Berlin 16.12.12 And Now for The News

Fox News

It's very late in the bünker. A good day. Completed Fox News and Dr. Klaus Von Kunst's pages. Klausy has outdone himself this time. A really good piece. Still waiting to hear from the Midfield General who has threatened to write something and have to get started on the advertising side of things. May need to go to 40 pages for this edition due to the space taken up promoting the Hampstead Village Card.

Popped into Wilmersdorfer Platz and purchased 7 winter socks for €6 and two jumpers for €19 a piece in C & A. They still have C & A and Woolworths in Berlin. Also went to the Jade Massage in Mehringdamm. You lie on a bed of warm 'rollers' and it uses your own body weight to massage you. 30 minutes for €8. Most splendid.

Time for that late night cup of tea, a piece of cake and classic film again. I think tonight, Kubrick's 2001 A Space Odyssey or maybe just an episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm.

Oh, and a song I co-wrote some years ago called has been re-released by an act called SUNWAY in Miami. I noticed there were no writers credits anywhere on iTunes or YouTube and when I had the gall to ask why via the artists YouTube page, was scalded in an email from the producer for being 'uncool'. I've been out of the music business for so long I'd forgotten the etiquette and that one is supposed to be 'cool'. Oh well. Here's Broken Heart, it's rather nice:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=78zh-F3V8xs&sns=em

I sent an apologetic email and the artist has now added the songwriter credits which I think was rather nice of them.

D.I.S.C.O.

Emmanuel Mustafa Goldstein x
Editor in hot-pants

Broken Heart, Music & Lyrics by: Joerg Alfter, Juergen Hallfell, Sebastian Wocker (Chrysalis/BMG)

Still Berlin 15.12.12 1.45am

"And remember... Keep 'em Peeled"

It's 1.45 am (Berlin Time). Quite exhausted. Have been editing away at two stories on Hampstead Police Station and one about a man with a megaphone and am ready for a cup of tea and half an hours mindless telescreen before retiring. 

One of the stories is by retired ex-copper and local Hampstonian, Barry Doble. A very decent fellow of the old school with a good insight into where it's all gone wrong. It's interesting to see how horribly wrong it has gone. How Airstrip One's (Britain's) infrastructure seems to have collapsed almost completely. Policing is a good case in point here. And Barry's report, comparing Hampstead Police Station in 1970 to that of the present day is a stark and obvious indicator of Airstrip One's s slow and painful demise.  

The second story by a Hampstead local Lord Winston Montgomery-Baden Powell III who confesses to being slightly politically right of Genghis Kahn and likes nothing more than popping into a police station to report some felon or other will either need chopping or some radically leftist editors comments to prevent people from thinking they're reading the Daily Hate Mail. That having been said, he makes some pertinent points.

There's also an excellent piece, also involving the police (Ed. Cor blimey, they're really getting a run for their money in this edition) from love revolutionary and 'spiritual entertainer', Danny Shine, the man with the megaphone. That is he did have a megaphone but someone pinched it, hence the police, but more importantly his imaginary friend... it's a bit complicated. But a bloody good story.

All that and more to look forward to in edition 17 of the Hampstead Village Voice folks.

Right, off to tea and telescreen (will watch the second half of Dangerous Liaisons which I started yesterday... So not too mindless. It's the tea and biscuit that I'm really looking forward to (Leibniz Chocolate - by Jove the Germans do make a good biscuit... eat your heart out Mr. Kipling).

Toodle Pip!

Emmanuel Mustafa Goldstein,

Enemy of Big Brother

Berlin 13.12.2012

The Battle of Bay Tree Lodge

I have been reading the Orwell Diaries and have been inspired to restart my late night blog from a Bünker in Berlin. It's currently -3°c and the snow has settled firmly onto a layer of compound ice. 

Only went out once today to take a large coffee and two bread rolls with cheese and salami for €3.70 at the local bakery. The girl there was apologetic about the special deal going up from €3.25. Laughable to a Londoner. Even more laughable to a Hampsteadite.

The bus was 3 minutes early and I scalded the bus driver. This being Berlin in Winter, I'd timed my journey to the bus-stop to be there two minutes early so as not to freeze for more time than was necessary. One can normally set one's watch to a German bus timetable so for a bus to leave one minute early is seen as a heinous and contemptible crime. Had I missed it, it might have meant a needless 10 minutes in the bitter cold. Laughable in London - but the going rate here, I assure you.

Managed to sculpt four pages of the next Hampstead Village Voice which I'm hopeful will go down rather well with the natives. Have invented a scheme effectively reversing inflation if one shops only with local independents. Inflation currently stands at 2.8% so with 10% off, Hampsteadites will enjoy deflation of 7.2% if they use our card. Completed four pages about that today.

Tony Parsons kindly donated a rather good rant and Ken Pyne a splendid cartoon to accompany it. Another page, so five today.

