“Sleep is for whimps.” – say Insel Shock Troops
Comments (1) 
The Germans have a phrase which I think most of the world knows by now, mostly thanks to Audi (pronounced owdi as in that hurts, not ordi. btw), Schadenfreude. You know the pleasure you get from someone else’s discomfort. Well the blue collar Berliner seems to relish getting up before its light, running to work and then proceeding to spend the first half an hour of his working day making as much noise as he possible can. Building workers are experts at this, the finish work at about three thirty in the afternoon, but before they go they line up all the noisy tasks for when the start again the next morning, this is around seven o’clock by the way, Such things include throwing heavy waste into the skips, concrete blocks are a favourite here.
Seven o’clock is a time most of us are poking our mouths with minty freshness groggily squeezed from a tube, and trying to the pee inside the bowl. But for the little worker bees of Berlin it is the time to pay back the city that never sleeps for disturbing their bedtime, which I guess must be around ten o’clock, not a quiet time in Berlin. Well that is my theory anyway in any case it certainly smacks of the old Schadenfreude routine. To add weight to my theory the little buggers only keep the racket up long enough that you are resigned to get out of bed and make the best of it. Because between roughly nine o’clock and eleven they seem to go mysteriously quiet. Coffee and cake seem to be the reason for the docility, it is like the Diazepam for worker stress.
This morning I had the added joy of first a Strimmer spinning away outside my window, this was about seven o’clock but after only six hours sleep I can hardly read the hands on the little travel clock by my bed. I managed to fog this sound out but they weren’t finished yet, no they had another little instrument in the orchestra of cacophony the leaf blower. Oh how I hate the leaf blower, and how the Berlin street cleaner loves them. The whole purpose as far as I can see for the smelly noisy fans is to move leaves and rubbish on ground that is not solid enough to sweep upon. The floor brush was designed for moving rubbish on solid ground like paths and tarmac, the problem with the brush is it is clean and quiet. For a country that pretends to be the Eco bastion of Europe it sure like burning Oil, by developing as many machines as it can for as many purposes as it can find.
It is now nine o’clock and it has suddenly gone quiet out there, is that coffee I smell?
I appreciate the work people do to keep the city in order, when they do it that is, but please stop taking your frustration out on the rest of us. I am going to start hitting my keys after midnight from now on as loudly as possible as an act of defiance.
