Keep On Moving

So, I’ve bought a house. 19-year-old me once swore to never be married, never have a mortgage and never eat muesli. 19-year-old me is now a ghost. He is as pale and deathly as he looked and was ribbed for all those years ago.

As the new place is smaller and we both have hoarder genes, we had to get rid of stuff before we moved. To some extent we were successful, however the move took about 10 times longer than estimated and we still turned up with a lot of seemingly unnecessary things, such as a million books; a box of assorted cables giving us the ability to connect any computer to any printer going back to, my guess is, 1976; and two cats. Yes, they came with us. I had suggested otherwise, but I was out-voted. Apparently the cats also have a say.

However, the first opinion of the little mites was that they hated the new place. Their immediate reaction was to run out the door and try to make their way back to the old place, just like in those old Disney animal odyssey movies. I hated those movies so I stopped them on the stairwell to save us having to go through all that.

The Dirty Dozen after a 1960s Disney rewrite.

So, while they hid, we piled up the boxes and worked out where everything should go. Where do you put a box of 40 years worth of printer cables? Especially as our printers are on the wifi now, so printer cables would seem to be obsolete. Still, supposing we suddenly had to connect a 1978 model DEC PDP-11 to a Mannesmann Tally dot-matrix printer from 1981? How do you propose we do that without a box of assorted printer cables? You guys haven’t thought this through.

It took 2 days to move our stuff and afterwards we were in that “just moved” state where you can’t find anything you need. There are efficient people who plan their packing and have all the essential stuff to hand once they’ve moved. Apparently. But who wants to meet those people? It’s quite frustrating knowing that in one of these boxes is the cutlery we need to eat our dinner; another box contains the pans required to cook that dinner. We couldn’t even find the cats who we need to complain to us whilst we try to eat. Then you start finding things and you move to that stage where you have almost the right thing, but not quite. After a few days of boiling water in a frying pan and eating everything with paper towels, you find a knife which gets used to do everything: stir coffee, screw together shelves, write notes.

Cubist Home.

Eventually, a sort of normality takes place. You have most of what you need, but missing a could of bare essentials, plus you have located some odd things that you may never need. You might not have a corkscrew, but you have the strange horse-shoe object someone got you as a present that you’ve never quite known what it does. You can’t staple papers together, but you can, of course, lay your hands on an RS232 cable.

Even the cats have emerged and decided they like the new place and feel confident enough to constantly mew for food as is their normal state. The number of boxes dwindles. Shelves appear and are filled with far too many books. Other furniture is assembled and soon the metaphorical welcome mat is dug out of the last box and placed before the door.

A new home is made. Everything has a place, even if it’s on the floor in the storage room. The cats mew their contentment by asking for more food. Being ignored, they trot off to play with their new toy, a mouse cable for a Babbage Difference Engine. We’re pretty sure we won’t be needing that anymore.

Some cable.

Hup Hamsters Hup!

Albert Heijn is the biggest supermarket chain here in the Netherlands [1]. Their shops are everywhere and their numbers are increasing. It used to be that every time a building was left abandoned here, after a few months it would be a squat. Well, the times are a changing and now every time a building is left abandoned, it becomes an Albert Heijn.

Albert Heijn is mid-to-high range in terms of its produce. It's not super-fancy but it's higher than most. The Dutch don't tend to go for fancy, so anything that tries a little harder than filling a few shelves with tins is already creeping up the fancy list.

By the way, Heijn is pronounced Hine but with a diphthong meaning you should pronounce it something like Hy-een, but you'll get by with Hine and nobody needs to strain themselves.

If Albert Heijn can be said to have any sort of mascot its hamsters. For a few weeks of the year, they have hamsterweken (hamster weeks), where you are encouraged to stock up on things and stuff your larders the way hamsters stuff their cheeks.

Obviously the hamsters are cute, plentiful, have lots of character and are always getting up to antics. They are not unlike the minions from Despicable Me, which is all about devious masterminds who want to take over the world, so the comparison is highly apt.

For the world cup, Albert Heijn has been working hard in his laboratory breeding a new strain of orange-dressed hamsters that are obsessed with the world cup. They even stowed away on a plane and then a coach to get to Brazil to bother the Dutch world-cup team who should have been preparing for the game [2]. So far it doesn't seem to have affected the team's performance.

I am really not sure that the mascot for a major food retailer should be a rodent. I would say supermarkets in general should stay away from making any reference to anything related to mice, rats or things of that ilk.

But now that Albert Heijn have gone that route – and very successfully as everyone loves these little fellers and kids want to collect the whole world cup range [3] – is it time for other supermarkets to follow suit?

I can see C1000 going with kakkerlakkenweken (cockroach weeks) featuring a band of cute, animated 6-legged, trouble makers led by the enigmatic Kokkie de Kakkelak, burrowing into sacks of rice and surviving nuclear attacks.

And Aldi's new campaign, "maand van de vliegen" (month of the flies), with a three minute ad where a bunch of anthropomorphic, flying insects get stuck on a remote island and try to rule themselves with comical results.

I'm looking forward to all this. But I'm laying down here and now the ultimate marketing challenge to a supermarket chain – the one thing we truly fear about supermarkets and shopping malls: I challenge a store to start a long-term campaign featuring as its mascot, a bunch of zombies. The time is right – Zombie TV shows are more popular than they've ever been, people have more sympathy for traditionally unlikeable characters than ever before, and of course the zombie apocalypse itself is closer than it's every been. So there's my challenge, I'll be here waiting, in the meantime, here's some journalist rodents in the field...



