Executive summary and spoiler: just buy Rhodia stuff and stay well away from Moleskine.

1. 1. A4 aubergine-dyed, full-grain leather soft cover journal from an unnamed French manufacturer, with lined Italian notebook. Loads of pages. I haven’t counted the number but I reckon it’s in excess of 300. And thick too. A birthday present from an ex. I don’t use the journal but can’t bring myself to chuck it as I know it wasn’t cheap (neither was she). Chucking her was easy though, emotional lunatic that she was/is.
   2. B5 Moleskine black hard cover notebook, blank pages. The paper is useless for any decent fountain pen as bleeding and ghosting is prominent. The Reddit r/fountainpens sub-forum people generally sneer at Moleskine products, though the company’s marketing and sales team must be brilliant at their job given their notebooks are up there with the industry leaders. They are, admittedly, lovely from an aesthetic perspective. Elastic closure ribbon and 1 bookmark. Inside back envelope pocket. 192 pages of tracing paper. No offence. Well, not much.
   3. B5 ‘Loch Blue’ leather journal cover from the a specialist leather artisan workshop in Liverpool, personalised. A simply beautiful piece of art. But that’s where it ends as all standard and mainstream B5 notebooks don’t fit. The scousers were trolling me. And I left them some brilliant feedback. My dislike of scousers continues. Obviously can’t throw it away as it was too expensive and too nice.
   4. The Hanshaws notebook that came with the scousers journal cover. Quite nice as it alternates lined pages with blank pages. But too small, so looks wrong in the journal cover, swamped by it. And you can’t buy refills. No idea why they bothered. Scousers…
   5. B5 Leuchtterm1917 navy softcover dotted pages notebook. Highly recommended within the r/fountainpens community (and me). 80gsm, fine for my fine-nibbed fountain pen. 123 pages. Doesn’t fit the scouser journal cover, obviously (see above). Elastic closure ribbon and 2 bookmarks. Inside back envelope pocket.
   6. B5 Rhodia Sapphire Blue softcover dotted pages notebook. Highly recommended with the r/fountainpens community (again), and me (again). My favourite notebook and paper (Clairefontaine, 90gsm) to write on. I’ve ordered another one of these (in ‘anise green’, no less) for my study lessons notes. 160 pages. As per, it doesn’t fit the scouser journal cover (see above, again). Elastic closure ribbon and 1 bookmark. Inside back envelope pocket. My go-to for blog post writing (not that I’ve got around to posting anything yet).
   7. A5 Moonster brown leather bound journal, with blank pages (non-refillable). Very nice to look at, very nice to write in but I don’t like the ‘bound’ bit – I’m not 14 years old. It just gets in the way. Will be passed on to a friend (foc, natch).
   8. A5 Travelers brown leather journal, with dotted pages inserts. Very nice to look at, very nice to write in but, and this is rather trivial in the grand scheme of things, unless it’s opened up you can’t tell whether it’s upside down (or otherwise). Easily remedied, admittedly, but still…
   9. A5 Etsy store navy leather bound journal, with dotted pages inserts, personalised. Very nice to look at, very nice to write in but I don’t like the ‘bound’ bit – not 14 years old, just gets in the way, etc. Groundhog Day, again.
   10. A5 Antony Olivier spare refill blank page notebooks. No idea if I’ll ever use them. No idea why I bought them. The official website doesn’t specify the gsm but the paper is thick and good for my fine-nibbed fountain pen. And has 200 pages, which is excellent.
   11. A5 Rhodia Silver softcover dotted pages notebook. Highly recommended with the r/fountainpens community.  My favourite notebook and paper (Clairefontaine, see above) to write on, as per with the B5 Rhodia (see above). 160 pages. Elastic closure ribbon and 1 bookmark. Inside back envelope pocket. This is my go-to for general note taking.

Additionally, I am awaiting delivery on an A5 Rhodia (specifically) Etsy Ukraine-store-chap navy leather (non-bound) journal cover. Should be here soon, unless the chap (and/or store) is taken out by a Russian missile. I hope he (and it) isn’t, of course.

One piece of negativity for Rhodia products, and I don’t think I’m the first to say this, is that no matter what colour your notebook is (and they do have a ridiculously large selection to choose from) is that, in the main, the ‘peripherals’ (elastic ribbons, bookmarks, inside front and back pages and even some of the pages before and after the main set of pages) are bright orange. Really bright. I get the history of orange with the company, etc but sometimes it feels like I’m writing on easyJet stationery. However, carrying one around town at night, in full view, will mean I get home without being hit by a bus. Probably.

