Der Himmel über Berlin

I learned about the bizarre Phantom Limb Syndrome from Jamie Andrew's excellent book Life and Limb - he's a mountaineer who lost both feet and both hands in a mountaineering accident. For weeks, months and even years after amputation, sufferers still feel their long-departed limbs - one in particular felt a splinter that he had had in his thumb at the time of amputation for the rest of his life. Even though the thumb had long since been sent to Berlin and ground up for use in döner kebabs. Probably without removing the splinter.

On English Camp, we do lots of crafty workshops with the kids. One of them is Friendship Bracelets - not just stylish and trendy, but great for giving to a special someone. And great for shutting the little feckers up for an hour or two. Last October, a colleague made a bracelet for me, and I vowed to wear it until it fell off of natural causes.

Which happened the other day.

Since then, I have been suffering greatly from Phantom Friendship Bracelet Syndrome.

My wrist feels all naked and super-light. I fear that my hand may fall off.

But there's a bigger worry coming from this - I also wear a sandalwood necklace (much sexier than it sounds) that my sister gave me in India, as well as getting one for herself and her boyfriend. We vowed to wear them until we see each other again, which will probably be July. Now I am just afraid of Phantom Necklace Syndrome. However will I function with a naked neck and a fear that my head will fall off at any moment?

Gosh, I really am talking rubbish today.

I know a man who has worked tirelessly in the same job for the last forty-three years.

How he did this is beyond me.

Dedication to supporting his family must have played a big part in it. In typical Irish fashion, they don't overtly acknowledge everything he has done for them - sometimes it's not necessary to say these things.

This, however, is not one of those times.

He's retiring next week, and I can't think of anyone who is more deserving of, finally, having some time to do exactly what he wants to do.

Derby winning dogs will be bred. Well-deserved holidays will be taken. And who knows what else?

Let the fun begin!

I get on really well with my housemates. We're always leaving little notes and presents and flowers for each other all over the apartment, as well as cooking for each other and generally being the perfect examples of how four not particularly tidy people can live in remarkable harmony and tidiness.

So when V bounced into the kitchen last night, announcing she had a present for me, I got pretty excited.

Then she pulled this out from behind her back:

The words on the front are 'ARMPIT SMELL STOP extra strong'.

You see, I told them all about my sweating issue, and even though it was unanimously agreed that I don't stink (despite the rampaging sweat patches), she decided to do some research in the chemist for me. How thoughtful!

And the even better news is that it fecking works. I have had an incredibly dry morning (in so many ways - I was sorting our tax issues...). I smell a little steralised, a bit like a hospital ward, but I can live with that for now. But let's not rule out the fact that it could be down to the incredibly low temperatures and hailstorms ravaging Berlin at the moment.

I would say that I would keep you updated, but not even someone as self-involved as me could believe that anyone wants that.

My weekend was a jigsaw that had all the pieces thrown up in the air.

They arranged themselves while they were up there, jostled for position and landed in unison, perfectly completing the puzzle.

One of the pieces had to be picked up from the airport before all of this could happen though, and she had to be brought on several exhausting walking tours around Berlin. Well, it wasn't the walking that was exhausting, more so the breaks from walking. You see, the breaks involved so much self-indulgence in the shape of frothy home-brewed German beers and almost disgraceful amounts of food that these two pieces of the puzzle began to fear that they might not actually fit into their place in the overall scheme of things.

Another piece arrived from Latvia. That piece hadn't been a part of the puzzle for quite a while, but it was marvellous that his presence coincided with this:

A lot of very important pieces did their jostling to some excellent music while surrounded by weird and wonderful artwork. This piece felt honoured to have so many other pieces that mean so much to him all in one room - some old, some new, all imperative to the completion of the puzzle.

Yes, everything really did fall into place this weekend. Thanks y'all.

Not that it matters to anyone bar yours truly, but Google Maps have finally brought their street view to somewhere I can relate to. Genoa!

This is the first place I lived. Well, actually you can't see it, it was a dank little basement to the right of the pretty building you can see here. Look at the vespas! And the sunshine! And the palm trees!

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So after a few months I had enough of the basement and moved to this place, halfway up a mountain. Unfortunately my room was at the back so you can't see my window. It was on the fifth floor, good training. You can also see the little bakery around the corner where I got my daily bread, and my daily attempt to talk to the hot bread girl without stammering. That always failed, but the bread was always good. Ah, memories. Thanks Google!

View Larger Map

Now I just need to wait for Ireland and Berlin to get mapped...

Since everyone in Germany is legally required to have health insurance, I thought I'd better set about getting some. The whole thing is basically a scam - the cheapest one I found by miles is an extortionate €117 per month, and for that I get absolutely NOTHING until my medical bills go over €750. I am trying not to think about how much I will end up paying per year, and what sort of amazingly wonderful trip I could have with that money instead.