References: 
[1] http://www.distrifood.nl/Service/Marktaandelen/
[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t9V8EOlEyqY
[3] http://beheer.uwsupermarkt.nl/files/pages/uploads/1401434198.jpg

Report under fire

Right now, the city of Amsterdam is under attack. Judging by the munitions, I can only assume by a 13th century Chinese army. So far the army itself hasn’t been seen, but local spies, often children, are leading the attack. It started earlier in the day, but reached a peak at midnight. “Awe and Awe” seems to be the predominant tactic. I’d take to the streets to repel them, but they planned the attack on the very day they knew too many of us would have too much to drink. These 13th century Chinese armies are super canny. I’m going to go to bed and tomorrow herald our new Chinese overlords. I hope they need comedians who know 16 words of Mandarin. Happy 2014, year of the Horse.

Piet Moor

I wrote recently about how the debate here about Zwarte Piet, the blacked-up helper of Father Christmas’ granddaddy, and how it seemed more intense than earlier years. And I wasn’t kidding. It’s gotten so heated here the UN has gotten involved. As often happens when the UN gets involved, misunderstandings and miscommunications means that their presence has simply made things worse.

It’s very interested how heated it’s got. Based, as ever, on the fact that people rarely listen properly to people they don’t fully agree with. A lack of empathy and going on the defensive too quickly are the main causes of this. It’s like american politics where everybody shouts so loud they can’t even hear when the person they are shouting at is agreeing with them.

People are quite naturally defensive when something they had never considered anything other than a harmless children’s festival is being attacked and by association them with it.

As I said before, I think the days of blacking up to represent Piet are numbered, but obviously not going without a fight from those who don’t want to change any aspect of tradition.

If it doesn’t go, I have an alternative strategy. Introduce Witte Willem. Witte Willem is represented by non white actors, who white-wash their faces, put on blond floppy wigs, wear very tall clogs and pull long serious faces. They then say in slow, deep voices, things like “nou, zeg,” “he-hee,” and “dat is niet mogelijk.” They stare people blankly in their faces and coldly point out their faults. If someone says anything bodily function related they laugh very hard at it.

Sure, this isn’t most Dutch people, it’s a grotesque exaggeration of some of the stereotypical aspects of Dutch people presented in an offensive manner, but that’s the point.

Happy UN day.

Slave to the Tradition

I’ve noticed that every year there’s more and more debate about one single aspect of Dutch culture. One figure of Dutch folklore who starts appearing at this time of the year in readiness for his big day. On December 5th, Sinterklaas, the grandfather of Santa Claus, leaves presents in kids shoes in a very similar fashion to his more internationally known offspring, who tends to go for stockings. Instead of the North Pole, he lives in Spain. Instead of a reindeer-drawn sleigh, he has a steamboat. Instead of elves he has a faithful black servant.

The debate about is always about Zwarte Piet (Black Pete) who historically was almost certainly a slave, but is portrayed more as a comedy sidekick. Is it racist, is what the debate is all about. With most people from outside the country saying yes, and many of those who grew up with it saying no.

It took me a few years to get used to it, and now, I must say, I barely flinch when I see a real live Zwarte Piet or a doll-like representation of him which looks exactly like a gollywog, which were dolls we got rid of in the UK quite a few years ago. At least I barely flinch visibly.

My point of view is this. Obviously history is history and the real Saint Nicholas quite possibly had a slave/servant/comedy sidekick who quite probably was black. I don’t have a problem that such a figure still exists in the folklore and has not been replaced by mythical elves or magical reindeer. I don’t have too much of a problem that he is portrayed as being somewhat wayward and a little crazy, slavery isn’t something to help keep up perfect mental health, and as such you should take what liberties you can. The only real problem I have is this, which is at the core of why it’s considered racist: Zwarte Piet can only be portrayed by a white man or woman in black face paint, curly wig and thick, red lips in the style of a minstrel show, something else we got rid of a long time ago.

For me it’s only this offensively stereotypical representation that is what makes my flesh cringe whenever I see it. I think everything else can be kept. Make him blue or say he can only be portrayed by black actors or I don’t know.

But the kids, of course, don’t see it. Piet is a very popular character, mostly because he gives out sweets and so forth. And those adults who grew up with it only to be told later on it’s racist often are quite offended by the suggestion. They make up alternative histories to explain why he’s black - from coming down the chimney. Presumably he scratched his lips all the way down as well and the soot made his hair go curly. It’s only natural to be so defensive of something you grew up with and never saw any offense in. It’s very similar to those Christians who when asked about dinosaurs and their omission from their holy book state that they are a test from God.

I’m pretty sure the debate will continue for a few years yet, but the fact is seems to get bigger implies it will come to a head. As someone who lived through similar issues in the UK some 20+ years ago, I can assure the people of the Netherlands, these sort of changes, although they cause a lot of grumbling and even resentment at the time, are generally looked back upon with an air of, “I’m glad we did that” and without the very fabric of society being any more than ruffled in one corner.

The Sweet Smell of Good Service

I'm going to preface his by stating I am not a shopper. Shopping tires me out. Even walking past shop windows seems to suck energy from me as though shops were made of some sort of Kriptonite (Kooptonite? Copetonite?).

