if cool(n) ≠ loaded(l) + profligate(p), what is n?

Maybe some words of interest for our impending guests in Berlin.

We arrived yesterday late afternoon on the Hainan Air direct flight from Beijing to Berlin. The flight was fine although uneventful. However I didn't appreciate their attempts to darken the cabin and encourage sleep on a day flight. It's relatively easy to avoid jet-lag when travelling East to West as long as you stay awake, then go to sleep in the evening as usual.

Anyway, watched a few movies and grappled with an uncooperative controller to play some pointless hands of video poker. The food was fine although average, as was the service.

I must admit ("divvin't call me a mustard mitt") that although travelling through Heathrow is nary pleasant, BA do have pretty damn good service.

Anyway, for our purposes, we couldn't beat the convenience of a direct flight.

So I thought that the theme of this post could be a few observations I have made on the six or so visits I have made here since associating with the blog-betitling tuton.

The weather tends to be warmer than in the UK. I attribute this to continentality, but then any weather I cannot explain which does not affect the UK, I attribute to continentality. (This is the combination of an enthusiastic, but insufficiently focused interest in geography and coming from an island nation). Consequently we have high hopes for a warm and sunny day a week on Friday.

Berliners hate to waste money. Despite being the capital city, Berlin is not a rich place. In fact the BBC last week ran quite a sobering report about child poverty in Berlin. If I've spoken to you about one of the main reasons I like Berlin, I probably said something along the lines of it having all of the culture and vibrancy of a capital city, without the price-ruining effects of having a large finance industry (which in Germany is based in Frankfurt). So the social scene has none of the look-at-how-much-money-I-can-waste-having-funnedness which is certainly prevalent in parts of Beijing for example.

Actually in a brief aside, I've already recognised that I very rarely have a bad word to say about life in Beijing. Now as I've commented before, this is mostly down to my natural optimism, but also becuase it genuinely is a bloody brilliant place. However, in the continued interests of balance, here's another crticism to file next to crap driving. There are too many people in Beijing that think their rapidly acquired wealth awards them some kind of special status and abilities. Actually, it's not difficult at all to see that this criticism is intrinsically linked to the driving problem. Too many people think having a car makes them 'better' than other road users and they act accordingly. You also get a degree of this in bars and restaurants around the city, however, the sad but true fact is, because we are foreigners, it is assumed we have cash to burn and therefore more often than not, we are awarded what I feel is false respect and deference in this regard. This post is not about Beijing, so I'll get back to the focus, but this is a useful point to juxtapose attitudes in Berlin.

So if cool(n) ≠ loaded(l) + profligate(p), what is n?
(That's awfully geeky I acknowledge, but amusing too, so there we are).
Mostly the social scene here seems to comprise knowing where the fleeting zeitgeist (see what I've done there?) is currently denoting as 'the place to be' and then being there. Dressed casually to indicate that no effort has been made and then drinking delicious and relatively inexpensive beers, supplemented by weg biere or biere der faust - literally (on the) way beers or beers of the fist, bought in local convenience stores. Smoking remains almost obligatory, although having a dog-on-string and 'white-boy dreadlocks' are optional but encouraged. (Think the Tanners Arms) The drinking speed is slow, to allow for involved discussion, but the road is long, night out being a literal term. Warning, this is something that has caught me out, specifically on NYE 2007 when I reached my drinking zenith far too early, brought up as I was on 23:00 hoying out times.

Reggae is popular, with home-grown bands doing some good stuff and happily seeming to avoid the burning gay people obsession that characterises the music actually coming out (not in that way - don't burn me!) of Jamaica these days. But the music scene is pretty eclectic of course recognising that Berlin is the spiritual home of Techno.

Food is always a regular feature of this blog and this post is no different. The food here in Berlin is very good. There are a large number of reasonably-priced restaurants serving food from all over the world. Just in case you were unaware of this urban (not-)myth, the döner kebab was actually invented in Berlin. Currywurst and bratwurst are two other 'weg snacks' to be enjoyed, both on a night out and when exploring the various parts of the city for sightseeing, shopping and checking out the museums and galleries.

As a student of politics, it is difficult not to be enthralled by Berlin. It has played a momentous and difficult role in the political history of Europe and the rest of the World. Walking around the city, even for the first time it is easy to feel like you recognise some of the sights and streets, whether from fiction or the news.

It remains something of a split city, the East and the West are no longer physically divided, but in people's perceptions a gap still remains. Don't be distracted by the superficialities of which 'green man' tells you to Walk or not, despite having visited a number of times, the only time I've been to the west of the city was to visit KaDeWe on Ku'Damme. Not that Caroline is at all prejudiced... (she'll probably knack me for writing that).

If you want some visuals to accompany this über-lightwieght introduction, then check out this set of mine on flickr.

Assuming you're coming to our event, I hope this whets your appetite a little. We'll provide you with more detailed information, suggestions and recommendations when you arrive. If you're not able to come, then I'll be on here ruminating, fulminating and cogitating in the build up and summing up and posting pictures in the follow up.

Follow up to "What's Going On".
Just in case anyone is interested, the Guardian have posted this fairly balanced video report on the troubles in Xinjiang. But although things seemed to have calmed down and despite reading as many reports, commentaries and analyses, I remain far from an understanding of what happened and why.

(This is my relatively uninformed thoughts on the city, helpfully I have avoided getting any detailed input from any of the three hospitable Berliners I am currently staying with.)