Ceremonies of the Horseman

Riding up the A19, grey skies, inner lane full of lorries moving Christmas goods from one city and country to another.  My first trip back to the NL in four months. Has absence made the heart grow fonder?   Maybe. There are two reasons for this trip: to attend a client’s PhD defence (we have not previously met) and to get an APK (a Dutch MOT) for my car.  I left the APK until the last minute (the day before it is legally due) as I had hoped to be further down the road of getting Belgian number plates for my car before Xmas, but it wasn’t to be.   Now I will also have to do a Belgian roadworthiness test in January or whenever that does happen.  I hope that the standards are the same!

It’s my first time going to a PhD defence outside of Wageningen. But the format is almost identical. It’s rite of passage rather than a real exam. But it never fails to make the defendant nervous.  The defendant is dressed up to the nines and backed up by two paranymfs (A Dutch word that has no English equivalent as we don’t have such theatrical defences – they are two close friends or colleagues there to lend support and also to organise the pre and post ceremony events). He does a twenty minute summary of his thesis (i.e. of his last five years work – no easy task) . Then the committee, all elder academic statesmen, dressed in black robes and white collars with floppy black velvet berets, enter. They are led by the Master of Ceremonies, dressed similarly and carrying a metal tipped wooden rod, which he bangs thrice on the floor to announce their arrival. All rise as the committee take their seats and are then introduced.

Then the questions begin. Some relate to the text and the value and validity of the work. Some questions are easy for the defendant to field.  At other times they can hit at the heart of methodological or conceptual flaws or gaps in the thesis. That can really floor the defendant. Sometimes they are plain irrelevant and it is obvious that the academic concerned just likes the sound of his own voice or thinks his ideas haven’t had enough airtime recently.  The whole event is couched in levels of courtesy that one would expect at a court or diplomatic function. The questions all begin with commendations on the excellent piece of work and the defendant addresses each of the members of the committee as ‘my highly esteemed opponent’.    After a strictly defined period of time – marked again by the banging of the rod (rather than a game show buzzer) the committee retire (all rise again) to consider their verdict (a ‘pass’ is given, but a candidate can earn a distinction for the thesis and/or his defence).

 
There then follows the award speech, made by the promoter of the candidate, again full of arcane language, the doctorate is awarded on behalf of the Rector Magnificus and sealed with the Great Seal of the University. Jaap is now a Doctor of Philosophy. In Tilburg, unlike Wageningen, there is a prayer at the end although - in Dutch style of being non-confrontational - the words God or Jesus are curiously absent.  Then its time for everyone to queue up to  congratulate the candidate and present him with a gift and enjoy a drink and a few snacks (always the same style of ‘hapjes’ warm savoury pastry-like parcels with cheese and or meat in them).  The inner circle of friends and family then retire for a meal and/or party.  While I was not in the inner circle it was worthwhile to go and see Jaap get his award  - as I had been working with him on this project for more than a year (on and off).  Unlike most of my PhD clients, I feel Jaap is one that I will continue to work with in the future.

Days like these

Blogging has not been a big priority recently. I spend too much time behind my PC already – running a business, coping with what seems like unnecessarily large amounts of administration (much of it in a foreign language) and sometimes just doing fun things (like playing around with last.fm ). But yeah a whole month has gone by and I might lose readers.

So here are the highs and lows of this month. And I will try harder next month (I’ve been saying that to my Dutch teacher all year).

