Berlin is a many-splendoured town, as Christy might say, being the fanfare of a man that he is. I might say it too, but I’m a different kind of man altogether. I’ll leave you to deal with that and just roll on across the fens.

Berlin has many splendours, but it is poor. Countless Anglofritz articles have lamented the lack of a manufacturing industry, the dearth of corporate offices. And often have we graphically illustrated the poverty with which this once imperial city has been stricken. Why only this morning, as I did wind my way among the shoppers on this bright spring day, did I chance upon a group of youths pissing on a dead horse. “Ah, how slight is the border between innocence and experience,” I thought, chuckling to myself, and turned my nose upwind and into the sunshine. The lily in my lapel drooped for barely a moment.