When I come across a group of tourists, nine out of ten times I can guess their country of origin. It may be that you simply recognise the language, the number of cameras is suspiciously large or in any case they look very Japanese. But even with European tourists you can spot their roots miles away.
The past week brought nothing but misery; still, there was marvellous news from the Middle East. Apparently some 2000-year-old codices have been discovered in a Jordanian cave. The texts are supposed to mention the Messiah and the Resurrection. Most scholars are cautious; before you know it, your reputation is in shreds.
My Japanese earthquake was called Kimiko and happened 25 years ago. All of a sudden, dressed in a kimono, she appeared on my parents’ doorstep.
I have never won a prize, not even a literary prize. This week I caught myself in the act of practising a Colin Firth in front of a mirror. ‘I am the bald Colin Firth,’ I said and moved my voice down a register. ‘This is my acceptance speech.’ Luckily I didn’t have an audience.
We welcome an award winning & bestselling Dutch author
A new story by bestselling Dutch author Herman Koch in English and Dutch
‘There are two kinds of writers,’ the author had replied. ‘One attempts a new approach with each book. The other keeps rewriting the same novel.’
Things expressed in English sound more dramatic than in Dutch. This is caused by the greater use of intonation and word stress within a typical English sentence compared to the Dutch. When speaking English the Dutch feel they are overdoing it, as if they are taking part in a play.
This week the film Howl is released in the UK. Howl is named after a poem by Allen Ginsberg. This is how the poem begins:
I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by
madness, starving hysterical naked,
If humans have something in common with chickens it must be having a pecking order. Hierarchy is absolute among chickens. Number one eats first. Put hens too close together and they will peck each other to death. That is why battery hens’ beaks are trimmed.
Aziz Khan follows a day in the life of an Afghani migrant in Calais – First prize in the Living under Fire short story competition
It has been a bad week for the Society of Dictators. In particular the Middle Eastern section has been under fire. I am glued to the box. I want to get every detail. So I wondered: Is Dr. Zahi Hawass a minor Mubarak?
During his State of the Union address, President Obama referred to a Sputnik moment. It took me back to Destination Moon, one of the adventures of Tintin. This was my only comic strip. I didn’t really like strip books. Yet Destination Moon appealed to my imagination.
This week I nearly attended a meeting. Luckily I spotted in time that I should have registered in advance. So I didn’t have to go! After reading the attachment, it transpired it wasn’t even a proper meeting. In fact it turned out to be an ‘inspirational get together’ to reflect upon ‘providing a cultural offering to people in care’.
Dutch writers and readers celebrate Gedichtendag (National Poetry Day) on Thursday 27 January 2011.
The mayor of Moerdijk, a Dutch council, announced that he will resign this summer after 2.5 years in the job, even though he had been appointed for a six year period. Continuing to work past his 65th birthday apparently would reduce his monthly pension by 1000 euros. He had only just made this announcement when a large local chemical factory burned down to the ground. You could conclude: it is time to pay.
On Friday I read an article about England winning The Ashes. It was the first win in Australia in 24 years. England secured victory with ‘an innings and 83 runs’. Since 1882, the Ashes is a test cricket series that takes place between England and Australia. Actually this is one of the big differences between England and The Netherlands: the importance of cricket.
I spent Christmas in Flemish Bruges. I had plenty of time to think back to events in 2010. This is the question that hasn’t been asked: why would a beautiful, intelligent young woman aspire to be a Bavaria babe?
I am always exactly on time. We used to call this ‘military punctuality’. After all, I have served in the army. ‘Synchronise watches’ before a major operation has been drummed into me; in civilian life, being on time means being too early. No one expects you to be on time. The exception is the zeitgeist; you have to be in tune. For this, I hesitate to admit, I am usually too late or too early.
You have probably heard that Edinburgh recently experienced some very extreme winter weather. At one point they had to close the Edinburgh to Glasgow motorway and later on I found out that a sausages shortage had begun to loom large. Yet my publisher and I arrived in the Scottish capital by a straightforward train journey. The next day I was due to perform at The National Galleries.
The American Santa Claus lives on the North Pole and it is often assumed that the British Father Christmas lives in Korvatunturi, Lapland. His Finnish name is Joulupukki. There is also a Mrs Claus and an indeterminable number of elves. He owns eight or nine flying reindeers. Yet Santa Claus, as well as Father Christmas, is of Dutch descent.
Your chance to get your short story published. The competition ended on 31 December 2010.
Over the past months there has been another widespread slaughter of turkeys in the United States but President Obama has pardoned two turkeys for Thanksgiving. This is an American tradition started by George H.W. Bush; rather depressing when, for example, you are on death row but great for the two turkeys.
