Der Himmel über Berlin

Seeing as a quite large amount of the people who are reading this have also tried a Mustafas kebab, it won't surprise most of you that I was there again during the week. After all, I did have a visiting friend to feed, and I did want him to spread Mustafa's message of love, joy and gluttony all over Sweden.

I also did something that I have vowed never to do again on at least four occasions - I did the Double Mustafa - two kebabs in a row. Being entirely sober this time, it actually made the experience much more pleasant, as the kebabular joy did not have to jostle for position with litres of beer in my (probably) limited-capacity belly.

If the Double Mustafa sounds like a bad idea to you, I have but one thing to say - the following morning, I ran a half-marathon in well under two hours, something I had never even attempted before. However, I will wait and carry out further research before suggesting Mustafa kebabs as a replacement for the world's ever-dwindling fossil fuels. For the good of humanity, of course.

Anyway, while I was consuming the wedge of meaty joy at the tables beside the kebab stand, something seemed wrong. I stopped for a moment (please try to imagine the willpower that that required) to take stock. My three companions were completely immersed in their respective feasts, seemingly unaware of anything else. The queue was, as per usual, about twenty-strong, and the kebab-givers, as per usual, working flat out with shouts of "Salat komplett?" renting the air.

And then it struck me. The people beside us were TALKING! They were talking to each other, despite holding Mustafa kebabs in their hands! How could this be? Were these people performing exercises of restraint so elaborate and twisted that they would send Buddhist monks running screaming to the nearest brothel while swigging vast mouthfuls of cheap vodka? Or had they lost their taste buds in a horrific accident involving less appetizing kebabs with spicy sauce made by the devil himself? Or (and this must be considered the least likely of all) did they simply not appreciate the gift from the gods above that they were holding in their hands? I was so shocked that I simply had no choice but to get a second to verify the tastiness.

...but the good news is that this afternoon, I will have yet another visitor arriving, one who already knows of the joys of Mustafas, to stand in complete silence with beside that Temple of Perfect Kebabs.

EDIT: Landers has had one, and it loved him as much as he loved it.

I don't know what provokes it, but it seems that people challenge me to do ridiculous things on a basis so regular that I really should wonder about what gives them the impression that I am the sort of person who will do stupid things just for my own amusement.

Most of them have to do with eating, both of huge amounts of food and really unpleasant things. Whole chilis, acorns and probably many many other nasty and barely edible substances have all be dropped down the hatch in the interests of scientific research, or cheap laughs.

But, either signaling that I am either growing up or becoming a coward, the last two challenges presented to me have been turned down. True, they would have involved the destruction of private property, something that I have a little more respect for than my own digestive system (if only for the fact that I'd have to pay to replace it).

So, since I won't be accepting these challenges, I will pass them over to blogland in the hope that some brave and reckless soul will take them over and answer the following two burning questions:

1). Would a hard-boiled egg be hard enough to break a single pane of glass if projected with a human arm from a distance of, say, five metres?

2). Are bowling lanes oiled so much that a human being performing a Klinsmann dive would be able to slide all the way down and knock over the pins?

Happy researching!

No, I am not airbrushing out my pimples and imperfections (what imperfections!? I hear you holler) - my little finger has finally been released from its gauze prison.

It is definitely still a little bent, and quite a lot bigger and bluer than a finger should be. I am also a little sad about losing the bandage, as it made me look somewhat threatening. I saw some rough-looking types checking it out while walking down the street a while back, and I know they were thinking that I got it in a fight and were imagining what the other poor sucker looked like.

Instead, I am now also carrying a cylindrical roll of soft cloth around with me to squeeze to get the strength back. Not nearly as threatening.

Either way, it is definitely pleasing to have got my this year's annual summer injury out of the way. I wonder what Summer 2010 holds in store for my poor ravaged body. Broken neck? Squished brain? Ingrown ball sac? Time will tell.

A friend of mine became a father late last year. He described his feelings towards his newborn son to me when he was about a month old.

He was frank, brutally so. In an effort to convey how his feelings had grown from the day of the young one's birth to what they are now, he compared his initial emotions towards the infant to those that he has for a plate. I was left in no doubt that the feelings of love that a father has for his offspring need to develop over time and can by no means be presumed right from the off.

Last week, my eagerly-anticipated MacBook Pro and iPod Touch arrived. I had spend a knee-tremblingly enormous amount of money on them, notwithstanding the various discounts and special offers I had managed to somehow take advantage of.

Having been a Windows user all my life, for the first few days I thought I had made a hideously expensive mistake. Now, however, the feelings of love have had a week to develop. No, not develop. Flourish, flower, blossom, shout messages of heartfelt affection from the rooftops.

