The George Lite Zone

The last time I was in a mosh pit was at Motorheads 25th anniversary concert in Brixton, the birthplace of punk, it's ironic then that the band to drag me back into the pogoing fray were the godfathers of grunge, Mudhoney, returning to Berlin after a 15 year absence. Tracks from their new album, The Lucky Ones , meshed seamlessly with their old classics, as body surfers cascaded onto the stage in a blitzkrieg of the flesh. On that stage lead singer Mark Arm threw himself around like a man possessed, running at the crowd one minute and jerking around in demonic puppet fashion the next. A punk master in all his pomp. "You may have noticed we had Kurt Cobain on stage with us earlier", he quipped. "He was a bit smaller than I remembered him". Touch me I'm sick in particular brought the house down, with the German audience freaking out en masse. Two encores rounded off proceedings, with the crowd still baying for more. All in all a fantastic nights entertainment...

A walk up Friedrichstraße today took us into Scheunenviertel, known as the "barn quarter". Amongst other things, this former Jewish center of the city hosts numerous art shops and includes Tacheles. At the turn of the 20th Century Tacheles was one of Berlin's most elegant shopping centers but has since fallen into disrepair and been converted into an alternative art center. Perusing one of the Tachele artists studio's I came across the surreal work of Hungarian born artist Andras Bartos . A walk further down the road to Oranienburger Str. 27 brought us to a shop full of his work. After much humming and more than enough harring I couldn't decide on a print for myself. Calvin on the other hand immediately went for this macabre canine piece which will be winging its way back to Bonnie Scotland in a few days time.