Viv and Arthur are close as they’ve ever been – as the crow flies – since rebooting the podcast.

In practical terms that means Arthur’s at the airport, and Viv is in the forest. Viv eludes bicycle woes, Arthur falls into a landscape of possibility, as they discuss the financial perils of creative risk-taking. Bookended by the dulcet dirge of the BER Tannoy.

Viv and Arthur approach ten years in Berlin, ten episodes later.

We got mosquitoes. We got showering with a bucket. We got banned from the gym. We got morning pages. We got unproductive guilt. We got an elephant that we eating one bite at a time. We got frogmen in a wakeboard park. We got an album release schedule. We got demos. We got a cumulative moment of success and perfection. We got birdsong. We gotta keep buggering on.

On Episode 9 of Postcards From Berlin, Arthur and Viv stumble through Arthur’s accidental Withnail and I holiday: a week of sideways rain, collapsing trees, and existential questions about whether Rudi’s nap time is for rest or forced genius. Viv discovers that one modest gig expands to colonise an entire week with rehearsals, merch-related tragedies, and three-hour train odysseys, while Arthur’s lovingly crafted bolognese recipe turns out to be mildly heretical for vegans, redeemed only by miso and Maggi. Between discussions of no-gimmicks art, gegen-glamour bass lines, and the dubious chic of living solely on buttered toast, they ask (not for the first time) whether this entire “creative practice” is just a highly elaborate joke that’s gone on far too long.

Your adopted East Berliners try recording from Arthur’s studio, testing the compression limits of your headphones with bad sound effects. Arthur & Viv explore the limits of a creative space, and how the physicality of a studio or artistic setting can compress or expand an idea. Arthur tries to say less, Viv has perfect good decent pitch, and together they have too much ego.

“I think it’s really the sound that tips people over the edge.”

Oh is that drugs? Sam, erstwhile host and impromptu automotive consultant, rejoins the podcast to give Art & Viv a dressing down regarding their lives and lifestyles. Art & Sam make a modest proposal, while Viv considers a more deviant solution.

269 weeks later, your punctual Berliners are back in the studio. Everything and nothing has changed, including your hosts, their hopes, our names, his dreams, and my fears.

After a much-deserved ten month holiday, Eddy & Arthur are back. Our disorganised duo ditch the studio for a perilous hike through the Berlin wilderness, confront the technical intricacies of WhatsApp voice notes, and spend the annual podcast budget on a very special guest.

Eddy & Arthur take a call from a listener, and go down into the basement – for Christmas...

(This is the second of a two-part Spooky Christmas Spectacular.) 

If you would like to write to Postcards From Berlin with a question for the podcast, please address your correspondence to "East of Elsewhere c/o Arthur Laidlaw, Büschingstraße 35, 10249, Berlin, Germany".

Eddy & Arthur eat dinner, discuss their fading sense of wonderment, list the compelling reasons for living in a yurt, "talk themselves into a freakout" about Eddy's studio building, and set the scene over and over again.

This is the first of a two-part Spooky Christmas Spectacular.