Highs
1. I finally got to take my Dutch (NT2) state exams. These will officially give me the level of fluency needed to apply to work as a pizza delivery boy. I’m moving up in the world! It also means I get about eight hours a week of my life back (not going to classes and doing homework). But I didn’t quite finish them all. I missed one. I got there late. And for once it wasn’t my fault. There was a ‘collision’ on the rail network (I think that’s a Dutch euphemism for ‘someone threw themselves in front of a train’). No trains to Utrecht for who knows how long (it turned out to be less than an hour). So I had to phone the central office of the exam committee and tell them that I was going to be late, etc. I vene got past the menu that told me ‘alle onze medewerekers zijn in gespreek’ (‘all our operatives are busy right now’) - one of the first phrases I learned in Dutch. That afternoon in my speaking exam we got a question: ‘you are going to work and your train unexpectedly stops. You have to call your boss and tell him you will be late. What do you say?’ Bang on! Real life imitates (and prepares you) for exams. Though it was possibly the first useful ‘situation exercise’ I had to face in fifteen months of studying Dutch. (Read Dave’s hilarious blog about being asked what to do when you get pregnant). There’s something about these free Dutch classes that is incredibly patronising – and in stark contrast with British culture (confident in its linguistic hegemony) which will provide health and administrative advice in 27 different languages (I kid you not - the 2011 census form was available in at least that many languages).

Going to the exam centre was something of an anthropological excursion. You could see the people whose future in the Netherlands depended on their linguistic skills (I could say oral skills – but for reasons that will become obvious - that would be a hugely inappropriate choice of adjectives) . Let’s just say that a fair number were drop-dead gorgeous young women of south Asian, African, Caribbean and Eastern Europe descent, the majority of whom were chaperoned by gentlemen ‘of a certain age’, most with white hair (if any) and some with walking sticks. It put me in mind of a Beatles song: ‘Money can’t buy me love.’ True, but perhaps it can provide a little comfort in one’s dotage

2. I’ve never really participated in ‘Queen’s Day’ celebrations before. I’m a Republican (in the English sense as opposed to the American or Irish one). So I find the idea of celebrating an outmoded feudal institution to be distasteful (to say the least). But, with the encouragement of a friend, I agreed to participate in this Queen’s Day celebrations. We agreed to do a stall together to sell horticultural produce – which felt a bit like selling coal to Newcastle. So in March I started making little trays of mixed herbs – trays about 3cm * 12cm, with a mix of 6 or so kitchen herbs to transplant into balcony boxes. In March and April I diligently transported them in and out of my flat – to catch the sun in the day and protect them against the frost at night. I had forty or so trays – with a few marigolds thrown in to add some colour. And I sold the lot! It wasn’t so much the money was important. It was more selling something that people really enjoyed buying – my customers ranged from eco-conscious students to equally turned-on grandmothers (but were conspicuously female). A fair few customers were acquaintances from the nine (long) years I have spent here – but many didn’t speak English at all – so I had to sell my concept in Dutch – a good exercise for the exams to come the following week.

My friend, in the meantime, did a roaring trade in selling marijuana seeds. He had a few plants on display and was knocking out bags of seeds like nobody’s business. Again it was another strange anthropological experience – seeing who buys, and wants to grow weed- not all restricted to the age / cultural group you might expect!

Most of the stallholders were kids – and I wonder if the real purpose of Queen’s Day is not to inculcate ‘the trading gene’ into the Dutch youth at a young age.

3. I’ve got a new flat – at least temporarily, for the summer- four times the size (at just twice the cost) as mine – and with a garden – and in Brussels. I don’t know if its going to be a prolonged French speaking, French eating, European culture enjoying (working) vacation or the start of a new phase in my life – but I feel incredibly happy about the prospect of it – even though I haven’t yet found someone to sub-rent my chicken coop flat in Wageningen. More to follow on this topic I’m sure.


4. Finally a note of gratitude to the banking system. There may be a lot wrong with it (I should put some radical link in here) but they are very good at detecting fraud. I was happily sitting at a seminar on Fair Trade in my adopted town when I got a message from my English bank asking me if I was in Nepal and had made five cash withdrawals today. The answer to both questions was no. They had picked it up within a few hours. The worrying point from a consumer point of view is that I have never used that card on the internet and only very occasionally use it to withdraw cash or buy petrol. Somewhere, somehow, someone ‘skimmed it.’ But the opportunities were very few. How do banks keep up with that level of sophistication – and trust their customers?

