Easy steps to banish the mean reds.

1) Listen to your favourite song from when you were 17. On repeat. All evening. It may be angsty but must be up-tempo. Give no thought to how uncool it now seems. Back when you were seventeen this song was the shit and you knew it. The zeitgeist is for idiots.

2) Dance to the aforementioned with joy and abandon all over your living room. If you get tired you may switch to a slower song (again, only if you listened to it as a teenager) but you should continue to gesticulate emotively along. If the ballad in question is of the middle-of-the-road-American-altrock genre then all the better. Something about losing a woman, or a horse, or a bet, or sanity is ideal.

3) Look out your window and notice that there's an amazing fireworks display going that seems to have been put on just for the betterment of your mood. If the world fails to comply with this imagine one. Or stage your own. Buy some sparklers. Set a cushion on fire. Set yourself on fire. Whatever it takes, honey.

4) Have some cake. I'm not talking comfort eating a whole fucking Kaesekuchen here, just to be clear, about a quarter should suffice.

5) Remember that you live in a world with the following: cake, tea, plain chocolate digestives, Dolly Parton, Barack Obama, blueberry pie, white russians, Margaret Atwood novels, Shakespeare, Ryan Gosling, your friends, your family, your pets, Ikea (particularly the meatball section of Ikea), the National, the Guardian, William Faulkner, Katy Perry (feel free to skip La Perry if she don't do for you what she does for me) and countless other amazing things and people and ENTITIES.

There now, don't you feel better. I do.

SMILE, BERLINERS, YOU'RE IN A SOCIAL SITUATION!

I was in Club de Visionaer last night and to look around at the collected facial expressions in the queue for the loo you'd have thought we were waiting to be ritually excuted with a blunt spoon. Heavens above the sheer, unaldulterated misery on these girls faces. Now, to be fair, there could have been some mitigating circumstances that had them all standing their looking like bulldogs licking piss off a nettle. Maybe they just collectively found out that their collective boyfriends are gay, or cheating on them with that horrible bitch Scarlett Johannson plays in that weird film, or massive Red Hot Chili Peppers fans. But more than likely this was just another Wednesday night of drinking with their mates on a lovely Indian summer's evening that they had to toil through. Seriously, the looks of them when they used to come into the bar I worked in on a Saturday night. It would take all my waitressy charm and perk just get a smile out of them, and they were the ones out for the night rather than mopping up Guiness and piss for 6 euro an hour. I ask you.

But the thing is, see, that they are not just horrible grumpy people who don't want to have fun. A few pints and a lot more waitressing perk and they're all smiles and "Oh ja, these Irish pubs macht so much Spass" (incidentally this one didn't, at all, which just proves my point). It's just that they don't seem to be comfortable being fun with total strangers, which I can understand but not condone, seeing as one of the greatest joys in life is connecting with a random individual on a personal level, if only for a fleeting moment. Think about it, that warm fuzzy glow you get when you share a dear-lord-aren't-we-hilarious-and-sure-we-don't-even-know-each-other-madness-total-madness! joke with a total stranger comes about because, if only for the length of time it takes to discuss the state of the loo/queue at the bar/hideousness of the RHCP, you realise that the rest of humanity is not, in fact, made up of horrible shitheads out to ruin your day by being cooler and thinner than you but is choc full of awesome, hilarious people who essentially just want to have a good time.

So, come on Berlin. You can do it. Trust me, you'll enjoy it. I swear I've seen a flicker on amusement and pleasure behind the bemused half-smile you throw me when I insist on making eye contact and smiling when you come out of the bathroom stall. I double dare you to ask if I've any lipgloss on me, if all men are cheating bastards, or just dive straight in there with "Jesus, how awful are the Chili Peppers?". You'll enjoy it, I promise. I'm a scream.

VICTORY IN OUR TIME!

MY IPOD IS WORKING!!! HURRAY FOR GLORIOUS WATERPROOF (APPARENTLY) APPLE PRODUCTS. Oh joy, joy, joy.

Other things that are RWTW (Right With The World):

1) It is a Saturday and I am not hungover. I feel glorious and also so smug I could just do a smug dance. Maybe I'll go the whole hog and start doing yoga and give up caffeine and say things like "God, to think I used to just poison my body with that stuff! I mean, I might well have just been shooting heroin for all the tea and coffee and meat I was ingesting! Ugh, I don't know how I could live with myself!"...I mean, it's unlikely, especially when you consider my addiction to all of the above plus doener kebabs and overly processed "American style" chocolate chip cookies, but maybe, just maybe.

2) Florence and the Machine are playing Berlin in October. I love her. After Katy Perry she is my number one Inappropriate Crush. Inappropriate only in that she is a lady and I am not a lesbian. As opposed to La Perry who is inappropriate in pretty much every way going. But can I help myself? No, no I cannot. The course of true love never did run smooth.

3) The new Mexican imbiss on Danziger Strasse. Yum, yum, yum, yum. A little upset that it's name appears to actually be Maria Bonita rather than TACO! (I don't know where I got that from) but still. I think it's also run by go-getting young folks who used to cook in White Trash before setting up on their own. I am a fan of go-getting young folks, and the burritos are goooood.

4) I am about to have some tea and cake now.

Loser.

n. One who loses things. See also Fuckingeejit, Megan.

So, Wednesday night. Club der Visionaer. Sitting on the dock (of the bay, cue obligatory rendition by all present) having a beer and the craic. Lovely night, last of the summer etc etc and what do I bloody well go and do? Manage to knock my whole bag (open end down) into the gap between the docks. Everything into the Spree, EVERYTHING. IPod, camera, phone, wallet (with all my cards, plus my newly acquired bus / train monthly ticket), EVERYTHING. The phone and the iPod were recovered (though not in working order, natch) but the wallet and the camera SANK LIKE FUCKING STONES, never to be recovered.

And the worst thing? Everytime I tell this story people start laughing.

So this is it, my friends, I am officially Off The Drink and On The Wagon. Well, for two weeks. Just to see how it goes, like. Wouldn't want to torture myself too much etc etc.