Tales from my handbag

Ladeez und gentlemen, wilkommen in Berlin, a city of grand grafitti and decadent dog dirt, big cakes and long sausages; a city that loves to shove a stiff finger at the establishment yet tut tuts if a pedestrian crosses the road willy nilly on a red Ampelman. Other paradoxes: it’s bad form to woop like a demented banshee at the Berliner Philhamonik but absolutely de rigeur to let rockets off in the hand or better still, chuck them at unsuspecting passers-by. Shabby chic is very big in Berlin, although, I have to say, in East Kreuzberg, it’s more shabby than chic and quite often, positively dangerous. Take C’s apartment; we had to stick rows of Handiman pocket tissues on all the door lintels because obviously the Berliners of 100 years ago were Liliputian and big strapping gels from England had not yet been invented. C’s bathroom was quite a challenge too. The toilet and wash facilities were, for some odd reason, separated only by a waist high wall and a plastic curtain and, since the shower was accessed via an uncloseable door to the kitchen, it was possible for three people to simultaneously eat, poo and wash while keeping up a lively conversation. The ‘bath’ was also obviously designed for a person of reduced stature, quite possibly a gymnast. It was a little like a hip bath but as there was no plug, the only way to wash was to lie back with bent knees and wave the hand-held shower up and down until all bits were cleansed. Unfortunately, I never worked out how to turn over safely to do my back parts and I couldn’t stand up because my size 8s wouldn’t fit into the flat part of the bath unless I had one foot in directly in front of the other, Egyptian style, which rendered me unstable and likely to topple over the small wall and into the toilet. The sleeping arrangements too were a tad unconventional. While I was sleeping in the living room, C’s bed was a bunk bed in the walk-in wardrobe next door with a high up picture window that overlooked the living room. For privacy, C had festooned this handy portal with a nifty little curtain made of J-cloths which he took great pains to draw every evening and open every morning. My first morning in Berlin, C and I went on a wander through the local park to marvel at the drug dealing, to the Tempelhof where they’re growing vegetables on the disused runway and to admire a rather fine urinal that was wonderfully clean and had some intricate tiling on the splash back. Later on I took a bite of C’s Currywurst (anaemic sausage drenched in chemical sauce) which is quite possibly the WURST thing I’ve ever tasted – if you don’t count the ‘pizza’ I once ordered in Turkey that was so inedible, it made me gag although being British, rather than complain, I folded it over and walked out of the restaurant with it under my arm like a clutch bag. More to come…..

I have a few things to say about Berlin, city of a thousand sausages. The other week, I was staying in the very colourful Schoneberg district where Christopher Isherwood and other light-footed gentlemen used to galavant with impunity. At the end of my road, there was a. a big pork emporium where men in blue overalls ate sausage standing up, b. lots of lady prostitutes (and a couple that defied gender classification) jay walking among the bmws, and c. a gaggle of maxi-skirted Roma girlies who spent most evenings dancing around a phone box to a Slavic boom box. Around the corner, I had the dubious honour of early doors at Kumpelnest 3000, a fabulously indiscreet former knocking shop boasting elaborately carpeted walls, glitter balls and a very sticky dance floor where repressed housewives regularly flashed their baps. I resisted; I was recovering from an evening spent at a punk rock reunion party with a right charmer called Chaos whose chat up routine involved donning a penguin costume and slapping a pair of dentures on the table. Believe it or not, it takes more than false teeth to seduce me these days, Berlin or no Berlin.

Last Friday, an animal (possibly a bird or a fox on stilts) shat inside my jeans. I wasn’t wearing them at the time; the incident occurred while said jeans were on the line, drying. The excrement was the colour of a beige cardigan and it caused me some consternation because I didn’t see it until I was pulling up my jeans in the bathroom. Now my first thought was that I’d had a little accident. But wait, the offending streak was at the FRONT of my jeans, not the rear. Either something had gone horribly wrong with my back and front bottom plumbing or a careless seagull had eaten some Spanish cucumber and let rip over my washing. Any road up, as they say in Hinckley, I am hoping this incident will bring me luck. Later on that day, I found a slug in my nibble and tuppaware cupboard. It wasn’t eating; it was just lounging around on the bottom shelf. I chucked it over the fence with extreme prejudice. Talking about animals in crazy places, in Berlin last week, I went for a gander at the Brandenburg Gate. As if this marvellous edifice alone wasn’t enough to inspire awe in the tourists, the authorities had seen fit to jazz things up a bit with two teenagers in GDR guard costumes, a gorilla, a chicken and a Darth Vader. And no-one was laughing!

“What good is sitting alone in your room. Come hear the music play”, sang Liza. So when in Berlin, on a four day city mini-break, I thought, must see the Berlin Philharmonic. However, said orchestra and its crazy haired conductor, Simon Rattle, had gone on its hols to Salsburg which meant we were left with a manky bunch of fiddlers from the former Eastern bloc and their camp conductor, Igor. The concert was called ‘A night in St Petersburg’ so I knew it was going to be a bit Nutcrackery. However, what I wasn’t expecting was a troupe of lumpen ‘dancers’ in nylon ball gowns who couldn’t cock a leg  higher than their Slavic crotches. Needless to say, the highlight for me, was the jumbo pretzel in the interval which had an interesting cheesy filling. Other highlights: sitting on a toilet that David Bowie/Iggy Pop may or may not have also sat on, doing the cha cha cha at the gypsy ballroom and losing my passport at the airport on the way home.