Lows
Let’s not dwell on them. I got stood up twice in one weekend, and that made it difficult to pick up the baton on Monday morning. But it wasn’t much worse than that.

Public Spaces

The African architecture exhibition that I wrote about a couple of weeks ago has been receiving favourable comments in the press. And the theme, that of public spaces has been quite to the fore recently. This week I went to see a band - Staff Benda Bilili - whose story is quite remarkable. Apart from being disabled (most of them are in wheelchairs - actually they are more like customised trikes) they hang out around, and rehearse in, the zoological gardens in Kinsasha (because its quiet - there's almost no visitors since many of the animals have been eaten by the city's inhabitants). Their first album was recorded there. See the full story here and here . Now that's what I call making creative space of public spaces (rehearsing in the zoo that is - not eating it's inhabitants). And they rock - sounding something like a cross between Orchestra Baobab and the much missed Bhundu Boys. There's something ironic about a room full of able bodied people bopping along to music created by a group of mostly wheelchair-bound musicians....And its just an awesome sight to see three guys in wheelchairs customised trikes, and one on crutches as the lead line up in a dance band... Good news is they are on tour in Europe for the next couple of months.

The venue, Tivoli is also impressive - an old music hall - or somesuch, with a still-in-use balcony, it has a sloping floor - so even when you are standing at the back you can see still see the stage. Alongside the Melkweg in Amsterdam it has to be one of the nicest venues in the Netherlands that regularly has interesting musicians (and it's a lot closer to home!).

With spring now in full flurry the Dutch are also reclaiming their public spaces. I was in Utrecht to see the concert - and as the first warm koopavond (the weekly evening shopping) of the year it was impossible to find a seat on a terrace. The permitted drinking areas were closely demarcated by lines of discreet iron tiles in the pavement and woe betide anyone who set foot or chair outside of them. The one free space seemed to be the square in front of the city hall where the local tango dancing group had set up stage and open house for their first open air dancing evening of the year. I just sat and watched. I think that takes more practice than bopping along freestyle to African musicians.

Tripping round the Netherlands

A British friend was 'back' in Wageningen this weekend. I say 'back' because we first met here. We used the opportunity to do a cycle trip round the Kinderdijk(we didn't cycle there from here) which neither of us had visited before. It is one of the Netherlands' iconic landscapes (and a UNESCO world cultural heritage site). WE also recruited a 'local tour guide' - a Buddhist friend from the area- a big thumbs up to Geert for making it such a great day!

This land is some 6m below sea level and was reclaimed by windmills. I'm sure that there is some pro-renewables, pro-sustainability argument there. The light wasn't great - so apologies about the poor quality of the photos- but if you've never been -do try to - it's a very impressive place.

We took the water bus back to the city - enjoying some sights of more contemporary Rotterdam.

Queen's Day

Queen's day is approaching soon. The whole country dresses up in Orange, runs street stalls to sell their bric a brac and gets pissed. Oh and nearly every house puts out the flag. It's strange that the UK doesn't have a Queen's Day. In fact as this article points out most English people don't even know when St. George's Day (the nearest equivalent) is.
I find it quite paradoxical that the Netherlands , which in many ways is such a meritocracy, celebrates what is essentially a feudal institution (the monarchy) with so much gusto. Meanwhile I would be willing to bet that 95% of households in Britain neither have a flag nor a pole to run it up.

On politics

Tomorrow we have local elections across the Netherlands. One of the joys of living here is that the country has a system of representative democracy . That means you can vote FOR the party whose policies you support - rather than spending time trying to calculate how to vote AGAINST the party whose views and values you find most abhorrent. I have lost count of the times that I voted negatively in the UK to prevent one particular party gaining a seat. I resented that.