Back to the post: in the interest of keeping a blog ‘relevant’, I’ve read that one should include ‘pillar posts’. PPs are posts (obviously) which, among other things, can be easily shared, and not specific to time, incidents or people. So, I reckon a selection of ’Top 10 ‘ somethings, along with some delicious food recipes and reviews, along with articles (published, hey) on the trials and tribulations of Tottenham Hotspur Football Club should help. This ‘Top 10’ has little in the way of comment but simply links to my absolute favourite tunes. Well, maybe some comment…

7. Smokey Robinson & The Miracles – Tears Of A Clown
   

   

   I Second That Emotion, Shop Around, The Tracks Of My Tears and Going To A Go-Go all have claim to be up here. However, from the very first beat this tune, and vocals rise above almost everything and remain at the highest level until the tunes ends. The magnificent vocals from the main man – one of the great male voices of all time, and the fantastic instrumental support Robinson receives make this unmovable from my top three. The tune never drops a beat. It’s been my ringtone for years and I see no need to ever change that, irrespective of my mood. Until my mood changes, natch.

Apple Music link: ‎The Tears of a Clown by Smokey Robinson & The Miracles on Apple Music

6. INXS – Beautiful Girl
   

   

   Any song that opens with the line ‘Big Ears in the corner…’ gets my attention. And it’s about the only lyric by Michael Hutchence I ever did get. The white James Brown, if you will. As with Mr Robinson and his chums listed above, any number of INXS tunes would not be out of place in this list: Disappear, Never Tear Us Apart, New Sensation are all fabulous in their own way but none quite reach the class and beauty here. Anyway, enough of that. Beautiful Girl really is the most beautiful, if unintelligible, song, for the most Beautiful Girl. Hey ho.

Footnote: the grapes are a) the wrong colour and b) probably not from New Zealand. Someone, somewhere understands the significance of these facts.

Apple Music link: ‎Beautiful Girl by INXS on Apple Music

5. Kevin Ayers – Shouting In A Bucket Blues
   

   

   Until I watched a rerun of the OGWT (one for the teenagers), I had never heard of Kevin Ayers, or any of his not inconsiderable associated musical history – the 1970s psychedelic, folky, hedgemonkey thing was not really _my_thing – admission to liking the genre would have seriously hampered my bony-black-arse Inner London street cred of the time. Subsequently, I know only two things about Kevin: 1) he’s dead, and 2) and I have this on very trusted friend authority, he was really well endowed. Putting that to one side, although quite frankly I wouldn’t, it seems that Kevin was also a hopeless romantic, and went through various ups and downs in his rock star life, as you do, and that he could only write songs when he was ‘in love’. In the event of being barren in the writing department, I know where I would have looked for solace. I don’t know whether the bloke who told the bloke who told me about KA’s appendage was overly-endowed himself but boy, he had some story: a married man for a number of years, and to all that knew the couple all seemed as well. However, TBWTTBWTM like to ‘put it about’, apparently. That in itself is what it is and is his dog, so to speak but not content enough with doing what he did, he took it upon himself to document everything about his conquests. Everything. Age, size, quality, things-they-enjoyed, things-he-enjoyed, ratings, names, addresses. Everything. And, one day, he left the notepad in the marital bedroom ready for his wife to critique, apparently. Back to the song: KA’s baritone voice is mellifluous and sexy yet carries a degree of melancholy at the same time. The blues guitar and clever lyrics just make this a simple yet lovely number which, from I’ve read about KA, sums him up quite nicely.

Footnote: this may come as no real surprise but Mr & Mrs TBWTTBWTM are no longer an item.

Apple Music link: ‎Shouting In a Bucket Blues (2003 Remastered Version) by Kevin Ayers on Apple Music

4. Talisk – Echo
   

   

   So close to being perfect. So close. If you have been paying attention, you would know that the folk genre wasn’t really ever my thing – street cred and all that – but the older I get the less street cred I have, so more music genre are now allowed in my life. Echo gradually builds and moves up levels as it progresses, into a marvellous folky, fast-paced melange of Celtic fiddle, concertina & guitar. Both me and the person who introduced me to the tune couldn’t work out whether the song was called ‘Talisk by Echo’, or vice versa. Safe to say the regular cocktails of vodka, ginger beer, (fresh) lime juice, all topped up with ice, contributed to that. Plus the fact the vodka was measured out from an egg cup the size of a fish bowl in multiples of three (at least). Still, a fantastic tune. But then anything would sound good after that amount of alcohol. Except the ending.

Apple Music link: ‎Echo by Talisk on Apple Music

3. Propaganda – Duel
   

   

   To me, there is no more sexier female accent than that of the English-speaking-but-American-tinted central European voice. Enter the über sexy-voiced Claudia Brücken, and Propaganda. The band are Germanic sounding, which is no real surprise given the outfit are from Düsseldorf, although they sound cool enough to be from Berlin, (see other blogs for my Berlin thoughts). The synthesised-led intro starts as it means to go on, and go on it does for some two minutes until Claudia burst in, takes over, desperately trying to pronounce Ws correctly (won’t, wonder, etc) which only adds to the voice sexiness – Claudia, you can say it how you damn vell vant to. The instrumental intro and ending is the high quality artisan bread that sandwiches the delicious vocal filling, and unlike most other songs in this list, I simply can never, ever get bored of this tune.

