Podcast All of the Weekly Squeak posts are accompanied by a podcast, subscribe here or listen to the individual episode here. Weather Firstly, the beginning of this week was COLD. For a couple of days there was a low of around -11° and a high of maybe -5°. I know for some of you in more northern climbs this is nothing but having lived in London, where the weather is generally average most of the time and Melbourne where the coldest it gets to is about 0°, for me this was the coldest I have ever been. Being the idiot I am, I decided to ride my bike in -7° and felt feelings I have never felt before. I am used to losing sensation in my fingers and toes as a Winter bike rider, but not feeling my thighs, that was a new experience. Much like extreme heat, everything starts slowly falling apart, especially when it snows. I found it frustrating that I couldn’t ride anymore and of course public transport is busy and damp. I have never understood why people get so delighted with snow. I mean, it’s great to begin with, but after a day when it starts semi-melting, turning to slush and freezing it’s pretty disgusting and dangerous really. I am also always annoyed when councils clean roads of ice and snow but don’t care about the footpaths or bike lanes, are we not valuable enough? :( Anyway, this has all led to me realising that I can’t manage European winters anymore and next year I will be spending it elsewhere. Around twenty degrees all years is the way to live baby. I still felt like Ice-Cream Galleries and Museums As a result of the weather and social events just getting started again I took the opportunity to visit some galleries and museums earlier in the week. I will address them all individually to discuss thoughts and opinions. This was a big ticket in Berlin and finishes at the end of January so I thought it was time to take a look. After negotiating typically confusing German ticketing systems that tell you nothing but end up being easier than expected, I entered quickly and the gallery was bearably busy. The exhibition started with an introduction to Botticelli’s work explained through the work he influenced, which was a lot. The part of the exhibition covering his own work was smaller and was interesting because it stated that, as was common in those days, artists didn’t always sign their work, experts only hypothesize about what actually is Botticelli’s work. I have also always found the concept interesting that many works were not always produced by the artist themselves, but by a team. I have always been fascinated by how what we consider ‘high art’ now might have been at one time just mainstream ‘mass manufactured’ work. I also love reading about creatives who were once in favour, fell out of favour and are now in favour again. It shows there is hope for all of us. The Botticelli Renaissance exhibition You may or may not be aware, but many years ago I played guitar in a British Indie band called for the first few years. Well, the name came from Jean Dubuffet’s art movement, so the opportunity to see this exhibition was too tempting. It was a small exhibition but I found the artwork inspiring as it made me feel that if I had something artistic I wanted to express I could and it didn’t matter about how I expressed it, the message is the most important. This was something I already new and I have always been a fan of who is similar in style, but sometimes you need a reminder to encourage you again. Watch this space for work inspired by the exhibition. Jean Dubuffet Art Brut David Shrigley has now finished and I took advantage of the last free entry Monday afternoon to take a quick tour. This was an outstanding collection with some of my favourite artists such as , and many more. The shear amount of inspirational classic artists and works in one space was staggering. Inspirational. From Hockney to Holbein — The Würth Collection in Berlin This exhibition Munch Picasso Submarine Cables William Kentridge’s Parcours d’Atelier This is a strange tangent, but whilst at the first two exhibitions I also popped into the equally good ‘ and came across which made me think of network maps. My Grandad was involved with Submarine cables in his work life and it made we want to research into this shadowy underwater world that keeps the internet functioning. The site is an interactive map of the cables around the World and my Grandad helped lay between the UK and North America. For those of you interested in knowing more about the topic here’s a and a good (surprising I know) . Double Vision ' William Kentridge’s Parcours d’Atelier submarinecablemap.com TAT-1 WikiPedia page Daily Mail article Meet-ups This week was the first week of 2016 where meetups in Berlin got started again and I attended an average talk on ‘ , saw some , heard about in one of the strangest areas of Berlin, spoke at the and drunk lots of to round the week off. I am now quite tired. building large tech teams ' pretty good poetry hacks (slang for journalists) and hackers Berlin Ruby users group craft beer Other places I wrote this week Turning Chip Shop into a Board Game The Next Full Stack Language? Server-side Swift with Perfect Estonia: Between East, West and the World

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Berlin Winter, Art Exhibitions and Submarine Cables

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