| Merkie's Berlin Diary, Part I: Trains, Planes and Aiberdeen Feels | |
| Fortune can be so cruel at times; then again at others it can be
outrageously generous, especially if you happen to be a Dundonian shop assistant (as an aside, don't you just hate
these lottery winners who only bought a ticket "because it was a rollover" - what, four million not enough
for you then? You could buy Dundee for that). Most of the time, though, fortune's pretty middling, with odds slightly
against. Hence that proverb about losing a pound and finding a penny. Nae fine, but it could have been worse: you
could, for instance, have lost a pound and found some small-change Euros which the Post Office won't change for
you. Exactly my feelings when the UEFA balls paired us with "German crack troops" Hertha Berlin, then. With Lazio and Boavista as potential opponents, and Turkey on the menu as a possible destination as well as two further Eastern European outposts, the draw was ambivalent if not entirely kind to Aberdeen. A team that we might have a wee chance against and a fairly decent few days holiday into the bargain. Quickly - but not too quickly to be sure what day the game was actually going to be, unlike some rash loons - the TRF Travel Agent was visited. Unfortunately he'd had his ABTA licence revoked after getting Gordon Reid full board at that nudist colony in Sweden during the close season. Still, as said demon cartoonist was heard to remark more than once during his summer au naturel, there was plenty on offer if willing to shop around, though that was where the similarity ended as in the case of Berlin briefs were swiftly secured. And, after as heartening and entertaining a goalless draw as Pittodrie has witnessed for many a year, it was with uncustomarily high spirits - not just the complimentary BA booze - that TRF's editor-in-chief made his way to Dyce early last Monday morning with hundreds of like-minded (no offence intended) souls. The business class types must have been wondering why their bastion of international commuterdom had suddenly been overrun by kilt-wearing radges in various states of disrepair (the kilts as well as the radges); perhaps it was the scale of this Red Army invasion which caused the check-in girl to guess my destination before I even opened my gob ("Berlin, sir?" "Bloody richt, the suspension on that taxi wis stiffer than Pelé after a box o' thae pills…"). Then again perhaps it was the fact that I still had 'GO TO GERMANY' written in mirror-image on my forehead to ward off early-morning forgetfulness. Now you know what those 'refreshing towel' thingies are for. So after watching my luggage disappear below stairs to be redirected wherever the sadistic bastards so desire (coincidence decreed that today they had chosen Tegel airport, Berlin; one of those moments of fortune's generosity), it was off to the departure lounge. And if departure wasn't on the immediate horizon then lounging certainly was, the excitement of what lay ahead giving way somewhat to a realisation of the hour of day. But just as I was beginning to master the Norwegian language thanks to a newspaper discarded by a recently-arrived Scandinavian (you may be amused to know that Robbie Winters has already faded into obscurity at Brann Bergen and wasn't even picked in the squad to play Viking that day; I think they must also have horse racing in Oslo because I definitely saw the word 'Solberg'), the call went out for Heathrow and Long-haul Merkie joined a queue consisting of fellow Dandies and frequent flyers in equal measure. As I reached the front and handed over my passport to the talking make-up kit behind the desk, a plummy English bloke in a suit asked "Are you going to Hertha?". "Only if she laughs at my photie." They always think the worst of us footie fans do the middle class. Despite this being a lifetime aviation debut I cannot say I was overly concerned about the situation (as the old joke goes, I'm not scared of flying, it's the crashing bit I'm not keen on). Not so very different from being on a bus really, and in any case playing five-a-side against The Red Wig gives you plenty of preparation for being put up in the air. Even if you do prang there's sair little you can do to help matters so why worry about it? Some perspective was cast on things, however, when I looked six miles down expecting to be about Stonehaven somewhere only to discover (I could make out Mixu Paatelainen) we were in fact above Edinburgh - maybe not quite so Mair's coaches after all then. Sadly, the anxiety, vertigo and ear-popping were not the only airline fables I was failing to reconcile: the cabin crew was all-male and as camp as a field of tents. Trolley, yes, but the only dolly was the inflatable sheep in my provisions bag. Which was as far as I knew heading for Buenos Aires (not to be confused with Buenos Airse, which is an Argentinian beauty contest) at the time. Bah. Baa, indeed. Made the best of things and scoffed a ploughman's lunch. Not sure whether this was brave or stupid cos he had a bloody big scythe. Fortunately it too was en route to Buenos Aires, so no harm done. Despite being plied full of all the free food and drink the stewardesses could provide in one hour, the stop-off point at LHR, for want of anything better to do (I'll be blowed if I was going to the Burberry shop and was being eyeballed very suspiciously indeed by the bouncers at Harrods'), was the Tap and Spile bar, whatever or whoever a spile is (I suspect it may have something to do with tackety beets, for I distinctly remember the TRF garden party when Sir Claude forgot to take his off, burst the bouncy castle, and was thus reprimanded by a deflated Torryloon: "aat's you spiled it fir abody"). A place staffed by some of the most vacant people on the planet, the sort of folk who can't understand why it takes them 10 minutes to get from the car park to the bar but two and a half hours to go back when they're using the same moving walkway. They didn't object to Scottish banknotes but then they probably wouldn't have noticed if we'd cut our ambassadory P&J into 4"x2" strips and paid with that. Fearing that stupidity was contagious, it was a great relief to finally get on board the second flight of the day (I say finally because Heathrow is so big it takes you longer to get from one platform to another than a hungry woodworm at the Bay City Rollers museum), put the watch forward and jet off to Deutschland. As the Pittodrie dinner ladies say when they hear Leon Mike approaching the canteen, chocs away… Ladies and gentlemen, wilkommen in Berlin… |
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