BiB

Rack your brains no longer. I’ve found my dream job. Not that I’ve actually secured a position yet, you understand, but I’m sure it can only be a matter of time.

I’ve got my genes to thank for my eureka moment. Inherited from my father, along with a great love of fried potatoes, booze and fags, is asthma. Yes, of course I effing know I shouldn’t smoke. In fact, I even had a freshly converted Allen Carr evangelist here on Saturday night and some of his evangelism must have had a subliminal effect because I’ve forgotten to smoke since Sunday. And, anyway, asthma provided me with a useful German lesson. As I psyched myself up for a trip to the quack one day, I boned up on my German grammar, and discovered, to my delight, that it is DER Inhalator, DIE Praxis and DAS Asthma. When I mysteriously become fluent in German and get a job as a German teacher – not to be confused with the dream job. I’ve taught language before. The hardest job I’ve ever done. Not that I’ve done many jobs, really. But it was harder than sitting around drinking tea in Russia for a living, let me tell you – it’s the example I’ll give everyone for them to get to grips with gender.

Anyway…

I plan to become a doctor’s surgery receptionist. In Germany. I see only a couple of necessary qualifications and, while I agree that it would be better, for tradition’s sake, if I were a woman, I am sure that I’ve got every requirement covered. For, as I see it, to work in a doctor’s surgery in Germany, one need only be skinny, obese or old-&-dim. I plan to fill the latter category’s professional shoes.

I wouldn’t be in the least bit surprised if my health’s actually a bit of a mess – I’m so glad we’re not seethrough – but I don’t normally bother with quacks. As I’ve reported before on these here pages, either they’ll try to convince me I’m a woman or, as not reported, bollock me for doing a sedentary job. And the time I had my ears syringed was almost too pornographic to go into. So I won’t. But with asthma, there’s no way round it. There’s delaying it, which I do galore. As long as I’ve at least got an empty inhaler lying around the place, my body’s normally kept placeboishly in order. But Scotland beckoned of late, and any interaction with the Celtic world is almost bound to set me wheezing, so I dashed to the local chest-quacks to get me some real drugs.

A queer thing about being here, and my ludicrous working-life, is that I’ve got posh health insurance. It’s the only type a freelancer can get, and it’s worth every penny for the half second of respect it gets you in dealings with strangers. As I’m hopeless at haughtiness in the day-to-day, I do get a minor pitter-patter as I see the staff sit up in their chairs, speak nicely and make every effort to get me an appointment as quickly as possible. And it’s the one bit of naughtiness I’m vaguely prepared to exploit at the expense of your regular Germans. (Oh god, I remember, with massive internal cringe, that I used to jump queues in Russia too, though this was against my will. Foreigners were constantly given preferential treatment in Russia, and I would close my eyes as I walked past a snaking line of utterly beautiful folk, mentally cutting my heart out with the venom of their stares.)

So I walked into my chest-quacks’ surgery. I sauntered up to the reception desk. Three women sat at it. One skinny. One obese. One old-&-dim. My natural preference was for the old-&-dim one, especially as the other two were under 12 and I thought I might have to give them some sweeties or talk about pop-music. “I’d like to make an appointment, please,” I said to Ms. O-&-D. She began flicking tomes ahead in her Big Book and was clearly aiming to give me an appointment shortly before Armageddon. I thought we’d better truncate this charade so I whipped out my posh insurance card and slid it under her nose. She had a slow-motion eureka moment all of her own and told me, mustering as much of a Hollywood smile as 60 years of being drunk every day would allow, that I could, should I so wish, take a seat, as they weren’t that busy, and a doctor would see to me straight away.

I sat in the waiting-room, having champagne and grapes fed to me, for the microscopic hiatus until the doctor decided to stop surfing youtube and came out to fetch me. But it was long enough to garner an understanding of the anthropology of doctor’s surgery receptionist hierarchy.

