The coming two weekends will be busy as we will be having dear guests. Our friend Michael will come to visit us in our dream flat for the first time and we intend to stroll through our “kiez” a bit. Of course hopefully also some nightlife, hopefully because this time of the year is not the best for me. As I do not want to take morphine, I have to lie down a bit more, but Axel is a strong help as he realises at once when I am taking on too much and he helps me where he can.

Today we have a starling day again. These birds like to sit on our roof on their way to Africa and bring lots of excitement for Smokie with their chitchat and for me lots of fun, they are true little goblins. Currently they appear in such numbers to remeind me of Hitchcock. I am to stupid to use the camera but possibly I will even learn that at some time.

Monday morning is not a good time for cheerulness anyway. I leave the flat for the week, our cat protests behind the door that I am leaving again. Fortunately people on the Monday morning train are still sleepy, so that one may rest a bit. Not so this time!

Behind me two elderly couples on a short trip to Hamburg. Obviously one of the women is absolutely proud of being able to read and reads out any speed indicator, each station name. Spandau, 139, Falkensee, 170 Nauen, 204, 228, could not read that and so on. Topping it of in Hamburg with announcing every station of the local S-Bahn every couple of hundred meters.

Some people should book a course in “Being silent with grace”.

Hello, readers out there, I am still waiting for comments on my last article!

In the German version of our page I tried to report on the German blogging scene. It does not make sense to translate this, therefore I try to translate an article from the Hauptstadtblog about English-speaking bloggers in Berlin. The original article may be read under Berliner Blogs am Sonntag (from 23/10/2005).

Berlin Blogs? Those are Blogs from Berlin? Or Blogs about Berlin? Doing my Sunday research I have found many English language blogs and start with them today.
Erin is in Berlin with a grant from the Humboldt Stiftung in Berlin. She describes her daily life in the city to keep family and friends up-to-date in the U.S. This week she visited a political debate about Arab democracy in the green “salon” of the Volksbühne and admires the casualness with which a cultural institution processes political topics. On the other hand she noticed that the discussion, illuminated by theatre spotlights got a hint of European “Salon” atmosphere.
To study art history in Berlin, Heather, called hem, from Austin, Texas, with her blog hemmungen/inhibitions . She recalls the fall of the wall on 11 November and has planned to celebrate coffee afternoons with German caro substitute coffee and is looking forward to many museum visits.
The English illustrator Craig of flipflopflyin with the gorgeous mini pixel images is in Berlin and just finished directing a Western abgedreht. He is dueling his Dog Billy. Of course the dog has got its own weblog and is seriously competing with zebu from Neukölln – yes the dog of Schockwellenreiter. But Craig wanted to give up smoking!
sattva is from New York with her raskal trippin, she recommends an autumn visit to the Botanischen Garten, which is reminding her of Vermont. Sometting “typical German” happened to her during the week: She became unfit for vacations and also tells us why you could become unfit for working, but never unfit for vacations in America.
Talking about illness: The Berlin Blogger is not really ill but to be safe he watches news about bird flu and offers some tips for behaviour: in any case prices for poultry will be falling. I liked the advice best to assume nothing had happened. …

Yesterday evening somebody, who should know me quite well, told me that I have lost my sensitivity and explicitly referred to this web site. That person was of the opinion, that I frequently treat people badly in my writing, yes, that I even expose them in public. This referred not only to one article, but to several “instances”. This particular person also told me that he stopped reading these pages after reading a specific article because he did not want to be part of it.
This has hit me, of course, because I usually try to think about what I am able to write or not. Of course it is clear that this is not a daily newspaper. I estimate that there are between 5 and 10 people who read this regularly. On the other hand this of course public in a way demanding for some sensitivity.
Therefore I would like to know your opinion. Is this too public? Should I privatise the page by protecting it with a password only available to selected people? Is it of any interest to you what I am writing or do your regard it as my personal exhibitionism? What would you like to read anyway? Is there anything which I should not have written on this site?
I am looking forward to each answer, even if it is hard. Please use the “Comment”-Link below (also anonymously) or just a normal email.
Thanks!

Friday afternoon, Monday morning. Packed train between Hamburg and Berlin, weekly commuters like me or the usual army conscripts. And then, not for the first time, above all seats you find the message “Seat might be booked” or “Give up seat if claimed”. Technology has failed again, the transmission of booking data had not been successful. And everybody without a reservation sits down with trembling knees and hopes, that nobody will claim his/her seat.

In principle you should not be allowed to enter an ICE-train without a reservation. In France you are obliged to do so on the TGV, reservation is included in the fare and may be changed at any time up to a couple of minutes before departure (if you have a flexible ticket). However, to make this possible, French stations are plastered with ticket machines, but there is no reservation signs in the trains at all.

I still promised to tell you how I like the new album of Franz Ferdinand. Honestly. I think it is great, taking all 14 songs into account it was better than the first one! To listen in I recommend this Link, however, you need Apple’s iTunes, but fortunately this is available for WIndows as well.

For the first time in my life I was at the German Job Agency (Agentur für Arbeit) to register as looking for a job. My contract is ending at the end of December and one has to register 3 months in advance to not risk being cut down on the money when out of the job. But they did not really seem interested in finding me another job, I simply got a receipt that I had registered. And they told me that I need to come again by 31/12. Do they really think they can find me a job for January 1st if I came on December 30th?
When I came back to work in Hamburg the next day, I got some news which increased the chances of getting a new contract. The DIFUSE project, in which we will organise technology transfer for the ECIU, a group of young European universities, has been approved for funding by the European Commission. With LOCOMOTIVE there will be enough work for me until 2007.

These days a wet cold is felt outside, night temperatures rapidly approach the freezing point, even if the weather still is nice during the day. Hanna is working a lot to get the terrace ready for winter and uses me to carry plants into the staircase or onto the attic. In principle only the pots with the freshly planted bulbs will remain outside.