Holiday 8/10: Radiogram in Berlin

Arrived in Berlin on this day, and took it really easy due to the hot weather (about 38 degrees). 

Whilst visiting friends in Schöneberg, the subject of the contents of the cellar came up. A trip downstairs revealed not one, but two radiograms belonging to a neighbour. We plugged one of them in, and, lo and behold, it worked! There was a decent VHF signal, and what's more the turntable went round - at any of the four speeds! And for those not old enough to remember, that's in descending order: 78, 45, 33 and 16 rpm. I've never seen a 16rpm record, but my dad had a few 78s when I were lad. I recall one by Paul Anka.

But I digress. There was a single on the turntable. Sadly we couldn't play it as there was no stylus. But the automatic play facility did work, and while I tried to explain that there was a mechanism to stack singles to play, my host thought I was talking alien (I do speak English, Polish, Dutch and German but not alien).

Anyway, this solid-looking German Grundig was upstairs in the flat, of a similar ilk. I remember being dead impressed when I was about 10, our (also Polish) neighbours had a 26" Grundig TV. I thought they were really going up in the world.

To cap it all, Hilversum, broadcasting capital of The Netherlands, was on the dial. Who would have thought that at the of 22 I would end up working there.

Dear followers and other blippers: feel free to thumb back through my holiday. I am deliberately doing a slow motion blockblip of my recent break.