Unscene Berlin

March 18 I feel bad throwing out my disinfectant spray bottle with a few dribbles still in it; it may be worth 50 Euros an ounce, soon. Available only drop by the micro-dosed drop in Gorlitzer Bahnhof. Ah, well. March 19 I go for a walk, then work, then go for another walk. Keep finding loads of Z u Verschenken  ("to give away") boxes on the ground, chock full of stuff; probably no one wants to touch other people's old things in case some of it's infected while, at the same time, everybody has more time to clear out all their secret underfloor catacombs and bomb shelters and make way for... even more toilet paper, I guess? A friendly East Indian man sees me eyeing some books in the road near Rummelsburger Bucht. He starts shaking his head gently and saying, ' Aber nicht fassen. Nicht fassen ' as I stop for a closer look. I reassure him, I have no intention of touching those books. Though it's hard to fight the reflex to pocket free stuff wh...

Left: Dr. Pimenta. Right: Dr. Sikora T his news roundup from Channel 4 News popped up in my recommended feed and I was feeling homesick for ole' Blighty, so I sat down to watch its interpretation of the border closures in Europe, and Boris Johnson's Covid-19 'policy'. I use that word loosely 'cos, since when is doing nothing a 'policy'? This video starts off more like a parade of national stereotypes than a news report: there's the French guy expressing his fears about the virus whilst smoking furiously on a traffic-choked street; there's the Italians, finally learning how to queue because it's easier to socially-distance that way; there's the German skinhead sitting in an empty pub, sipping from a bierstein of pilsner with a look of utter satisfaction, oblivious to the lack of human company. (Don't snicker like that, European readers: your mass media ain't any better in how it portrays its close neighbours. If I have ...

Here in Berlin, it was a mixed start to the #coronapocalypse, as it is affectionately known on Twitter. It was a sunny and warm-ish Saturday for the first time in ages, so everybody was out taking walks, jogging, smiling, laughing, making daisy chains, preparing altars for Summer Solstice, etc. Typical spring stuff.  But as we all learned yesterday, everything that is unnecessary for the city's running will close down next Tuesday: bars, restaurants , nightclubs (yes  even Mensch Meier ). Schools and daycare facilities will close, too. So a lot of parents are panic buying at the moment. The rest of us are collecting bottles and going on a diet until we hear more about government compensation plans. I did all my shopping the other day but today, I had to go to the shops twice to pick up a few things I forgot: once in the morning at 11 am and once at 6 pm. In the morning, everyone was happy and relatively calm, like Sainsbury's before a long bank holiday weekend. People were...