But before they agree to insure me, I have to have check-ups by a doctor and a dentist.

I haven't been to a dentist in about five years.

I'm sure he's going to find all sorts of things that need to be done, even though I have never had any problems with my teeth, ever. Couple this with the inevitable ticking-off I will get for having gone so long without a check-up makes me very reluctant to go indeed. But go I shall.

Even more bothersome than this though, is the checklist that my doctor is going to have to go through with me. Lots of standard stuff that you'd expect, blah blah blah.

But then, near the bottom of the long list (in German of course), with its very own little box that will have to be ticked, is something very frightening indeed.

Analfisteln.

The mind boggles.

I spend quite a lot of time walking and on trains in my daily life, and usually think of about a million things that I want to blog while spacing out the window of the u-bahn or strolling over to blog HQ.

But then as soon as I plonk myself down in front of a computer, my mind goes completely and totally blank. Nothing. No recollection of the plethora of genius ideas that had, up until seconds ago, been frantically bashing their way around my head like drunk Irish people trying to get to the bar for last orders on St. Patrick's Day.

Ah, St. Patrick's Day! That was one of them.

Four years ago, I made a vow to myself never ever again to be in Ireland on March 17th - I'm not great in crowds at the best of times, but when they are incredibly drunk and patriotic crowds, then count me out.

That said though, I am wearing an Ireland t-shirt and a Ireland rugby top. Very green indeed. And I have forced my housemates to wear green too. I would go out celebrating, but I already accidentally celebrated Paddy's Day on Saturday - I went for dinner with a Norwegian friend who thought it was on the 14th and had therefore stocked up on large amounts of Guinness and Kilkenny.

So we set about de-stocking the Guinness and Kilkenny. Successfully. Very successfully indeed.

Plus, Germany is quite apathetic about the whole thing, and rightly so. The Spree is still a murky brownish colour, and I have not yet spotted anyone else wearing green. By rights I should pinch them. But my ambivalence is far too overwhelming for that.

Quite poppy, sure, but I can't stop listening to it. It's from the new album 'Blue Lights On The Runway'. It is outstanding.

May 7th, Bang Bang Club.

Click here please.

I have a slightly odd tendency to read several books at a time.

There's the one in the kitchen that I read while having breakfast or an afternoon cup of tea. Currently it's Michael Palin's Full Circle. It documents his journey all around the Pacific Circle, starting in Alaska, down through China, Vietnam, the Philippines, Australia, New Zealand, then up through Chile, Peru, Colombia...well, you get the picture. I love Michael Palin. The effortless charm of his writing style lies in its simplicity and his sense of humour, which is much more subtle that Monty Python ever showed. I am sure that I am not the only one who desperately wants to go on holiday with him. He's everyone's favourite uncle.

The one in my bag for on-train entertainment during the day is With Cyclists Around the World. It was written by five young Indian men in the mid-twenties, as they cycled around the world over the course of four years. Yes, in the 1920s. At the moment, they are in Persia and they have to walk across deserts because bikes don't work so well in deep sand. Poor guys. What an oversight in the planning department. Their map indicates that they will cycle through Italy, Berlin and Ireland, so I am very intrigued.

And the one beside my bed for late-night reading, which I have just finished, is Last Chance To See by Douglas Adams, he of Hitchhiker fame. This one is not science fiction though - he travels around the world with zoologist Mark Cawardine, looking to catch a glimpse of some of the world's most endangered animals. Douglas Adams being Douglas Adams, it combines hilarity and thoughtfulness in ways that you could never conceive of.

I didn't select those three books for any reason other than they looked interesting. I didn't notice the overwhelmingly similar theme until today.

Looks like the escapism is still alive and well in Rampersville.

So, watcha reading yourself?

I was fourteen on the day of the Omagh bombing. It was the only incident in the long history of the Troubles that had any real effect on me. Still, it seemed terribly distant from my life despite the fact that my life was a mere 150km away from the rubble and bodies strewn across the main street of Omagh, a middle-sized provincial town just like my own.

All the bombings, all the murders, all the hate, all the pain and suffering were easy for my teenage brain to put into a box labelled 'Bad Stuff' which could then be shunted to the back of my mind.

And up until very recently, that is where they have stayed. People frequently ask me about Northern Ireland and I never really contribute anything more than saying it's a very beautiful place and the people are truly wonderful and incredibly hospitable. I tell them that our family holidays almost always stopped just at the border and on the few occasions when we ventured into 'The UK', as my uncle liked to call it, the armed policemen and army vehicles thrilled my youthful mind with a vague sense of excitement and danger.
And sweets were cheaper there.