Elton John was christened Reginald Kenneth Dwight but changed his name to Elton Hercules John. A short, overweight man who chooses the name ‘Hercules’, I find this touching. I consider going by the name of Arnold ‘Hercules’ Jansen op de Haar from now on.
I wore them yes combat boots
you didn’t know you said
what do you know
forget the rhyme and reason
of your suspicious thoughts
think when you see combat boots
of me of me alone
Last Thursday I travelled by train from London back to The Netherlands. The advantage of travelling alone is that you can’t help but overhear conversations. On the Eurostar a man was talking into his phone. He was in high spirits. ‘We are on Channel 4 this evening,’ he said, ‘unfortunately I can’t be there.’ Afterwards he made another call. ‘I don’t think we should use the word nuclear tonight…’ He stopped, looked at me and left the carriage.
Young women can now freeze their ovaries so that they can be used by the time they are around forty, according to Dr Sherman Silber from the fertility clinic in St Louis, Missouri. ‘Trick or treat?’ as children would say when travelling from house to house at Halloween.
Last week, Nick Robinson, BBC’s political editor, was a hit on YouTube. After he finished his report in front of the TV camera, he turned around. For some time, a demonstrator with a banner saying: ‘Cut the war, not the poor’ had stood behind him.
It was during the summer of 1980, just a month before I turned eighteen. I still had a full head of hair. My parents had arranged the ferry for me and my elder sisters, and had booked an expensive hotel in Canterbury. For the first time they spent their holiday at home. They did ask us to phone every day. Three years later my eldest sister would emigrate to England.
It has been an exciting week. My attention was drawn to this headline: ‘Forbidden sex in the interest of national security’. ‘How can I apply?’ I muttered. It transpired to be an utterance by Rabbi Ari Schvat. In his opinion, it is perfectly fine for attractive female secret agents to lure the enemy into providing information for the greater good of Israel. However, the Rabbi insists that they should be single.
The Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam has acquired Volkert van der Graaf’s pistol. It is likely to be added to the exhibition in 2013. I have to explain this a bit for our overseas readers. In 2002 Volkert van der Graaf shot Pim Fortuyn, the Dutch politician who was well on his way to win the general election. I wasn’t a fan of Fortuyn, actually I disagreed with almost everything he said. However it is revolting to put Volkert van der Graaf, an animal activist who wanted to justify his cause by murdering someone, on a pedestal in the museum that houses Rembrandt’s Night Watch.
There are many Anglophiles and Francophiles in The Netherlands, people who adore respectively England and France. There are also quite a few America Experts, a wide-ranging concept in my opinion. Does it mean that you are an authority on McDonald’s activities, know the ins and outs of Wall Street or are deeply into the work of F. Scott Fitzgerald? Yet, the America Expert does exist. However Belgium Experts are thin on the ground, quite apart from the fact that I have never come across a Belgophile.
Venetia Ghozlan is the runner-up in the Frederik van Eeden Poetry Competition
Each year when it turns autumnal, purple flags with Pegasus, the winged horse, on them are flown from houses, balconies and flag posts all over Oosterbeek and Arnhem. Pegasus is the official emblem of the First Airborne Division. On 17th September 1944 this division was dropped in and around Oosterbeek as part of Operation Market Garden to capture the bridge across the Rhine at Arnhem. I don’t believe there is another defeat of the British army anywhere in the world that is still remembered to such an extent.
Dancing in public requires a bit of courage. It can be quite an amusing spectacle. Remember, for example, political correspondent John Sergeant on Strictly Come Dancing when it looked as if he lugged a sack of potatoes across the dance floor. Unfortunately it was his dance partner. This week it was announced that politician and writer Anne Widdecombe will take part in the new series. I am curious to see how she gets to grips with the ‘sack of potatoes’.
This is the question I pondered upon this week. Tony Blair mentioned in his autobiography that when he was Prime Minister he drank a stiff whisky or a gin & tonic before dinner. Followed by a few glasses of wine at dinner, or maybe half a bottle, Tony admitted. ‘So not excessively excessive’, he concluded. I think it must have been just that little bit more. It makes Tony human.
I have done it all, a stay in a villa in the Dordogne, in luxurious hotels in Barcelona, Paris and Madrid, or in a palazzo in Florence. This makes little impression these days. However, when you announce that you have been camping in Luxemburg, people look at you as if you have been visiting the North Pole in your swimming trunks.
It must have been about fifteen years ago Рit was a year after I left the army to make writing my full time vocation Рwhen I decided to relocate for two weeks to a small cottage in Fontenoy-le-Ch̢teau in the French Vosges.
Winston Churchill considered it prudent not to disclose an alleged UFO sighting because it would create a panic … bookmakers immediately increased the odds by 20 percent for David Cameron or Barack Obama to acknowledge the existence of extraterrestrials…
When I was young I could beat the fastest woman in Europe. If I had competed this week in the European Athletic Championships in Barcelona my old personal bests would have been fast enough to reach the 100, 200 and maybe even 400 meter finals, with a real chance of winning a gold medal. Well, in the women’s races. Unfortunately I am a man.
