Der Himmel über Berlin

I have had a task bestowed upon me for the trip to Liverpool. Luckily though, it's a rather painless, and potentially rather fun one.

I, with your help, must investigate the functionality of moblogging in the UK. Moblogging is used quite a lot by our German users, but much less so in BCUK. So my aims would be twofold:

1) To find out for sure which providers support moblogging and index the ones that don't
2) To generally promote moblogging here in BCUK.

So, if you are willing and your phone supports it, I would really appreciate it if you could get set up to moblog. There's a rather good guide here, if I may say so myself.

Maybe you could make a few test moblogs first with the post set to private, as we had some problems before with mobile numbers being displayed. If this happens, let me know via PM.

So hopefully a few of us can be set up to moblog from Liverpool. I'm not sure if my non-UK phone will work, but I'm sure as hell going to try.

And when the rest of the community sees what incredible fun moblogging is, it will take off like wildfire.

Probably. Maybe.

Although Germany is wonderful in so many ways, I have some desires that it simply can't fulfill.

Yes, I'm talking about crisps.

Here, pretty much the only flavour of crisp is paprika. Yes, paprika. How ridiculous. And they also only come in enormous bags which are probably designed to be shared among three or more people. Now even though I am generally a rather generous soul, I don't like sharing my crisps, even if they are paprika. That means that I end up eating the whole enormous packet myself, even though I don't want to. This leaves me with a horrible bloated feeling that doesn't go away until the next day.

Crisps on the islands, however, come in a variety of flavours. I'm not a very big fan of all of these new-fangled flavours like Organic Wild Fermented Gooseberry & Traditional Otter Cheese, just give me good old Cheese & Onion, Salt & Vinegar or Smokey Bacon. The bags are perfectly sized for individual pleasure. Sometimes it's even possible to have a second without any risk of a nasty crisp hangover.

The best crisps are Irish ones, Taytos. When I was a kid, the bag had a picture of Mr. Tayto on it, holding a bag of Taytos which, of course, depicted himself holding a bag of Taytos. This must have continued on to infinity. Crisps made Child Rampage consider existentialism. Now though, the bag looks like this:
.
No existential crisis, but still damn good. I don't think these Taytos exist in the big island. That's ok, I like Walker's too.

So. In one week and four hours, I will be touching down in Liverpool. I know what the first thing I'm going to buy is.

...that TVs bounce.

I was spinning around my newly-furnished living room last night on my new spinny chair. I can only presume that my inability to drive led me to lose control of the vehicle, sending it careening wildly across the room, halting only when it, still carrying me on board, crashed into my new set of shelves.

I watched in horror as my new (second hand) TV toppled, apparently in slow motion, from its 1.5m high perch and landed right on its screen, only to bounce back onto its feet, almost completely undamaged. Apart from the enormous crack across the top of the casing. And the now slightly-dodgy sound.

Still, I learned something from this.

TVs bounce.

Your results:
You are Spider-Man

Spider-Man 85% Green Lantern 65% Hulk 65% The Flash 65% Wonder Woman 64% Catwoman 55% Iron Man 55% Supergirl 54% Robin 47% Batman 45% Superman 45%

You are intelligent, witty, a bit geeky and have great power and responsibility.

Click here to take the Superhero Personality Quiz

This weekend could well be one of the best of my life.

Saturday:
1400 - heading east to see 1.FC Union Berlin v VfB Lübeck.
1600 - A quick sprint to a friend's house for Wales v Ireland
1800 - Celtic cousins v Spiritual home in Scotland v Italy
2000 - The homeland to romp home in Germany v Cyprus

Sunday:
1400 - Another live Regionalliga Nord game, SV Babelsberg 03 v Fortuna Düsseldorf
1800 - The MLS decider, Houston Dynamo v New England Revolution

Oh man, I'm so excited! I love football! Hurrah!

I think this is a really cool meme. Swiped from AJ.

Type in your answer to the questions in Google Images and post any one of the images off the first page. (E.G. - The answer the first question is 24 - for me - so I type in 24 and post any one of those images as my answer).