The young thin and fat ones of the triumverate should, ideally, be employed about a week apart. This instantly gives the more senior of the two a feeling of importance and perhaps means she won’t be quite so hopeless at her job. The younger of the two, meanwhile, merely makes up the numbers – perhaps it’s a Brussels requirement – and makes laughable attempts at answering people’s queries. “Ja, so ven can I make my next appointment?” asked a stern German pensioner with a Mrs. Thatcher haircut. “Er – pause to blow huge bubble-gum bubble – dunno. Wanna give us your number and I’ll ring ya?” Luckily for the young one, Mrs. Thatcher thought this must be technology and progress combining to make modern life difficult again and she went along with the youngster’s incompetence.

The only moment when the thin and fat young ones can have a second of solidarity is when Ms. O-&-D weighs in on proceedings. Ms. O-&-D had mastered the layout of the surgery after 45 years there and was awfully good at pointing people in the direction of the adjacent waiting-room, but her skills ended there. Otherwise, it was all blank stares and dribbling…

I put out my cigar, told the go-go boy his services were no longer required, and popped into the quack for a half-second chat. His computer told him I had private insurance so he thought he’d better do a few extra things like bestethoscoping me to squeeze a few more euros out of the transaction. He then gave me a repeat prescription and sent me back to the ladies with a bill… to be settled immediately.

I reappeared before Ms. O-&-D. A vague flicker of recognition spread across her sclerotic features. She fiddled around with some paper lying on her desk to give her a moment’s extra breathing space. Annoyingly, the least senior new one – obese, in this case, though the body-shape-seniority index can also work in the other direction – decided she’d better get in on the act. I duly handed her my bill. She looked perplexed. “Whassat?” “My bill.” But she couldn’t cope with this rare conundrum and bowed to Ms. O-&-D’s greater wisdom and experience.

The bill was for 19 euros something. Alas, I had no change and handed over a 20-euro bill. I think I sensed a moment of joy in Ms. O-&-D’s haggard visage as she had a quick thought along the lines of, “That’d get me five cans of Oettinger and four packets of woodbines,” but then she realised there was work to be done and staggered off in search of some cents. I stood nicely, declining offers of caviar from fatty and skinny. And stood. And stood. For a while I wondered whether this was a new take on mugging and whether I’d bump into Ms. O-&-D caning fags on Schönhauser Allee. But just as I was thinking I might take another glass of champers and lap-dance after all, she reappeared, tottering and apologetic, with about 5 euros in coin change. “But you only owe me 4 cents,” I protested. “It’s all we’ve got,” she retorted, and pretended to be busy by looking at the computer, which she thought was a complicated lamp. I thought it would be patronising to say, “Yes, aber you can take away the four euros straight away and that would make the change much closer to the mark,” but happily bade the staff farewell – I think I may have said hello instead of goodbye in all the excitement – and skipped downstairs and put my ill-gotten gains towards two inhalers and a packet of fags.

So, just as I soon as I learn German for, “Fucked if I know,” my application’s in the post.

Speaking of heartlessness, I think I had my first exposure to the heartless masses aged 9. It’s taken me 27 years to be able to write about it.

It was second year juniors. I was already feeling a bit discombobulated because our school was having repairs done to it and we second year junior types were in portacabins round the corner from the real school premises. Not to say that I’d managed to create the provinces in London and concentrate my whole life in a 1km squared space – my mother still calls the West End the City – but it must have been at least 15cm outside my regular stomping ground, so was pretty frightening.

So, with me feeling discombobulated and 9, Miss H_ decides she’s going to strike up a song one day. Honestly, teachers had it easy then. “Fucked if I know what we’ll do next,” Miss H_ probably thought to herself. “I know. I’ll belt out a song.” Miss H_ had a not bad voice. I think it was to make up for her looks and lack of anything resembling a pleasant personality. I wouldn’t be surprised if she’s still Miss H_ to this day, in fact. Or in prison for child abuse. Normally, we were tunefully indoctrinated with One Day at a Time, by the songtastic Lena Martell, but Miss H_ went out on a limb on this fateful day. Either she wanted to work out who the gay boys in the class were – the experiment worked a treat, if so – to send them for extra Lena Martell instruction, or was dealing with an admittedly tragic event in her own life.