But the act of going into shops is still something one has to face every now and again. Even in these days when pretty much everything is available online. Once the problem of not being able to see up close and feel the products has been solved, we can close all the shops and turn high streets into playing fields. Oh glorious utopian, noshopian future.

Alternative shopping future

In the meantime, I still occasionally find myself swallowed up by a shop. I've gotten worse over the last few years with my shopophobia. Probably due to living in the Netherlands where choice is regarded with suspicion and people believe working in the service industry is beneath them, especially those people who actually work in the service industry, they definitely think working there is beneath them.

Often in the Netherlands, I feel the sales assistant is regarding me as something sullying their store and keeping them from musing about the world and its problems rather than being the reason the shop is there in the first place and the ultimate source of their income. I can't say I felt the UK was hugely different from this. Certainly both places were a long way from the other end of the spectrum, America. In the US, shop assistants regard you as though you are a potential new best friend and fawn over you in a way that outside of the shop environment would require you taking out a restraining order. I often worry that shop people there will start stalking me. But it's just a cultural thing that is magnified in shops. If you want to make sure they're not about to stalk you, do what I like to do. When you turn away to leave, do so slowly but keep them in your field of view. I really enjoy watching shop people dropping their shop faces and putting on big frowns. Especially after I've just decided not to buy something.

In the last few years, the UK has been heading further away from the stereotype of a nation of grumpy shopkeepers and bringing in a lot more of the American concept of service. People eagerly help you and know what they are talking about. I've been in shops where people have radioed to someone in another part of the store to come and help you.

The other thing in the UK which has improved but was always way above the Netherlands is choice. It's gotten better in the Netherlands. It used to be there'd be at most 3 types of anything. But mostly one. When I arrived there were only 3 possible flavours of crisps: Natural (slightly salty), Salted (very salty) and Paprika (salty and peppery). Now there are sometimes as many as 10 varieties in a big supermarket.

But in the UK, it's actually going too far. In some areas it's as bad as the US. In a big US supermarket, the choice for certain items (such as popcorn, breakfast cereal, assault rifles) is horrendous. Every single variant of topping, filling, salt content, sugar content, cheese content, vitamin content, heating method, and sports-team affiliation is available for the shopper who has any idea of what works for them. Those who don't, have a lot of experimentation before they find what does.

One department that has always had a crazy amount of choice which has recently gone up to levels that are officially insane loopy not right in the head is cosmetics. The numbers have shot up because nowadays anyone who is anyone in the pop world has also brought out their own line of cosmetics. Who would have though that Rhianna, as well as all her wildchild and pop credentials is also a fully qualified olfactologist.

Britney Spears, Beyouncé, Lady Gaga, Rhianna Bean, Plink, Nikki Minge, Kylie Minge, Christina Watersports, Justin Bieber -- all of the big girls of pop -- all have their own line of perfumes. It's shocking how widespread it is. I don't hold any of these ladies responsible for this. They are free to try and cash in on their product status. What I find shocking is that people buy them. People think, "screw Chanel and Lorry-L and their laboratories of highly qualified, French scientists and scores of years of research and experience, let's get some old muck based on the say so of someone with Britney Spears' business sense."

And it isn't just the women's cosmetics that this is happening to. In the expanding markets of men's cosmetics and children's cosmetics things are even more disturbing.

We've sort of already dipped into the children's market with mention of the Justin Bieber range. After all, anyone over 15 wearing Justin Bieber's Girlfriend should be reported to someone.

But it doesn't end there at all. Disney has a range of perfumes for children endorsed by such 2-dimensional celebrities as Snow White, Cinderella, and the Little Mermaid. I don't even want to talk about how awful the idea of marketing perfume to children is. I just think do you really want perfumes endorsed by people who don't really exist? And if they did exist, what sort of people are these? One lives in a tiny house with 7 miners; one is famous for wearing rags and the third is 50% tuna.

There is even a Betty Boop perfume for children aged 107.

For the men there's of course Playboy (also available for women). What woman could resist a perfume chosen by an 87-year-old pornographer? But my favourite is this one...

The Musked Avengers

The Marvel Comics eau de toilette. This really blows my mind. There seems so much wrong with it. Whoever thought, "Oh the Hulk, I bet he smells nice." No. If you think about it, how disgusting do you think the hulk would smell close up? The Hulk is basically a superhuman, green wrestler.

But maybe that's the point. Superheroes sweat a lot and most do so in latex, heavy armour and with their underwear outside their leggings. So if any group of people are in need of perfume it would be superheroes. But which is the group of men least likely to wear perfume? Superheroes. Okay, Miners, truck drivers and then superheroes.

I think my main problem with this is if you want a product to help you get the girls, Marvel isn't going to be the manufacturer of choice. But then if you're after finding a good man to treat you right, you probably shouldn't be going to Rhianna for help.

Improve Your Dutch Through Murder

Given the amount of time the good lady wife and myself have lived here, our Dutch is really not so great. It's pretty good, but had we lived in France or Germany, or some other place where people are disinclined to switch automatically over to your language, we'd be fluent by now. But especially in Amsterdam, where even the most dishevelled beggar can converse in pretty good English (although, occasionally, that's because they are British), it's pretty hard to learn Dutch. You really have to want to, otherwise your laziness and the eagerness of the locals to show off their language skills, will make you give up pretty soon.

