THE GIGGY SIDECAR

This blog is dedicated to my friend Alistair, currently in New York, to help soothe his puppy-missing-pain

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Every good housewife deserves a bit of company every now and then while all the real men are at work, fearlessly saving the world. You know - someone to watch “Muriel’s Wedding” with when I should be looking for a job, that sort of thing.  What about a nice, well-behaved dog to provide company and unconditional love at the same time?

Growing up in Scotland, we didn’t have dogs. I say that as if those two statements are linked. They’re not. Although the only dog that could have hoped to survive the persistently sub-zero temperatures would have been some sort of Siberian Mountain Lion Dog.

The closest we came to getting a canine element to the Vanderpump family was when my sister was old enough to go out to meet friends un-chaperoned.

Half Dog Half Carwash

 “We’ll get a couple of Alsatians to go with you”, I remember my dad saying.

They could escort her to the school disco, or wherever she was going. Heaven help those that approached, they would be savaged forthwith.  Male or female, young or old, friends at the disco, the DJ, the teachers supervising, the woman behind the counter at the chippy. All savaged. All the fish, burgers and chip suppers, eaten. Even the pickled eggs. Well, maybe not the pickled eggs.

Incidentally, my brother and I were afforded no similar offers of increased security unless we were expected to be rescued from the rough streets of Aberdeen by two guinea pigs, one of which was clearly far too young to hold its own.

There was talk of where these slathering beasts would live when they weren’t dragging my sister around the North East of Scotland in a short skirt, making sure she didn’t touch anything she shouldn't.

“In a kennel in the garden or in the garage”, said my dad.

It seemed that they would be cared for humanely but would not set a paw in the house. Like working dogs sniffing bags at Terminal 5, they would be singular in their role, committed in their mandate and would eat raw meat and prospective suitors like tigers. My dad would sharpen their teeth in the basement using a Black and Decker sander.

And so, it’s a good example of how parents can affect their children’s views. I grew up thinking that dogs were nice and that they had a role, but that most of their owners kept them in a level of luxury that they didn’t deserve nor want.

Fast forwarding more years than I care to admit saw Hubby’s broody quest to get a dog ending in the arrival of our black standard Schnauzer, Giggy, at the beginning of last year. We called him Giggy after my godmother, Lisa’s dog, in Los Angeles. LA Giggy is quite a bit smaller but with a considerably larger wardrobe.

When he arrived, our Giggy could look forward to sleeping in his basket in the kitchen (and only in his basket in the kitchen) and to eating a “complete food” of delicious dry biscuits and water, and playing with clean toys and chews designed to be pleasing to humans. He would walk to heel exclusively.

Giggy would not – repeat not - be allowed upstairs nor within three feet of any kind of soft furnishing. He would sometimes be allowed to lie in front of the fire on the rug if it was a special occasion like Christmas. We would never buy him a cow’s neck or a piece of intestine for him to chomp on to keep him quiet while we watched TOWIE.

But the older I get, the more I appreciate and accept that the difference between theory and reality can be considerable. In the case of Giggy, the cavern between the two could have been an American national park in itself.

The problem is, whoever designed dogs made sure they came with a range of heart-melting faces, all strikingly similar but able to plausibly be conveying our own, wide-ranging emotions.

“Oh look – he’s tired”. “Oh look – he’s hungry”. “Oh look – he’s happy”. They’re all pretty-much the same face for Giggy - a combination of cuteness and desire. A desire that is constant and burning. An in-built, instinctive quest for things that don’t cost us anything in particular but that are outside initially acceptable behaviour patterns:

• Desire to come upstairs
• Desire to get on the sofa
• Desire to eat the remains of a slow-cooked lamb shank
• Desire to gnaw on dead trotters
• Desire to eat a “beef cane” (that’s a cow’s neck)
• Desire to eat left over KFC in Kennington Park
• Desire to eat pizzle (that’s a bull’s cock)

… and so the list goes on.

