Last Monday, I watched An Inconvenient Truth on TV. You know, Al Gore's powerpoint presentation about global warming. I don't normally like commercial breaks, but this time round they were really interesting. I finally learned who some of the evildoers are that cause our climate to change: Eneco Energie, a Dutch electricity company. At the beginning and end of each commercial break, there was a message, stating that the programme was made possible, in part, by Eneco. The film was made possible by global warming, and so my brain deduced that Eneco are at the root of it. Now y'all know how my brain works.
That was one annoying weekend... Saturday morning I was ready to post two new entries, so I headed out to go online, logged on... And I was told I was blocked due to spamming. Couldn't log on, couldn't post comments... I know of at least 16 computers that share this one IP address, so it isn't even likely this specific computer has anything to do with it. I immediately delisted myself, but that didn't seem to do me any good either, because I didn't get thru for about three more hours, by which point I just gave up. I also tried to send three messages to Florent, but I got three delivery failure notices (note to admin... Do get that email address running!). Anyways, I'm back in now, and all ready to go. Just one more little problem. I didn't write anything down, so I don't remember what those two new entries were going to be about. As soon as I remember, I will post them.
It was Saint Martin's again, yesterday. You know, kids with lanterns, and lampoons going from door to door, singing for candy. It was an exceptionally busy night on my street. We have a very narrow sidewalk, and very irresponsible drivers after dark, so it's been pretty quiet for at least the past five years, but last night was completely different. Even kids accompanied by parents braved the hazardous conditions last night. With the additional flocks of children, one thing saddened me. They were all, with no exception, singing the same song, which is probably the most neutral of all: "November 11 is the day that I may shine, that I may shine, November 11 is the day, that I may shine my light (repeat until sick)".
On a bright note, there were no visible signs of kids wanting to celebrate Halloween this year. With a bit of luck we might be getting rid of it. On the other hand, it could also be a case of not everybody knowing enough about Halloween to observe it properly. In the pile of junkmail that I found on my doormat on Monday, there was one leaflet from a store that was selling Halloween costumes. A bit late, even if they are just trying to offload the ones they didn't sell. Stores usually begin doing that the day after.
Our tolerance of some drugs is somewhat at odds right now. The official government policies of tolerating marihuana isn't really in danger of being terminated, but on a local level near the Belgian and German borders there are towns that are shutting down coffeeshops, which are the official outlets for cannabis products. They experience a lot of troubvle caused by foreign visitors who frequent these places. The majority of our Parliament is still very much in favor of tolerance, but with the new rightwing parties that are likely to win a lot of votes at the last elections, you just never know. Especially if they manage to form a government coalition with the Christian Democrats.
The marihuana bit is the least of the worries of those who support our drug policies. The government have gone so far as to actually outlaw something. It must be decades ago they did that. As of December 1 the sale, possession, and consumption of magic mushrooms will be forbidden. Last year a French girl combined magic mushrooms and alcohol, and committed suicide. It's the alcohol again that killed, but of course you can't prohibit alcohol, and as such the mushrooms have to go. A wee bit hypocritical perhaps?
As for me I'm not a big fan of the tolerance policies. I say either prohibit everything completely, or make a firm stand and legalize, legalize, legalize. And I'm leaning toward legalization.
Joran strikes again. Or should I say that that crime reporter Peter R. de Vries struck again? Another sting operation, this time in Thailand, Joran's current residence, has revealed that Joran is now involved in trading women. He arranges prostitutes for Dutch tourists. This to fund an apparent gambling addiction, or so rumor has it. Another piece of evidence that he really doesn't care, and another reason for me to believe in his guilt in the Natalee Holloway disappearance. You'd think he'd be more careful after the first sting operation, though. Not trusting everybody he meets in casinos, etc.
I was robbed this morning. I know, I should go to the cops and let them know what happened. After all, they stole from me, and they would steal again from other people, but it was so silly... I think I'll let them off the hook this time.
What happened? Well, of course, I too get a lot of junkmail delivered to my house, and along with old newspapers, etc., it's collected every two weeks. Sometimes, however, there's so much of it that if I have half a chance to get rid of it (legally, I might add), I do so. There are no paper collection bins where I live, but this morning I had to be someplace where there are some, so I took it with me on the train. I set the bag next to me, and in no time I am surrounded by four kids aged 13-16, as far as I can tell. They were upto something, which I could tell by how they acted, and how they were looking at me. At Hoorn Kersenboogerd station, they suddenly got up, and made off with my old newspapers and junkmail like lightning, thinking they'd robbed me of something valuable. It's an interesting experience. I have never had this happen to me before. I would have loved to see their faces when they saw what they had stolen.
