...Wish you were here....

Just outside Tegel Airport there is a giant sign which reads “Germany – Land of Ideas”. This sign is meant to welcome you, which is logical because ideas can indeed be welcoming. They can also be repulsive...so can Germany, as history has amply shown. However, Berlin, for all its historical errors, is a city which has always embraced different ways of thinking. This has also been amply shown. Take – for example – the prostitutes outside my window.

No oppressed masses they - standing on the corner with the full support of the state. They are unionized and galvanized – and woe betide anyone who treats them with anything less than respect. Say what you want about the world’s oldest profession, but Berlin’s ladies of the evening can deduct their business expenses for tax purposes, thank-you-very-much.

Speaking of ladies of the evening, I just came back from the Vogue party at Galleries Lafeyette. Lest you think I am in the in-crowd and invited to these sorts of things, you should know that I was merely walking home from an extremely edifying choral concert at the Jewish Museum when I came across a red carpet, an open door and very good looking people holding trays of champagne. I am never one to pass an opportunity, and I was wearing a Hugo Boss suit jacket (albeit bought second hand in the depths of Prenzalauer Berg and altered by a chain-smoking Polish tailor), so I swished in and pretended like I owned the place and proceeded to get drunk on free Moet et Chandon champagne at the Hermès boutique. I also got a free catalogue which they put in a real Hermès shopping bag, which meant that I could freely saunter into to any number of stores without reproach….which of course I did – and it was a good thing too because I missed dinner.

But who needs dinner when you can have raspberry macaroons from Paris, or chocolate truffles shaped like high heels…or a mojito- flavoured sorbet made à la minute and served in a frozen lime? Mind you, most of the women there couldn’t really eat any of the food even if they wanted to (and they didn’t) because their lips were pumped up with so much collagen…. this just meant that there was more for me.

But I did not indulge. That would have been gauche. I merely took one of everything and pretended to look like I was seriously considering a 700 euro dog bowl or a hand-made riding crop made in the best artisanal tradition (these are very popular in Berlin, but not for horses…more about that later). As the saying goes, if you can fake sincerity you’ve got it made…..well, money helps too. So do looks. Money and looks help a lot.

The rest of us just have to crash the party and survive on our wits. And you cannot fake wit.

It is almost midnight and I am supposed to be working hard – with my nose to the grindstone and my eyes set on future heights (actually, that would be very uncomfortable…and it would look weird…think about it). Discipline will have to wait until tomorrow…okay, maybe the next day….or maybe I’ll just pencil it in for sometime next week. Say, Tuesday at 5 - after the gym and before La Traviata?

I am so busted….