Salade de Cow's Trachea

So, I hate to admit it but we’re doing badly when it comes to the initial rules. Most of them are completely out of the window. There is no part of a cow that has not been Fedex’d to this door. No premium dog food that has not been sampled, us both looking on nervously.

“Does he like it? Oh he likes that one, that one with goose and duck in it. Oh good, I am pleased, oh and look Waitrose stock it”.

My father can smell failure on me from fifty yards.

So, as for the good friend that I was “revolted” at for sharing his bed with his dogs, I stood corrected as Giggy trotted into our bedroom like a small dressage horse. His three-month campaign to get there had made Obama’s last Presidential marketing effort look a bit sloppy. It seemed that sharing our bedroom was more important to him than life itself.

Giggy’s initially-authorised position in the bedroom at night was the floor. But soon, he grew tired of that and preferred the bed. Usually, the end of the bed, which seemed acceptable. But then there was the fight for nocturnal real estate as his four paws stretched and pushed for extra space in all directions, his body pencil thin like a black whippet.

I decided something must be done. We tried to get him to sleep in his basket in the bedroom but he seemed to always prefer the softness of the duvet. We put him on the lead and he spent the whole night forgetting that and jumping towards the bed, being snapped back in renewed surprise, each time.

“If only we had a small duvet beside our bed”, I thought, and voila! The idea of the “Giggy Sidecar” was born. I just hope my dad never reads this part.

If only i'd paid more attention in woodwork ...

Folding a regular duvet into four and placing it directly on one side of the bed on the floor, with a cushion as a pillow (Giggy likes the memory foam type if your house has a pillow menu, lavender if the pillow menu has scented options). Giggy could feel like he was in the bed but really he was in his sidecar. Traveling through the night with us, but not on top of us.

Everything seemed to be going well in the world of bed-and-sidecar equilibrium until one morning I came back from a huge night drinking in the guise of networking to find Hubby and Giggy asleep. Giggy was not in his sidecar but very much on my side of the bed, his head on my pillow, a single eye open, watching me lunge into the room. His look seemed to say, “Oh here he is. Pissed bastard".  Then it said "You snooze, you lose”. It was slightly smug. I think. I’ll never know. He could have been saying “bring me a goose dinner”, or maybe he was just thinking “if I don’t move he won’t see me”.

Anyway, it seemed that his ultimate goal had been achieved. The end of a great journey. To butcher Shakespeare, “Journeys end in having my head on his pillow”. I was just surprised he wasn’t availing himself to my British Airways eye-mask with the rotting elastic and a couple of foam earplugs.

And so, I would like to leave you with a short selection of sidecars/baskets available and to help you choose which one might suit your dog.

DVP

Outdoor summer day bed dogs (modelled by LA Giggy)

Cheeky Ann Summers dogs

For dogs that live in SW1

For dogs that live in Dubai

Cool, chic, urban dogs that require a built-in dog bowl compendium

For dogs that admit they're into dog bondage and require "basement facilities"

For sophisticated dogs that live a life of Ralph Lauren

For dogs that are not real but live in Japanese houses made of real crystal

The Cartland Collection - for dogs that dictate trashy novels whilst reclined

Period dogs

NOT TO BE OR NOT TO BE

(Dedicated to my uncle, Rahul Vanderpump, for his help in my darkest hour)

People often say to me "Dave - why do you write your blog?" and look at me with a sense of desperation.  I sometimes feel there is a further, hidden question they're not asking but in the absence of that, I thought I would explain ...

I really hope to develop this blog into a household name.  A household name that speaks to the very highest standard of housewifery, not limited to but including the bleeding-edge of the art of napkin-folding and how to create a centrepiece that makes your guests weep, openly.