To help our Dutch, we've taken to finding TV series to edify us in the language. The both of us enjoy a good crime story – us and 95% of the rest of the world, it must be said – so it seemed a good to check out that genre. After all there's no point in forcing yourself to watching things you'd hate in your own language. So we've stayed away from reality shows – us and 5% of the rest of the world, it must be said – and we haven't bothered to check if the Dutch have an equivalent of Glee. {Editor's note: Vrolijkheid, a show which features a class at the Koninklijke Nederlandse Podiumkunstenarenacadamie who, in between a set of tedious interpersonal issues, manage to sing some autotuned covers of Eurovision hits, does not exist, as far as I'm aware.}

Crime fighters arranged by height.

We started with Spoorloos Verdwenen based on the simple reason that a friend of ours is in it. It is a police procedural show, a little like CSI, but without the budget, following the missing persons bureau as they go about their daily business of looking for lost people. It means "Missing without a Trace." Although, of course, there is always a trace, because they do manage to find them. Or at least bits of them.

It was kind of fun and rarely so complicated our Dutch couldn't follow it to some degree. In fact, even people under duress enunciated very clearly so we could understand.

As a police procedural it fell over a few times because I'm pretty sure they aren't supposed to break into every place they come to and when the case broadens or becomes clearly a fraud or murder case, they still continue to investigate without the assistance of other departments. But this might actually be how the Dutch police operate. Although my experience of Dutch companies leads me to believe that once a missing person's case becomes a murder case, the real missing persons' bureau will go, "sorry, we can't help you any more."

What might be a more realistic aspect of policing in the Netherlands, is the fact that during every case, the boss will state, "every second counts" and then at 5 o'clock, everyone goes home. A few quibbles aside, we enjoyed it and it definitely helped our Dutch.

Greedy Trifle.

After this we tried a little of Gerede Twijfel, which is somehow a mixture of Buffy and one of those detective shows where they dig up old unsolved crimes and try to solve them (like Cold Case). In it a professor and his cabal of student archetypes investigate crimes the police gave up on. As did we. We didn't last long as it was clearly aimed at people half hour age and four times our tolerance of cliches.

We’re now on Baantjer. This long-running detective show is confusingly named after the author who created the characters. A bit like calling a Sherlock Holmes series, Doyle.


This series also has the benefit that at some point at least one other friend will make a brief appearance. Baantjer is a much more thoughtful affair than the previous two. We’re watching an early series made the 90s and it feels somewhat like Inspector Morse or Columbo, however, with a somewhat jarring 1980s soundtrack. I don’t know why it should have a 1980s soundtrack when it was made a decade later, but it does.

There is definitely something of the Columbo / Morse in Baantjer's De Cock. Which is a weird sentence having written it. He definitely has Columbo's gift for the "Oh, there's just one more thing" question, that looks like an after thought, but in fact gets right to the point.

Crime fighters arranged by height

Because it's more of a thinker and because the characters mumble a lot more, it's a lot more of a challenge for our Dutch. Sometimes too much. Occasionally we can clearly see that Somebodie van de Whatsit has become the prime suspect, but we have no idea why.

We have a lot to watch if we stick with it (it went on for 12 seasons) and by the end we should be able to understand pretty much every piece of Dutch someone mumbles at us. Especially if it's in the form of an explanation of where they were last night between 2 and 4 am.

Free At Last

July the 1st is Keti Koti. Maybe you knew this, but I didn’t until last year. Keti Koti is the Surinamese day of emancipation. In Amsterdam it is celebrated with a festival in the park near me. I presume it’s a lot bigger in Suriname.

Keti Koti means something like “chain cutting” and celebrates the day that slavery was officially abolished. At least that’s what gives it the date. What people are actually celebrating is the slaves being freed. Now in your naivety, you might be thinking, as I once did, “surely the day these things are declared is the day they happen.” *pats self on head.*

In the US a big day of celebration is Juneteenth (June 19th). This celebrates not the actual day that slavery was declared to be abolished and not the date it was enacted as a law, but it celebrates the day the slaves in Texas were told about the abolition.

Abraham Lincoln declared slavery illegal on September 22, 1862, but the law only came into effect on January 1, 1863, which itself seems a long time to wait. But it was only after military action two and a half years later this got announced to the citizens of Texas.

In Suriname (a Dutch colony), slavery was abolished also in 1863 (on July 1st), but it would take ten years for it to come into full effect. Ten years! That’s a crazy long time. It was hailed as a ‘transition period’ which seems a very Dutch response to a problem. Namely, “We’re going to ban slavery but tolerate it.”

It’s no wonder people want to celebrate it finally coming about. Even 140 years later, in a cold, wet land far, far away. 

http://www.ketikotiamsterdam.nl/index.html

Two-Wheels Good

Let me start by reminding you that riding a bicycle is impossible. Impossible. Bicycles are two-dimensional objects – especially my ageing wannabe racing bike. And we expect these two-dimensional objects to propel us, increasingly three-dimensional objects, along a plane perpendicular to the aforementioned bicycle. A plane that exerts a gravitational pull on us and is hard and jagged enough to bruise and graze us – or worse – when the geometry of cycling fails and the gravity gets a hold of us.

