Sustainable transport

A few days ago I went to visit a centre for NGOs and non-profits to look at getting some deskspace on a flexible basis. It looks like a good place to network and keep in touch with development / environmental activities in a new city. Downstairs they had an exhibition of cartoons from an African artist. Many of them were about corruption and election rigging but I particularly liked this one.

For non-French speakers the caption reads 'our transport system is ecological and creates employment for women' . Just shows you have to be careful when formulating development policies - its not just a case of ticking a few boxes.

You'll need an adapter for that, sir

Do you live in one of the houses that don’t have electricity sockets to run the essentials of life – so you have snakes of five-way adaptors everywhere?  My laptop is getting like that – all the USB ports are occupied –mouse – printer – dondle- which means I have to unplug one of those to plug in a camera or a memory stick or my external hard drive.  And this model is only six months old!  I need the equivalent of a five way electrical extension to be running at full speed and not be unplugging and plugging in various bits of hardware….

I am proud that I got my dondle up and running last month – and even overcame the problem of resetting my SMTP (allowing me to send mail through my e mail handler rather through a web based facility).  While the later works OK it is less than optimal.  No spell check, only basic text formats (no highlights or italics etc., available) and slow upload and download procedures.  All these are quite important for an editor! So while using a web based e mail application can be OK if you are away for a few days it was good to get the e mail package fully functioning.

The great and really surprising thing about my dondle is it actually costing me less to use than a fixed internet line.  I get 20GB via a SIM for 10 Euro.  As long as I don’t stream movies or video clips this is substantially less than I would pay for a fixed internet cable.  I charged it almost three weeks go and it is still going strong – far less than the 30-35 E per month going rate charged by fixed line internet suppliers.  True it takes a minute or two to identify the device and connect and it sometimes has bad days when the connection breaks – but in general it seems like a rather good deal.  

I read the news today oh boy.

From the Guardian:
One Australian Mayor sparked outrage in his town this week when he highlighted the shortage of women in his remote town in north Queensland (population 25,000) in an interview in his local newspaper. "May I suggest if there are five blokes to every girl, we should find out where there are beauty-disadvantaged women and ask them to proceed to Mount Isa," he said.
The mayor added that women who already live in Mount Isa seemed happy with their lot. "Quite often you will see walking down the street a lass who is not so attractive with a wide smile on her face," he continued. "Whether it is recollection of something previous or anticipation for the next evening, there is a degree of happiness."

Also in the Guardian today. Which player do you think is being described in this Manchester United fanzine? a "preening, perma-tanned, posturing, petulant prick" -
Clue 1 his nationality also begins with a P.
Clue 2 he is a Man U player (however reluctantly)

Here's a great quote I came across this week in a old copy of the New Yorker, from an expatriate very much after my own heart (David Seadris) " When New York banned smoking in the workplace I quit working. When it was banned in the restaurants I stopped eating out and when the price of cigarettes hit seven dollars a pack I gathered all my stuff together and moved to France. I guess I'll see you in China in about ten years time, David after the health fascists have completely taken over the western hemisphere.

Coincidence?

I have just noted that two of the people whose blogs I link to have both gone to Berlin for the weekend. Is this an ex-pat bloggers munch? Why wasn't I invited?
But hey why don't we organise one?

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.

Waiting for the summer

This weekend I achieved the long planned goal of covering the cold concrete floor of my balcony with wooden decking. Quite a simple task you might think - except my balcony is triangular and the pallets come in squares! I worked out some time ago that if I bought half metre squares (as opposed to metre ones) this would reduce any inaccuracies in cutting the hypotenuse. This weekend I put that theory to the test and, with the little knowledge about laying floors that I had gained from helping Herman lay the laminate in my flat, came up with a very passable and well aligned new wooden floor.

It is now pleasant to walk barefoot on the balcony (humming the Girl from Ipanema). In addition being three cm higher I can now reach the clothes line without having to stand on tip toe (and risk having my sarong part company from my waist). I also bought two potting tables, one for plants and one for dinner and drinks, and three more (non-plastic, they are so hard to find) balcony boxes so I can maximise the amount of nature that I can cram into the limited amount of space that the Dutch housing market allows me ( I think I spent so long living in squats in baronial parts of London and farmhouses in abandoned parts of the French countryside that I developed optimistic expectations about what my minimum housing requirements are and what they would cost). Next week I will plant the rest of the herbs that I want in order to keep a fresh supply of those that I use the most. I will fill the gaps with geraniums because they flower the longest and brightest and are the best value balcony plant I know. This year - for the first time ever - I have managed to get Coriander seeds to germinate and grow beyond the the four leaf stage (hurray- I must spend 40 Euro a year on bunches of Coriander - now I hope I have a six month supply in situ).

Needed a quiet weekend at home - to reground a bit - I have spent some of all of the last four weekends away in London. Not grumbling about that - much was necessary, and some enjoyable. But it was also unsettling - took me out of a routine (not that I have ever been a big fan of routines)

I am going to plan the rest of the summer around eating drinking and reading on my balcony between 6-8pm when it has the full sunlight. Tonight I sat there and wrote a short essay in Dutch. Yes! I have finally taken the plunge and found and hired a private Dutch teacher for two hours a week. And I get home work - this first assignment to assess my level of written Dutch - which is probably my weakest area.