Yesterday was the 12th of the 12th 2012 and the last time in our lifetimes there will be such a date. 

Oh yes, the The Battle of Bay Tree Lodge. Two pages of leader comment on how tenants are treated as second class citizens in modern day Airstrip One citing my own exile from Hampstead as a result of said battle. I think it came out rather well, but let's see what you think. That's seven pages including yesterday.

Like British Rail used to say, when there was such a thing, "We're getting there."

Ought to be published in late January of 2013.

Toodle Pip!

Emmanuel Mustafa Goldstein x

Enemy of Big Brother

Help Preserve Hampstead's Unique Character

Yours truly has been running around Hampstead setting up the Hampstead Village Card with local, independent businesses this week.

The idea is to encourage locals to choose these local businesses over the faceless multinationals and in so doing protect Hampstead from the "disease" that is turning most of Airstrip One (Britain) into a generic, robotic, corporate shopping mall.

You'll be able to buy the Hampstead Village Card for the mere snippet of a tenner at a local newsagent from the 1st of December and then, when you use local independent businesses throughout 2013, you'll receive a 10% discount.

£1 from each card will be donated to the local Marie Curie Hospice.

To further help these small Hampstead businesses, there'll be adverts (like the one above) in The Hampstonian 2013 and Hampstead Village Voice (edition 17 out in January 2013).

Yes, it's all hands on deck to help maintain Hampstead's character and community spirit and give the little shops, cafes and restaurants a fair chance against the Arsefcuks, McCrackdonald's and Tesco-Stressco's of Airstrip One who seem intent on taking over Hampstonia's green and pleasant land.

We shall fight them of the beaches... or at least on the Whitestone Pond!

Toodle Pip!

Emmanuel Mustafa Goldstein,
Enemy of Big Brother and Commander in Chief of the Hampstead Navy.

What have the Romans ever done for us?

 Oldschidt & Howler

Watcha Hampsters!

Currently flogging pages for the Hampstead Village Voice's sober little sister publication The Hampstonian 2013.

A not very creative yet necessary part of the publishing process in which I find myself saying rather odd things like "Why can't everyone be like Goldschmidt & Howland?"

Yes, when it comes to the monetary side of being a Hampstead love revolutionary, the cold, hard truth is, estate agents are a positive breeze to sell advertising to. They usually confirm straight away, send in their artwork promptly and don't mess you about too much when it's time to cough up the lolly.

Rotters

Needless to say, estate agents are a bunch of complete rotters when it comes to turning useful A1 shops into pointless A2 offices in Heath Street thus turning it into a virtual ghost road. 

This is something TK International are currently attempting to do and they ought hang their heads in shame. And I say that, even though I have just sent them an email offering a full page in The Hampstonian 2013 for the mere snip of £150+VAT. After all, we are not communists!

Our motto, "never mix editorial with advertising", however, stands true." Stressco, estate agents, even Scamden - are free to advertise with us to their hearts content, but it will never stop us slagging them off if they cross the line of common decency and/or the general wellbeing of Hampstonia which, needless to say, they so often do.

Viva Hampstonia!

Emmanuel Mustafa Goldstein x
Enemy of Big Brother
PS. If you'd like to advertise in the disgustingly capitalist Hampstonian 2013 for a mere snip of £150+VAT just email: info@hampsteadvillagevoice.com

Stop Everything Everywhere.

A mobile phone antenna on the roof of the Royal Free Hospital. Can this be healthy?

Seeing as I'm skiving off in Berlin, I may as well be of some use and get you all to sign this petition.

http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/stop-mobile-phone-masts-in-built-up-residential/

They're sticking mobile phone antennas everywhere these days. My mate, Hampstead artist and sculptor Clive Barker swears he gets bad headaches as a result of all this horrid, phone-mast business.

Now that Orange and T-Mobile have merged to become the somewhat domineeringly named Everything Everywhere (ed. blimey, they think a lot of themselves), they're trying to erect another of those ugly and possibly unhealthy masts slap bang in the middle of a conservation area, ie. Hampstead.

Typically, as do all river - or airwave - polluting corporations, they've chosen the summer holidays, when everyone's away, to get permission from the gullible Scamden. Even if you are on your Hols, please sign the petition below. It'll take you two ticks.

http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/stop-mobile-phone-masts-in-built-up-residential/

Ta very much,

Emmanuel Mustafa Goldstein x
Emmanuel Mustafa Goldstein esq. NA. AA. AFC.

Isn't Hampstead Marvelous!

Editon 16 in shops now!

Watcha Hampsters!

Yes, edition 16's in the shops and full of gloriously amusing bits and bobs... I've run out of promotional jargon so just go and buy the blasted thing and leave it by your loo for those personal, Hampstead loo moments. No, not those moments, Klaus, the normal ones.

Toodle Pip!

EMGoldstein-Wooster III

Emmanuel Mustafa Goldstein-Wooster III