So the recent outbreaks of violence surprised me for a number of reasons.

One, that they happened at all. Hadn't we moved on from that? Aren't we a forward-thinking, peace-loving nation where acts of senseless violence are the work of sad reasonless loners working alone, people who we pity more than despise?
Apparently not.

Two, how much they saddened me. How much I felt that it was an assault on every single one of us islanders. How utterly inexplicable it must be for the families of those killed. How fucking dare they, how fucking dare anyone take arms in the name of something as ridiculous as a united Ireland? The idea is laughable, nothing more than deleting a line on a map. What are we if not united, not just the island, but all of Europe? Borders don't mean anything any more. Mission already accomplished.

And in another way, it really isn't surprising at all. It's no coincidence that the last eleven years of peace have coincided with eleven years of unprecedented prosperity for everyone on the island - minimal unemployment, free education, an influx of foreigners to do the jobs no-one wanted to do any more, more than enough money for everyone. Not a situation that promotes the growth of extremism.

Then, bang, suddenly we have unemployment again, we have dissatisfaction, we have marginalisation, we have impressionable people who can be brainwashed into believing that there's something to be achieved by taking arms, the label of nationalism giving a level of justification to the violence that would find a way out regardless of whatever vaguely thought-out 'cause' it represents.

There have been a couple of people arrested, one of them is seventeen. He was six when the Omagh bomb went off. He has never seen the violence that he is trying to plunge us back into.

I'm angry now. These people are not Irish. They represent nothing and no-one. They are the tragic remains of a chapter in a book that the people of Ireland were shocked into closing eleven years ago.

From wikipedia:

Symmetry, especially facial symmetry, is one of a number of aesthetic traits, including averageness and youthfulness, associated with health, physical attractiveness and beauty of a person or non-human animal according to the authors of Facial Attractiveness: Gillian Rhodes, Leslie A. Zebrowitz. It is also hypothesized as a factor in both interpersonal attraction and interpersonal chemistry.

Why then, does my right armpit sweat significantly more than my left?

And why does my facial hair grow much faster on the left side of my face than on my right?

Answers on a non-symmetrical postcard.

A couple of weeks ago, I had dinner with my three housemates, an ex-housemate and our middle-aged neighbours. Intimidatingly German, the whole thing, but nonetheless very enlightening indeed.

One of the main topics of discussion was religion, hardly unexpected when you consider that my ex-housemate's dad is a Protestant minister, while my two neighbours, my housemate (who was born in the godless GDR ) and I are quite staunchly anti-religion.

It was through one of the long-winded and frequently animated discussions that I learned that Berlin is having a referendum on April 26th to decide whether to change the way religion is currently taught in schools.

As things stand, religion is an optional subject that students can take part in after school if they so wish. It is specific to their own religious denomination. In addition to this, there is a compulsory subject called 'Ethik', which gives kids an overview of all world religions. It aims to develop an understanding and respect for all religions, nationalities and ethnicities.

Should the changes come into place on April 26th, kids will have to choose between studying their own religion exclusively and 'Ethik'.

I think my opinion on this is not very hard to predict. In such a culturally diverse city such as Berlin, it is vitally important that the next generation of Berliners are familiar with the fundamental differences that exist in our society.

As someone who was educated solely in religious establishments, I was surprised to discover in my early teens that there actually are other religions and belief systems out there. I distinctly remember during religion class that one boy left for that hour, and we were never allowed to ask why. It was only later that it came out that he was Protestant. This marked him as something different, vaguely untrustworthy. No effort was ever made to inform us to the contrary.

I am not saying that religion is bad. I want to make that quite clear. I know that I am a good person, and that can in part be attributed to the morals that were drummed into me from an early age (still though, I am confident that I would still be a good person if I had had a secular upbringing - my parents and those around me are fundamentally virtuous people and that is what rubs off, not fear of spending eternity with the devil sticking hot pokers up your arse). I just hate the idea of of the exclusiveness of it, the determined ignoring of the fact that other people's beliefs are just as important as yours, the self-satisfied righteous mumbling. You might be right. You might be wrong. Believe what you want to believe, but at least do it in an educated way.

Anyway, in an effort to end my structureless rant, I am intrigued to know a couple of things.

What way is religion taught where you come from?

And do you see the teaching of one religion while ignoring others as a bad thing?

(and just to reiterate - I really REALLY do not mean to offend anyone's beliefs here whatsoever. If I did, I apologise unreservedly and curse my literary clumsiness and inability to remain objective...)

Sometimes things happen that force us to think about things that we don't want to think about.

We wedge these thoughts into the deepest, darkest recesses of our minds. They often pop out uninvited, but we can usually herd them right back where they came from. They lie there festering, waiting for the moment when they can jump out and can't be ignored any more. This moment is inevitable - we know it, the thoughts know it, and especially the people who are close to us know it.