I am also hoping to bring a better understanding of real world issues to my readers.  I am well-placed to do this as a key and active member of the “Two State Solution for Kennington - Oval Action Group”.  I have also been appointed Chair of the “South London Stop Knorks Alliance”.  For those of you that are not aware, allow me to enlighten you.  “Knorks” are just one of a kind of combined cutlery, the most dangerous being this knife-fork combo.  Spife, spork, knork, chork (a fork combined with chopsticks).  It's ridiculous.  Just stop it all.  Now.

So having covered the reasons behind the blog more than satisfactorily, let's move onto my writing style.  Another housewife told me in a moment of drunken sincerity at 3pm cocktails the other day that although she "liked" my blog, she thought it was a little bit “trashy”.  Well, I was more than a little bit disturbed by the suggestion but I decided to just get over it.  Or perhaps I should write “to rise above it”, or even “to gracefully soar skyward, nonchalantly in blissful ignorance”.  That better?  No?  Oh well.  “Revenge is a dish best served cold”, I thought.

I hate to admit it, but this comment really got to me and I decided to take it head-on and upgrade the quality of the “prose” on my site to something a little bit more classy.  It turns out, prose is just a posh word for words.  Sentences.  On a page.  Anyway, I took the plunge and signed up to a five-day residential writing course in the West Country that was recommended to me by some lovely open-toed people I briefly met over a pineapple hedgehog in Brixton.

Will this blog be around in 400 years? - that is the question.
No - that is the answer

Of course, I should have known as I glided out of Kennington in the trusty steed, my ageing silver Audi, that complications would arise on the journey to becoming a better writer.  And I was not wrong.  Three hours after setting out, I was waiting for the AA at Reading services, Westbound on the M4. The silver pony had faltered, freaked out and reared in the fast lane, nearly causing an accident with an M&S food lorry.  I was a little bit shaken, mainly at the thought of being in an accident with an M&S food lorry.  The disruption to their food chain could have had devastating effects on cocktail and dinner parties across the M4 corridor.

“Can’t find anything wrong with it – probably need to take it to an Audi garage”, said the AA man kindly.  “Has it happened before?”

 “It’s happened before”, I said, whispering.  “He gets nervous.  He’s highly strung.  He used to be a race horse but y’know ... he can’t really … y’know.  He’s very misunderstood.  I’m worried Hubby will shoot him if I tell him what’s happened.  Like that poor little pony in Gone With The Wind that throws the little girl off.  Whipped to death it was”.  I rested a loving hand on the bonnet and nodded reverentially.

“Yeah, ok ... so, where've you come from?”, he asked

“Kennington”, I said.

“Where’s that?”, he asked.

“Bit further than Elephant and Castle basically.  It’s up and coming”, I said.

“Ah right, ok.  Is that the SE11 address on here?”, he asked

The “E” of SE11 reverberated in my mind.  So close to SW8 and SW9 and yet so far, I thought.  “Yes”, I said.  “Although it’s all about ‘VNEB’ now which stands for Vauxhall Nine Elms Battersea.  It’s all up and coming and everything.  We used to shun Vauxhall but now they’ve got a Little Waitrose, so …  and the US embassy and all that. We’re just seeing how it goes.  We’re in talks as to what we’re all going to call ourselves.”, I said.  “It’s all up in the air”.

“Right”, he said, backing away slightly.

 “I suggest you turn back.  Your car …”, he stopped himself.  “He’s poorly.  He needs to trot slowly home”, he said.

“I understand”, I said, slightly concerned that the AA thought my Audi A3 2.0 FSi was an actual horse.  I was sad for the little silver steed that used to clop along so nicely.  But rather than just feeling sad, I tried to feel the angst and agony that a serious writer would feel.  I conjured up the feelings of a tortured poet, rivulets of fear and regret flowing through my veins.  The steed’s demise was a terrifying, sad injustice taking shape, similar to that of the horses in Animal Farm that are worked to death and then sold for glue by the nasty piggies.

“Are you ok?”, said the AA man.

“Yep – slow lane, got it.  Cheers”, I said.

