Kraut-shock

Phew - I'm tired today.  We got back from Berlin yesterday afternoon and I've been in a coma since.  This is strange and unhelpful when you consider I've done nothing but eat and sleep well since touching down in Blighty.  We weren't late or anything.  We got home at 5pm.

I am really spent however.  I think it's a combination of physical fatigue and boredom.  I really really really am bored.  Screaming ab-dabs self-harm bored.  I know I am the master of my own ship and should apply my talents (such as they be) to changing matters for the better.  But I can't be our-souled.  So there.

I have another day off tomorrow.  Missus O and I have to attend to matters with a couple of friends of ours that I'm not at liberty to discuss until this time tomorrow.  The cloak-and-dagger miasma makes the whole episode sound vaguely sinister and sordid.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  It's a joyous and sober event.  You'll just have to read tomorrow's entry for full details.  Actually, I might not get the opportunity to scribble an entry tomorrow, but I will do soonest.

All I can think of at the moment is going home, curling up into a ball and sleeping like a lttle pigeon.  Not the stuff of which legends are made, is it?  I don't have the energy to argue the point.  Perhaps some modernist poetry would help?  No, I thought not either.

High pressure international jet-set what-have-you

I'm usually pretty good at keeping regular vides in my appointments diary.  I don't like being on the meter constantly, especially when I'm supposed to be enjoying myself.  Other people appear to love being ordered hither and yon in the name of leisure, but they, madam, are perverts.  I'll have no truck with it.

Having said all that, which I just have (see above), events do conspire from time to time to cause me to spread my considerable talents and charisma a bit thin.  The next week is a case in point.  I'm already up against it at work.  This our busy period.  On Friday I have to leave the office early in order to dash to Heathrow for a flight to Berlin.  We're in Germany until Monday.  Back to work Tuesday.  On Wednesday I witnessing the marriage of a friend.  Back to work Thursday, a day full of back-to-back meetings.  Work again on Friday.  An archery lesson on Saturday and we're collecting some hops as part of a local brewery scheme on Sunday morning.  Still, it's all good fun I suppose.

I might have mentioned before now that I've given up beer for Lent.  I will have to forgo this fast for the duration of our stay in Berlin though.  Germany produces some splendid beers, not the fizzy lager piss with which you're no doubt familiar, but proper beer.  I was particularly taken on our last trip there with a kraut jollop called "winterboch".  It's a dark, flavoursome ale they produce for the cold winter months.  It's super.  I cannot and will not not drink it.  Nein, nein und thrice nein.

Rhine, women and song

Mrs O and I are fresh back from a weekend in Berlin.  It was one of those exhilarating lightning-quick city breaks, the kind of thing that convinces to you give adult life a second chance.  We both clambered on the plane home yesterday afternoon with a feeling of unfinished business.  We didn't stop once the whole time we were there, but still left with the feeling that we'd only scratched the surface of this fascinating place.  

So - we've resolved to go back.  We're also going to get some rudimentary German under our belts.  We're not setting our aim too high, just the ability to order food and drink in a reasonably fluent manner would be nice.  Mrs O studied German at school, which is useful because she has the vocab, albeit buried.  But I'm a complete novice.  I find it sufficiently close to English to make listening comprehension fairly easy, however, so that's half the battle won.  French, which I speak reasonably well, is a nightmare in this regard.  I find it murderously difficult to follow people's responses to me in France.  I'm hopeful that German will be less tortuous on the English ear.  

Another benefit of German is that now and again you encounter the oh-so pleasing instance of a German phrase that is exactly the same as its English cousin, albeit with a more sinister accent.  "Brown beer" or "all in order?" are examples of this charming phenomenon.

It's funny too that one feels a certain unspoken affinity with other northern European races.  The Dutch, the Germans and the English are very much cousins as far as outlook and society is concerned.  And, cliche though it is, I always feel comforted when in Germany because things are so well organised.

Eric Von Pickles

As I'm spending the weekend in Berlin, I'm going to have to steal myself to the realisation that I'll be eating pickles at some point.  Actually, I'm sure things must have moved on a little in the decade since I was last in Germany.  On that occasion I was on a mob-handed stag do.  We dined exlusively at Burger King, so I was able to give the gerkins the swerve.

This first time I went to Germany was in 1990, whilst interrailing.  My mate and I arrived in Munich, and I was mortified to discover that all the supermarkets etc. had shut on Saturday afternoon and would not reopen until Monday morning.  Bavaria wears its Catholic heart on its sleeve.  No matter though - we'd simply eat out.  Unfortunately, the only takeaways trading were traditional German places, so even the cutlery was picked.  And I cannot abide pickles.  

 I think I spent the entire weekend eating oranges and buns.  By Sunday afternoon I was so desperate I'd have eaten a husky had we had the presence of mind to bring one.

I've been scarred by this experience.  My worst misgivings about the merciless nature of Teutonic cuisine were confirmed, and  I still to this day refuse to believe they are capable to producing anything intended for human consumption that is anything other than appalling.  Let's hope they progressed in the last quarter of a century.  I know I have.

Up against the impersonal pronoun singular

Super busy at the very present.  I work in a small team.  There are two of us.  That really is as small as the law of team dynamics allows, isn't it?  Any less than that, and it's all "I" in team, which nature will not have.

The reason for the professional mania is that the other 50% of the first squad is working from home for a bit, due to unfortunate family circs. that I'd rather not go into.  For as long as I've had a hole in me arse, as they say, I've been telling my alleged boss that a two-man team is fine as long as both parties are fit and available for selection.  When that happy state of affairs is undermined for some reason, it all goes to cock in a handcart.  This is the current state of affairs.  

Worse still, I'm off to Berlin for a long weekend on Friday week.  Who's going to do the needful then?  My boss?  Roger De Courcey has more chance of joining the SAS, frankly.  I don't know what's going to happen, and, more to the point, I don't care.  When all is said and done, it's only work.  Does my attitude shock you?  Excellent.  Then my work here is done.