I can't get enough of the beautiful, beautiful design, the fabulously efficient interface, they way it seems like everything was designed by someone who wants to use it themselves and therefore makes it as good as it could possibly be.

Beautiful, just beautiful.

Another friend has left Berlin (bringing it to a friendship-circle decimating five in the last month) and has left something very special in my care.

Fishies!

They don't have names yet, apart from 'the kinda dead one' and 'the hyperactive one'. They are my first pets of my very own and even though I probably won't be able to teach them any tricks, I am excited about trying my best not to kill them.

It's been difficult finding a place to put the little guys - on the desk was too wobbly, beside the window was too bright, on one shelf they were too close to the speakers, so some books have been shunted aside to give them pride of place in the centre of everything.

I'm sure we're going to have lots of exciting adventures together, my little fishies and I.

It's coming up to election time here in Germany, and to get into the spirit of things, I am proposing a little vote on a very important topic:

If drinking alcohol did not produce a nasty hangover the next morning, would it be as fun?

I had this discussion with a friend last week, and he took the logical stance of saying it would not only be as fun, it would be a hell of a lot more fun. The reasons for his argument are, of course, obvious to the majority of us.

I disagree though. I think drinking would be significantly less fun if there were no negative consequence to be endured afterwards. Here's why.

So in this hangoverless world, there are no more Sundays spent lounging fuzzily around the house drinking lots of tea, eating pizza/kebabs/Chinese takeaway and watching every single episode of Peep Show/Red Dwarf/Father Ted. No, instead you can spring happily out of bed just like any other day, and start being all productive and proactive. Where's the fun in that? Boring, boring, boring.

And what about the fact that last night you made the decision to have that extra drink, knowing that you would feel all the more miserable for it the next day? That's what made you enjoy it even more, get the last little drop of pleasure from it. It was the last shag before a break-up, the last day of a holiday, the last piece of birthday cake, made so much better solely because of the trial that was about to come. If you remove the hangover, you're removing the joy.

Let's not forget the pleasure of spending a hungover day with someone. You're connected by an invisible bond, one that can bring you closer to that person than you have ever been before. You are twins feeling sympathy pains. When you pop out and get a kebab for that person, despite your throbbing head, fusty mouth, inability to speak and allergy to sunlight, it is the ultimate act of true friendship. A world without hangovers is a world without love.

So you're lying there with your kebab in front of the telly when suddenly that memory of dancing on the table with the fat smelly guy to The Birdie Song comes back and assaults you. You want to sink into the sofa, you groan, you cringe, but secretly, you're pretty pleased. You know you've done something silly, wrong and embarrassing, but it's done now. You could redeem yourself by going out for a run, doing some charity work, rescuing some puppies from viciously drooling Dobermans, but YOU JUST CAN'T BE ARSED. It's your guilty pleasure, that debauchery. If it weren't embarrassing and awful, it wouldn't be a funny story to tell down the pub later, now would it?

...leading me on nicely to the next point. The Hair Of The Dog. The first one's pretty nasty, but the second makes you feel like a new person. Couple this with the slight feeling that you're doing something naughty by drinking again and you're got one of life's greatest Simple Pleasures.

But what if you go out on a weekday and are expected to work the following day? Naughty naughty! But really, does anyone expect a poor, sensitive hungover soul to do very much? I know that my colleagues would cover for me as much as they could - after all, they have been in your position too, and will be again. Again, hangovers show the true goodness in people.

So vote YES to hangovers, and retain the joy and love in life. It's an indulgence that we deserve.

Vote YES and keep those memorable boozy nights just that - memorable because of their rarity.

Vote YES!

About six months ago, in a rare and since-unrepeated bout of proactivity, I contacted a few translation companies looking for work. One of them was particularly impressed with my test translation, but unfortunately didn't have any work to offer at that point.

Being the sensible and rational person that I am, I took this as proof that proactivity, like getting up early and personal hygiene, is a fruitless pursuit and should be completely given up.

So gave it up I did, and settled back into my boring and slightly unfulfilling routine once more.

Until I got a mail from that very company two days ago, telling me they had work for me. Hurrah! I thought, proactivity rocks!, before hitting snooze and going back to sleep.

So this morning I woke up bright and early, put on some non-smelly non-football jersey clothes, determined to create the illusion that I am a dapper and refined individual, and definitely one who should be given lots and lots of money for very little work.

I was expecting an office much like blog HQ - quiet, efficient, everyone working hard, or at least doing a convincing impression of it. I also expected to be grilled about why on earth I think I could be a good translator when I don't have very much experience and don't know a single thing about any form of translating software.