Here the main local issues are likely to be Sunday shopping and the proportion of social housing to be incorporated in new housing developments (the balance has been swinging towards the private sector in recent years). But with the recent collapse of the coalition government - more eyes are likely to be on what the local elections portend for the national election in June. Geert Wilders' anti-islamic party is drawing a lot of attention and public support at the moment - which is hugely worrying - even if that support might be more a protest against the main parties than anything else. They intend to keep their powder dry by only standing in two municipalities in these elections. So it will be hard to gauge the level of support they actually do have.

Back to School

Three weeks ago I started an intensive Dutch course. Six hours a week class contact time plus half as much homework. My weekday evenings are no longer my own. Two evenings a week I have to leave work at five sharp, rush home – throw some leftovers or a ready meal into the microwave, gulp it down and be out the door by 6.10. It doesn’t leave much room for digestion – or a glass of wine. I’m learning to compensate by starting work later (or doing the easier work in my portfolio) on those days – so I have some functioning brain cells left for the evening. More worryingly – although this is for the future - this course severely diminishes my capacity to plan holidays around my unpredictable work schedule – and to avoid peak holiday seasons. Still the compensation is that (the recently collapsed) Dutch government (possibly more on this topic later) is paying for it – in an attempt to promote integration and participation. That means the course has a large, although often implicit, element of ‘civic training’.

As a native English speaker it is often difficult to find the motivation to learn Dutch. Firstly, nearly everyone in the NL speaks really good English and wants to use it. Often when I order a pancake, apple tart or pound of cheese the waiter/ress or shop assistant will reply in English, keen to get a chance to practice their language skills. I usually manage to do my daily errands in Dutch. Last week I even arranged to visit a stranger in a neighbouring town to buy a piece of second hand electrical kit from them – all through Dutch language e-mails and phone calls. I was quite proud. Basic information I can process and communicate, but I don’t get subtleties, not can I convey them and that is where the steep learning curve begins. (When it comes to really important stuff like contracts and insurance documents I get a native speaker to check them for me – and they say - perhaps to make me feel better- that many Dutch people would have trouble reading the terminology).

So it’s the middle ground that gets me. Ninety per cent of my Dutch associates speak far better English than I do. So it is natural that we talk in English. The biggest difficulties emerge in group situations. There always comes a point (at a ratio of about 3 or 4 to 1) when the conversation drifts back to Dutch. Though I can often follow what is going I am usually about two sentences behind, have missed a few details or lack the conversational gambits to participate in the conversation. This reinforces my natural shyness and makes me feel stupid or inadequate. It’s always a dilemma whether to smile and occasionally add a non-committal comment like ‘lekker’ or ‘echte’ or ‘geweldig’ or to try to gently push the conversation back to English. If I do that I feel I am not respecting the language of my host country and am ‘perpetuating the hegemony of the Anglo-Saxon speaking world’. But as the evening wears on I become more distanced from the drift of the conversation. Sometimes I avoid going to primarily Dutch language social gatherings–because I know there is going to come a point in the evening where my eyes glaze over and my brain goes dead. So it’s important to learn Dutch to participate more here, though it worries me that I will never master the language.

More thoughts to follow on this topic– but it’s now 16.50 and my microwave meal beckons. (The thoughts of others in a similar situation are most welcome)

Typical Dutch

A colleague of mine in the editing and translating field wrote this
very perceptive article about Dutch ways. Highly recommended -it's part of a series of anecdotal views of the strange habits of the Dutch as seen by oustiders.

Mathew and Son

Out the door at seven am yesterday - riding the bus in the dark to the train station - everyone with button-downed coats and hats, huddled into themselves. Then when it does get 'light' around Utrecht it is still only a steel grey sky that leaks rain over the rooftops. Didn't get back home at 8.30 or so. So glad I don't have to do that commute every day (I have some friends / associates who do it four times a week) it wouldn't leave much time for anything else.

Still it was good day - informative presentations - a chance to meet old colleagues and new clients and to make new contacts. Equally to enjoy the splendour of the Peace Palace (link available in last blog). Two of our afternoon sessions were scheduled in magnificent rooms in the old building, lending an air of gravitas to the occasion.