Footnote: the song has been covered by Mandy Smith (among others). Just fuck right off.

Apple Music link: ‎Duel by Propaganda on Apple Music

2. Freeez – Mariposa
   

   

   It’s weird what songs can make you remember. For no real reason (I have no idea where Freeez are from) but this gorgeous, sophisticated tune always takes me back to north London evenings, no matter where I am. Unexplainable, if that’s a word. Criminally, I have nothing else to add other than it’s a fantastic piece of music, and quite frankly the tune deserves a far better write-up than this. Mariposa is on EP (kids, go and ask someone old) with the almost-equally fabulous semi-famous Southern Freeez and not-at-all famous Flying High. After that the band went commercial and lost any credibility but probably made loads of money.

Footnote: mariposa is the Spanish word for butterfly, and a beautiful word it is. It’s a lovely word in French too: papillon, and even sounds acceptable in throat-rasping Dutch: vlinder. The Arabic translation is فراشة, which I have no problem with but in German: Schmetterling. At least the beer is good.

Apple Music link: ‎Mariposa by Freeez on Apple Music

1. Incognito – Summer’s Ended
   

   

   A simply magical, haunting and dreamy instrumental ‘old skool’ jazz funk tune from a band who I knew way back then. The tune gradually builds, slows and again builds, again slows, and then keeps on building, with the constant slapping of bass, background percussion, and absolutely magical flute arrangement which lifts the tune to greatness, to the final combined drum, bass and flute crescendo, all of which is utterly mesmerising. This is a tune which demands to be heard through headphones or earbuds. Whilst my link is Apple Music, there is a youtube user by the magnificently monikered ’Sir Groovington’, who has this on his public playlist. SG, understand that s|d would salute you from the highest but your profile tells me you are from Gillingham (and not the nice one). Be thankful I have given you time. Now jog on with your pitfall and skank girlfriend, nonce, as you would (possibly) say.

Footnote: Ian Cognito (AKA Paul Barbieri) was a very funny stand-up comedian who sadly passed away in April 2019. Sadly yes, but as with the greatest of live performers, IC died whilst playing live on stage (à la Tommy Cooper, of course). It is reported that one of Cognito’s last jokes before the absolute final act was: “Imagine having a stroke and waking up speaking Welsh”. Now, that is how to exit this world. Simply magnificent.

Apple Music link: ‎Summer’s Ended by Incognito on Apple Music
Special treat, SG YouTube link: YouTube

Okay…

The friend to who I can attribute the above quote may or may not have recall of that very small part of the much bigger and far more weighty conversation we had recently. And while my love & gratitude to & for you, friend, are both immense, today I took a day off from feeling that way.

Dick Dastardly
The original idea however, sounded good. Part of my road-to-recovery-from-a-crap-self-inflicted-personal-situation plan was, according to said friend, for me to make some big changes in my life and in this particular case, with a view to doing ‘more of what I wanted to do’. I repeat the last part of that sentence often to myself and try not to fall over and I’ve yet to succeed, to the point where if I were to carry out a poll among people who have known me for, let’s say, 10 or more days, where the only question was: “in order to fulfil his ‘road-to-recovery, etc’ plan, does s|d need to do more of what he wants to do?”, I absolutely guarantee that even the despots, living, dead or dying, from central America to North Korea, via some arse-about convoluted route through Africa, the Middle East, Islington & Hackney Norths, whatever part of the south-west of England the Rees-Moggs own, and all ballot-rigging points in-between could not guarantee the 100% negative result my poll would offer. Even the wispy-haired/borderline-baldy Professor Pat Pending-like chap on the BBC Election night programmes couldn’t get the prediction wrong, and he wouldn’t need a margin-for-error percentage option. To Hell with them all, I shall do ‘more of what I want to do’. You’re welcome.

So, acting on the suggestion my friend erm, suggested, I set out to find a place where one could spend a few hours away from anything you wanted to be away from, where no one knows your name, in order to find that opportunity for contemplation and the space (for me) to decide how I can move forward, next chapters, new me, move on, etc and the answer: a low-cost, members-only room option in a museum or gallery. Not much of a wow-factor going on there but one step at a time is wow-enough for those of us who have tried to play fast and loose with Life’s scrotum, and lost.

