'better times' had come to the German capital. And indeed more of the inimitable Mr. Bowie later... In fact, I'm going to have to split this blog into two parts, just to make sure I fit everything in...!

Yes, there are some tremendous fetish events around the globe, including a fair few in Germany (Essen and Munich), but the chance to visit the iconic city of Berlin, with a full weekend of fetish partying at the German Fetish Weekend, could not be turned down. I couldn't wait.

It was an early evening flight from Liverpool's John Lennon Airport to Berlin - and it was a promising start to the weekend when all of the group that I was travelling with managed to turn up on time with no last-minute cara train had just arrived. As no-one wanted to embarrass themselves over their lack of the German language I took the initiative to ask a couple of nearby German station cleaners about the airport express. Yes, they pointed to the train across the station. It was a shambolic, noisy run (with lots of 'shit', 'fucking hell' and 'bastard suitcases' shouts) down two flights of stairs and up two more, reminiscent of the old 'It's A Knockout' TV show by the whole entourage, no doubt with 'here we go again' comments from the German cleaners.Thankfully, we caught the train (at the last second, literally - German trains are clearly more efficient than our British ones) and within half an hour we were departing the train at Ostbahnof Station for