Autumn colours

It has been a long and colourful autumn, the trees seemed to keep their colours for months. I noticed that some trees (mostly beech) lose their leaves in stages - losing all the leaves from their outer branches first - but often retaining the lower ones, closer to the heart of the plant, till later - often even through the winter. On Friday I did a farm visit and saw a stand of trees -which I couldn't identify - with a totally different shedding pattern. They were completely bereft of leaves except one remaining vestigial leave at the end of each branch. They were little flags - refusing to surrender.

One of the last trees to lose their leaves were the Ginkos in the car park next to my flat. When all the other trees had lost their colour they continued to glow a golden colour, just a few feet outside my window.



Now winter is starting to show its hand. This evening I set out to drive to Nijmegen to see a friend. The rain and wind were unbelievable - I couldn't see fifty feet ahead of me. Mindful of the extreme weather conditions in the UK in the last few days I decided to turn back. I just didn't want to be on a motorway in weather like that.

Inburgering

Today I met a former Pakistani colleague from a basic (and man was it basic) Dutch language training course - from some 4-5 years ago. He was a PhD student then but was sufficiently gifted to get a 4 year post-grad appointment here. He was walking with his wife and kid along the street, and I made a conscious 'faux-pas' (in terms of Islamic etiquette). I shook his hand - and then hers. And I could see he was quite pissed off with me - especially as he knows that I have visited Pakistan and have some familiarity with Islamic etiquette. I figured - well hey you've been here for six years now - time to accept some western customs - women are people not chattels.

And within this brief encounter lies a dilemma for all ex-pats- to what extent should you maintain your own cultural identity and norms and to what extent should you adapt? I know that if I were to leave the NL (either to return to the UK or to move on) there would be many positive things about Dutch culture that I would miss (one example being the respect given to cyclists). Yet equally there are many things about this country that I still find annoying after six years or so - and in fact as time goes on they become more annoying- (like their small beer glasses and belief that half the glass should consist of foam).

As an ex-pat one has to strike a delicate balance between maintaining a sense of your own cultural identity (nobody loves a chameleon) and to blend into another culture. It's often not an easy balance to strike.

Days in the life

I recently joined one of the local Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) Schemes, de Nieuwe Ronde. You pay an annual subscription (175E or so per adult) and can harvest whatever you want of the in-season vegetables, fruits and herbs that they have available. I volunteered here one afternoon a week over the first two summers that I was in Wageningen- so this feels like a bit of a homecoming. This year I will probably only help occasionally - but it will be healthy to get out of town and into the garden once a week or so and get back in tune with what is seasonally available.

In the first weeks of May there was only asparagus, spinach and rhubarb - but over the coming weeks more delights will come on stream. Harvesting requires a little more organisation than picking bags from the shelves at the supermarket. You need at least two carrier bags; one for the leafy crops, another for the root crops (if you mix the two you spend ages washing the soil off the leafy crops) and some plastic boxes if you want to harvest berries. A sharp knife helps gets a good clean cut on leaf crops. I also like to take my camera and record the changing seasons. This week was a school holiday so there was an informal scarecrow making workshop too.

It's good to rekindle a feel for where one's food comes from, to pull potatoes out of the ground, pick strawberries and wait for the first leeks. It ties me back into a sense of seasonality and reverence for nature, providing a welcome contrast to living a life mediated by portals and browsers. More photos and maybe some seasonal recipes to follow in the coming months.





Wednesday nights is open platform at one of the bars in the ground floor of the student flats. The talent (musical) there is usually of a very high class, the clientele (and performers) very international and English is the language of choice (which makes for a much more relaxing evening out). These Filipino guys (below) play almost note perfect version of Beatles' ballads. And when the evenings over the drummer doesn't need a van (or to be sober) to get his kit home- he just loads into a bakfiets (a sort of delivery trike) and cycles home

Laying low

My two weeks stay in England wore me out. I have just taken it easy all christmas seeing or talking to the occasional friend, eating well (no turkey though), taking short walks and watching christmas comedy shows on the box. For four days I have ignored the mound of admin work that didn't get finished before christmas (largely because I lunched out christmas eve and decided to go buy and decorate a christmas tree to dispel the dark evenings). Today I had to go to my office to print some route maps off, so take the opportunity to do a few urgent letters and e mails before taking off to Rotterdam for a couple of days, where I have a programme of music, galleries and saunas set up for me, a good way to celebrate the start of a new decade.

