"When a man is tired of London , he is tired of life" said Samuel Johnson, but let's face it, Sammy didn't have to put up with seemingly endless obstacles of modern day London life.

If you didn't manage a proper summer hols and are starting to think Christmas is a long way off (it is...), a weekend away in Germany's coolest metropolis should be looking pretty tempting right about now. Add to that the fact that there are currently four bleeding edge art fairs going on in the city, and there's no excuse not to go and book that cheap plane ticket right away.

You might already have heard of the Berlin Art Forum as it's now in its tenth year, but running simultaneously to that is Berliner Kunstsalon, a project which aims to present an overview of the young art scene in Berlin; Berliner Liste, which like its Swiss cousin dedicates itself to at-the-moment art; and Preview Berlin, the 'emerging art fair' which pulls a whole host of galleries together to provide an independent platform for upcoming artists.

Despite what Mr Johnson says, you'd be hard pushed to find this kind of quality in London without an awful lot of legwork, and even if we do have "all that life can afford", Berlin's public transport system is still way better than ours.