Riding a bicycle is impossible. Earlier humans seeing us riding bikes would burn us as devils or witches. Yet billions of us do it every day; Defying gravity, the gods and good judgement. It’s not only fun, enhealthening (note to self: check dictionary), but a very practical way of getting from A to B.

As you might have gathered from this blog, I live in Amsterdam which is famous for having a free and liberal attitude to cycling. Compared to many other big cities where cycling is treated like a criminal offense, Amsterdam seems to positively welcome cycling and cyclists. Cycle paths not only exist but are clear, visible and don’t suddenly stop and become a wall as they do in some places.

The streets swarm with cyclists at most hours of the day and especially in the morning and evening at those times when people bring and collect their kids to and from the various kid-repositories and bring and collect themselves to and from the place they keep themselves during the day (usually a place of work, but not exclusively).

This morning was one of those days where people cycling in front of you randomly and suddenly slow down for no apparent reason. The whole journey was me braking to avoid nudging into the back of some work-bound Amsterdammer. It was especially difficult because today I had been paying more attention to the street than other parts of the environment. This was due to my recent flat tire from which I pulled a hunk of glass which was a perfect scale model of an iceberg. So today I was studiously watching out for flocks of icebergs.

By the end of my journey, I was paying more attention to the frequently stopping bikes and other eye-level hazards with only glances towards the glassy danger that lurked below because a flat tire won’t kill you. It saved me from ploughing into the back of the last cyclists that randomly stopped in front of me: two policewomen both with impressive blond ponytails poking out from under their cycle-cop caps.

It was then my mood was set for the day. I realised how happy I was to live in a city where my protection was provided by three-dimensional, blond devil-witches effortlessly doing the geometrically and gravitationally impossible. How can you not appreciate that?

'Til Boredom Do Us Part

One of the surprising things about the Dutch civil wedding ceremony is it's choice of words for the vows. Where I'm from, and where Cath's from, the marriage vows last "'til death do us part." The only way out is in a box.

The Dutch vows apply "for as long as you love and respect each other in this relationship." It took us aback when we heard it. However, it is a bit more realistic. And has the added benefit of not putting the fear of God in you.

The problem is, now I worry that the marriage will end without us wanting it to? Does it automatically dissolve if we stop loving and/or respecting each other? What happens on those days when you wake up annoyed after a poor nights sleep or during an argument? What happens when you do not, for a moment, feel that love or feel that respect? Is it over? In many ways this is even more of a worry than "'til death do us part." Because with "'til death do us part" it's only a problem when the marriage is not going well, but "for as long as you love and respect each other in this relationship" means as long as you want the relationship to continue, you have to be on your toes. You can't let that love slip or that respect slide. That may well be the effect they were after.

Going, Going, Gone to the Chapel

So I tied the knot. Got hitched. Clasped on the old ball and chain. Said goodbye to the single life. Threw away the little, black book. In short, I got married.

Many friends who have known me a long time have mentioned things I may have said some time in the past to the effect that in no way would I ever tie the knot, get hitched, etc. Well, I probably said something similar about Motown and muesli. It's fair to say some of my views have mellowed.

Our original plan was to tie the knot in a simple, cheap ceremony with only a couple of witnesses and a member of the local council trained in performing the relevant ceremony. But the best-laid plans o' well-laid mice often go quite agley. But ours went agley in the best possible way.

Firstly, you should know the Dutch allow keen but poor people to get hitched free of charge. Albeit on a Wednesday morning at 9 am and in the offices of the local council. You don't quite have to take a number and queue, but it isn't, on the surface, much more romantic.

Secondly, my parent's decided they would like to be there to finally absolve their responsibility for me. This meant the whole organisation needed stepping up a bit. Catherine spent a long time finding a dress that was suitable yet multipurpose and in her size; and I had to iron a shirt.

So, we had a small, efficient ceremony, attended by 4 witnesses, my parents and our official filmmaker. The registrar (or woman from the council) kindly did the whole thing in English so my parent's could follow and we could say, "I do." The Dutch equivalent is "Ja," which has the disadvantage of being such an everyday expression that it's hard to say with any true meaning. I have heard a "Ja" delivered with crippling sarcasm, but not during a wedding ceremony.

After the ceremony, we reconvened at our flat to celebrate with the cats and then threw the house open to a select few of our friends. Selected until we knew the house would be full, rather than to include everyone we would have liked, which would have filled most of the flats in the building.

We stopped inviting people not because we ran out of people we liked sufficiently, but because we realised we had reached the limits of our flat. But those we could invite and who could make it filled our place and made the whole day something much more special than we had ever planned. Seriously, you want to find out how awesome your friends are, get married.

Our flat thronged with friends, neighbours and their kids. In fact I'm sure the flat has never had so many children in it. I counted 7. They outnumbered the cats, and so it was apt that on the day when I did the thing I said I never would do, the things I said I'd never own and the things I said I'd never produce would square up and fight for territory. The cats, of course, won, because the cat's owners didn't have to leave.

After a few hours of fun, conversation, good company, bubbly alcohol and a splendid cake, the bride and groom were alone (apart from the cats) and performed their first act as a married couple. They went to Blokker to buy household wares. Who says I'm a changed man?

