Joe’s Blog

Hehe, thanks to the Eurosong contest in Belgium, nostalgia, a memorable tune and perhaps a little devilment on the part of blogorrah.com, Johnny Logan and Kaye Styles have entered the Irish charts at number 25! The song has not appeared in Germany as far as I know.

The weather here has been surprisingly warm - one of the warmest Octobers on record I hear and its been very dry but today it has taken a dramatic turn in the wet direction and Thu will bring the first really cold spell - down to -2!

I went running again - on the 21st I did the 10K again but yesterday I dug up the courage to go the full 17K! Conditions were lovely and I had the thought of Kaffee & Kuchen (coffee and cake) to urge me on when the going got tough. This is an approx guess of the route - the nicest bit being when we run north on a bank overlooking the Wannesee.

Time: 1:30 approx - we run for 2k to warm up and then do some streching etc.

Regarding politics, I’m disappointed that lack of integrity is being seemingly rewarded - just look at this weekend’s poll. If we compare this to Sweden where 2 ministers had to leave office as soon as it was discovered that the did not pay their TV license and one of them paid a maid/cleaner in cash. see “Swedish minister resigns over TV licence fee”

Dilbert is drawn by Scott Adams and it turns out that he permanently lost the ability to speak in a condition known as Spasmodic Dysphonia.
But some good news now!
I picked this up from amadanban

US Senate approves Mexican border fence

Mexico’s President, Vicente Fox, has compared the fence to the Berlin Wall.

And Ulster Bank have introduced the facility to see your credit card transactions online
And finally - see what you think of this
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2nsGtd7y3c

The state of Berlin sued the federal government to force them help out with the massive debt. Berlin owes approx €60 billion and needs to save a least a further 1.5 to 2 billion to even break even per year! Although I have heard that children’s day-care is massively subsidised and that could save a lot of money.
But it’s not just Berlin’s debt that’s interesting - there has often been a suggestion that Berlin and the surrounding state - Brandenburg should merge into one (remind anyone of redrawing boundaries in Limerick & Waterford?). Brandenburg is reluctant because they would be saddled with Berlin’s debt. But on a larger scale there is a debate about cutting costs and increasing efficiency. Analysts have suggested that to be economical, a state would need a minimum of 5 million inhabitants and drew up the following maps:
The current 16 states:

Maybe 10 states:

Or just 9

Also, the grand coalition seems to be working better for the Socialists(SPD) that the Christian/Social Democrats (CDU/CSU). For the first time in 4 years, they are the biggest party:

Oh yeah, and then there is the

7th of October, I did a little run…well about 2km and then 9 to 10km around Grundewald

Overview of Grunewald in relation to the city:

Approximate route of run - don’t actually know cos I followed a group and there were many little paths.

There are actually wild pigs in this forest - should make for interesting running. There is an american radar tower too, used in the past to keep an eye on everything in Eastern Germany presumably….

First Belgium, now Ireland. Although he does some shows in Germany, he is nowhere to be seen in the current charts. Will that be the same next week in Ireland?

Waterford News & Star: Johnny Logan teams up with Kaye Syles on hits remix

As promised, pictures from our meal a couple of weeks ago. I found the room in that student apartment building at short notice when I arrived in Berlin so I was only subletting for 1 month but I really enjoyed my time there. There were 9 rooms, 1 kitchen and 1 bathroom with 4 toilets and 3 showers! A cleaning lady comes to clean the shared areas but there is the usual problem with dishes sometimes too ;-).

Some ingredients for our lasagne. ALL of the mushrooms went in

Apple-Curry soup and lasagne in progress

My two lasagne teammates

The soup was beautiful

The first tray of lasagne didn’t look bad either

Beer with dinner - yum (Berliner Pilsner I think)

Afterwards we played charades

Some props were used