#sadly couldnt include these three properly but this was the best I could do

[losing-is-the-new-winning]

TLAT Fancast 

James Potter - Aaron Johnson Sirius Black - Ben Barnes Remus Lupin - Andrew Garfield  Peter Pettigrew - Jeremy Dozier Lily Evans - Karen Gillan Marlene Price - Imogen Poots Mary Macdonald - Holly Earl Donna Shacklebolt - Antonia Thomas  Frank Longbottom - Jim Sturgess Alice Griffiths - Carey Mulligan 

Honourable Mentions: 

Adam McKinnon - William Moseley 

Carlotta Meloni - Odette Annable

Shelley Mumps - Juno Temple 

[dashinberlin]

First week

MONDAY 26 NOV Jan comes over again and we finalize details of what we want to do with the room. We get bikes and head to the hardware store about 20 minutes away which is next to Berghain. Jan tells me once he came here on a Friday night and the queue was by Hardware store. I couldn’t even see the kilometersish long road that it originated from nearby, let alone Berghain at the far end of it. fuck me. 

We have a really nice time walking around the hardware store. I spend 116 EUR on varnish and loads of bits of metal which are going to hold the whole thing in place when it finally goes up. There are lots of hot German guys in the shop. I giggle with Jan about the staff “man: hello there, i’m looking for some chain, LED strip lighting, and steel scaffold for a frame can you help m- ____ Staff: ffs yes, we do. the gay men building slings and dungeons area is over by aisle 12, all you need is there i promise, now go away.”

He buys me a coffee and we part ways about a third of the way home on bikes.  after getting home I pop into Blackstyle *finally*  which is about 4 minutes walk from my house. My man Bjorn is there and there is no one in the store. I think my story must be a little bit of a thing at that place because he fully knew I was coming!! He told me he had seen my 13 minute long video on facebook explaining my whole story of what I had been up to over the last year!  I was amazed cosnidering the guy isnt even on facebook and i dont have his number either. He even knew that I was living on Wicherstrasse which is actually closer than any other member of blackstyle staff!! We were pissing ourselves giggling at how exciting that is- i guess martin had told him (my primary contact there). He advised me on working there- now Blackstyle do not actually hire non german speaking members of staff, but he said basically can you make a portfolio of everything  you have made and some drawings of ideas you have had, and send that and your photography stuff to thomas and he’ll help you out with some kind of an interview. Exactly what position you’ll get i’m not sure, but we might be able to find something for you to fit in to.

Other Convos: He knows my friend Liam, and I told him about how under store conditions and regulation there was that sexy time where he couldnt get into jeans and they were super tight and i tried to hep and I just ended up sucking his dick! haha 

Pretty much I spent the rest of the evening hanging out with Alis. I really like her. I can tell we’re starting to form a close friendship.   spoke to Karyn a little over WhatsApp and showed her pictures of the weekend, she super loved them and we’re all so excited to have her back from her nuts south America traveling trip. I fear writing diary entries about her cos this is all far too qualitative as it is before adding me feeling and thoughts over Karyn and the conversations and adventures we are bound to have. 

TUESDAY 27 NOVEMBER 

(TODAY) CAN I Have a medal for writing all of that, please??!?! 

So this morning I get up and tidy up my room. And at about midday SIMULTANEOUSLY  Jan  w/ Timmon arrives with all the Timber AND  my removals van full of my shit from the UK arrives. The entrance of my building is FULL of wood and boxes ALL for MY room. and omg those stairs are a cunt on the best of days.  First, it was just me and Jan, while Timon parked the car, and then it was all three of us working on getting my shit up like 8 flights of big stairs. there are two flights that separate each floor and some of the wood and boxes were seriously fucking heavy. Over the course of the day, I think I climbed the stairs about 11 or 12 times (there were shopping trips included in there too)  and my legs are still killing from it, I'm so glad I have cycled so much over the last year or i may have died.  

There were three parts of the day, part 1 was getting all the shit in and starting construction. 

