After the initial shock of the Tory victory in May, and the dawning realisation that the UK’s in-or-out of the EU referendum will indeed happen, a sort of calm consensus among pro-EU contacts of mine in the UK formed in the early summer. Of course Cameron wants the UK to […]
South Tyrol – at the request of Germany apparently – has promised to check all passengers trying to travel north towards Germany over the Brenner Pass, but Schengen has not been suspended (officially). Refugees in Budapest are being rounded up and put onto trains to who knows where? Hungarian PM […]
Barroso Bullshit Bingo had alliteration as good as José Manuel’s buzzwords. #JunckerBullshitBingo might not have quite the same ring to it, but with our beloved Commission President getting ready to make his first “State of the European Union” speech on 9th September, we in the EU blog and Twittersphere are […]
Back on 30th June I was subjected to a non-Schengen compliant border control at Buchs in Switzerland. The full report from the border, including a transcript, can be found here. The essence of the message given by the police officer checking me was that as he was from the cantonal […]
My old 3G mobile is on its last legs, so I am investigating how to upgrade to a 4G/LTE phone, and hence will need an accompanying data plan. A blog about my handset choice will follow – this blog entry is devoted to the choice of data plan. I do […]
Today I sent a fax. Yes, on 17th August 2015 this is still necessary. Because I had received a letter on paper from the administration of the city of Berlin and my reply had to be sent either on paper or by fax. No e-mail address, or indeed telephone number […]
There ought to be a single aim for a city’s cycle policy: get more people to cycle. A number of factors can have an impact on this – the actual (statistically provable) safety of cycling, the perceived safety of cycling, the ready availability of places to park bicycles, and the […]
My first cycle path film documented the dangers of Skalitzer Straße. Now here is the second episode – going north through Kreuzberg from Bergmannstraße, via Baerwaldstraße, Prinzenstraße, Moritzplatz and Heinrich-Heine-Straße to Jannowitzbrücke. This one is characterised by narrow and very bumpy paths (caused mostly by tree roots and poor repairs). […]
I tend to steer clear of Leffe beer in Belgium – it tastes inferior to the likes of Orval or Tripel Karmeliet, and I always tend to fear the market influence of large brewers like InBev, the owners of the Leffe brand. But a friend I’m staying with had a […]
Berlin has cycle lanes on most of its main streets, but many of these lanes are poorly designed or in bad condition. One of the worst is along Skalitzer Straße through Kreuzberg – it is an important east-west route between Kottbusser Tor and the Oberbaumbrücke. As the first in an […]
Nauseating posters such as this one: adorn airports worldwide. They are part of the “Britain is GREAT” campaign. The website even states “Welcome to GREAT Britain”. Well, not if you’re Ai Weiwei. A state visit for the Chinese PM is more important than a visa for the dissident artist. So […]
This blog is now more than 10 years old. Now the little party to celebrate the anniversary is behind me, I need to set about working out what this blog is for these days. The brutal truth is that this blog is struggling – reader numbers are down month on […]