Reading and writing

In recent months I've been acquainting myself with a few Dutch authors (in translation of course). Trying to get a feel for this culture by reading some of its literary output. A few months ago I read Cees Nooteboom's "In the Dutch Mountains" - a multi layered but short novel which had good sections but others where I found I was wanting to skip across paragraphs- never a good sign. More recently I asked a shop assistant to recommend a good Dutch author and went home with W.F. Hermans' "Beyond Sleep": a tale of a Dutch Geology PhD student pushing himself to the utmost to complete some implausible research above the artic circle (hence the title). It is considered an iconic book and was well written, but didn't push my buttons, although he really did a good job of catching the discomfort - physical and psychological - of a young Dutchman confronting the wilderness of the tundra. (My favourite novel based around being a PhD student is Patricia Dunker's "Hallucinating Foucault". It's become a cult gay book -but it's focus on reading and passion have a universal appeal). The most recent Dutch novel was "In Babylon" - not so much a Dutch novel as a Jewish one - but one largely set in the Netherlands and written by a Dutchman. Based on series of flashbacks and dreams it follows the trials, triumphs and tragedies of a Jewish family tracing the family tree back to wandering clock repairers in C17th Eastern Europe through to their ancestors who worked on Project Manhattan and become men of letters and new-age gurus in the late C20th. A hugely ambitious book, with large elements of magical realism, it only occasionally falls short of its ambitions and held me entranced thoughout most of it. The best of the batch so far. Does anyone have any more recomendations?

Double Dutch

Pushing on with my Dutch lessons - sometimes having French as my second language is a hindrance (I tend to adopt the French pronounciation of words in preference to the Dutch). But, sometimes it is an advantage. So it is with the two verbs kennen and weten - both mean to know - but in different contexts, and this largely follows the same pattern as savoir and connaitre in French. And having understood that principle some time ago it is easy to transpose it. Its difficult to pick up why a different language uses two words when yours only uses one.

This week's Dutch lesson was an interactive one. I had a lot of meetings and obligations yesterday so suggested to my Dutch teacher that we locate this week's lesson at the tennis club where I was due to do my twice annual voluntary bar service at lunchtime. I assumed it would be quiet there, serving a few coffees and lemonades - but in fact there was a children's tournament and I had to learn how to operate the chip fryer, the tosti maker and master the fine art of preparing croquettes - all this under the unforgiving gaze of my Dutch teacher who was able to recognize all of my weakest spots in Dutch (like speaking, comprehension and writing - reading I can almost manage if I put my mind to it and keep a dictionary close to hand). It felt like my worst idea of an exam. Still by the end I knew most of the words for the essential items and activities round a bar and have my homework for the week- practising pronouncing words with combinations of g and k in them. Apparently I am verbally dyslexic when it comes to distinguishing between the two sounds. So if you come across someone sitting on park bench with a dictionary and sounding like he has an advanced throat disease come over and say hi to the textual healer.