PART 2 was the BURGERAMPT!!  We cycled about ten minutes down the road to the Town Hall of Prenzlauer berg. We went into this old building covered in scaffolding to the burgerampt where we sat for about 15 minutes before being seen. I swear all the old buildings in Germany are massive, the cielings are all about 18 feet high. The meeting was with really sweet blonde woman, who as per my expectation, did not speak very good English, so I was immediately glad that I brought Jan with me to translate.  Everything went smoothly, the contact Karyn emailed me was all they needed and my passports. Jan translated everything, at one point the woman asked if I had a religion and I was like no.... aber Berghain ist mein Kirche! and she giggled. She also did a really nice bit at the end which I didn’t understand a word of, but basically, she gave me ein Herzlich Willkommen zu Deutschland. 

Part 3- basically we went back and continued to construct the fuck out of room. it’s looking immense now, I am so excited. It’s costing about double what I had planned to invest though and it’s not even near finished yet. there’s still the big desk and the photo studio part to do. The shelves and the first part of the frame for the folding bed are in though. Alis calmed me telling me I have enough to survive for like 5 months until I found a stable job. I was grateful to her for calming me down there. 

Just before Jan left around 5 or 6 we had a little bit of well-deserved play time. ;)  We had a kiss and a cuddle and then our shirts were off and he was on top of me with my arms stuck behind my back with his cock in my mouth. GRRRRRR. It finished with it being the other way around, I was on top of his chest, jerking off while he sucked my balls, and before I knew it I felt the warm spray of his jizz all up the welcome patch just above my ass crack. He must have been horny cos that was pretty far too shoot- I’m hovering just above his face remember!  So yeah that’s it for now. Other notes i need to add is that i’m trying to use all the German I have whenever I can and it’s proving useful here and there. I gave a sentence or two at the burgerampt to the woman and she full on spouted german at me as if I was fluent! :D ....aber vielleicht dass spichtst mehr uber sie dann uber mich.  I’m so glad i did lessons and studied all year. I don't have a lot but I have something, and it is FAR better than nothing. 

WEDNESDAY 28 NOVEMBER

Jan came around today and basically, we proceeded to almost complete building the whole of the bedframe and shelves in my room. I haven't been sleeping properly since moving so was a bit of a zombie. 

despite feeling dead, in the evening Jan persuaded me to head to Schoneberg for my first time since moving to Berlin. I was invited round to dinner with his bf beary Timmon, this sweet Canadian cub guy called Arjhan and this huge daddy called Malcolm and his partner ...who i cant remember the name of :p timmon made a three-course meal of thai flavorings.  Notable conversations included a gay bar called Schwartz, what Berlin was like after the wall came down (apparently there were food shortages for ages), and Brexit shit.  We went out to Prinzknecht after dinner where it’s happy hour on Wednesday. I had a bit of a moment outside the bar before going in, after all, Prinzknecht is pretty much where this all began 4 years ago. When I came in 2014 for Folsom and the place was PACKED OUT far into the street even, with LeatherMen from all over I was gobsmacked. I thought I was in wonderland. It’s amazing this city is finally my home.

 While I was there I made friends with a ginger Irish bloke called Keith who I talked to about various animes for ages. My tummy was feeling rough and I couldn't drink very much, it was icky, I was burping and farting loads. ufff. Anyway, we finished off the night at Woof! for one more drink before heading home. I’d been giving Daddy Malcome eyes all night and finally, he put his hands down my pants to my ass and revealed he wanted to fuck me. Ufff sadly that wasn’t the night for it though.  I went home on the U2 subway. I’m glad I have a direct line straight from my house to Schoneberg!

THURSDAY 29 NOVEMBER

In the morning me and Jan headed out to the local flohmarkt to find a beam for my bed (cos i accidentally put my foot through one the day before, eek!) and also a ladder to access the highest shelves of the thing. The flohmarkt was gigantic, I can't remember seeing anything like it in the UK and apparently, this wasn’t even a big one. They sold everything you could need for a house, from doors and beams and pots to fine furniture, and more glassware than I’ve ever seen in my life. There were rows and rows and high shelves of it outside all gathering dust. Jan and I both agreed it was a dangerous place cos you could very easily spend a lot of money on some nice things in there. We found a ladder and a beam and went home and finished the work.  With the shelves, complete Jan went home and I had a nap.

