Der Himmel über Berlin

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.