It may be 67 years since the fall of Berlin in 1945 and the end of the Third Reich, but the evidence is still there to see. Look at any old building across the entire city and there are hundreds of pock marks from direct hits by gunfire. Some are patched, some are not. Swaths of the former East Berlin are still vacant real estate and some semi demolished buildings still stand.

One of these is the huge Kunsthaus Tacheles on Oranienburgerstrasse. Originally built as a department store and although what remains looks derelict, it is now an enclave of artists. I remember crossing one evening to East Berlin in 1983 and spending some time in a makeshift bar in this building. When I enquired for the location of the toilet, the barman pointed me to a black painted door. On stepping through this I stumbled into a vacant lot from which bizarrely there was a Russian Mig jet planted tail first into the ground…apparently the efforts of some aspiring artists of the time. A 1000 pound Allied bomb had removed most of the rear of the building.

Think of it as David Jones In Sydney with Castlereagh Street missing.

Oh, and the vacant lot WAS the toilet!