Paying for my breakfast at the counter I noticed another customer, reading the paper intently, with his finger (forgive me) driven up his own nostril. It was gone to the first knuckle, earnestly swiveling. He drew it out and inspected it. Roll & flick. Turned a page slowly, thoughtfully, and stuck the same finger back […]

In a little Hungarian cafe I found a tourist map of Budapest. It very much resembles the summertime map of Berlin. All-night “party with a capital P” hotspots, hostels with wifi, a Sunday farmer’s market “to soothe your hangover soul.” When I got home, a trail of smashed-up pieces of coloured foil lay glittering among […]

On the underground train above ground the whole carriage overheard two rather stoned young dudes speaking about Art, that is, themselves. As we unzipped the treetops people glanced at them, glanced away, smiled. One dude had a wry American accent and the upper hand. The other dude was Persian and explained at some length that […]

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A man saved my life today, deftly and in German. He sped past on his bicycle and veered in to make me stop. Excuse me, your brake cable is dangling and it’s gonna tangle in the spokes. I didn’t understand what he had said, my mind was on the sky and at first I just […]

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In the late afternoon I walked down to the square. I’ve been indoors now every day of eight weeks. People were sitting round the edge of the grass as though it were a swimming pool they were dangling their legs into. The trees overhead are finally thickening with green. A man who doesn’t have much […]

I bought my bike second hand and we went all the way to Leipzig to get it. Leipzig is the new Berlin now that Berlin is the new Seattle. I took my new bike to the bicycle repairman on the corner. Oh no, he said: this bike has a rusted frame. You’d better throw it […]

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In the supermarket I queued for the African check out dude who’s always calm in the midst of all the Germanness. A blonde woman behind me set down, emphatically, a bagful of fresh pak choy and then behind it, all in a heap, several packets of cream-filled biscuits, a jar of chocolate pudding, some plump […]

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Yesterday when he asked I told a trans-identified friend over coffee, No: you’re not a woman. I told him how male-privileged he sounded, to me, when he dreamily explained playing around with his prescribed hormones so as to reconstruct the experience of a menstrual cycle. He felt the reason he wasn’t experiencing it for real […]

Today in Berlin I found a hand-blown wine bottle so beautiful I had to pick it up to carry home. I saw an elder descending the stairs from a sushi bar painfully and slowly. He crossed the pavement, leaning on his stick. To my surprise he came up to a bicycle and dropped his satchel […]

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I was overtaken on the bike path today by a puzzlingly hostile man. He seemed to have a store of labels and insults saved up and was eager to put them to use. The sun had finally come out. I had ridden clear across town to collect my Ghanaian visa. I was thinking as I […]

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Try to work out whether I can afford to get back over to Ghana to see my sweetheart, I asked a friend: how long will this pretty autumn weather last? We know all too soon it’s going to get misty and grey and damp and bitterly cold – but when? Oh well, he said: November […]

This summer as the world goes to literal and immediate hell using bushfire and corruption, misogyny and greed, several small incidents have surfaced in my own daily life that help keep me afloat. I found a new bar, hidden behind a drift of trees, late last night as I was pedalling home from some arduous […]

In a crowded lunchtime cafe we were pressed elbow to elbow. The couple beside me talked and talked, while both scrolling idly on their phones. At last I turned to the woman, whose mouth was open and full of food, and asked her, “Excuse me, would you please be so kind (in German we say […]

I will tell you what Berlin is like in the summer. As I cycle home from a far-distant errand I cross over an overgrown field. Near the hangars, part of the largest manmade structure outside the Great Wall of China, a thicket of neatly rowed white demountable houses has bicycles parked and pot plants blooming. […]

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The woman behind me at the supermarket checkout had a little pile of five caramel bars, two gossip magazines of the trashiest kind, the ones with really flimsy rattling paper, and a tub of flavoured yoghurt. She saw me looking and her brow contracted. When I said, “I’m so happy for you,” which in German […]

I learned a poetic new German word just now at the little health food shop. The man behind me had put just one item on the counter, a carton of Folgemilch. I asked him, “What is… follow milk?” “Well,” he began, and something about his tired, slightly harassed, but ever willing to be helpful expression […]

A woman in my neighbourhood has put up little signs all round the flower gardens in our local park. Her signs are handwritten, but laminated. “INVITATION TO THE FLOWER FESTIVAL, JUNE 16. Yeah maybe ‘festival’ is somewhat high flown. But I will bake a cake and hand a slice of it to everyone who feels […]

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I just sold my air mattress, late on a Saturday night, to a small, muscular, warm dude whose name is Ramon. He rang me an hour ago from my online classifieds ad and asked, how much longer are you up? He described what he wants to do with it – lie under the stars among […]

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It is my birthday and I had kind of a depressing morning because (various reasons). But I reckoned I could make a go of the afternoon, and I was right. Riding out into the day aboard my trusty, failsafe, foolproof bicycle I zoomed around town for an hour or two looking for the restaurant, cosy […]

Standing on the street in my Dad’s old pyjamas taping a sign “GORSS” next to the labelled doorbell. The man who works next door is waiting with his hands in his pockets, wearing a paint stained smock. He is very good looking. We are laughing. “Always misspelt,” I explain, in German, jabbing at the tape […]