Time to go now; Germany is playing Poland- this is not just a football match but an expression of 800 years + of colonial rivalry

The future's bright ..the future's orange

Those (Brits) among you wondering which (if any) team to support in EK 2008 the 2008 European Championship might enjoy reading this piece about why we should be rooting for the Dutch.

Everyone's gone to the movies

I went to try to see a movie last night - Manufactured Landscapes - a worthy and serious documentary on the impact of manufacturing on society and the environment in China and other countries. I thought it would be a kind of "seven people and a dog" audience - but would you believe it was sold out......They turned 20 or so people away (me included). That's Wageningen for you - full of people who want to save the world - maybe that's why I feel at home here. At least it is showing again at the weekend.

Google yourself

The other day a friend told me about how he found it spooky that a woman whom he had an (obviously mutual) interest in had googled him and could start asking him questions about his hobbies etc. I said that it's not that unusual - its happened to me before. Not long after, in a bout of curiosity, I started googling myself to see what I (or anyone else) could find out about me with a simple and universally available search engine.

I found nothing terribly embarrassing but did find out that I have two namesakes whose lives have almost touched upon mine in ways which that are, well, spooky- given how uncommon my family name is. I was vaguely aware of the existence of them both but have never (yet) met either. Perhaps I should do a Dave Gorman and try to meet them one day and find out how many other NPs there are in the world.

One NP lived in Aberystwyth at the same time as me, where his father was a professor (of music?). I kept on getting asked if I was related to the family. But - get this - we both worked for the same newspaper at the same time. I use the word "worked" loosely (in my case at least) as I used to write movie and concert reviews for free tickets. It wasn't the best of deals but as a postdoc student you take all the freebies you can get. My namesake also worked for the paper - providing reports of local football matches. I don't know if he worked on a similar basis of self-exploitation as me or not but he was clearly more successful in developing his journalistic career as he now works as a reporter for the BBC. I think the most I got from my movie critic career was getting to rub shoulders with Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty (and drink excessive quantities of the crate of black label vodka that they bought with them) when they premiered their movie about burning a million pounds. At least I can honestly say that copious ammounts of free booze and being slightly star struck by meeting two of my favourite rock stars did not in any way influence my opinion of the film. A few of my movie reviews can still be found in the archives of the Internet Movie Database - the first things probably that I ever posted on the web.

The second NP whose life has almost crossed mine happens is a Labour Party activist who stood for parliament in the town where my father lives and where I grew up. (That should be useful if I ever need to pull a few strings back there- "Do you know who I am?" No, on second thoughts Labour have got as much chance of winning Kingston and Surbiton as David Cameron has of being next Prime Minister - I hope I never get to eat those words). Apparently he even went to the same school as me. Not only does he operate in the same town as where my roots lie but his political career resembles an earlier incarnation of me when I was politically active with the Green Party.

I am just wondering if there is some process of transsubstantion (or androidisation) going on here - with different variants of NP- all built around a similar set of values and skills being replicated somewhere for some as yet unrevealed purpose.

World you have been warned.

Follow that car!

Early Friday morning I leave my car in the station car park - right next to one of the same colour and same model. Sunday evening I return in the car of some people who don't know the neighbourhood and went out of their way to take me back to my car. The matching car is still next to mine. "Follow me I'll show you back to the motorway and save you getting lost in the suburbs." But while they are turning their car around the owner of the matching car returns and starts up her engine. We notice each other at the exit by the lights - we wave to each other like members of the same club (in this case the club of car owners who put economy above status or comfort). Only when the lights turn green do I notice that my lift is sat behind her car, in the wrong lane and about to get lost in the backroads of Bennekom. With some frantic tooting of my horn they realise their mistake before sailing off in the wrong direction. What's the odds of that happening? And will I ever see the pretty blonde in the matching car again?

Its not easy being Green

Today's story in the Guardian about recycling in Flanders reminded me how much I have come to take recycling for granted since I have moved to the Netherlands. In Britain I was considered a bit of a freak for recycling as much as I could. Here it is normal. Bottle and clothes banks, paper collections and separate bins for compostables can be found in every neighbourhood and the vast majority of the population are conscientious about using them.
One of the less pleasant aspects of doing this is having to clean out one's compost bucket on a regular basis. It is not a job to do an empty stomach! I recently thought I had found a way out of this task when I discovered biodegradable bin liners. However experience over past weeks has made me doubt whether they are 'fit for purpose'. The last two times I have gone to empty my little compost bin I have found that the bags had already started biodegrading and when I go to pull them out they leave the same stinking sticky mess in the bottom of the bin as before. But at least they don't spontaneously decompose when being carried down the hall. So now I am wondering whether is some a 'light green' alternative - bags that do not decompose until at least a week after their contact with liquid / sunlight or whatever is the vector for early decomposition. Any recomndations ?

Morning call

There is a blue tit in my neighbourhood who has sussed my balcony makes a great echo chamber. Some mornings he comes and sits on the ledge and sings his heart out - knowing that he is sitting in a natural amplifier and that his song will travel two to three times further than the competition's. He sits there looking so cocky because of this. I can just see him from the corner of my bed. What a fine way to be woken in the morning.