StewBlog

This place in Clovelly, Sydney, is the business for breakfast! The coffee is perfect, however you have it, the service is brisk, the food is great and plentiful, and as I found with most places in the Sydney the staff were totally cool. It's the perfect place to spend a few hours breezing through the morning papers... with a perfect flat white.

Killing time in Singapore airport whilst they tidy up the plane and switch crews. All-in-all a pleasant first leg, especially as I have a great seat. I watched Valkyrie for the first part of the journey whilst wading through a cottage pie and then slept mostly until breakfast. Never been south of the equator before so I'll be breaking new ground when I reboard and get underway in a while.

I've heard from many people over the years that this is very good, so I'm just dowloading Season One Episode One to suss it out... err... even though I should probably be packing for tomorrow. *hates packing*

Trying to upgrade my outbound flight to Sydney tomorrow and the system keeps saying 'error - cannot process your request at this time. Please try later'. Pathetic. Please help or I'll cancel my flight.

I expect I'll get a response some time next week!

I've ordered some dollars to collect from Travelex at Heathrow T5 and I've just checked the film selection for the flight over to Sydney on Friday night - pretty naff! I will probably have a go at Grand Torino and The Young Victoria, so just another 19 hours and 40 mins to kill after that! I wonder if I'll beat my top score on Flight Control?

I was drawn to the balcony this morning by what sounded like a Punch & Judy show going on down in the street below. I should have known it would actually be a gowned chap playing some kind of party political message through an exceedingly loud speaker housed inside an alabaster parrot, mounted on a trolley.

On the way to get my morning latte earlier I noticed these plaques in the pavement outside a bicycle shop. On closer inspection they appear to represent three unfortunate members of the Haarzopf family - I assume father, mother and daughter from the birth dates - who were evicted from their home on 26-Feb-1943, taken to Auschwitz, and never returned.

In fact, after googling 'Hugo Haarzopf' I now realise what 'Natzweiler' refers to on his plaque. It turns out that 86 Jews, of which Hugo was one, were taken from Auschwitz to Natzweiler-Struthof in Alsace, France. They were all murdered in a gas chamber on 02-Aug-1943 and used for medical experiments.

There are so many reminders of the past in this city; mostly gruesome, unfortunately.

I sauntered down to Mauerpark on this very sunny afternoon for a mooch around the market there and discovered the joys of Bearpit Karaoke. It's run by an Irish fellow who pitches up every Sunday with a form of bicycle which transforms into a mobile karaoke centre complete with loudspeaker, microphone and Macbook! Masses of people then gather round in a mini amphitheatre and a chap comes round selling beers to keep the crowd well oiled whilst a mixture of weird and wonderful characters, also from the well-oiled crowd, take their chances with the mic. Most of the performances were filmed today so I'll look for them to appear on YouTube. Here's a clip from a few weeks ago that I found just now... Marvellous stuff!

I downloaded this new bit of software recently and I've just started playing with it this evening... I plan to decompose more images this weekend...

I don't usually get excited about this annual songfest but I was entirely absorbed in the final this year. What a fabulous show the Russians put on - The set was fantastic! I thought Graham Norton did a good job as well - He provided a refreshing change from the usual Wogan chatter. Here's how I would have awarded the top three points...

12 Ukraine (featured below)
10 Azerbaijan
8 Croatia

Didn't like the UK song much

I was just reminded today that this Thursday is a bank holiday here in Germany. It also emerges that nobody will be in on Friday either as people take that day off as a 'bridging day'. So, I'm spying a long weekend from the crows nest without a plan... Schucks.

This oddly named beach bar sits on the banks of the Spree just a little bit down from Janowitzbrucke (really need to figure out how to get umlauts on this keyboard). We went and had a look as they had there opening night on Saturday; it's pretty much all outdoors so they only open during the summer months.

These guys were playing out on the terrace and I really liked their set! They had a kinda skiffle band sound and played some really good stuff for a relaxing, balmy evening.

Later, we moved below to the club (a converted boathouse) where a man in a white suit was playing this!

An amusing evening...

I cannot believe that these won the Walkers 'Do us a flavour' competition.

They're the worst crisps I've ever tasted!

I voted for Fish & Chips!

Went to see this Irish indie/rock soundscape band at the Bang Bang Club.

Very enjoyable indeed. They also premiered the video for their new single.

I also found out this morning that the band are named after the first jet plane to break the sound barrier, piloted by a name named Chuck.

I've just realised that I've been posting stuff up here for exactly two years and five days now! This revelation prompted me to have a look back through the archives and it's quite incredible to be reminded of all the stuff that's happened in these last two years. I didn't think I'd done all that much but when everything is documented like this it's easy to trace back and re-ignite memories.

Having parted with the best part of 50 Euros in Fresh & Friends on Kastanianallee and the LPG Biomarkt at Senerfelderplatz, I have spent the laziest weekend in living memory, mostly in the apartment, occasionally relocating from the sofa to the balcony to keep abreast of goings-on down in Sredzkiststraße. So here I am, a few kilos of fresh organic produce heavier - the highlight of which was a lovely sun-dried tomato ciabatta pair of Vietnamese fresh rice paper spring rolls with sweet chilli dip!

Having checked the global stats for Flight Control this afternoon, I see that somebody, Poco, has landed 3155 planes, taking them to the top of the leaderboard! My current highest score is... wait for it... 166