I

It’s 23.30 on a Wednesday night. I arrived in my hotel room about thirty minutes ago. I spent the day in Basel, then drove to Zurich to catch the last plane to the incredibly grotty Berlin Tegel Airport.After a long taxi ride and an even longer wait to check-in in a hotel reception with all the charm of a 1980s discount shopping mall, I’m now installed in an ugly, brown room on the thirty-fourth floor of the Radisson Park Inn on Alexanderplatz in the centre of Berlin-

The room is so small that they can only fit in a bed and a desk by leaving no space between the two, I can cross the room diagonally in five paces. I have to close the wardrobe door before I can open the room door. For this I’m paying $250 a night without breakfast.

Berlin has some charming buildings and a vibrant social scene but I won’t see any of that. I’ll spend two days in a workshop and then catch the last plane back to Zurich on Friday night, finally making it home after midnight.

Why am I still doing this to myself?

Well, it should be quite an interesting workshop with a nice group of people, in a quirky workspace in a converted Victorian factory. We’ll have a good meal on Thursday night and we’ll leave better equipped for working together.

It will be fine once I get started.

Yet sitting here, tired and alone, in this over-priced, under-designed, human storage, I feel foolish for continuing to live this way.

Time to climb into my narrow bed, with its sad excuse for pillows and see whether a few hours sleep will put me in a better mood.