I channelled the remaining raw emotion into the realisation that I couldn’t turn back to Kennington and continue with my trashy prose.  My two followers needed something better.  I pretended to get in the car and drive East in case the AA man saw me, but we didn't take the next exit and turn round.  We soldiered on into the setting sun, West, West and West yet more, not exceeding forty miles per hour.  About eight and a half hours later, the roads began to narrow.  Four lanes to two, two to one, tarmac to dirt.  Finally, I had arrived at Hickery-Nook Writing Club, a thatched building with thick, white walls and no evidence of phone or wifi.

Not surprisingly, I was the last to arrive and was apologetic as I joined a room full of people finishing their dinner, all immediately welcoming and friendly.  There were captains of industry, young, brilliant students, play-writers and directors, a lady from Singapore and LA at the same time, a poet from The Valleys (the place, not the show).  There was even a bionic man.  Bi-lingual, tri-lingual, multi-lingual, from all four corners of the world, there was not a housewife in sight.  Nor a spirit-based drink, for that matter.  Savages.

But wait. I suddenly realised that there must be real, published writers here.  I had read about the tutors.  They were people who had exchanged written words for actual, real money.  When I asked to be introduced to them, I was amazed.  They looked like normal people.  One of them was even American although not from LA, but I’ll let that pass.  She had two children and a BMW and everything.  They were both dressed and spoke normally, not like something from Lark Rise to Candleford and Prejudice.  I was shocked.

“Dave Vanderpump”, I said, inexplicably rolling the “r” and bowing dramatically – much lower than I thought I could.  “I am honoured to meet you, your honours”.

They looked at each other and then at me.  For writers, they seemed a bit stuck on the dialogue front.

“You don’t have to call us Your Honour”, said the woman, smiling, “But I do love your pseudo name”.

I had no idea what she was talking about, but these people were not to be questioned.  They were the people that could teach me how to sharpen my blog to a literary masterpiece and so I drew a veil over the conversation and headed off to find the wine.

Looking around the room, the thick walls were lined with books that I was confident I hadn't read.  Apart from flicking through a Harold Robbins to the good bits, I had read almost nothing.  People were reading, discussing and critiquing.  Settling myself at a large oak table behind a glass of rasping red, I tried to fit in by resting my right index finger on my bottom lip in a thought-provoking way, reading something high-brow.

“What are you reading?”, asked the lady from Singapore and LA at the same time.

“Oh – it’s called ‘The Week’?”, I said.  “It’s like a short story based on the papers.  It’s everything you need to know about everything that matters”.

“Oh, sounds interesting”, she said.

“Yup, yup, yup”, I said.  “I read it every week”

“Have you prepared something to read tomorrow morning?”, she asked.

“Oh yes, of course!!”, I said, nearly biting the rim off the glass as I knocked it back right down to the sediment. 

As she continued reading her chunky novel with small writing, I couldn't get past the paragraph of prose I was reading which summarised the red-tops.  I was suddenly choking on a panic.  “Oh my God - I'm in deep shit.  In the countryside.  I’m in a deep pile of manure!”.

“I’ve come here by mistake, I have to go”, I said, jumping up and making my apologies, dashing back to the steed.  Fumbling the keys in the dark, I tried to start him.  But the braying of the starter motor was the steed speaking to me.  “No-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o”, he said.  He was trying to tell me something.  He was telling me that I must go on.  Like a scene from Lord of the Rings (only thankfully, not nearly as long and with fewer forests), I had to go on.  It was my destiny, my duty.

There was nothing else for it. I would have to become a writer that very evening. I would have to tirelessly crack the boards of my small, pine-panelled room into the night.  I would have to resist the temptation to collapse into my single bed with a sponge duvet (actually not that difficult to resist), but instead, create the most amazing, beautiful, torrents of prose, like sweet, sweet music.  Staccato, portato, staccatissimo and marcato.