Miss H_ belted out – bosom heaving, huge glasses bobbing – the Lightning Express. (Please listen to the audio link. I’m emigrating to Arkansas TODAY.) I listened intently. This song had gloom. And relatively few references to god and not a sniff of Jesus. Tragedy at a gazillion levels. Dying mother. Boy travelling alone. From where? Was he the Arkansas-equivalent of down t’pit? Poverty. The cruel (but converted) conductor. The kindness of strangers.

I began to bucket. I sobbed and sobbed and my bosom heaved more than Miss H_’s. I looked around the room, 9-ly, expecting to see a concert of tears. But all I saw were the hardened and emotionless faces of 9-year-old, working-class girls with plaits and dressed in miniature dinner-lady outfits – our school didn’t do aspiration – and the boys already stabbing each other with compasses again. The only solidarity came from Manuel N_, the fattest boy and slowest runner in the class who pronounced dodo doodoo and emigrated in shame to Portugal. (Even his cousin, the much thinner Maria N_, who became head-girl, didn’t cry and looked on at Manuel in horror.) The ever-sensitive Miss H_ asked us what the bugger we were crying for. Manuel N_ said something in Portuguese about his mummy, and that he was hungry, and I sobbed. Deborah D_ may have given me a comforting arm round the shoulder (and then stolen my dinner-money).

Dunno why I’ve got onto this. I was planning to tell you all about the Rembrandt exhibish on in Berlin at the moment. Funny how things work out, as I once heard Julian Clary say when the gay couple thrashed the straight couple at his own version of Mr. and Mrs….

Darlings, a quiz, from which Russian-speakers must, unfortunately, be excluded. Now, watch this video, from Russian pop queen Zemfira, carefully making sure not to look at any of the comments that other youtubers have left, if they appear, and then tell me what the song is about. You can be as loquacious or laconic as you like. The song title is one word. Your answers could also be. My only clue is listen to the joyous chorus:

U tebia spid, doo-doo-be-doo, i znachit my umrёm,
U tebia spid, doo-doo-be-doo, i znachit my umrёm,
U tebia spi-i-id, i znachit my umrёm
…and so on.

I’ll reveal the answer, and give a translation, when my ego feels satisfied by the number of reactions.

*Where the mystery is solved*

OK, so my ego has been gently massaged, and as I’m sure perhaps half the world’s population is on tenterhooks, desperate to know what Zemfira’s little old song is about, I feel obliged to end the suspense.

Well, spid, the title of the song, means AIDS. And that jolly old chorus: “U tebia spid, doo-doo-be-doo, i znachit my umrёm, U tebia spid, doo-doo-be-doo, i znachit my umrёm, U tebia spi-i-id, i znachit my umrёm” means, “You’ve got AIDS (doo-doo-be-doo) and so we’re going to die … You’ve got AI-AI-AIDS and so we’re going to die.”

Someone in Russia – a French person, not a Russian – tried to convince me it was a great love song. That Zemfira was willing to die along with her beaidsed lover. It was the ultimate ‘gage d’amour’. I asked many a Russian too, “What does this song MEAN? What is Zemfira saying?” The answer normally came with fairly short shrift. “BiB, it means they have AIDS and will die.”

Do folk agree it’s a fucking odd song?

Now lest any of you non-Berlin readers think we Berliners aren’t cool and funky, even when the sun’s disappeared for the best part of a year and we’re not allowed to sit outdoors and coolly watch football anymore, I’m going to remind you just how cool we are. Or how cool I am, for I suppose I best not speak on behalf of my fellow Berlinobloggers.

I’m so cool I’ve accidentally got addicted to internet scrabble. Utterly addicted. Especially as this version of it panders to all your boyish little desires and gives you a ranking and everything. I see myself as scrabble’s Tim Henman, my ranking fluctuating wildly as I hit highs (beat a Federer-like scrabbler) and lows (lose in straight sets to another British player). But, I tell you, this internet scrabble site is the best thing to come out of Romania since the Dacia.

Actually, internet scrabble is sort of a substitute for blogging. When I should be working – like RIGHT NOW – my little virtual Romanian refuge is as cosy and welcoming as a snug old Berlin flat heated with coal-ovens. (This is the one compensation of the new freezingness. The streets smell of aga again.) But it’s taken on a worrying angle. Apart from the uncoolness, and occasionally being disturbed as the clock’s running down and having to shout frenziedly that I can’t talk now as I’ve still got a q to get rid of, it’s begun to take over. Just as I’d got into reading Nietzsche and thought I was about to turn into an intellectual. (I had even been planning a Nietzscheesque post entitled, “Why I write such a good blog.”) But, alas, no.