I hear words I never heard in the Bible

Today was a busy day- made busier by getting a call at lunchtime from an ex-colleague, friend and client who wanted a job application letter checking over before the end of the afternoon. Normally I don't do (or get asked to do) rush jobs - but sometimes one should make an exception.
Twice in the afternoon I was interrupted by sales agents from KPN - telling me about all the wonderful discounts they would offer me if I signed up a contract until the end of December 2009 (only they didn't mention this bit until having asked me if I thought it was a good deal!). Twice in the same afternoon!! The first time I asked if they would take me off of their direct calls sales list - as I am tired of them pestering me with special offers on an almost monthly basis. (The only worse ones are people cold calling to ask if I have made plans for my funeral. What would they do if they called someone contemplating suicide? Are they trained in counselling?)On the second call from KPN I lost it (to my shame) shouted down the phone (in a combination of Dutch and English ) that I will change my telecoms company if they don't get off my case and that they can send details of any special offers in writing so I can read them and think about them.
I try to make a point of being polite to cold callers - I know they are either college students working their way through college or less qualified workers who resent their jobs and work under strict time and motion control procedures. But today was too much. Does anyone know how to get off their calling lists? In the UK there is a "Mailing Preference List" (which also applies to cold calls). "Mailing Preference List." Isn't that wonderful example of how the English obfuscate? I guess they couldn't have sold it as a voluntary code of behaviour to the industry if they called it the Junk Mail and Unwanted Sales Calls List. I only know about because my father regularly complained to me about getting unwanted calls and a bag full of junk mail every month. (It took him months to find something new to complain about after that). Does anything like that exist here?
Despite these interruptions I made good progress today - got my head around three
important Dutch verbs / construction forms in my Dutch lesson - got my friend's covering letter looking ship shape and worked out a protocol for dealing wth a particularly problematic mixture of English and French acronyms - used inconsistently thoughout a document. I've had my English, Dutch and French dictionaries spread acroos my desk already this week and feel like a real language worker!

It's like a ghost town here - 60% of the inhabitants must be away. Still it makes it a good time to get appointments for the dentist / optician/ hairdresser go to the bike repair shop etc. Also the perfect weather to go dipping in the Rhine.

Guilt complex

Two letters were waiting for me in the postbox today - both from the Ministry of Justice. I immediately noticed a dry sensation at the back of my throat, higher pulse rate and a sheen of sweat of my palms. Not that I have anything to feel guilty about. It's just a lifetime's habit. But who knows maybe there is a pile of unreceived and unpaid speeding tickets that didn't catch up with all my changes of address (though if you saw the car I drive you would realise how unlikely that was). Turns that they both concerned my application for a permanent resident's identity card. Both were positive too. And i am impresssed by their efficiency: I only posted the application on Monday.

In one sense I am pleased: it symbolically represents a putting down of roots. In another sense I am reminded of the Marx Brothers joke about not wanting to join any club that would have them as a member.

Special offers

I notice that there are a lot of special offers on crates of beer in Dutch supermarkets this week. I suspect that they and the breweries went into over purchase / production mode last week in their enthusiasm to meet demand for another (rare) ocurrence of Dutch binge drinking. I also noticed this week that the students are looking remarkably shaky on their bikes in the morning. But this is the end of the academic year so perhaps that's not so unusual.

I recently discovered that a new Lidl store has opened close to Wageningen. Normally I avoid discounters, but Lidl also do quality, especially their beer and bread. They are a German chain and these are two of the things Germans do best. I hesitate about buying their meat because I suspect it is hugely factory farmed. One of the more tempting product lines that they offer is musky squid. How can any red-blooded fella turn his nose up at that? It was good with sweetcorn, peppers and pasta. But - last night I didn't wash the dishes before I went to bed and this morning I had a 9.00 appointment and I came home this evening to find my kitchen smelling like a whorehouse after a "buy one, get one free" offer.

Other good things at Lidl? Well they had goose breast- which is really rare to see in the NL - and perhaps I should have laid in one or two for my next seduction dinner (whenever that may occur) although I didn't because the possibilities at the moment seem quite limited. And their Valdepenas (at about 3 Euro a bottle) is very drinkable.

My god, I have just done a blog about shopping. Next week I'll be comparing Gucci with Versace (not). BTW. If you want to offend a Dutchman this week offer to buy him a (triple)vodka.

A free lunch ?

