City (E)scape

I’m catching up with myself. I’ve ditched Berlin for the month of June, and come to you from Montreal. New York next week. Montreal is the city I call home – a place I adopted five or six years ago – and, as with all homecomings, one begins by exhaling. The psychological comfort zone is welcome. I’m steeling myself for a busy time, as I attempt to reconcile my purpose to my future. July is likely going to be a mare, but I’ve broken worse.

A couple of points of order:

I must cordially acknowledge Lily Lemontree for giving me a hearing on her elegant blog. It’s a strange experience to answer direct questions about oneself, but the result I think is pleasing, and possibly an insightful backdrop to the pages before you. In the coming weeks I shall appear there again, detailing five elegant places not to miss in Berlin. I’ll let you know when it appears.

On arrival here I was pleased finally to take possession of my Timothy Everest signature tie, which I consider myself very lucky to have received. Tim’s Spring into Summer ready-to-wear is out, and as per usual it’s right on point. I hasten you there. Here are his images, stolen in the nicest possible way:

High Steaks

The best way to get a great meal by a great chef at not so great a price is to have luncheon.

It is, I think, rather a recent oddity that our midday meal has been reduced to the limp sandwich. In England the sandwich is king, and it even places highly on the list of the nation’s favourite foods. The inevitable blandness of pre-sliced bread has been turned into something of a gourmet caricature, with John Bull now thinking nothing of munching on crayfish and rocket, blackpudding and cranberries, or roast pork and stuffing, all between tranches of soggy bloomer. It’s a sad attempt to conjure up something of luncheons past, but typically ends up a mere meagre repast.

Get thee to a decent restaurant! You might have to work an extra hour at the end of the day, but if you get yourself fed up to the gills you’ll be able to do it, and a lot more besides. Gourmet eateries everywhere offer their best deals at luncheon, and you can often get premium cooking for a tithe of the evening price.

Now oddly enough, in Germany the main meal of the day is still at lunch time (at least for certain folks). You’d think, therefore, that the lunchtime thrift rule wouldn’t apply. But frankly I’ve found the best lunch in Europe, and it’s going for a song.

The place is called Filetstück and it’s right around the corner. In the evening you’ll pay 26 Euros for an 8oz entrecote, and 34 for fillet. Sauces and vegetables are extra. At lunch time, you get a hunk of beef or lamb, cooked exquisitely by their resident Frenchman (if he’s not actually French then he’s been plastically modified to look like one), with the vegetable sides, and a glass of wine, for 9.50. And it’s sublime.

Better yet, the restaurant doubles up as a premium butcher shop (and you know how I feel about butchers), purveying the finest cuts money can buy and making a mean sausage to boot.

Eat luncheon, dear readers! And get that soggy sarnie away from me!

Männertag? Just No

Last Thursday it was Männertag here in the non-Catholic bit of Germany. That’s ‘Men’s Day’ to you and me. It is a secular booze up in lieu of a religious holiday, and it actually spills over into the weekend. The form is to wander around getting drunk all day, lugging crates of beer from place to place, and generally being obscene. According to the Federal Statistics Office, so I’m told, there are more than three times as many alcohol related traffic accidents on this day, compared to the daily average. It’s also a good day to get into a fight.

It’s pretty sad to see masculinity reduced to a personified belch, and I really wonder what the men of this land have done to deserve their weekend of over indulgence. I went to the Tiergarten with three ladies and had a civilised evening, trying to avoid the male natives. Looking into the zoo next door, all the animals seemed very well behaved. An American would call that ‘ironic’. On Friday morning I was awakened by a ‘man’ rolling home just before seven o’clock, doing his best tribute to a cat in heat singing Angels by Robbie Williams. Think that’s funny? You had to be there.

I hereby consign Männertag to the cultural dustbin. Men don’t need a special day to be at their worst. We’re capable of that whenever. It might be an idea, on the other hand, to encourage an alternative Männertag next year, at which time we shall be on our best behaviour, and spend the day looking dapper and generally being civil to one and all. It may serve as a reminder that we can do that anytime too.

Mixological Magic

If I had the use of my body, I would throw it out the window.

Jane Brown

There is no sign above the door, and a heavy black curtain lies immediately behind the plate glass. In the middle of the window, a portrait of Samuel Beckett is suspended. The door is ajar, exhaling Cuban tobacco, and affording a glimpse of blood-red leather. The passer-by passes by. There is no contrivance of attraction; no desire for passing trade to cease its passing.

The curious can find out. Behind the door lies a body, fibrous and bloody, moving to the syncopation of a Coltrane beat. There is black bile here, but there is also passion. Cigars circulate in the lungs, and the blood is thinned by the spirits. We sink into muscular arm chairs, feeling inside out.

A server appears and hands us a book of Beckett criticism. Bound at intervals between the leaves is the cocktail menu of a late-modern imagination. Behind the bar, the mixologist cracks eggs, sprays vapours, and tastes his work. He is the engine room of the senses, creating enchantments to dazzle the eye, mystify the nose, numb the finger, and invigorate the palate. The shaking and stirring of his chemistry is a Pavlovian stimulus to the salivary gland. We lean back, go with the flow.

We are in Beckett’s Kopf, Prenzlauer Berg’s most refined cocktail bar. We are reluctant ever to leave. Floating on ten-euro martinis, the room embodies us. We are essential, internal organs. We are the je ne sais quoi of character in a physiological environment. The elegance of strong alcohol strips the paint of our exterior and leaves us – artifice exposed – the men we were supposed to be.

Images: http://www.becketts-kopf.de/

"Fair Play" in a "Man's Game"

2011, the 1848 of the twenty-first century, has given us ample demonstration of the fate of tyrants. When the going gets tough, the iron fist squeezes all the more tightly, and the people, like sand, slip ever more quickly through its fingers. Humanity, when pushed to the limit, has an indomitable spirit. This has been a good year for getting rid of the atavisms of absolutism, and it promises more to come.

One thing has been constant since the last war. Under the banner of football, nations otherwise in strife and discord have come together, symbolically to represent the spirit of man and the ideal of fair play. It is the motto of FIFA, and it defines its importance. But like other mottoes, it has become a dead letter. FIFA is a corrupt nation, its ministers motivated by greed and self-importance, its president a tyrant by any other name. There are probably no lives at stake. Probably. But the humanity that the beautiful game is supposed to represent is being dragged through the mud, and we are all losers for that.

The art of the press conference, as perfected by Syria, Libya, and Egypt

What is so disappointing about this affair is that no revolution seems plausible. In the spirit of fair play, sometimes the fair thing to do – the just thing – is to rise up and overthrow. This group of salesmen – for that is what FIFA is – will quietly endorse the incumbent president because it appears the least troublesome, and the least costly, thing to do. Representing a sport (that used to be) defined by never giving up, by playing to the whistle, and by heart, these men will keep quiet and capitulate. They will be ‘fair’ to sponsors, and to television networks, for fear of losing money. And the game, a game that once defined manliness in its activity, its sportsmanship, and its passion, will die a little bit more.

Whether it is war, oppression, or just sport, the indomitable spirit of people remains. At root, football is what it always was: a group of men kicking around a ball. The sooner we get back to that, the better.