I suppose scrabble is poor man’s chess. Whereas I imagine Kasparov divides his time between wondering how to become Russia’s next president and how to perfect his Sicilian defence, I have visions floating around in front of me of how best to place a stubborn q. As Kasparov ponders whether he can conquer a computer that the best human minds have managed to concoct, I am tearing my hair out wondering whether I might beat Doris from Cleethorpes whose profile confides that she is 120 and also enjoys crochet and her Max Bygraves collection. Oh the ignominy! The ignominy! (Mind you, good word if you can get it over two triples with the m on the double letter score. 203. That’d show Doris.)

Game, anyone?

Another political assassination in Russia. Anna Politkovskaya, a journalist famed for not being a Kremlin lapdog, was shot dead today. She survived what she and many others considered an attempt on her life a couple of years ago when suffering food-poisoning on her way to Beslan. The case bears striking similarity to the death of Galina Starovoitova, a liberal Russian MP also murdered in her own house in 1998.

There was an interesting chat the other night on the BBC between some journo or other and Boris Akunin, a.k.a Grigori Chkhartishvili, a contemporary Russian writer born in Georgia who now says, in the light of Russia’s bullying tactics, that he is being forced to rediscover his georgianness. (He writes detective stories. Can’t bear to read one.) He painted a grim picture of Putin’s Russia. And back on September 5th and 6th up to 400 people gathered in Petrozavodsk, a town where I once studied, to demand that migrants from the Caucasus be deported from Karelia, bearing in mind that most of these migrants from the Caucasus are also Russian citizens. The race card is still very much playable in Russia.

Russia is awash in oil cash at the moment. Life for many has improved. There is no opposition. And my breath is held to see if Putin will have the constitution amended in time for the next presidential elections so that he can stand for a third term, just as his miserable neighbour in Minsk did before him. Watch that space.

(More, for Russian-speakers.)

(And yet more, for Londoners: A vigil has been organised by a group of independent individuals, journalists, and human rights activists. It will be held outside of the Russian Embassy tomorrow, Tuesday 10th October. There will be no political messages, placards or banners, only candles… We can now confirm that the vigil for Anna Politkovskaya will take place tomorrow, Tuesday 10 October 2006 between 6.30 and 7.30 pm outside the Russian Embassy. The police have asked us to gather opposite the Embassy on Notting Hill Gate, next to the Champion pub. If there are a fair number of us, we are to move to the other side of Ossington Road, which is directly opposite the Embassy. The nearest tube station is Notting Hill Gate. We would like to stress that we would like this to be a quiet and dignified event. We do not want this to be taken over by anyone wishing to protest or promote particular political or ideological agendas. Please spread the word about this important event to those who wish to attend in this spirit. And please come, with candles.)

…to keep in with my new instant tradition of having post-titles auf Deutsch.

So yes, five years. But without the plan. How has it happened? Five years (or thereabouts. I have blocked out the precise arrival date, but I know it was just after September 11th as I was even more petrified than usual of flying and everyone in Prague airport looked like a potential terrorist, and then, as we flew into Berlin, there was turbulence galore and we had far too good a view of the Fernsehturm) in Berlin. When my Londonness felt more solid, I used to quote with glee that whenever I did leave the Big Smoke, it was never for more than two years. Paris: 2 years. St. Petersburg: 2 years. Stoke-on-Trent: 2 years. Two years into my Berlin stint and I’d have happily been saying the same thing. And yet here I am, a full three years later.

So, five years. Had I been writing a week ago, I’d have nicely been able to call it a seventh of my life. Do double-figured fractions exist? A seventh and a bit or a seventh and a thirty-sixth doesn’t have the same ring. And only a wanker could even think of saying five thirty-sixths. Or 13.88(and so on)%. But five years it is. An oodle of time. Ripe for analysis.