Netherlands: City Part Tin Can Tower

The Netherlands is a country that is continuously in danger of being engulfed in a sea of red tape. They erect great dykes to keep this sea back called Stadsdeelkantoren. This means "Local Council Offices" or, literally, "City Part Tin Can Tower" or "Town Slice Side Ears." It depends how you divide it. There is a story that the "kantoor" part of the name is a contraction of "kan niet, hoor" (Trans: "NOT possible").

These are places where forms are filled in to get permission to fill in further forms; Where a receipt for a document is longer than the original document; Where anything outside of predefined norms is not possible or at the very least, the responsibility of some other vague department that you may never get in contact with.

This departmentalising (or, more accurately, compartmentalising) can be quite extreme. My mission to the local Statsdeelkantoor today was show them my birth certificate. This was to show them that I am not merely alive (that has been proven already) but that I was born and, I guess, not created in a factory or laboratory. (Although if I had the correct paperwork for that, it would be fine.)

Unrelated elephant

This is not a normal procedure, it would seem. This is evident by a few facts. Firstly, although I had a letter confirming the appointment, it wasn't in the receptionist's system. In most organisations this would mean a screw up with the system. But the receptionist, after a few moments of perplexed searching, realised that it meant it fell outside of the norm. She took me to the next level of people. The ones who deal with most of the people who come through their doors clutching pieces of paper. It was in their system, but they had no idea what to do about it. A couple of them discussed if for a few moments. In the end, they had to take me to a third level. Now, for me, none of this was a big issue. It meant I had to wait a few minutes for someone with the authority to work around the system to become free, but they do seem to have created extra work for themselves. Plus, given 3 members of their staff some moments of confusion. But, then again, these anomalies might be what keeps them going.

In think it's all part of bigger job creation scheme. The longer it takes to process anyone, the more people are needed. Proof of this scheme is shown by the entrance and exit doors. They are automatic. Great. Except that a security guard sat behind a computer has to press a button to approve it each time before they open. So they are not, in effect, automatic at all.

The Beans of Wrath

People of the Netherlands a cancer is encroaching your country. I have enjoyed my ten years here without it, but the proverbial triffids are at our door. They are in our train stations; they are in our high streets; and they are bent on stealing your culture.

I'm a huge fan of coffee. My fandom resembles that of a fresh crack addict. I love my drug of choice and what it does for me. I am convinced I can kick it whenever I choose. As an addict, I do like the coffee Starbuck's sells. And I enjoy the look of their cakes, although they do inject them with more sugar than a healthy man should consider eating. And their décor within them is not unpleasant.

Artists' rendition of your future.

However, their business model is parasitic. The aim is not to compete with other establishments in a healthy competitive manner, but to strangle them by flooding as many Starbucks as they can into a particular area so that if you go into a random coffee house, the chances are it's a Starbucks. Then, once the competition has all died out, they close most of their stores and enjoy being the people's only option.[1][2]

It's a savage use of money to deny people free choice. It's Soviet-style coffee communism aggressively brought about by abuse of people liberal attitudes to the free-market.

Now, I can understand it not mattering in a country like the US (or even the UK) that doesn't have a café culture, but this country does. Most bars and cafes actually have good coffee. They have atmosphere. And they are usually run by individuals with character and often a connection to or compassion for the community they serve.

If you go to a Starbucks, you are contributing to the eradication of the café culture of the Netherlands. You are saying, "I don't want 'gezellig' places with charm and character. I don't want a choice of places to go and drink coffee." You are, in short, supporting the Stalinesque purge of your nation's cafés.

Anyway, rant over, enjoy your coffee.

---

[1] No Logo, Naomi Klein, 2000;
[2] The Simpsons episode 3G04: Simpson Tide, 1998.

Whinging about Pommes

Firstly, I'm going to have to preface this with a whole explanation to avoid the crisp-chip / chip-fry confusion. Basically it can be explained thus: What the Americans call "Chips," the British call "Crisps;" and what the British call "Chips," the Americans call "Fries." (For more scientific information, see my own research at More's Uncyclopaedia, the world's (mis)leading database of facts, figures, lists, and general trivia.)

Being British, I am inclined to use the words God gave us and not the more common, colonial / international corruptions. I assume this stance will not offend anyone.

But I am not here to talk about the ongoing Anglo-American Lingo Wars, I'm here to talk about the Dutch. The Dutch like their chips (fries) so much they have more than one word for them. They called them "Frites" or "Patats" and the only difference in usage I can see is that frites tend to come in paper cones and patats in polystyrene cartons. The highest form of frites you can get here are Vlaamse Frites, or Belgian Fries. It's odd here, because the Dutch love to look down on the Belgians. Pointing out their country is really just the quickest way to France; and that it's a place where signposts can change language half way through because the left half is in a French-speaking part and the right in a Flemish-speaking part. Yet, two things the Dutch are very, very fond of are frites and beer, and the highest form of both of these, as far as the Dutch are concerned, are the Belgian varieties.

What aren't so popular here are crisps (or the American potato chips). Or at least they weren't. When I arrived some 9 years ago there were 3 flavours of crisp in the stores. Three. "Natural," "Salt and Pepper" and (for the people with exotic tastes) "Paprika" (sweet pepper). That was it. I'd just come from the UK, where crisps were considered a good substitute for pretty much any meal of the day. In the UK, and even more so in the US, the array of crisp flavours (as well as crisp brands and styles) is staggering. But in the last few years, there are more and more crisp flavours and types appearing in the Netherlands. So much so that Lay's, the multinational crisp conglomerate, had a competition locally to vote for new flavours. So what do you think the winning flavour was? Huh? The winner was "Papatje Joppie" – chip-flavour crisps (or fry-flavoured chips). I'm not joking.