Clutching quickly-emptying bottles of wine from the Pinot Grigio region, I laughed, I cried and laughed again on the journey of self-discovery.  By candlelight I was Eliot, Chaucer and Woolf all rolled into one, scratching with Woolf’s little pencil.  I was Tolstoy, Shakespeare, Lawrence until my laptop was filled to overflowing.  Then suddenly, I was all the best bits of all the Brontes with a side of Eliot, carving scriptures with a nail into the pine panelling.  It wasn’t graffiti, honestly, people would request this room specifically hereafter.  By just after 4am I was Hemingway, Austen and Rowling, writing amazing tales of wizards in bonnets and empire-waisted frocks.  I combined, rewrote, condensed, refined.  Finally, as the sun lit yet another leaden, literary sky, I pressed print.  I was tired but I was proud.  So terribly proud.

“Morning!”, I chirped, as we sat down for our reading, suddenly realising there was a hangover in the post.  We were all sitting in a circle, learning to become writers but I hid my smugness well.  They didn’t know what nocturnal feats I had already achieved.  What treasures of literacy lurked on the pages in front of me.

But as everyone read in turn and last night’s wine clamped and pinched my brain, I was immediately aware that the pile of manure I was in was significantly larger than I had first thought.  It was so large that everywhere to the horizon was nearly all, exclusively manure. There were trees in the distance but they were just made of straw with manure hanging off like leaves. The clouds in the sky, they were all … well, they were just fluffy pieces of manure floating past.

These people effortlessly read about feelings, emotions, trials and tribulations.  They read fascinating stories, both short and long.  Plays and novellas, poems and vignettes. The bionic man printed out a dozen pages of flowing prose that brought a tear to the eye.  Every single one had me on the edge of my seat.  Then, through my hangover which was ripening like a giant stinking lily, I heard the tutor say “Next – Dave … Dave Vanderpump, please – go ahead and read your piece”.

I started reading my “piece” (that’s a writer’s term for some words on a page), mumbling downwards, stuttering, wishing I had some mints and a teleporter.  The people next to me probably wished I had some mints and a teleporter, too.  Afterwards, there was a stunned silence that seemed to last about twenty minutes.  I had their attention but I wasn’t sure it was for the right reasons.

“Do go on”, said the tutor.

“Oh, well, that's it really”, I said.

“Oh … oh I see”, he said.  “So the man you write about … he shoots himself. Why?”

“Oh … um … it’s because he didn’t like working in the bank but I didn’t get to that bit.  Time got ahead of me”, I said.

 “I see”, he said.  “The thing is, three lines about a man from Dubai who shoots himself for no particular reason.  It’s not really a story, but it’s a good start.  And writing seems important to you”.

“Right, right, right”, I said, nodding repetitively and writing “add story” in the margin of my “piece”.

Undeterred, I decided to show them all what I was definitely good at and that evening, a sumptuous dinner followed several martinis served with my signature cheese straws.  Everyone was raving about them, the Welsh poet moved to tears by their crispness.  “As crisp as a Monster Munch yet as velvety as a piece of changeable taffeta”, he wrote.  Amazing.  Although even I knew he'd nicked the changeable taffeta part.  Everyone’s sponge bedding had been replaced by goose-down encased with heavily-starched Frette linen and there was a turn-down service at about 7pm.

The following few days involved workshops and tutorials which taught me that writing is all about being yourself and having your own voice.  It’s about being true to yourself and about being real.  So, I’m afraid you’re stuck with this housewife for the moment.  But at least you can be assured of one thing – and that's the fact that Dave Vanderpump is totally, totally real.

I’d like to finish with a poem which was written last year by Gillian Clarke for JOHN LEWIS to celebrate the Cardiff’s branch third anniversary.  I bet it was one hell of a party.

"Home" by Gillian Clarke

Evening, home after hours away,
I catch my room out, dreaming,
in a doze at the end of the day,
surprised by blue dusk at the window,
white cups and dishes gleaming,
my chair, my rug, electricity's glow.

