The Humpty-Dumpty machine of the total future

A fab, if all-too-brief, stay in Berlin - a city I certainly want to get to know better.

On this occasion we only had time to visit the Pergamon Museum, which houses breathtaking original-sized, reconstructed monumental buildings including the Pergamon Altar and the Market Gate of Miletus. The parts were transported from Turkey, and I'm sure there's a debate about whether they should be returned - but we were certainly grateful for the chance to see them so well displayed here.

The Pergamon Museum is just one of several on the city's 'museum island', not a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Last summer, the historic colonnade of the Old National Gallery was reopened after several years of renovation, and is now dotted with interesting sculptures, including some at the other end of the age spectrum from ancient Turkey.

This one in particular caught my eye. It's by Jonathan Messe, who explains that it is "free , free from religion, incorruptible, precise and without wrong… this metabolism machine needs as fuel only future, love, respect, neutrality and ore, that is, art".

He work has been described as "frighteningly chaotic and charmingly infantile" by art critics, and "good fun but clearly bonkers" by me.

Which I think is great: here's to Die Humpty-Dumpty-Maschine der totalen Zukunft