Now, clearly they are not purely chip-flavoured – they are the flavour of chips dipped in a mustardy sauce, but still. Really, are you so obsessed as a nation that when offered the chance to have ANY flavour in the world, you chose that your potato-based snack should taste like a different potato-based snack? I sometimes wonder if the ultimate Dutch snack would be a crisp that tastes like a chip dipped in mashed potato and sprinkled with flaked potato skins. Mmm, starchy.

'Tis the Season to be Golly

Fluffy tufts of snow linger in the air deciding where they will look the best. Many decide the most advantageous place is the edge of my gloves where they transform from being crystalline cotton to cold dampness. But I don’t care; I'm cycling through a postcard. The old houses and timelessness of any body of water makes the postcard resemble a reproduction of an Avercamp or Koekkoek. (If only my bike wasn't so modern and stylish.) There's no denying it's winter. Christmas is around the corner and tomorrow is Sinterklaas. Sinterklaas is the grandfather of Christmas; the Dutch day of present-giving which was transformed into the one we what we know in the UK (and US). The transformation occurred by turning a shoe into a stocking, a bearded, red-wearing bishop into a bearded, red-wearing kindly old man and an army of "Moors" into elves and reindeer.

The "Moors" are the hardest thing to get used to. Everything else is cute and understandable, but I escaped 1970s Britain to avoid ever having to see a white guy blacked up and the sight of "golly wogs" in shop stores, only to find all of that turns up once a year in a supposedly liberal country.

I'm at the point where I'm no longer disturbed by the representations of Zwarte Piet (either in doll form or in the form of a guy with boot polish on his face), but still fail to comprehend it. According to Wikipedia (the Wikileaks of semi-truth), the Zwarte Piet character was originally the Devil (enslaved by Saint Nicholas to help him deliver presents), but evolved to become a black slave, which is no less disturbing.

More recently the slavery elements of the tradition have been attemptedly excised. It is hoped that it is less controversial if the Zwarte Piets are merely "travelling companions" of Sinterklaas. However, is it really less controversial for a bishop to spend most of his life holidaying in Spain accompanied by dozens of much younger, dark-skinned men? Especially a bishop who once a year sails up to the Netherlands with his young holiday chums, showers the good local children with sweets and gifts and kidnaps the bad ones and takes them back to Spain.

It's no wonder a few details got changed in the evolution to Santa and Christmas. Although it's not clear where the tradition that Santa is an alcoholic came from. But I assume that must be what replaced the holidaying in Spain with young, black men.

Kadootje

So I was in a rehearsal room the other day and I saw a little box. "A present?" I thought. I went over and looked at it. It was already opened at one end. On it was some Dutch. The first word was "giftig." You can't get a more present-like word. The second word was "lokaas" which must be related to lokaal, which means room or place. So this little box was a "gifty room." Before I opened up the box and handled (and possibly even devoured) my present, I bothered to read the English that was also on the box. It said, "poisoned bait." It wasn't a nice gift for me, it was a deadly surprise for mice. It's like Dutch is out there just to trap and poison foreigners.

Amsterdam: Ant Misbehaving

Something I like about the newer Amsterdam trams is they have sand in them. They have little windows here and there (usually near the joints, i.e. the bendy bits) where you can look through and see sand. I haven't seen any signs yet, but my theory is that they are ant farms. You know, the thin layer of sand between two sheets of glass that as a kid you introduced ants to so you could see their tunnelling? It was a huge crazy in 1957.

1950s ant farmer

So in my theory, eventually we'll start seeing ant trails in these little slots and occasional glimpses of ants. And this is a billion times more fascinating than the terrible adverts and annoying twirling news items they have on the TV screens. Eventually, I hope they fill the TV screens with sand and introduce the ants into there as well.

A terminal case of the termites

I have an extension to my theory in that these new trams are run on some form of ant power. This is all well and good, and ecological, if somewhat exploitative, but it raises one huge issue. What happens when an ant-power tram collides with one of the future nuclear-powered superbusses? Huh? Has nobody seen Them!? The movie where giant ants terrorise the middle of nowhere and bog down the US army in a protracted desert conflict. Do you really want to see huge, radioactive ants attacking government buildings and eating tourists? Actually, that would be pretty cool. I'm off to design an atomic superbus and engineer an accident. See you in 30 years.

Filmography:
Them! (1954): IMDB

Did Somebody Order A Plumber?

I'm always impressed when I use my Dutch and get what I wanted. Today I ordered a plumber (loodgieter, or "lead pourer") and within an hour one was at my door. Plumbers normally only arrive this fast in porn films. In fact there they usually turn up uninvited (but definitely welcome).

Ours was too gumpy to be in a porn movie, but he came bearing gadgets. Modern plumbing has changed a lot since the Victorian days when plumbers would send small foetuses down the pipes to clean them. Nowadays, the chief tool of the trade is an ultra-powerful vacuum cleaner that will suck pretty much anything out of the drain. I expected to hear the squeak of sewer rats and the clatter of downstairs' washing up. But instead we got the occasional wet thump of hair, rice, pasta, various unclogging agents, uncategorizable grey slime and some more hair. I blame my girlfriend and our cats for this hair, despite the fact I'm the hairiest thing in the house.

