I was up in Hamburg on Thursday, there and back in 12 hours, saw very little except Großneumarkt (and all of Frohstoff and the wonderful mob there) a glimpse of Elbphilharmonie, and quite a bit of Hamburg Hauptbahnhof. Totally could live there, port city and all.
Binged the entire seven of Ben Aaronovitch’s Rivers of London novels again, ’cos sometimes a girl just wants a black Harry Potter and a Muslim Hermione — even if they are cops.
The long train from Wuppertal to Berlin. Snow, lightless, proper winter arriving.
Schwebebahn is still the best Bahn.
After reading Moon Over Soho and Rivers of London, books 2 and 1 respectively of Ben Aaronovitch’s Rivers of London series, I ordered the lot (except the latest, it seems), and read them. And I was in London! So I was all, “I love this city!” and felt like I knew it so much because of these novels. What I call “Harry Potter if he was a black cop in London, played by a young Idris Elba, or Stormzy, and Hermione Granger was a Somali Muslim cop on the Murder Squad.”
I slammed the whole series over the last two months, as they arrived, and usually in a couple of days per novel, except when I was on tour — so they’re also firmly bound with the joys of travel and rivers for me now, the Danube and Thames, which is fitting. Whispers Under Ground doesn’t obviously follow the larger story of the Faceless Man, which almost makes these first three stand-alone works. It does introduce a whole pile of characters, locations, peoples, who fill out the world of the series in this and later novels.
I’m probably going to re-binge the whole series in the coming weeks (just need to re-buy Rivers of London first), which tells how much I’m enjoying these. Funny that they’re a series too, ’cos I’m always reluctant to commit, but cheers to Gala for introducing me to this. Best joyous fantasy read of the twenty-tens.
S.J wrote and talked with us about aftercare for Rest Area. Kali Rose said the snake I ran over on my e-bike was a good omen, and she’s never going to let that go. I arrive in Vienna, cafés I’d aimed for are closed for lunch so I find myself in Café Jelinek, a bit off Mariahilfestr. neighbourhoods I’ve biked through before. A second breakfast, after our all-’80s singing one in Landgasthaus Rodlhof on 3 hours sleep, raked from the work and hungover, is a big mug of coffee, croissant and honey, bowl of fruit and yoghourt, 4 slices bread with cream cheese, chives, tomatoes, all for 9,50 €. On the plane, easyJet to Schönefeld, they offer me two seats, ’cos I’m mad tall. I fall over myself into it. 4 hours later, a half before midnight and the Danube churning in my lungs, I arrive home. Katrin has left dinner on the table for me. Aftercare all the way.
The Danube, between trees on the Ottensheim–Linz train.
An attempt at the venacular of the photographic mundane: a prefab bus stop outside Linz on the way to Ottensheim, beside some of the saddest housing architecture I have yet seen.
We both simultaneously broke into Kraftwerk.