No children were harmed etc…
Diligent person I am, when I can be arsed, I researched the various options afforded (literally) to me. The obvious numero uno location in terms of view given from the ‘privacy’ of its members room was the Tate Modern on Bankside. 5 (4, Yanks) floors (stories, Yanks) above the Thames, and with a view-and-a-half across the river to St Paul’s and the City. All good so far. However, what I didn’t realise is that the room also happens to be double-up as a crèche, apparently, as does the (fabulous, it has to be said) terrace. Now if the parent & toddlers were queuing on the terrace to collectively jump off and see how they landed from 5 (4, Ys) floors (stories, Ys) then I’m sure I could live with the crowds, and therefore the cost would equate to value-for-money. Unfortunately, there was no jumping, no Derek & Clive moment. One for the teenagers there.

So, Tate Modern ruled out on the lack of fun factor. Other considerations and subsequent reasons not to join included The Southbank Centre (I then remembered an ex from 20 years ago using the place and I’m simply not taking that risk); The V&A (I’m not yet at death’s door); The Barbican (I seem to remember ‘asbestos’ being an issue at some point in the past, plus the 3 residential towers still offer a proper ‘9/11’ opportunity that has passed London by and I don’t want one of those things falling on my head, or the asbestos dandruff for that matter, not when I’m trying to sort that very same head out, tyvm). To cut a long and quite frankly I admit, dull, story as short as it can be, I end up making my choice based on proximity to tube station, and price: 2 minutes from my most-often used London terminus and a 50% discount for lying that other venues had offered a non-existent discount. For all my many failings I own (and that’s about all I do own), the one thing I don’t do (often) is lie. Manipulate the truth: maybe. Bury my head in the sand: undoubtably. Live my life in denial: all the time. But lie? Did I feel bad? Well yes, I did actually. Until today (I will get there at some point…).

A thousand Apples a day keep…
My ‘Club’, as I have decided to style the place as, is a famous & fabulous building, light & airy, with high atriums & towers, lots of intelligently-thought open space, restaurants & bars, numerous reading rooms & exhibition halls and, regrettably, thousands (really) of Hedgemonkey-esque students strewn over the floors like earthquake victims yet to be given famine relief and sheets-for-temporary-tents (OK, some are sitting on chairs at tables). And almost to a self-entitled snowflake, blame anyone but themself, offended by anything, non-binary or otherwise identity, everyone, almost without exception, has a MacBook of some design. Including me, natch. I also notice that other than students, the main genre of person is albeit in far, far fewer number than our future is, obviously, those of our past. Men in tweed jackets, ladies in Aran knitwear. Ex-professors, tutors and their knocked-up dinner ladies (maybe). And these people are cold. It’s mid 20s in new money and these poor souls are doing their best Emperor-penguins-in-a-huddle-during-an-Antarctic-winter-snow-storm routine. I also have an expectation of seeing a famous literary face among the crowd but all I see are students and old people. Quelle surprise.

J’arrive
Knowing that most penguins that David Attenborough narrates on survive, and that the numbers of shark, whale or seal attacks aren’t particularly high in this part of town, my consideration lessens, somewhat. I take an escalator up one level (I haven’t seen anyone but me do this – everyone else walks the 5 steps) and then (really) walk up another level (as a member I am somewhat disappointed the escalator doesn’t take me to my seat), I then reach a door with the sign ‘Members, Patrons & Friends (only)’. Great Expectations (arf)… which last for all of 3 seconds as, for a reason I’ve yet to fathom, there was no door person on hand to offer greetings & farewells to the Club’s ‘Members, Patrons & Friends (only)’. Maybe the door attendant was carrying out some important academic research for one of the ‘Ms, Ps or Fs (o)’. In the absence of the Club’s custodian-of-the-keep, I retrieve my newly-presented members card, looking for the swish electronic door card-reader to grant me access via a swish of my exclusive members card.

See you next Tuesday (depending on where I live)
Eventually, I work out that if I push the door, it opens. The recovery plan is working, obviously. Oh well, at least I am away from the peasants below. I take stock of my surroundings. For the record, no one, official or otherwise, gives a shit about my presence here. Plus ça change. So, I find myself (that’s never going to happen, is it) in a room – there’s a surprise given it’s called the Members’ Room. The official gumpf makes no call to the Patrons & Friends– we are all now simply ‘Members’. Which reminds me: an associate once asked me that if, hypothetically, a club offered me either ‘Town’ or ‘Country’ membership, and I lived in a rural part of the world, I would take the Country membership. So, when I got around to informing him that I am now a Country member, he would then reply, ‘ah yes, I remember’. Hilarious. But probably not wrong, in many respects.

