I’m wondering quite what sort of emporium lies behind the minimalist sign “Dr Pong”?

An olfactory shop? Too drab, the “unit” has but one sign, the rest is grey-fronted nothingness. A perfumier? Again, if you want to sell perfume, say so, big up the products in the front window. Is it a shop designed for goods to combat everyday malodourous entities, such as whiffy feet, BO etc? Maybe.

Actually, no. In fact, Dr Pong is a ping pong bar. Well, it’s a bar, with lots of ping pong tables, all accompanied by beer and techno. Well, this is Berlin.

Berliners appear mad on ping pong. The town is littered with ping pong tables, seemingly on every spare urban space or derelict corner or park (quite why they put an indoor game outside in a park is anone’s guess – for one, the ball is wind-affected).

It all makes you wonder why Germany hasn’t won gold in table tennis. (Actually they are rather good, albeit not as good as the Chinese.)

You might miss Dr Pong. It’s but a grey-fronted former shop, on Eberweldestrasse, just off Schonhauser Allee in Prenzlauer Berg. The only sign is a small name on the door, Dr Pong, written in those golden black letters redolent of your granny’s front door. You’d imagine it to say Dunroamin, whereas what it actually says, is … erm … Dr Pong.

Inside are numerous tables, students drinking, playing techno, and playing ping pong. Obviously.

That’s about all I can say about Dr Pong. But if you want to bat big, check out this video.

The picture above is courtesy of www.DrPong.net

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Where were you when you heard the news? Berlin, Schlesische Strasse, Kreuzberg.

I was enjoying a cold Beck’s, outside the uber-cool Mijkowka bar on Schlesischer, interrupted at regular intervals by trendy drunks shambling back home from Freischwimmer. Every 20 minutes one would amble, nay stagger past, saying: “Michael ist tot, Michael ist tot!”

Many seemed upset, most didn’t. God knows what will happen when David Hasselhof goes toes up!

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Ossiana is dressed in rag tag motorbike punk gear, his hair long, uncombed, bedraggled. Think Easy Rider, on acid. He’s unshaved, too, but with make-up. He is wearing a hat redolent of the Droogs’ enemies in A Clockwork Orange, and drinking Augustinerbier from a silver dented goblet, “To keep it cool”.

Ossiana is, apparently, a teacher from Oakley, San Francisco. Quite why he is here is anyone’s guess. It’s anyone’s guess why anyone is here in Berlin except to party, lose it, get creative, and hang out. It’s certainly not to make money.

At this particular party there’s plenty of Americans. In fact, there’s scarcely a German accent. Brits, Aussies, French, Japanese, Swiss – an international brothel of muddled funsters.

Jenny has just come back from London. she seems to be in shock.  “God, London robs you,” she drawls. Yes, yes it does. Although at 5 euros per pop, this party is robbing you too, no doubt.

Soooeu, from Japan, has moved from London. She hopes to get an artist visa, although she is not an artist. She has two months to prove otherwise to Germany’s legendary bureaucrats. She should start a band and play at this party.

I say party, it’s more shindig, a happening, a party for friends, about 30 friends who make music, who create, who appreciate, who listen; who hang out. It’s part-art school party, part-party, part fashion event; there are some seriously trendy people here, albeit trendy in spirit rather than garb.

Ossiana is certainly trendy in spirit. His band, Weekend at Bernie’s, is on second in this rundown Neukölln industrial unit turned artist’s space.

Neukölln is the up and coming area, where arty types and artists are flocking in droves, exploiting cheap rents and taking over under-used or abandoned factories for studio space.

Raum 18, at Ziegelstrasse 11 is no different. It’s a tad far from KreuzKolln, the made-up mishmash name for the currently du jour district bordering bohemian Kreuzberg, where rents are on the rise. People fear Kreuzberg may go the way of Pramslauer Berg. Up!

Raum achtzehn is in a seen-better-days light industrial unit, perched on the Treptow canal by Sonnenallee S-Bahn, the type with rusting metal window frames left rather absurdly framing smashed windows. Next door a Turkish boy is having his coming of age party. Upstairs, on the fourth floor, up through the concrete stairwell is a coming of age party, too, for three “bands”.

Bands is a loose term. First up are two guys who turn the lights down low. Their music can best be described as industrially charged eardrum-baiting. There is no tune save for a recurrent low-bass dirge, interspersed with a minor amount of electronic keyboard and the odd word mouthed into a mic which is then morphed into a sound best described as Darth Vadar punching Orka the Very Depressed Killer Whale.

They last 20 minutes. Nineteen minutes too long.

Then comes Ossian. Listen for yourselves. Make your own mind up. It’s not everyone’ cup of tea, but I rather respect Ossian for trying. His band members, two females, playing what looks like medieval stringed pieces of wood, add colour, too. The music may sound primevil, but the lyrics – belted out, granted – have some poetic resonance.