This room and I want music, lamplight,
a good book, fresh tea steaming.
Across the evening city home is waking,
in semis, terraced streets, estates,
in quiet suburbs, silence breaking
with TV, kettles, radio,

as one by one the windows light
till every tower-block's an Advent calendar,
countdown to winter and the longest night.

Yeah, I didn’t think it was the end either but hey - that’s poetry.  And these days they don’t have to rhyme either so come on - get writing.

DVP

THE BEST OF THE CURRYWURST

Hubby and I celebrated our one year anniversary with a trip to Berlin last weekend.  It had been on our list of European destinations for some time and so we seized the moment one night and booked it.  Naturally, the travel arrangements were navigated after several martinis and so, technically, it was the wrong weekend - but hey - you can’t have everything, can you?  We were married on 11th May, so we were not far off the mark.

Giggy, our dog, is a Schnauzer and therefore very German.  These fluffy dogs were bred originally as guard dogs in Germany and date back to the 15th / 16th century.  I decided that we should therefore take him to Berlin in order to re-introduce him to his German relatives across both sides of this united city.  I imagine they must have been trimmed to look more ferocious in their guard-dogging days as I don’t think Giggy’s miniature Shetland pony look would have anyone quaking in their boots.

Now housewives, listen up please.  Planning is absolutely key for any successful city break.  Every time you go away, there is pressure to have the very best time of your lives.  Like, ever.  If hubby and I are not partying all night with the Berlin glitterati and doing the most amazing, German-inspired things every minute of the day then we’ll have failed.  And given the burgeoning back-catalogue of holidays and city breaks we've already taken over the years, this can seem like a pressurised, daunting task.

What's not to like?

Flights

I had hoped that at the age of 41, Hubby, Giggy and I would only be flying privately but we don’t have any money and so sadly, we are forced to go with a “commercial” carrier, which is disappointing.  As a long-time customer of the flying honesty bar that is British Airways, I was a little perturbed that Hubby booked Lufthansa.  British Airways still think I’m an investment banker and treat me accordingly, mysteriously extending gold card status and upgrading whenever they can.  If only they knew.  They’re totally flogging a dead horse.  They keep writing to me telling me to “come back”.  They think I’m flying thrice-monthly to New York with Virgin Atlantic.  Instead I’m tubing it thrice monthly to the Dog House in Kennington.  It turns out that, even worse, Giggy can’t come with us because Lufthansa don’t fly dogs within Europe – and yes, I checked – not even German ones.

I remind myself of what I was told by a fabulous friend once:  flying the national airline of the country you are visiting is a great idea as it means your holiday “experience” starts earlier and ends later.  You’re right in imagining that this can be a good thing or a bad thing.  Based on bitter experience, I would generally rule out Russia, China and North Korea's "Air Koryo" from this mantra as their national airlines don’t understand my needs.  Want me to paint a picture?  Ok - let’s just say they won’t be serving a cream tea with warm scones, homemade preserves and clotted cream just before touchdown; you won’t get your glass refilled with the Sancerre and there will be no rom-coms about people swapping houses starring Kate Winslet.  And absolutely no laughter on board at any point on the flight, please.  It’s dangerous.


Bed

There is a bewildering array of hotels to choose from in Berlin, just like any modern city these days.  The problem with hotels is that they keep opening and closing.  “Have you heard about the new hotel – it’s got grass beds.  You sleep on grass.  And you’ve got a dried cow pancake as a pillow.  It’s amazing.  You feel so at one with nature”.  “Oh no, damn – I just booked somewhere else with normal beds.”    The thing to remember with hotels is that the grass always seems greener but it’s not really – you’re just seeing the blades of grass from side on.  Forget whether they have a gym – you’re not going to use it, just accept that.  It will save valuable time - trust me.  Get over it and move on.

