I got a cold yesterday. I got it from the air. They say that the Berlin air is the purest in Europe. Well no, what they say is this – “Das ist die Berliner Luft Luft Luft!” Folk and chanson singers have an all too pernicious influence on our lives. Who was it that said, “One should try everything in life once, except incest and folk-dancing.” Sir Thomas Beecham. Don’t tell me I don’t research. Folk music is a dangerous evil, which ever way you slice it.

Anyway, the Berlin air. It is true, and you probably know this, that the Berlin air is proverbially good. But here’s the thing – it’s not. Okay it might be quite fresh, but it’s filled with viruses like little mosquitoes, and yesterday one of the little buggers caught up with me and now I have a cold. My eyeballs are burning with all the vitamins running around my head. Berlin has a pestilence in it and the climate is deadly. A gloomy note on a gloomy day. The moral of this misery? Don’t trust folk wisdom and kill your parents. One of the two anyway.