I’ve hardly seen my neighbours since I moved to Solo HQ in October last year, apart from the dog walkers in the communal drying green. The dogwalkers all pick up the poo—the panopticon effect of being surrounded on four sides by walls of windows?—but I have to wonder about the…
Category: Blog
Alone in Tallinn
When I jumped ships from English teaching to freelance copy-editing for the Moscow Times, I needed to procure my own visa. The usual solution for freewheeling foreigners was to pay a visa agency for an invitation, then fly to a third country to apply for a biznez visa. This is…
Too old for Berlin
In the last decade, Berlin has become trendy for young Australians. London, New York and Tokyo are passé. Since the 2010s, Berlin has been buzzing with 20- and 30-somethings running tech startups, pop-up galleries and street food ‘events’. Digital nomads share laptop space and bike parking in co-working hubs; international…
Delayed gelato gratification
I almost joined a queue for gelato the other day. The queue, socially distanced after a fashion, almost merged with the next queue, outside a coffee & cake takeaway that has recently opened, two doors down, on Great Western Road. Everywhere on this mild, early spring Sunday afternoon were queues…