Berlin

Upon returning from holidaying from Berlin in the middle of October, and letting the last of the stygian rumbles of my sausage clotted colon roll away, I discovered that several friends were also to journey to Berlin. These were people who tended to be culturally orientated, or at least owned guitars. There must be something in the air of Berlin aside from the dust of rubble and history that had attracted them so.
It can't be cobbled prettiness or leafy romanticism. Not even Eva Braun would have honeymooned in Berlin. If Paris could be personified by an arch young man in love with an older woman, than Berlin would surely find the form of a leather-jacketed, robustly alcoholic artist. Berliners take life seriously, as serious as has history has treated the city. Berlin fulfills the desire for the 'edgy' so beloved of the young and cultured middle class. This edginess pervades past, present and probably the future. Edginess bleeds from one epoch to the next and transmogrifies. A city which has never faced the trama of being bombed has less chance of a renowned nightlife blossoming. To party hard, one has to take life seriously, and, in such terms, Berlin is the A JP Taylor of partying. Dancing in clubs there has an almost Calvinist compulsion, and is unrestrained by the prophalyxis of irony and fun. You don't have nights out- you raid stetches of free time. Average nights out in Berlin tend to last as long as a Wagnerian Ring Cycle.

The history of Europe plays out like chess. The history of America plays out like poker (whereas the UK plays out like Ludo.) And Berlin is the centre of the Board. He who controls Berlin controls the Europe, as someone said. Well, not anymore. Not that Berlin is much danger of becoming normal. It's dwindling edginess is enervated by its culture and nightlife that attracts the hip, the knowing, (and sometimes, the caring) from London, Tokyo, Buenos Aires et cetera. The tourists and the expats are on the whole indistinguishable from the natives. Berlin seems to be off the fat-assed radar of fucking fanny-pack wearing US tourists.

So, tick off the tourbook sights, the Brandenberg gate und alle. But then drop the taxis, and the tours taken at the tip of a hoisted umberella, and pretend you're a local. One of the great things about travelling is that even everyday prosaic things, buying train tickes, going to the supermarket take on the sllight thrill of novelty. Find a bar that makes time stand still, and then makes you fall flat. Try to get your prissy little English tongue round the word monuments of the German languge (try this for cranium-freezing size - Vergangenheitsbewaltitgung (meaning 'conquering the past'). Describe Berlin in three words? Not a chance (though with German, one compound word might just about do it.)