These people - our friends, our lovers and our confidantes - are the ones that get us through these tough moments. They will stand beside us as we deal with these thoughts in whatever way we can - lying in a corner crying, alcohol therapy, talking it out over a cup of tea or seventeen.

My illicit thought is this.

With eleven games to go - less than one third of the season - Hertha BSC Berlin are four points clear at the top of the Bundesliga.

They might win it. They might win the whole bloody thing.

Let me try to put this in context for all of you non-football fans.

It's not like winning the lottery. Nothing like that at all. But it is like winning €100 on the lottery every week for a year.

It's going out every weekend and hooking up with the most beautiful woman in the pub each time.

It's twenty-three games of Russian Roulette and a completely intact skull. You know there are eleven more to go, and you're just starting to think that you might make it.

Hertha fans, new and old, I need you! We need each other!

Watch out football world! Berlin is finally playing!

The other day my housemate P bought my housemate Y a copy of Bravo as a joke (German humour again, and disturbingly I found it pretty funny...). At this point I feel that my knowledge of Island pop culture lets me down slightly, I cannot say what the British or Irish equivalent of Bravo is. Whatever teenage girls read, fill in your own choice.

Anyway, the presence of this esteemed publication in my home offered me the chance to leaf through its posters of famous hot people, horoscopes, celebrity news and....AAGH! Regression to blanked out memory!

Let's reverse to Easter 2006. I'm on a bus to my first ever English Camp in the north of Germany. The bus is full of kids, ranging from six to sixteen. They're behaving well, and I am roaming around chatting to them in an effort to trick my boss into thinking that I care about them. I start chatting to a two girls, no older then twelve. They're reading Bravo. We leaf though it and they tell me what it's about in English, since my German was in a very pre-foetal stage back then.

We come to a page with sex tips. Urgh! You're twelve! I want to blurt out, prudishly. But I remember we're in Europe now, that sort of thing is OK ...isn't it? I am relieved to move on to the next page. But only briefly, because it is FULL FRONTAL NUDITY. A fully naked guy on one page, and a fully naked girl on the other. And they're young. Far too young. There's an interview with the nudies, and small text at the bottom offering YOU the chance to become next week's Bravo's Exploited, provided you are over sixteen, of course.

Of course, the twelve-year-olds thought my stuttering and stammering was hilarious. I was caught between desire to rip the magazine from their hands and burn it to protect their innocent little minds, and just run away and find a corner somewhere to lament the passing of Youthful Innocence and Society As We Know It.

So really, I'm just a big prude. Who would've thought?

What is is about this time of year? Even now that my arch-nemesis, February, has been banished back to his stinkhole for another year, I am still struggling for motivation to get out of bed in the mornings. I have enough work, the weather is improving, things should be fine.

Last year, I started a new German course and moved house around this time, and I think I need something new in my life this year to herald in the spring. Can't decide what though, but there are a few contenders.

- a new bike. This is not so much a contender as a must. It's hard to find a good one that is also cheap though. Knowing that it will inevitably get heartbreakingly stolen again makes me reluctant to splash the cash.
- another new German course. The thought of being lectured on grammar first thing in the morning would definitely have me bouncing out of bed. Also a good way to meet new people.
- a yoga course. I could learn a lot from that. Don't want to go alone though. Any takers?
- starting swimming. I can't really swim, and am a little afraid of the water. It would be quite a challenge to overcome. Would take a significant effort though, and I am not sure I possess the self-control.

Or, I could just stay in bed until May.

Snore.

I know you don't read my blog anymore. If you did, this wouldn't be here. Maybe you'll see it someday. I hope you do. Just not yet.

You, more than anyone, know my tendency to remember dates. Today in 2008 was a big one.

The room was positively charged with emotion and neither of us could handle it. We both cried a lot. I knew you were going to leave and that that would be it, and I was doing everything in my power to make you stay just a little longer. I wanted to kiss you one more time, so badly, so badly. I wanted to feel the electricity that passed between us for the last time.

It would just make things harder, you said.

I told you I loved you, and you told me you loved me.

Then you walked out of my front door. I watched you from the peep-hole. You stopped outside the door for a moment. You looked crushed. I watched you as you slowly, so slowly, walked down the stairwell and out of my life.

A lot can happen in a year though. Everything was dreadfully shit for quite a while, but things are really good for me now.

I hope they are for you too.

It took a long time and a lot of soul-searching for me to be able to say that, but I mean it.

There will come a day, sometime in the not-too-distant future, when I think I will want you back in my life in some small way.

I hope you feel the same.

As always, no-one says it like Frabbit.