The Members’ Room actually consists of three rooms grouped together. It makes the place no more grand. The first room has a bar at the far end, and seating for around 30 people in a 2-3 seat coffee table & chair arrangement. The second room has the same coffee table & chair deal plus a leatherette bench thing going on against each wall, seating again around 30. The third room, the Quiet Room, is larger than the other rooms, with a centrally-situated rectangular wooden table with 14 chairs and a few power points built-in to the table, and a number of the 2-3 seat coffee table & chair arrangement. The room can also host around 30 people and has a large but difficult-to-see-out-of-window along one side. All in all, the three rooms combine to create a busy, yet hushed, well enunciated, middle-class at worse, environment. I have no idea what I’m doing here but here’s to a place where I can be productive & positive and be my home-from-home, when not at home (obviously).

(Coust)Eau no, or Star Warzzz…
I take a look around, then decide to setup camp in the Quiet Room. There’s no talking, per se, but the bloke next to me has some sort of nasal condition that makes me do a double-take looking for the entire Cousteau clan in full get up, along with the bloke from Star Wars – I have yet to see any of the films – s|d, I think you’ll find I am (I thank you). Across the table I then espy an attractive, bookish-type looking woman in the same age range as me, give or take, smiling at me. I smile back. This is more like it, an (obviously) educated, intelligent woman I can converse with, witty asides and the like. I lean down to my bag and take out my laptop, with the pretence of looking as though I’m about to get all creative. It took, I guess, 5 seconds to carry out this operation. Upon my return to the desk, my bookish-type woman of education has closed her eyes, opened her mouth and I see numerous instances of the letter ‘Z’ coming out from said mouth (and nose, it must be said). And she’s not quiet with it, which meant I wasn’t quite with it. Obviously, SCUBA man doesn’t want to be left out of this oral and nasal orchestral jamming session. Classic FM it was not, let me tell you.

Shirley you can’t be serious (impress me here, Dear Reader, go on…)
I relocate to one of the other rooms and take a seat. The woman next to me has the appearance of a timid, bookish, church-mouse like, shy, Anne-of-Green-Gables type, and I offer her a reassuring & welcoming smile. It needs to be said now that I didn’t take membership of this facility just to smile at women. I’m more than capable of glaring at them too. Single, you say? The real Anne of Green Gables was, for the record, Canadian. This new version of AoGG has, apparently, just arrived into the country. I know that she has just arrived into the country from the United States of America (imagine my surprise…) as I (well, we all did) hear this when she proceeds to make a very loud call on her mobile in an otherwise very quiet room. SCUBA man and Ms Zeducated can no longer be heard in the background to the naked ear.

Agog at AoGG
In addition to the call, AoGG has now lifted her toes from the floor and has started to, and I appreciate this probably isn’t the correct medical term for the action, ‘nervous tic tremor’ one of her legs. It’s like she trying the get into the beat of an extremely pacy drum & bass tune. Whatever the correct medical term is, it’s bloody annoying. The glaring starts. She smiles at me. Clever. In addition to the drum & bass beat bouncing off the floor and walls, AoGG now starts to ‘rattle’ the ice in her drink and the effect is akin to if she were playing the tambourine and having a fit at the same time. Whilst still talking at a rate of decibels on her mobile.

Then, to add further insult to injury, and I know this particular thing is only my problem and that I require some sort of therapy/counselling treatment to cure me but nonetheless, to add to the already impressive level of annoyance brought upon by the timid, bookish, church-mouse but now loud & irritating AoGG, she has a fresh drink delivered to her table, and then pours liquid from the bottle in that ‘glugging’ way. This is my ‘nails-scraping-down-a-blackboard’ equivalent and I make no exaggeration here but when I hear that ‘glugging’ sound, I really do want to take the glass bottle used for the ‘glugging’ from the perpetrator, smash it against the nearest wall, then very forcibly lunge the broken bottle into the perp’s face, and then their face into the wall. And then hurt them. Don’t say you haven’t been warned.

Now I really don’t make a habit of listening to other people’s phone conversations as I really don’t care much for other people. However, here I had no option. It has been established that AoGG, still talking loudly, has some issue which will necessitate in police involvement, with people that have that Ivy League let’s-use-forenames-which-are-really-surnames (e.g, Frasier, Niles, Colquhoun, Crawford, etc). I am also rather perturbed to discover that the person who she’s having to have the police escort for has the same (fore)name as mine (and, for the record, it’s not an Ivy League style forename).

Her final (on her mobile) words are along the lines of “Felix asked me to call you as the builders want to arrange a time to pick up their tools and I should have some cash with me but the police will be there as protection”. WTF? “Tooti” may also make an appearance but it’s not clear in what capacity but AoGG doesn’t want him/her/it there, apparently. But the overriding message here is that Felix doesn’t want AoGG to go alone and the police will “keep the rival factions apart”. The woman has police protection too, ffs. Anne-of-Dock-Green-Gables, if you will. Another one for the teenagers there. To show how serious this all must be, now her 2nd leg joins in the twitching act. Personally, I’m grateful I kept my thoughts about her to myself, given that she probably has MI5, CIA, Mossad etc on her side. I couldn’t even get the backup of a door person.