Instead I got a scruffy and unshaven man, who reeked of stale booze, plonking me down in a chair and explaining how to use a seemingly infinite number of new pieces of software at very high speed. In came another scruffy and unshaven chap, asked me if I played table tennis, barely waited for an answer before starting a game with another very scruffy guy on an office table with a net stretched across it. Their levels of ability with the paddles indicated that the table had been a fixture in the office for quite some time.

After a half hour of the most brain-melting crash course I have ever experienced, I was given a computer and told to get going, with the reassurance that there are no such things as stupid questions, just stupid answers.

As I sat down, another scruffy man walked in and wished me all the best staving off the suicidal thoughts.

He had a point. The text was unspeakably difficult, so it was just as well that I had managed to retain most of the knowledge dump that had been thrown at me - the software remembered how others had translated certain phrases and suggested them. Semi-retirement compulsory contribution-based payment? Yep, that'll do.

My desperation was increasing with the rhythm of the spectacular game of table-tennis that was reaching a climax a few metres away - so riveting that it had even attracted an audience of people who had left their desks to join the fun.

I leaned back to the guy behind me to ask for help with some ridiculous German word that had far too many letters in it and looked more like the regurgitated remains of a bowl of alphabet soup than any sort of linguistic entity.

I called his name. No response.

I called his name again. Still no response. I noticed that he was engrossed in a game of online chess.

I decided one to try one more time. He wheeled around as if he had just been shot, before telling me that he is very busy. He was very scruffy too, but did help me out in the end.

After two hours, I had had enough of the tsak, plop, tsak of the table tennis, the fearsomely difficult texts and the stink of stale booze.

I will be back on Monday though, and I will complete the project. And I will also never complain about certain other offices being boring ever again.

(and I will keep it to myself that I found the place to actually be rather charming.)

It's Saturday night. A guy is making his way slightly unsteadily to what seems like the 87th party of the weekend.

He's got two beers in his bag and a kebab in his hand. Bits of the kebab are scattering on the street as he mashes the thing into his mouth, smearing sauce all over his face. The guy's not a complete pig though, he wipes it clumsily off with his sleeve. He belches loudly, and although there is no evidence to support the fact, he probably farts loudly too.

This guy is me, and he's very, very drunk. It's the happy-go-lucky intoxication that comes from several days hours of relaxed but focussed drinking with good friends rather than the frantic, determined drinking of someone bent on self-destruction. The evening had seen him eat a chili just because someone dared him to, and try, unsuccessfully, to prove his hastily-assembled theory that you can't burst a balloon by biting.

Suddenly, he realises that all is not well. He's got beer, he's got a kebab, but he doesn't have his iPod. It's always either in his right jeans pocket, or the rear pocket of his bag. There's a system, you see, so that you don't lose things when you are stumbling happily around the city on any given evening.

He gets to the party and anxiously asks around to see if anyone had somehow borrowed it without his knowledge. Of course not, the unconcerned drinkers reply.

The guy decides it must still be in the pub where he had previously been. Some frantic calls are made. The first few people he reaches are no longer at the bar. They receive requests to look for the iPod, because someone, somewhere must have seen it.

Finally, someone still at the bar is reached.

"I dunno where I couldda left it. Just have a look around, willya?"

"No sign of it? Shite. Ask the bar staff there, willya?"

(his Irish accent comes out a lot more at this stage of the evening)

"Of course I don't feckin' have it here, why the feck would I be callin' ya if I had it here?"

"Feckit. I never lose things, this is very unlike me altogedder."

"Alright, thanks fer lookin' anyway, g'luck".

At which point, as if working entirely of its own accord, his left hand moves to his left rear pocket and detects a familiar object.

He gropes confusedly at it for a moment, as if trying to hinder the iPod-shaped wave of horror and embarrassment sweeping irresistibly in his direction, swallowing the brief feelings of relief as though they never existed.

Still though, all's well that ends with almost every person you know having been informed, completely accidentally by you, that you are a complete and utter TWAT.

For showing me that being with someone actually isn't about being in a vicious cycle of hurting and being hurt, of misery, of jealousy, of pain. That it's about kindness, thoughtfulness, generosity, feeling valued and cared about, without the juxtaposing isolation, desperation and loneliness.

For encouraging me to suspend my cynicism. I did it because I wanted everything to be as perfect as it could have been. It's going to stay suspended, simply because there are people like you in the world.

For showing such faith in me, right from day one. For still showing that faith, even though it is clear that it is misplaced.