Well, the words ‘disaster’ and ‘unmitigated’ do leap to mind when I try to think how to sum up the lion’s share of my 30s. But I want to be encouraging to my fellow immigrants, and know that B. is probably having the same dilemma as to whether Berlin should be home or not, Ed would like to be able to say that he had ONLY been here for five years, and Radio Free Mike sees how his views on America in the German press are in sharp contrast to some of his compatriots’. But let us not despair as we settle in for the nine, wet, grey months ahead. Berlin’s a lovely place after all.

I wrote a post a hundred years ago, but think I deleted it in a fit of pique, on anti-tips for the immigrant. You know, what NOT to do if you’re thinking of emigrating to a country where you know no-one, don’t know the language, don’t have a job and choose a region with 99% unemployment. The less daring or more perspicacious amongst you might have seen the pitfalls before buying the ticket (and dealing with German bureaucracy), but oh no, not BiB, always happy to risk his sanity for the sake of an adventure.

Well, the language handicap is definitely pitfall number one, and lest you want to be like Stavros, minus the smell (in my case), then that really is what needs to be tackled head-on. But the grey matter ain’t what it used to be, and I fear I am destined to master this great tongue about as well as Jane Birkin has mastered French (vache espagnole, indeed) or, worse, as Becks (and the thousands of his compatriots peopling unfortunate pockets of the Spanish coast) have mastered Spanish. Which is all right, in a way, but I never expected to be THAT type of immigrant, tucked away in my own little one-man community, cringing all the while when I hear Germans moaning about integration. I was always amazed at Mrs.-Hussain-from-number-32-when-I-was-growing-up’s poor command of English – “You like? You no like?” she would say, unsurely, as she thrust a new-born child in to my hands – but of course she was tied to the house and bringing up a brood of children. To my equal astonishment, I have turned into her. Formative years indeed.

But, darlings, if any 20-somethings are reading this, quickly go and do your emigrating now when you’re young and everything seems like a piece of cake. Leave it till the day after you’re 30 and you’ll end up living in the most unlikely of places and wondering how you got there. Which is not to say it ain’t fun being an émigré, but change and upheaval are a gazillion times harder the older you get.

So will I be saying, “Next year in London,” ere long? Probably not. I feel I’m in it for the long haul now. Up to my neck in Berlinness, tax numbers, Aufenthaltsbewilligung, Krankenversicherung and Weltschmerz. And luckily enough that’s all in a place I now like well enough. But just in case you’re thinking of giving up the day-job and casting your fate to the four winds, make sure you catch the current blowing you in the right direction.

Darlings, I keep fucking dressing as a tree. Luckily, I don’t have a barnet that members of the bird kingdom mistake for foliage, otherwise I could be in serious trouble. But I don’t know if this is a sign of age or me wanting to blend in with my environment, but I have undeniably begun to wear colours that could only be called earthy. All greens and browns. If I had an oilskin jacket and a rifle slung over one shoulder, I’d cut quite a dash at any Countryside Alliance march.

I suppose I most resemble a poplar. Though I don’t emit that allergy-inducing wool. Much.

It’s no fun looking like a tree. I blame the neighbours. Keeping up with the Schmidts, if you will. I helped a friend move to a funky new flat in the funky area down the road yesterday. The streets were resplendent with funky types who bore no resemblance to poplar, ash or London plane. We were rewarded at a café at the end of his new funky street. I cringed as I wandered in at the mover’s side like a dim child on a school outing. Everyone looked like a member of some revolutionary movement or other. The men looked as if they took part in group sex sessions at least once a week. The women looked like Sinead O’Connor with jobs. Everyone slunk around coolly. I lolloped around like a new-born giraffe and then sought refuge in cigarettes in an attempt at coolness but accidentally lit the filter of my most public fag.

I wandered home having taken my leave of the assorted moving party… I crossed the border from funky area back to this backwater. The average age shot up from 34 to 90 (according to a Gallup poll. Margin of error: +/-3%). The average weight shot up from 65kg to 120. Jeans were replaced by pressed trousers and dinner-lady costumes. Hochdeutsch changed to Berlinese. Healthy complexions changed to blotch. Brad Pitt changed into Arthur Mullard.

No wonder I’ve turned into a fucking tree in this desert. I need to get where it’s at.