So, after 30 minutes of plod-informing, deal-making, Felix, Tooti (I’m not here to make any ‘fruity’ link), stinking feet, shouty conversation (and note that 30 minutes of listening to someone’s conversation seems a lot longer that 30 minutes) I simply love the fact that she then apologises to the person on the other end of the line for ‘burdening you with everything’. Apology accepted, lady, as some blue-collar type in your home country would have called you. But as Julian Lennon almost once said, it’s is a bit too fecking late for goodbyes (well he does on the 12” import rare groove version which I own). The dice have been rolled. I hope the police come out shooting.

The phone call now over, AoGG needs another project to annoy us members with. Every 90 seconds or so she takes a look in the _exact same spot_underneath one of the leather bench seats for a power point. She does this 8 times (I miss my train waiting to see when and how this ends, really), and finds nothing. Well, that’s what I thought, at least. On the 9th visit under the seat, she ends up plugging the power lead into a socket. Felix must have paid the builders off.

I pack my bag, slightly incredulous of the afternoon experience I’ve just (of course) experienced. My head is still full of the ‘glugging’ sound so my temper is foul. All I hear is a cacophony of ‘glugging’. The Berlin ‘Glugging’ Philharmonic Orchestra have taken residence in my head and have been told that if they stop ‘glugging’ they will all die, as per Dougal in the Father Ted episode ‘Speed 3’. I also hate the word ‘glugging’.

Maybe I should have stuck with the hope of seeing if the parent & toddler lemming jumping Olympics into the Thames ever took off (literally). Finally, on the very off chance that you are stupid enough to not work out my location even with the very obvious references, and more pertinent here, just in case AoGG ever gets to read this page: WE WERE IN A BASTARD LIBRARY.

I take my leave from my Club and join the central London rush-hour for some peace and quiet.

I could have titled this post ‘Bare in Berlin’ to perhaps entice the more cultured reader to thinking this post contained reference to the exotic and risqué 1920s & 1930s underground cabaret scene of the city but this is making some assumption on my part. This also requires the reader to understand how ‘BERLIN’ is correctly pronounced for the reference to work. ‘BURLIN’, as I would suggest most of you think it is pronounced would render the point useless. Or, more appropriate for the city, I could have titled the post ‘Bear in Berlin’ but that requires knowledge of the city’s iconic symbol, as well as the correct pronunciation. Way too much to ask for. I could even have called it ‘Beer in Beerlin’, which would have raised an eyebrau or two but even I hof my limits. Really.

On the subject of beer, Reinheitsgebot, the regulations which determine the strict ingredients for German beer, translates as ‘German beer purity law’ (my italics). You would have thought the caring, modern, socio-global considerate Germans would have realised that they, perhaps of all people, should have chosen a slightly less evocative (my italics again) word to describe the purity quality of their wonderful product.
Back to Berlin. I love the place. The city blends urban desolation, brutal gun-metal Cold War apartment architecture dressed up as AirBnB trendy, Teutonic arrogance-efficiency, an expansive transport network (but not quite as expansive as expected, see below), big city anonymity, a populous almost as rude as Londoners and, of course, fantastic beer (see above) and hearty, yet delicious, food. Actually, hold the last two words from that sentence for a bit longer.

So, in the need to getaway from a very depressing domestic situation (self-inflicted, as per), I took off for 24 hours of me time, with the express intentions of doing things I really wanted to do (as if I haven’t already been doing this for years, hence my very depressing self-inflicted domestic situation). In no particular order, my intentions were to:

• watch a football match at the Olympiastadion
• watch a football match at the Olympiastadion whilst drinking shedloads of pure German beer (strictly verboten, where I’m from)
• drink shedloads of pure German beer

Vorsprung durch Technik, kind of
My flight lands at the brand spanking new, shiny, all-singing, all-dancing Berlin Brandenburg Airport. Built in May 2012 to relieve the burden on the Cold War duo of Tegel and Schönefeld Airports, plus the stylish Art-Deco Templehof Airport (d.2008), Brandenberg is the city’s glory. Well, not quite. Both Tegel & Schönefeld are still the city’s hubs, and 7 billion US dollars later, Brandenburg sits and waits. And waits. Technical issues, apparently. In Germany! How we laugh, conveniently forgetting the debâcle of Heathrow Terminal 5, a never-happening 3rd runway at the same airport, the most expensive city-to-airport train journey in the world (the bargain value-for-money Heathrow Express), the 2nd most expensive city-to-airport train journey in the world (the super-bargain value-for-money Stansted Express), Gatwick Airport with its ‘one-at-a-time’ take-off & landing runway, clogged-up motorways, more over-priced train tickets, roadworks, stabbings, Brexit, Windrush, etc etc.