Next, and last, is v.tits. An odd name given that v.tits is one person. A woman playing guitar, bemoaning, it seems, a lost love.

Natalia thinks v.tits will be v.big one day. “She has style, talent,” she says, racing off to catch the last S-Bahn home at 12.30am. V.maybe. V.maybe not.

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Perched on the Landwehrkanal, housed on wooden jetties by the canal in Kreuzberg, cloistered in a series of wooden huts, bounded by willow trees, and filled with seen-better-days sofas, benches and chairs uner a flowing canopy, Freischwimmer represents a Berlin gem. Part nightclub, part drinking den, part hedonist mecca, the haunt is well worth a visit, not least for the shenanigans it displays, sometimes all day but mostly all night.

One visit, one Sunday afternoon, afforded views of two friends apparently stomach-pumping their mate, splayed on the floor, seemingly unconscious due to “over-indulgence” the night before. It was 2pm, and the party was still pumping, literally. Those still dancing, and the bar staff, treated the event as if part of normal proceedings.

This Thursday night, the party is in full swing, albeit more bass-thumping than stomach-pumping, and getting busier even as the dawn light threatens yet another encore at 3,30am.

Techno is the music of choice here, as it is all over Berlin, and the wooden shack which hosts the bar is mobbed, with people spilling out onto the jetty.

There’s a fair few disco refugees here, some of whom are going long into the night, not least a small French guy smoking a joint,  rather pissed and chatting up all the girls. Nearby, stands, nay sways, a tall, smartly dressed fellah in a jacket and jeans, with longish hair, who is, how shall we say, twatted.

This man, let’s call him Roger, is on a mission to score some company but his chat-up tactics need, how do we put this diplomatically, some minor modifications. He stands, tilting in the middle of the party, eyeing up “prey”.

When he sees a single girl, he swoops, spraying people and drinks before him until he prangs up to his quarry. He then looks them in the eye, leans in to whisper some sort of sweet nothing and then squeezes their breast.

Lucy, mein freund, double-takes. “Did you see that,” she says, incredulous.

Ten minutes later and Roger swoops again. “Look, he’s at it again, to that other girl, that’s so wrong … it’s, well, it’s just wrong.”

Lucy’s not wrong. This time Roger has chosen a girl wo has just broken off from snogging her boyfriend. Roger needs a slap, but somewhat bizzarely, in this famously laid-back, anything goes, liberal city, none of the girls, or boyfriends, seem to get angry. Vergiss es (”forget it”) is as strong as it gets. Mind you, that could be verpiss dich (piss off). It definitely wasn’t ich liebe dich.

If this was England, either the bouncers would have thrown him out, or a people’s committee of outraged women would dunk him in the canal. At the very least, Roger would be slapped or kneed in the groin. Worse, glassed! Here, at Fleischwimmer, it’s taken in das stride.

There’s no bouncers in Berlin bars. No one seems to cause trouble. the Germans are a civilised lot. The first stage in a minor altercatio is not a fist in the face or a quick windmll through the dancefloor.

Helga, who, somewhat bizarrely given the name, is Irish, appeas to be his next victim. She talks to Roger and is then “squeezed”. She shimmies back, as if to say, “Sachte [easy tiger].” He tries it again, and she pushes him away, albeit still courteously.

Helga is a tad ripe herself, imbibing no doubt on the seriously loaded cocktails (such as the Hemingway, which tastes like a sour cherry bomb, so don’t try it), and sits down, explaining that she knows Roger and that he is essentially harmless. “He’s just a bit too German, they can all get a bit like that, German men. You know, a bit forward … You know, a bit touchy-feely.”

Touchy-feely? More like gropey-gropey.

Helga came here for a month last summer, partied herself rigid, and is back for a further three months indiscipline this time round. She’s a lecturer from Dublin and gets all summer off.

Roger, the letcherer from Berlin, plonks himself down and tries yet again. Helga, a little more embarrassed, slaps him on the shoulder and he moves away, smiling. “He’s harmless, really. He’s quite famous in Berlin, actually.”(Oh, well that’s OK then. Here, have a handful of my man breast Rodge!)

Famous for what, Lucy inquires, groping? “No, partying,” retorts Helga, earnestly.

Ten minutes later, after performin a circt of the club, Roger plonks himself down yet again, shaking his head as if at a Bon Jovi gig. He moves in to try again but Helga is one step ahead this time, and cuts him off.

“Roger … WILL … YOU … FUCK … OFF…!”

Roger takes the hint, and stumbles away.

“My God,” exclaims Helga, head in hands. “I can’t believe I slept with that remedial.”

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