When we arrived at our carefully selected hotel, courtesy of the creeping UK Embassy Compound Network that is “Soho House”, we were delighted to hear the word “upgrade”.  Situated in the Mitte district, this very cool Bauhaus building wasn’t spooky at all until someone mentioned that it used to be a Jewish-run department store and then the headquarters for Hitler Youth and finally offices of the Communist party before falling derelict.  The spookiness gave way to excitement at the thought that the upgrade might mean that we have an extra coffee table in our room or maybe an apple with a knife on a napkin next to it.

We travelled by elevator to the fourth floor and unlocked the door to our Jewish haberdashery cum Hitler Youth ping-pong room.  What I saw shocked me to the core.  I immediately realised that our entire trip to Berlin was simply ruined.  Soho House had given us a room so amazing, so fantastically huge and luxurious that instantly, there seemed no reason to leave the hotel.  This was an apartment that I would have been more than happy to live in full time.  The style was high-ceilinged parquet floor glamour meets English country house.  Sound impossible?  Well, they had done it, in my view.  It had a massive kitchen with nods to the rural epicentre of the imperial Soho House movement, Babington House.  Nothing but Bakelite, ceramic and enamel in there.  Comfy sofas, a bookcase complete with a wooden step-ladder to fall off at our leisure, our own bar, two bathrooms, a roll-top bath, a massive bed, six giant windows overlooking Berlin, the list goes on and on.  This pad was going to make sight-seeing very difficult because I find it strangely impossible even if I’m staying at the local YMCA.


Food

Where do you start?  We can’t eat at the hotel all the time, can we?  I throw myself at the mercy of the Wallpaper guide which knows I’m a high end gay, or at least aspire to be one.  If I had a gay credit rating, it would be less “A Gay” and definitely more “BBB- with a negative outlook”.  We made some choices.  I checked with the reception and they confirmed that it was safe to leave the UK embassy compound as long as we were back before midnight (UK time).

The first night took us to a restaurant which was a "must do" in Berlin, according to Wallpaper.  In a not-particularly posh area of town a gentleman named Tim Laue promised us the dinner of our life in a restaurant not creatively but confidently named “Tim Laue”.

Mr Tim serves food within a very crisp, functional space which gives a nod to the Far East and the colourful palate of budget airlines.  We dined on no less than eight courses, three of them seeming to be in addition to those that we were expecting.  Having chosen specific menu options, a new menu was printed just for us to refer to and to keep.  It would be impressive to say that each course had its own wine but Mr Tim went one step further - one of the courses had a wine per ingredient.  Peking duck (his deconstructed interpretation) had one wine for the breast, one for the offal soup and one for the liver.  At one point, Hubby and I were shielded from each other by no less than eight glasses, each with a careful measure of wines that had been waiting for this moment for up to twenty years.  Think amazing flavours, think Japanese Willy Wonka, think “fuckin’ ell, how are we going to pay for this?”

If we had known how much it was going to cost we might not have enjoyed it as much.  In fact, I would have made a run for it and risked prosecution.  But by the time the bill actually arrived, we were so blown away by the food that it seemed almost like a fair price.  But let’s just say Wallpaper should probably not have this in the “must do” section of their guide.  It’s a bit like saying you simply must buy a two hundred foot yacht and never go to work again.  It’s a given, if you have the means.

The following night we availed ourselves to a smart but hearty restaurant called Alpenstück in a wealthy neighbourhood further West in the city.  Schnitzel came three ways and so if you like baby cows, this is not the place for you.  It was friendly and bustling with great service and lots of fresh alpine colours but lacked air conditioning.  If Americans had been there, they’d have been hanging out of the windows by their fanny packs, screaming.