Let’s start a war (no, let’s not)
The irony is that Berliners (and more importantly, me) are very happy with Tegel. Yes it is overcrowded, past its sell-by date, the ‘new’ 3rd terminal could easily pass off as a coach station/building site combo from somewhere in the north of England, but its proximity and access to the city is fantastic. And it’s iconic. It is Berlin. Can’t speak about Schönefeld however, as I wouldn’t dare set foot on Ryanair (again) or Easyjet (again) flights although for some unknown reason people (including me, stupidly) always assume BA is a ‘superior’ option. Think again, fool. However, BA do fly into Tegel. And on the (very) off chance that BA were ever to make Tegel a hub airport (WW3 or WW2 re-enactment with redrawn boundaries, perhaps), I would seriously expect them to rename the airport ‘BAgel’.

footnote: Brandenburg Airport opened in October 2020, and my beloved Tegel is no more.

Shalom Arthur, shalom…
On the very tenuous subject of German airports and bagels, a very good friend of mine, oy vey, told me of the time he was collecting a hire car (rental, Yanks) at Frankfurt Airport. He was offered an upgrade to his reservation and wanted to test the water to see if German humour had been found by asking that the upgrade be a tank, so he could “see what it feels like to drive down Frankfurt High Street like you people did in Europe all those years ago”. Disappointingly, for future anecdotal purposes, he took the upgrade graciously, without (un)necessary comment. Recently, prior to attending this person’s leaving work-gathering, I was asked by the person organising the event for any humorous recollections of this person which could be used at the leaving-do. Annoyingly, I got no positive feedback from my offering of the above. It’s a mad PC world we live in and I want no part of it.

Eventually, I head off to the stadium to collect my pre-ordered match ticket with ridiculous ease, and my guess is that there are more English-speaking German ticket office staff in a two-person booth at the Olympiastadion than there are German-speaking English ticket office staff on the planet. From a distance the Olympiastadion has the appearance of a gigantic granite UFO, plonked onto a big open space to the west of the city, with sculptors carving out the unwanted granite to shape the stadium we have. Visually it is a fantastically stunning piece of architecture but as per the translation of Reinheitsgebot, its history leaves things not quite right.

I have a few of hours to kill before the match (Hertha v Eintracht Frankfurt) so wander off to many of the pop-up bars that are located around the stadium, and as expected, it didn’t take long to start a conversation with some relatively-fluent English speaking German new-found friends. Conversation of sorts, and beer flowed, although as the flow of beer continued, the fluency of the conversation, understandably lessened and my schoolboy German ‘O’ level rapidly turned to adult German ‘nO’ level, and at some point sign language and grunting became the main methods of dialogue at which we were, surprisingly or otherwise, conversable (I do know that’s not a word in any form of language). Zwei bier, bitte was as good as ever got. And for a good period of time, this was sufficient.

An aside, if I may: I am used to years of attending football (soccer, Yanks) matches back home and abroad along with the attendant drinking culture that is part of the whole ‘match day experience’ but I have never, ever seen as many people drinking from bottles (big bottles at that) around any stadium in any part of the football globe. Ever. And I’ve been to Glasgow. I felt quite posh drinking from a plastic receptacle at a wooden bench by a caravan-cum-mobile-bar. The dainty extended pinkie invited some curious looks but nevertheless, in comparison I felt as though I was sipping Espresso Martini cocktails with the stunning and sultry-voiced Ute Lemper back in the 1920s underground cabaret night club mentioned at the top of this overly-long piece of work. Although thinking about it if were the 1920s it would be Ute’s Großmutter I’d be dealing with so maybe a few more Espresso Martinis would be needed, from both perspectives, admittedly.

Back to being sufficient. Well, sufficient enough until I wanted food. Needed is probably a better adjective. Choice wasn’t a problem. For every caravan-cum-mobile-bar in view there was its caravan-cum-mobile-food-outlet partner. Now, I have made many mistakes in my life, and I know with absolute certainty and conviction that I will continue to specialise in this department until the day I die but what I did next ended up in me completely losing the respect for someone I have genuinely admired for years (all my self-respect went yonks (that’s yonks, Yanks) ago). In a media world where the genre of Celebrity Chef has infested UK life almost as much as the grey squirrel (although I have yet to see squirrel of any colour on a menu in my local eateries), one man has generally kept to his theme, and not gone all hair-gel and political, to the point where I have only his cook books and watched only his TV shows on a regular basis. I was loyal to the man, although the Diana-like national outpouring of grief when his dog died, passed me by somewhere. No more walky for Chalky. Auf Wiedersehen, Pet, if you will (it was coming).