Today I get invited out for dinner- at the local HORECA1 training centre. At the end of the school year they examine their students' English language hosting / hostessing skills and invite native English speakers for a free (4-course) meal to assess this. Use of the term hostess awakens my fevered mind to a range of probably unjustified expectations, which I should suppress forthwith, but wil probably continue to entertain throughout the rest of the week. Even though it is unlikely that they will be fulfilled I still couldn't turn the opportunity of a free dinner (even it was pointed out that any drinks will be "own cost").

1. HORECA is a pecularly and very useful Dutch acronym that covers (most aspects of) the hospitality trade. It's derived from Hotels, Restaurants and Catering. Its one of the litle Dutch phrases that have crept into my vocabulary and is actually one of the most useful - though no native English speakers know what I am talking about on the rare occasion that I do use it.

De toekomst is oranje?

For those not familiar with Dutch the title translates as "the future is Orange?"

Last week a friend of mine asked what plans the Dutch have to protect themselves against climate change induced sea level rises. Given that a substantial proportion of the country lies below sea level this is a key question. Given that the NL is Europe's largest emitter of CO2 gases (read intensive pig and cow production) it is even more pertinent. The question was sparked by said friend having recently spent a week on a beach in the South of England which will - under a projection of a one metre sea level rise - either not exist any more or at least will be an island. Owners of properties here obviously have cause for concern.

So I went to visit flood.firetree.net which projects the impacts of sea level rises on the area in which you live (or vacation, or have another interest in). I took the lowest level sea rise (1m) and applied it to the Netherlands. Basically one third of the country will disappear. Zeeland and Flevoland (the polders so painstakingly created in the first half of the C20th) will almost completely disappear. Much of N & S Holland (containing the NL's three largest cities) will also be afloat. A large part of the northern Provinces of Friesland and Groningen will also be lost, as will the ports of Zeebruge and Calais and most of the northern Belgian coastline. Closer to home it will take a 7m rise (worst-case scenario?) for the ironically named local Zeezicht Eethuis to acquire a sea view.

So I did a bit of searching around the web site of the Dutch Ministry of spatial planning and found the usual official-talk - with no commitment to actually spending any money on ensuring that 50% of the Dutch population will be safe from a fairly minimal increase in sea levels. I spoke to someone who lives below sea level. He said the government won't take any measures that involve additional expenditure - and I recalled listening to a recent BBC world service programme earlier this year that talked about how one of lowest municipalities in the NL (8m bsl) was planning to build an extra (if I remember rightly) 40,000 houses and several industrial parks.

So it makes me wonder why the NL, with its huge planning culture, high taxation rates and supposed role as global ambassador for sustainability is putting its head in the sand over these issues and how on earth countries like Bangladesh or the Maldives are expected to cope? Probably the Dutch can deal with a 1 m rise in sea levels. But if it is any more the question arises as to whether people want to live below several metre high concrete sea defenses.

In the meantime of course life goes on. The Dutch football team have seen off Europe's supposedly finest two teams - each by a margin of three goals. Now every supermarket is full of products trying to cash in on this success: having orange stickers on their products saying hup hup Holland. This sucks. These parasitical companies are trying to shift product, whether chicken drum sticks, popcorn or whatever on the basis of something that has nothing to do with them. The future's bright, the future's orange. We'll cash in on anything we can. If France and Italy stalemate each other on Tuesday night and Romania don't ship too many goals against the Orangemen then its goodbye (and good riddance) to the two highest ranked teams in Europe. But hey what the.....

I had what Dutch people call a gymnasium (grammer school) education. We learned the classics. It was obligatory (I preferred Ian Dury- he's probably on the curriculum of some progressive schools nowadays). One story that springs to mind is Nero playing his violin while Rome burned. Another Roman leader famously commently that the populace would be happy as long as they had bread and circuses. Plus ca change...Will the NL be EK champions in 2008? If they play as well as in the last two games then I hope so. I'll shout for you. But if your three biggest cities might be under water in 2028? Go figure your priorities!