MISTER COOL OF POLITICS

Meet the coolest politician in Germany: he's 93, mentally sharp and hilarious. His name is Helmut Schmidt. He is as famous for smoking cigarettes anywhere and everywhere - even on live television - as for his wise words.

"Das Schneckentempo ist das normale Tempo jeder Demokratie." (Snails-pace is the normal speed of every democracy.)

"Wollen wir denn auch noch Weltmeister im Jammern werden?" (Do we [Germany] want to become the world champions in complaining?)
 
"Politiker und Journalisten teilen sich das Schicksal, dass sie heute über Dinge reden oder schreiben müssen, die sie erst morgen ganz verstehen." (Politicians and Journalists share the same fate: they write about things they will only understand tomorrow.)

Chain-smoking his entire life, he is nowadays the only man allowed to smoke on public television. His retort: "Willen braucht man. Und Zigaretten." (You need will. And cigarettes.)

DANCE, DANCE, DANCE

Haruki Murakami is my all time favourite author. While the sunlight filters through the silver blinds of my windows, Murakami's words are even more enticing than a rare blue sky in Hamburg. I devour his book and enter another world. 

I like to read his books again and again: on the subway, squashed between commuters, in my lunchbreak or at home on my bed. I devour his words like chocolate cookies. 

The last two novels I bought are "Sleep" (a short story with beautiful silver and blue illustrations) and "Dance Dance Dance" - whose central theme is dreams. Sometimes when I look up from the book I am reading, the world does seem a little softer and little fuzzier at the edges. 

But then the subway doors slam together and I am reminded that dreams and reality cannot exist at the same time - as they do in Murakami's books.