1. How old will you be on your next birthday?

2. A place you'd like to travel to?

3. Your favourite place?

4. Your favourite object?

5. Your favourite food?

6. Your favourite animal?

7. Your favourite colour?

8. The town in which you were born?

9. The town in which you live?

10. The name of a past pet?

11. The name of a past love?

12. Your nickname?

13. Your first name?

14. Your middle name?

15. Your last name?

16. A bad habit of yours?

17. Your first job?

18. Your grandmothers name?

19. The main subject(s) you studied?

20. What do you think about the person you stole/got the meme off?

What the hell is wrong with Italian football? Another death, an innocent bystander shot accidentally by police trying to stop other fans rioting. Games called off all over the peninsula, one in Bergamo abandoned after fans threatened to riot unless the game was abandoned, fans chanting 'murderers' at the police at other venues. Latest news indicates that the death might not have even been football related. The self-righteous reaction of many 'fans' is sickening. Policeman killed last February, he deserved it. Innocent fan killed, we could be seeing the repurcussions of this for some time to come.

I know Italian football fans are utter assholes. I have no problem saying that. I lived in Genoa for a year to support my team, Sampdoria, luckily without any unpleasant incidents all year long, even at away games. My team are not one of the roughest, however there was alway an utterly insane police presence at all of the games - it looked like Genoa's entire police force was there every Sunday afternoon. For one game, against Milan, two enormous 500m-long walls were constructed at the stadium to allow the Milan team and fans to drive in unmolested. This wasn't because of tension with Samp fans, rather tension with Genoa's other team, Genoa. Fifteen year earlier, a Genoa supporter was killed by Milan fans. Fifteen years on, the Genoa fans were still out for blood. The walls were made to protect Milan from the supporters of a team that weren't even involved in the game.

The hardcore fans, the Ultras, have incredible amounts of power within the club. They can force players they don't like out of the club, their opinions are taken very seriously by the club. This weekend, we saw that they can have games abandoned if they want.

I'm so saddened by this. I want to watch my team play, I was even planning a trip to Genoa in January. I'm not scared to go now, I just don't want any part in this. It's not even about football anymore, it probably hasn't been for some time for many of Italy's 'fans'. Resentmant towards alleged police aggression will remain high, I'll be surprised if we don't see some revenge attacks on the police.

Enough. I feel sick. It's just a game.

Some more info here and here.

The other night I was out with some colleagues watching the football.

We were chatting about how odd things can sometimes be with the English speaking community here in Berlin - all four of us met on English camp during the summer, and all four of us were amazed that the two Americans came from one of America's smallest states, both having been convinced that there couldn't possibly be any more Vermonters living in Berlin.

The Aussie then piped up that he worked with a girl who grew up five minutes away from his home in Brisbane. Amazing, we all agreed, that three of the four of us happened to have such unlikely chance encounters.

All bar me, it seemed. I assured them that there was no-one else from my little rural Irish hometown in Berlin, it simply wasn't possible. I'm the only one and that's that.

I began chatting to a Spanish guy sitting next to me. He thought I was Scottish, easy mistake to make, I was wearing my Scotland jersey. I set the record straight, telling him that I'm Irish, at which point his face lit up.

'Ireland!', he exclaimed. 'I spent a summer there four year ago. Some small town; began with M. Pretty boring'

The potential for extreme weirdness hadn't hit, I just wanted to know what rural backwater he had the misfortune of spending a summer in. I began to cajole the long-forgotten information out of him. I named a few towns beginning with M. Nothing. Then suddenly, from nowhere, it came.

'MULLINGAR!'

An absolutely random Spanish guy spent a summer in my little town. Impossible. Unbelievable. He named some of the 'landmarks'. It was my town all right. I retreated to a corner and rocked back and forth for a while. Not possible. Not possible. Not possible.

But, there you go. The world is a village. One with a supremely-timed sense of irony.

This day two years ago I landed in Berlin for the first time, not knowing that it was going to change me utterly. If I did, I probably would have been too frightened to come.

Back then, I was fresh out of university and just aching to get out of Ireland, anywhere would do. I was naive and innocent, not really aware of how tough real life could be, thanks to the warm cocoon of university life and parental support.