One day on your way to work you think: well, why not, I will call my boss dad (or mum when the boss is a woman). It is hard to take such an idea seriously. Yet calling your boss mum or dad is the biggest slip-up you can make in the workplace, according to British research which contacted 3000 employees. So it does seem to happen.
This week Zsa Zsa Gábor (aged 93) fell out of her bed and as a result has broken a number of bones. The picture of this marvel of plastic surgery holding a poodle is implanted on my mind. Actually, it belongs to the memories of my youth; I didn’t know she was still alive.
Queen Victoria produced beautiful drawings of her children. She didn’t advertise this, she didn’t organise any exhibitions of her work, but what she did do was encourage the arts. She and Albert commissioned many artists. There are, however, quite a few modern day Royal Highnesses who think that they are artists, architects, writers or bankers.
‘I use middle class as an insult’, wrote Cath Elliott on The Guardian website last week. I do employ this insult myself from time to time, but for totally different reasons than Cath Elliott’s use of the term. She positions herself as a feminist and trade union activist.
Anky van Grunsven, Dutch dressage rider and triple gold medallist at the Olympic Games, needs to wear one of her old hats to win a competition. She has tried competing when wearing a brand new hat but the results were dismal. According to scientific research three quarters of all people taking part in sport at top level are superstitious, and especially among footballers this affliction reigns supreme. For example, during his time at Manchester United David Beckham wouldn’t dare to play without wearing the same underpants.
He is a young man with a hairdo that cannot get ruffled. The same is true for my own hair but this would lead to a totally different story. Last Thursday the BBC broadcasted the first episode of Gareth Goes to Glyndebourne. In this programme Gareth Malone converts children who have only a very vague idea about what opera entails – ‘singing fat ladies’ – into a choir that will take part in the opera Knight Crew. This makes me go weak at the knees.
This week the Advertising Standards Authority revealed that an ad displayed on buses proclaiming the existence of God drew more complaints than any other advert. Asserting one’s belief in God antagonises people in the Western World to the same extent as the Islamic World reacts to secularism.
It could well be that you have heard of The Bullingdon Club, a secretive dinner club in Oxford University. In the eighties it counted David Cameron, George Osborne and Boris Johnson among its membership. Another high profile member was David Dimbleby, of course he joined them half a lifetime earlier, but even so The Bullingdon Club is firmly established into the centre of power.
‘The Queen nearly moved to London again.’
‘She stays quite often in London anyway.’
‘But I am talking about the Dutch Queen and what happened during the Remembrance of the War Dead.’
I wasn’t familiar with Peppa Pig but it seems that this little pig, star of the British children’s television programme has at the last moment refused to take part in a Labour campaign stunt. The Daily Telegraph immediately declared her to be a Conservative, this on account of her grandfather’s boat and nice kitchen curtains. If we look to pigs to tell us how to vote, which prefer rolling in the mud and grunting sessions, then we must be in quite a pickle.
According to a British research survey, which questioned 1500 women, owning an iPhone makes men more attractive. It also transpired that women think iPhone-men communicate better and are more into humour. Thirty-seven percent of the interviewees find iPhone-men more trustworthy. Well, that is a bit of a put-down for men without an iPhone. Besides, I don’t own a mobile phone at all.
‘Are you also devastated about the tropical fruit salad?’
‘The tropical fruit salad?’
‘Yes, the one that is flown in three times a week from Ghana.’
‘Ah, it just reminded me of John Cleese.’
‘Lionel Messi is the new Messiah’, according to the newspaper headlines after Barcelona beat Arsenal. He did score four magnificent goals, but to crown him the Messiah is going a touch too far. Besides, this week Barcelona acquired an honorary chairman, who has made a very legitimate claim to such a title for quite a few years, Johan Cruijff, aka ‘El Salvador’ (The Redeemer).
Dutch people are hospitable, friendly and tolerant, at least that is how the Dutch view themselves. Of course, the best country to live in is The Netherlands. All surveys report the same result: The Netherlands is one of the happiest countries in the world. Well, that is the Dutch opinion. However The Netherlands is not a paradise, actually sometimes it resembles hell.
On the 3rd of April, it is the 150th birthday of one of Holland Park Press’ authors, Frederik van Eeden. To celebrate this day we are holding a poetry competition.
On the 3rd of April, it was the 150th birthday of one of Holland Park Press’ authors, Frederik van Eeden. To celebrate this day we are holding a poetry competition.
Hedwig’s Journey featured in Society’s Annual Yearbook
A moving novel about the soul of Israel by Yael Politis