For the third night (again Wallpaper), we found ourselves in a brightly-coloured Mexican restaurant called “Tipica”, completely on our own.  The evening started badly when we arrived and panicked, pretending that we had got the “wrong restaurant”.  The waitress had obviously seen the whites of many an eye before and was not fazed at all.  We should have trusted our instincts.
I would wager that none of the people there had ever been to Mexico.  The food was heated in dishes in the microwave (quite blatantly by our waitress) and was boring, watery and rank.  Ridiculously small wraps and doughy “homemade” tortillas completed the car crash.  A tea light in a zany lime green box and the Gipsy Kings in the background does not Mexico make.  We had to compliment these platters of boring fare with two emergency currywursts immediately afterwards.  “Is it as good as they say?”, Hubby asked the guy at the currywurst place.  “It’s sausage with tomato sauce”, he said, raising a single eyebrow and shrugging his shoulders.  He was obviously deeply proud.

To complete the evening, Hubby spent twenty minutes throwing wine gums into my mouth successfully on Alexanderplatz.  I managed five in a row at one point which I have to admit, I was pretty chuffed with.  Other than the success of this confectionary distribution, this was not our best night out, gastronomically.  If Mr Laue could have seen us now, we’d have been the ones bowing our heads, Asian style, and not him.

Sightseeing

Rooftop bar with pool and restaurant, overlooking Berlin.  They were sights and I was seeing them.  That’s all I’m saying.  What more do you want?

Culcha and Other Bits ‘n’ Bobs

Notables were: Eurovision song contest from comfortable sofa in sitting room under blue soft blanket; Tin of complimentary shortbreads; Bus tour around the city; Preuzler something-something berg; Freuzberg something-something; Museum of islands; Tim Raue’s Willy Wonka Restaurant; The Tim Raue workhouse for people that don’t have a credit limit of $5,000 but didn’t think they would need it; Some 19th century apartment buildings that everyone makes you go to see that are a bit like the ones in Paris and lots of other European cities; Berghain / Panorama Bar German Discotheque and Niteclub – offers you the possibility of queuing for 2 hours outside a power station only to be turned away.  Just stand outside Battersea at night, you’ll get the same result.  Tall, spikey tower outside the hotel, looks pretty.  Department store called kaufhauf or something.  Currywurst.  Unparalleled range of Haribo sweets freely available.  Shoe shopping in kaufhauf – don’t do it - they don’t get the shoes for you in your size, you have to rummage through the boxes yourself.  Like, hello?  Spooky graveyard opposite Soho House with living woman lying on top of spooky grave.  Berin’s Tegel airport - amazingly efficient satellite airport structure and very short taxi from and to the runway.  Avoid untoasted rye bread which they will constantly peddle to you – honestly,  you don’t need it in your life.  Oh, and to the VW Tourag driver with all the Star Wars memorabilia stuck to his car that can’t drive – like, really? And to the lady in the bar downstairs who said it was closed at 9.30pm – we know you were lying, you should have just said we weren’t cool enough – we can take it.  We’ve been turned away from hundreds of places, thanks, and some of them absolutely amazing.

And so, now armed with everything you need to know about Berlin, and safely back in Kennington, it's on to my recipe:

CURRYWURST

Ingredients

450g of bratwurst
Oil for frying
425g of ketchup
1 tablespoon white sugar
2 tablespoons chili sauce (optional)
1 teaspoon black pepper
1/2 teaspoon onion salt
1 pinch paprika
Curry to taste (usually at least a tablespoon in the sauce and more sprinkled on top before serving)


Instructions

Heat vegetable oil in a skillet and cook sausages until brown outside and heated through, turning periodically.
Pour ketchup into a small saucepan and add sugar, chili sauce, pepper, onion salt, paprika and curry.
Remove sausages from heat once fully cooked and slice into 1/4-1/2 inch thick pieces. Place on a plate and spoon sauce over top.
Garnish with additional paprika (if desired) and curry.

This makes plenty of sauce so if you don't want your sausages swimming in sauce, use it to dip your fries or roll in, or save it for another day.  Or just bin it.

DVP