The World of Jazz, that is. Two days ago, in the heart of the city, the Jazz Walk of Fame was revealed to the public. It's a square with stars representing legends from the world of jazz. So, what makes Enkhuizen (the city I live in, for those who don't know me) so important to the jazz world? Well, we have an annual jazz festival...
However, that's it. It isn't even a very important international event. It has some importance, but in this country I believe we have two jazz festivals that are bigger, and I know of jazz festivals across Europe that are bigger than 'Enkhuizen'. Besides, I've seen the lineups from the past few years, but those consist mainly of Dutch bands. Beyond our borders, only hardcore jazz fans who listen to anything they consider jazz might have heard of them. Also, in Hollywood it is the custom that the celebrities are there when their star is revealed. No jazz legend came to Enkhuizen this weekend.
I don't even see the Jazz Walk of Fame drawing many more tourists to the town. It is lovely, and if you're a German tourist who comes to the Netherlands every year, it's one of those places you have to have seen, but for people who come from farther away, it can't compete with the likes of Amsterdam, The Hague, Maastricht, Volendam, etc. Still, I don't mind a bit of megalomania, so it's lovely to have such a place in town.
Some 18 years after the cold war ended we have an actual espionage scandal in this country. For some reason the Moroccans are spying in the Netherlands. A Moroccan policeman was fired recently after his role in the espionage scandal was confirmed by internal affairs. A while ago the Moroccan government called back two diplomats. Strangely, I don't see what's wrong with the Moroccan operations. From what politicians, etc., are saying, I can only come to the conclusion that the spies are mostly spying on Moroccans living in the Netherlands, who might pose a threat to the Moroccan government. If there are terrorists among them, who are we to blame the Moroccan government for wanting to fight them. Anyways, if it turns out that the intentions of the Moroccan government are more evil than that, I'll keep you posted.
The past few days I keep hearing anti-terrorism announcements during commercial breaks on the radio. They're really quite silly. I can't remember exactly how they go, but here's how they sound to me:
I'm the owner of a paperclip company. It's quite risky. What if someone who works for you plots a terrorist attack, and uses my paperclips to keep the plans together? I make sure that everyone working for me is extra alert, and together we will prevent evil deeds from happening. TOGETHER WE CAN BEAT TERRORISM.
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Here's a Dutch word for you all. I know I have done little blogging this past summer, but I am back now, and it's all down to this one word: "komkommertijd." It literally translates as "cucumber season", or if you wish to be really really literal, it would be "cucumber time".
The etymology of the word is uncertain. I could find no explanations myself. What it stands for however, is the lack of news during the summer months. As for myself, I couldn't think of anything to write about, even if I wanted to, therefore blogging was a slow process.
As for pronunciation... The stress is on the second "kom", and "tijd" sound somewhat like the word "tight", while you can pronounce "komkommer" as you would in English.
A rather funny thing that happened in my country this week. A Transavia plane headed for Turkey was halted by the police. The passengers were trapped on board for hours, and eventually the police made two arrests, a man and a woman, on suspicion of wanting to hijack the plane. Someone had called the police, to prevent it from happening.
Of course, there was no act of terrorism in the making. Weapons were found at the home of the arrested man, but if you intend to hijack a plane, you don't leave your gun at home. The arrested woman did know more however.
Apparently the man and woman were in a relationship, and the two went for a vacation in their native Turkey. The woman was having an affair however, with the man who called the police, and she didn't want to come on the trip. At first she tried delaying the drive to the airport, so they would miss the plane. She succeeded, but as luck would have it, another flight was available from another airport, about an hour's drive away. She then tried to sabotage the car doors, but failed. She and the other man, then decided to call the police, accusing the two of wanting to hijack the plane.
The innocent man has now been released, and the two lovebirds are facing charges.
After the sudden newspaper induced realization that something is wrong with our local youth, a lot of people in Enkhuizen had to wake up to the fact that all isn't well with some adults either. One in particular, a V. de K., angered quite a few people I know. As you all know, the city I live in depends largely on tourism. On local television, which is written local news and information, and still advertising, he wrote a passionate piece telling how he'd like the tourists to stay away. He says he works from home right in the heart of the Old Town, and that the tourists are nothing but a nuisance to him.
I don't subscribe to his points of view either, but some people are just enraged. Earlier this week, I even helped someone at the library with no knowledge of the internet, setting up an email account just so this person could respond to the editor. Small towns, eh?