At first I was absolutely focussed on short-term goals, content with having enough to eat on a day-to-day basis, and if I happened to scrape enough together to pay my rent, all the better.

I was revolting against everything that I had hated about my university time, the pressure to succeed, to get on the career ladder, to start thinking about houses, cars...all the things that, as far as I'm concerned, people think they need but actually don't.

Everyone at home was worried about me. Flushing my life down the toilet, I was. So much talent, they told me, so little desire to use it. Fuck them. I was doing what I wanted. I was, I suppose, happy. Waking up disgracefully hungover at 1pm, peeling myself out of bed to give a few hours English lessons, setting about making tomorrow's hangover.

I slowly tired of that. I got a proper job, a bit more security, fell wildly in love for the first time in my life. Then I knew I was happy. I started working more, proper teaching jobs, no fucking around. I had money to spend, it was good. I had a girl I would have done anything for. All of a sudden the disapproval from the island began to melt. Job, money, girl, that's all it took.

I've lost my girl since then, but I recently moved into my own place which I am furnishing and making my own with all my spare time and effort. It seems to be putting a hardly-deserved shine of respectablity on my life here. Sometimes I think I'm stubbornly staying here just to show everyone that they were fucking wrong. I love it when I have visitors from home who marvel at the fact that I have an 'enormous' apartment all to myself, despite, in their eyes, being something of a waster. They know that despite their great jobs, they can't have the same - it's just not possible where they live.

I'm probably still naive and innocent. I'm still a short-term goal kinda guy, just a bit more responsible now. I feel that I'm here to find out what exactly it is that I can offer the world. When I figure it out, y'all better watch out for me. In the meantime, Berlin will continue to astound me, fill me with the most incredible highs and lows, show me just how wonderful people can be, but most of all, let me lead the life I want to lead.

Here's a (non-exhaustive) list of things I like and don't like. Just so you have a slightly better idea of what to expect from me in Liverpool.

I like:
Football.
Beer.
Teaching.
My hair.
Thunderstorms.
Old couples who hold hands.
Trains.
Mountains.
Football jerseys.
Tabletennis.
Berlin.
Pasta.
Italy.
Depressing books.
Shit action films.
Language barriers.
Eating too much.
Brown eyes.
Biting.
Learning languages.
Tuna.
Booking things on the Internet.
Strawberries.
Having lots to do.
Actions that speak louder than words.
Walking.
Walking while hungover.
Walking in the rain.
People who laugh at silly things.
Camping.
Cycling.
Dinosaurs.
Grammar.

I don't like:
Late trains.
Crowded trains.
Crowds in general.
Modesty.
Cucumbers.
Dublin.
Mosquitos.
Ignorant people.
Sweetcorn.
People who get embarrassed easily.
Lifts.
People who walk slowly on the footpath.
Clutter.
That horrible bloated feeling when you've eaten too many crisps.
Alcoholic beverages over 15%.
Rhetorical questions.
Indecisiveness.

Anyone else fancy sharing theirs?

Hey Steve,

http://www.montblancguides.com/

Above is the link to the MT Blanc expedition website - checked around and overall this one is the best value for money in terms of equipment provided, training and accommodation. It's £1195 including almost everything.

Anyway prob wont book anything until end of Jan / start of Feb, so plenty of time to let me know if you're on for it, hope you are - it should be unreal.

Slan Tamall,
Alan.

*Has panic attack*

How the hell am I going to save £1195 in just a few months? Isn't that about €4,000,000?

On my arrival to blog HQ moments ago, interrupting a support team conversation:

philippe1978: You're a pig, aren't you?

Me: Er...

nittygritty: No he's not, he's a man.

Blaubeerina: He's not a man, he's Irish.

Me: What the...?

nittygritty: Hmmmph! Better to be Irish than a man...

I love arriving in the middle of conversations, especially ones that call me a Irish pig non-man. Germans!

...I just booked my flights to Liverpool.

Arriving Friday, November 30th at 1615, leaving the next day at 1130.

I am very excited.