The grumpy chap grew less grumpy the more he got to use his vacuum cleaner and the less clogged our pipes became. Until he was quite chirpy as he dragged his stuff back down the stairs.

We had a great old conversation circled solely on our drains, and our previous efforts and his current efforts to clear them. His strong accent and use of the vernacular meant I didn't always understand him and my inability to find the words I needed meant I spoke without committing too much content. Sometimes I had a blank expression that said, "I didn't understand that," and sometimes he had a blank expression that said, "That made no sense." But in my mind we were two Oscar Wilde characters exchanging witticisms. But actually our dialogue was much more stilted and banal. A lot more like the dialogue in a porn film. But without the undercurrent of sex and the over-suggestiveness. At least I hope so. I never intended there to be any of that, of course, but with my control over the Dutch language, who knows how it came out. It would explain why he got so chirpy. Oh, God! Now, I can't be sure I didn't say something like "That's quite a powerful suction device you've got there; I can't wait for you to wrap it round my piping and start clearing it out." Oh, God!!! And I thought it had gone so well.

My Old Dutch

One of the problems with my Dutch is that it sounds better than it is.  I have a good accent, however I don't have the vocabulary to back it up. Consequently people speed on a dime a dozen assuming I'm fluent and leave me trailing behind trying to work out what a watjenoemhet is and whether not knowing it is important to everything else being said. I'm a long way from fluent. I do understand quite a bit, but people frequently throw words in that I can't fathom. Words like "doorgronden."

Example of mass Dutch communication (c) 2009 Peter More

What happens even more is that I'm speaking and I can't remember, or simply never knew, the Dutch word for something. I have, however, developed some tools to deal with this.

1. Say the English word but pronounce it in a Dutch way.

The rule of thumb with Dutch is that if a word looks the same as the English word, then it is pronounced completely differently. But knowing a few simple pronunciation guidelines will allow you to remanglify the word into Dutch.
(There is a corollary rule that states that if an English word and Dutch word sound the same, then, when written, they bare almost no resemblance to each other, for example: "fluent" and "vloeiend.")

2. Say the English word in an English way.

Most Dutch people speak English at a level I will never attain in Dutch. Plus when Dutch borrows words from English, it pronounces them almost the same for a few years before it remanglifies them. So the second method is to simply say the word the English way, and I usually revert to my native accent. It's remarkable how well this also works.

3. Wordfabricationism

The preferred method the Dutch use for getting a new word into their language is to make one up out of existing words. Thus ziekenhouse is hospital (literally, sick house), and wapenstilstandsonderhandelingen (supposedly the longest word in the standard dictionary) is cease-fire negotiations (literally, weapon standstill under-handling). So the third, and most fun, method to guess the Dutch word is to consolidate shorter words that describe the thing in the hope that it is correct or conveys enough of the meaning to work as a substitue word. Thus if you don't know the word for envy, you could try translating "stuff-want-ness" or "ox-covet-ism." You'll probably be wrong, but you'll amuse the listener and, if you're lucky, they might even think you're Belgian.

Travel: France 2/7/09: An Indifferent Pastis

There are two languages on board the newly combined KLM - Air France flights from the Netherlands to France. Dutch and English. Dutch and English. No French. You'd think planes going to and from a country would include the language of that country; especially when that country is notorious for its people often not wanting to speak other languages. It seemed very strange. Especially as the Dutch generally have such a great grasp of English and are happy to show off their linguistic skills. It would have made more sense for the languages used to have been French and English.

However, in my experience, English is not as poorly spoken in France as we are lead to believe. And we are lead to believe this by the French themselves. Whist working on an international helpdesk, on several occasions I have explained, in a mixture of my poor French and English, to someone who was demanding a French speaker that they can either wait a while to be called back by one or try to explain their problem in English. They would quite often proceed to explain how they would try to make themselves understood in what was actually very good English. It seems to reinforce the maxim that if at first a foreigner does not understand you, talk louder until they give in and admit they do speak English.

We flew to Bordeaux which turns out to be a mini hub in terms of French air traffic and we had slightly convoluted travel plans. We had a long wait for a hire car due to demand being high and people on hand to help being low. Our car turned out to have an oil-light that had a preference for glowing brightly despite the car having more oil than a Saudi desert.


It was invigorating to be back on French roads. The French drive like all existence is merde and it is better to go out with a sudden collision on a hairpin bend than to fade away in some forgotten bar over an indifferent pastis. However, they sit in bars like all existence is merde and it is better to fade away agonising over an anguished pastis than to take to the road in search of instant release.

To be doubly sure of getting to where we were going, I not only had my parents' directions but some that Google had given us. Like its other sought-after equations, Google's direction algorithm is a complete mystery. Even when presented with the results, it's almost impossible to work out how it got there. It gets you from A to B, but it seems that C, D, and E have optimised their towns or paid to somehow appear on the route. Given my parents have driven this way a few times and for part of the year live in this area, we decided to trust them over some Californian computer cluster. The day will come when we trust Californian computer clusters more than our parents. But most of us are not there yet.

We arrived at my parents' holiday farm in time to feed garbage to the recently shorn sheep. They love left-over vegetable peelings, banana skins and yesterday's bread. When every other thing you eat is grass, you'd be the same way too.