It's official. I live in the region of my country with the highest teen alcoholism and drug addiction rates. As a result of this I also live in a region with a high teen suicide rate. The epicenter of this problem apparently consists of two highschools (in the Dutch system that's kids ages 12-18), the RSG in Enkhuizen, and the Martinus in the neighboring municipality of Stede Broec. A handful of people I know are already refering to these schools as Sodom and Gomorra.
Since a free newspaper reported on the situation last Monday, the mayors of both municipalities have talked of intensifying their efforts to fight it, and the mayor of Stede Broec has described the situation by saying that the mafia has penetrated the school walls. The talk is of trying to find and stretch the limits of the law to expose the drug dealers, and to punish them.
It's nothing new to me that something about this region's youth isn't entirely aas it should be. Already in 1999 or 2000, the police rounded up a gang of almost 60 12 to 18-year-olds, for crimes varying from breaking and entering, to drug crimes, and assault. The weirdest thing about that is that they all went in hiding within the city, and if you realize that at the time the city had less than 17,000 people, you wonder what drugs they must have been on.
In 2003 Enkhuizen made nationwide headlines for weeks, when a gang of teens terrorized the train station and surroundings. After the authorities forced them away from the station they simply popped up in other places around town, only to continue terrorizing people.
When I sit down for a bit in the middle of town, and hear the conversations of teens going by, I also hardly ever hear any of them say anything that makes sense. When they're talking about school, for instance, few would mind dropping out, girls around the age of thirteen often talk about how they like boys who have already spent time in juvie, etc. Oh well, for all the people who make a false start in life over here, people living in China and India are more than happy with the extra jobs.
An interesting case for those who wish their country would legalize euthanasia. In my country it is sort of semi-legal, and there still are some teething problems. We now have a case that could clear up some of the legal problems.
A young man was recently attacked with a screwdriver, because he greeted someone in Frisian, and the person he greeted misunderstood. The young man, first name Niels, ended up paralyzed from the neck down. The media reported in unison that Niels had requested his life to be ended, while the district attorney said that the treatment was merely stopped, because Niels would have died anyway. That's one issue... how does one define euthanasia?
Now to his attacker. He has been charged with murder, and in case murder can't be proven, he's also been charged with manslaughter. This is also a very interesting situation. If Niels' doctors ended his life, can the 18-year-old suspect even be considered to be directly guilty of Niels' death? What if by miracle Niels would have somehow recovered enough to continue living? There are other people in this country who are paralyzed from the neck down who still go on living, despite the hardships they have to go through.
This could make for some interesting jurisprudence. Time will tell.
The games are over, so it's time to recap. The Netherlands finished twelfth in the medal table, with seven golds, far behind countries like the US, China, Japan, Russia, but... ahead of countries like Canada, Spain, and Greece. Most of our medals were won by women, including six of the gold ones. The only golden boy on the Dutch team was a 10K marathon swimmer, by the name of Maarten van der Weijden. He's a leukemia survivor, who is already being refered to as the Dutch Lance Armstrong. Other gold medals were won in water polo, field hockey, rowing, dressage, the points race in cycling, and the 4x100m freestyle swimming.
Especially the swimming medal was gratifying. In press conferences the day before, the Australian, and American swimming coaches were only talking about eachother when it came to gold medal chances in the race, completely forgetting about the fact, that the world record was held by the Dutch women. The most surprising gold came in water polo, while the field hockey and dressage golds were entirely expected.
The most disappointing performances by Dutch athletes were the fourth place of the men's field hockey team, the lack of medals in track cycling by one Theo Bos, and the poor performances by one Marianne Vos in the two road cycling events. Ms. Vos however, made up entirely by winning the points race on the track.
Something that struck me about these Olympics, was the un-American behavior of American media. Whenever I visited a US news site, and looked at the medal table, they didn't follow the official medal count, where gold is all-important. Instead they simply counted the number of medals, regardless of color. It's one way of beating China, but wasn't one of the most important commercial slogans surrounding the '96 games in Atlanta (I believe it was Nike), "You don't win silver, you lose gold"? There is a certain undertone of let's say hypocrisy about all this.
The most annoying thing about the games, was that all TV directors had been ordered to focus entirely on the events, and to avoid filming the spectators, and other things happening on the sidelines as much as possible. Commentators made interesting observations, images of which were never shown on TV. This did lead to one interesting situation with the 110m hurdles, however. Everyone in China was counting on one Liu Xiang to win the distance, but even before the heats he was injured. Commentators on three TV stations I could watch the games on had already seen him limping in the catacombs, but since no pictures of this were shown, nobody in China knew about his injuries. When his heat was on, a false start immediately revealed he couldn't run twenty yards. Disappointed fans started leaving the stadium immediately.