THE HOUSE OF RED DOORS [CONSULT SEPARATE POST]

FRIDAY 30TH NOVEMBER 2018 

Flo Left at about 1 and I got up about 3.30pm. I can't remember what happened this day so im guessing not much. I definitely needed to recover. My night before was so insane I think i was just telling everyone about that all day. II told Karyna nd Chaim about it and they were pleased.  I stayed up late sanding my room and went to bed about 1AM

SATURDAY 1ST DECEMBER 2018

Cleaned the flat with Alis in the morning for the first time. Got to Jan’s about midday to collect a coffee table from him and forgot all about looking for fabric at the Turkish market to cover all my storage with. Me Arjhan and Jan borrowed bikes and checked out the Market. It was great, all pretty self-explanatory, I got black, white and green curtain fabric for like 30EUR. Also bought a new frying pan, some olives and some lemons. When cycling home we rode past the dungeon that me and Michael had spent time in on the most amazng weekend of my life here in 2017, and then straight past Vikotria Luis Platz, which is also another sacred location for me. I had tears in my eyes for sure. my backpack opened the fuck up whle cycling in that moment and i had to move on from that moment. When we got back I enjoyed some tea at Jan’s. He’s leaving on Monday to head back to Amsterdam for the next few weeks. he’ll be back again in late December. I’ll have to varnish the room while he’s away.

Had a stressful time getting the table back on the Ubahn. 

Went out with Alis and Aldina this evening. We drove to a shisha bar out east and had a drink and a puff there before heading to Suss War Gestern nearby afterwards. Sweet was yesterday is a three floor club bar, filled with cigarette smoke.  It had a techno dancefloor with cool led ceiling light display, a chill top floor and a cheese fun floor in the basement which is where we all spent the whole night dancing on a bench on the side of the wall. I actually didn't have an amazing time for most of the night. There was this nineties raver DJ set that made me lose the will to live.  I went to get a drink and eat something and when I came back they had switched to eighties electro pop classic and I was like thank god, cos im about to detonate. it really cheered me up cos so many of those songs were on my Berlin soundtrack and were songs that helped me shape the vision of what I thought moving here would be like. Not 99 luft balloons though. That will emerge at the right point I know it.  Aldina and Alis continued on to Kater Blau at about 5am but I was dead and went home. Fucking Ost Kreuz has platforms coming out of platforms and I nearly fudged getting home. 

SUNDAY 2 NOVEMBER

The main event of today was the Leather Social in Schonberg. I’ve been to this once before when I was here in may visiting for Michael.  It’s a 6 floor flat and this time it was filled with about 20-30 sexy leathermen. Mickael had invited me and I had a really nice time. Mario who I had met at Qaulgeist in April was there and I had a sexy kiss with him and we agreed I need to see the inside of his playroom sometime soon. Oink! The man looks like a dirty sexy older piggy, you know he can do some remarkable things with his hands. the other cutie I got the recon of was a hot beary german skinhead called Stefan, and he’s into bondage and similar activities to me. I met a fashion photographer there called Alex [from birgmingham] and he was telling me about working for Zolando. He gave me his instagram and basically said to message him with any questions. There was this drunk idiot called Simon who wanted to be all dom toppy to me but ended up knocking over my fucking beer (i put the next one on his tab (asshole)) and also he half kicked over a coffee table while throwing me around. Uff I'm getting bored of drunk “dom tops” they just make a fucking mess.  Connected with my lovely mate David who was one of the leather friends I was really looking forward to reconnecting with when i got to Berlin. I also Spoke to the host of the party about photography and before i knew it I had a decent iPhone and was coralling people into groups to take photos for the social media. 

We all took a short walk to new action later and drunk some more. Prakash, the host said it was funny that i appeared to do photos because in the group meeting they had they were just deciding they needed a photographer to help advance the social. We spoke of magic, and i told the story of how my ex-overdosed at my leaving party and the real magic was that no one else was there to be traumatised or take his bullet. Towards the end of the night, I grabbed the bartender’s attention and said something like “I have just moved to Berlin, and I guess I have always wondered what it would be like to work in one of the leather bars here. soo are you looking for staff?” and he said basically yes, they are always looking for new people and you don't have to speak amazing german.