Now, if I possessed the ability to see above my own head without a mirror, I would have seen the proverbial 100w bulb flashing. Of course! Rick Stein! Long Weekend in Berlin with Rick Stein. My hero. He actually said he liked the local ‘speciality’ of currywurst: a bastard (I think that’s the German translation) concoction of local sausage and curry powder. Why in the name of Christ wouldn’t I believe him? Gott in Himmel. This is Rick talking. I don’t need to use his surname. Rick. My ex was convinced that I had a man-crush on Rick (let’s get this right, Rick, you are no Kumar Sangakkara or Rob Walkker, let me tell you). And Rick, let me tell you (again), you now may as well have hair-gel and move into Number 10. My cat, alive but living away from home during his gap year, uses the pages of your once-revered books as lining for a certain type of tray. And I don’t mean the one I used to eat your recipes from. And the contents of His tray were far tastier than those in the first picture.

To end (woohoo), I remember drinking (somehow) more beer in the stadium and in sight of the match, and having a really good bratwurst (ohne curry powder, Rick) from one of the concession outlets. However, for some strange unknown reason I had to leave the match early and for more reasons unknown it took me an inordinate amount of time to make the relatively short S-Bahn journey from Olympiastadion to Charlottenburg. It must have been Blätter (honestly, Google Translate it) on the line. I did end up back at my stunning AirBnB property after some seriously tense negotiations with an Uber driver: I was trying to give him money even though I had pre-paid the ride. The driver was fluent in English. After a day of drinking/currywursting, I wasn’t. Safe to say that I wasn’t feeling too clever at this point. Could have been jet-lag, could have been the bratwurst, there may even be a case that if could have been a result of the beer(s) drinking. But I think we both know it was really down to the the currywurst, Rick.

footnote: Hertha 2-0 Eintracht Frankfurt, full-time, apparently. I saw the goals on telly on Match von der Day later that night, after I woke up.

The point of bringing Dallas into the equation is because Texans, like any backward-thinking people, love nothing more than a good death row sentence for the local (non-Caucasian) fellows. And should you be a non-Caucasian queer (“we don’t like your kind around here, boy…”) with the surname ‘Goldberg’, then you really are in it deep – 6 feet worth, I would suggest – and the Dallasite could then (incorrectly) quote the 2nd Amendment and then (cowardly) plead the 5th. Erm, God Bless America…

Back to the point in hand: if I were back in Texas (hated it, have to be frank here, no offence Texans but most of your compatriots feel the same too – the wall should have been built around you people, and not down Mexico Way), and my dislike of the place had, somehow, enabled me to commit a crime to have myself placed on Death Row, what would I choose for my last meal? Assuming I had 3-courses, my very final last meal would be:

• Starter: black pudding slices with sauteed apples;
• Main: garlic prawns tossed in garlic, lemon juice & coriander;
• Pudding (to Hell with the waistline): rhubarb compote with crème anglaise (or ‘custard’, to you and me).

However, as Mistress Ploppy (Linda Polan, 1939- 2009), last-meal cook in the Blackadder II episode, ‘Head’, put it: “Sausages is all I got”. Knowing my luck, all the ingredients for the above would be 86’d (Yanks! I speak your language, hi-5, woo!) and only burgers left on the menu. Or possibly ‘Tex-Mex’ or ‘Soul Food’, given the probable Latino or Afro-American orientation of the chef. Either way, as I would be off to the chair after the meal (as might the chef probably be too, of course), I would end up with the fries, anyway. I thang yew.

footnote: while the above image portrays a view from a cell (historical, admittedly), I do accept it’s not a typical Dallas street scene. Which is not surprising, given the picture was taken at Dunluce Castle, County Antrim, Northern Ireland (near London, to you Americans).

Please do not greet me like a long-lost friend. First, I have no friends. And if by some regrettable fluke of life I come across an old school friend from years (and years) back who is still at waiting-staff level (after all these years), I really wouldn’t have to much to say on a positive note, so for the sake of not offending any more people than I already do, let’s keep it formal and distant, and definitely not personal.

On that note, guys, please do not use the terms ‘guys’ when addressing valued customers, i.e. me. I, along with most of my peers (although I have no peer, let alone a plurality of them) am closer to expected death age than most so I no longer, from a visual perspective at least, can be considered a youth (mentally however, this maybe up for discussion), and as a consequence, I do not use youth language. More important than this, I do not expect a person in a position of servitude to consider me an equal, and using the term ‘guys’ is an attempt to bring me down to their level. Read above: I have no peer(s). Whilst I respect the difficult job you front-of-house staff have, we do pay your salaries, so do be so kind to remember that fact, and with it, your place.

By the way, the fellow in the picture was a perfect combination of service and menu-only based conversation. The fact that we were both fluent in different languages helped. However, he knew I wanted feeding and I knew he wanted money. Very few words were required. Which was just as well.