The fact that all the medal races in the swimming pool were held at primetime in the US was also very annoying. I had to get up at four in the morning for that, while all the other medal events were held at pretty normal times. I had lots of other things to do in daytime, but I always had a radio, or a small window on my computer screen handy to keep track of everything. Had the swimming finals been held in daytime, I wouldn't have missed two entire evenings thru sleep, nor would I have missed any event I cared about.
There's this publisher of magazines in my country. The name of the business in Sonoma, and their most important publication is Donald Duck magazine, which is a magazine for children aged six and older. The publisher has met with some bad weather however, and now they have to come up with a new cash cow: a second Donald Duck magazine, for children aged six and older. Apparently Donald Duck magazine is also very popular with university students, so they thought, that if they take out all the difficult bits, and print it on heavier paper, they can sell an entirely new magazine. Isn't that brilliant?
Now, even with the old version a normal person would grow out of it by the age of ten, yet somehow they don't. What if the students decide they like the new version better?
The neighbor I have referred to as psychotic is still alive. He looks to be in bad health, and instead of the walking he did, the city government have given him a three-wheel scooter to get around. He still is as sensitive to sound as he used to be however. A new couple who live around the corner from me have installed a birdcage, with tropical songbirds, just a week ago. Whether birds are meant to be caged is a good question, but that's not my neighbors problem. Even though the birds only sing by daylight, and start over an hour later than the birds that live in freedom, this led to a huge shouting contest yesterday. My 'psychotic' neighbor has rallied for the support of several neighbors.
I myself have no problem with the birdsong itself. It's completely natural and in nature ugliness does not exist. There is no ugly birdsong the same way there are no ugly flowers, eh? The same way that I can't think of wrinkled old people as ugly, while old people who try to look young through surgery and botox look horrible. If there is anything I'm not too happy about it's the christmas lights they have installed on their balcony. They tested it three days ago at 12.15 AM, and it shone straight into my bedroom for half an hour. That's settled however. As long as they inform me beforehand that they are having a party, I'll be happy to tolerate it. Still, if Rinus is disturbed by singing birds, the light is going to drive him insane.
I know how to deal with this legally, although I'm not sure whether I should tell this to any of my neighbors. The birdcage has been here for a week, and so everyone who is disturbed by the sounds has one more week to complain, in a registered letter to the Mayor. They have to say that they weren't informed that these songbirds were coming, and that they can't live with the noise any longer. That way the local government will order the birdcage removed. It'll be even worse for the owners if they didn't have a license to build it in the first place, but I'm sure that that's not an issue here.
You have an extraordinary character - moral, responsible, and disciplined. Your sincerity and honesty shine through in almost every situation. Driven and focused, you rarely let your emotions get the better of you. You're level headed and rational. People count on your to look at things objectively.
I like to consider myself a relic from the 1990s. I still listen to CDs, even audio tapes, I only carry a cellphone, when I'm expecting important calls, etc, etc. This past week I've dropped back another few decades, if not more. First of all I finally bought a turntable, so I can listen to my collection of vinyl records again. Something which I hadn't been able to do for nine long years. Also, I've taken on the challenge of translating old German hand-writing. Someone reading this will know the details. It's proving quite the challenge. The writings date back to 1932, and are likely to be from someone who learned to write in the late 1900s. I can make out a few words here and there, but mostly it's a hand-writing the likes of which I have never seen before. Just take a look at http://www.suetterlinschrift.de, and you'll know what I mean. I have decided that the only way for me to get the job done, is trying to master this antique style of writing. Earlier this year I already took it upon me to learn how to write with my left hand, which is still quite challenging. I have got my work cut out for me.
Something I never realized until earlier this week. When you find a wounded owl in your Dutch backyard, you can't take it to the vet straight away. It's a protected animal. You have to take it to the police first, so they can check whether or not you're guilty of its wounds. Only after that you are free to get it the veterinary attention it needs. The owl could have died during this bureaucratic diversion...
SITE NOW MOVED TO the groundhog (new) Please bookmark this instead. This is a traveblog of my visits to stadia up and down England, from non-league tier 5 to Premiership. I am a Brighton fan, now exiled in the potteries, but like to watch a lot of non-league as well as the Albion. Other interests are varied but include architecture and local history. I will be uploading parts of my book here soon so please keep bookmarked. Site now moved to the groundhog (new)
Coming Soon...Burton Albion, Doncaster Rovers, Kidsgrove Athletic
and other staffs/cheshire non league + all the grounds from my book - keep it bookmarked
please recommend a non-league football ground in the midlands and I'll check it out!
the groundhog
