, but I definitely like them.

Deciding that I wasn't really interested in Victoria Beckham, Charlotte Church or Jade Goody's autobiographies (at least one of them is definitively conclusive...), the 'Classics' section caught my eye. Excellent, I could use some Wilde wit at the moment. Or maybe I could try (again, and most likely, vainly) to like Dickens.

But no. The Classics in Liverpool airport are Maeve Binchy and Danielle Steele.

Is this the end of society as we know it?

This blogger fears the worst.