The police or the Police?

Policemen in the Netherlands are planning actions to draw attention to the fact that they have been without a Collective Labor Agreement for some time now. Without a what? Never mind. Let us assume that it is a perfectly good reason to become active. Now, what could policemen do to get the attention of their boss, the Minister of Safety and Justice? I have got a splendid idea. What about catching the thieves, burglars, murderers and the like, that are still at large? Or that are again on the run? You see, every now and then convicted criminals are allowed a taste of life outside the prison-walls. Kind of preparing them for their return into society. And guess what, they tend to run away during their trial leave. How surprising. Not.

Well that is not what is going to happen. I mean, do what the public expect them to do, catching criminals. Nope, our 'boys in blue' had a brain-storm, or brain-wash I think would be the right noun, and decided to inspect the 'Tour de France'. Or more in particular, the vehicles that follow the cyclists. Mobile laboratories and such. Can they do that one may ask? Yes they can, because this year the Tour de France starts in the Netherlands. A bit confusing I know but not uncommon. The 'Giro d'Italia' for instance starts in Apeldoorn in 2016. How logical is that? It is not.

Now, Dutch policemen are used to french residents traveling to the Netherlands to get their taste of the renowned Dutch hallucinogenic substances. They have seen them crossing the border for ages. Bring out the sniffer-dogs I would say. Just a bit of retraining would do the job to sniff out every performance enhancing drug stashed away anywhere in the marketing caravan. It would be good for the image of the Tour at the same time too. For the first time in history the Tour would be really clean. My guess thus is that these 'active' policemen will be welcomed with open arms. Surely by the organization.

Whether we, the public, will be aware of any action taking place remains to be seen. Policemen may control a lot, but what will or will not be broadcast, is beyond the reach of the long arm of the law. Even when extended by a baseball-glove on a selfie-stick.

Do not despair though as I have a cunning plan for the organizing committee of the Tour de France to beat the Dutch Police to it, and have some police action that will be well worth broadcasting. 

Make a phone-call to Sting and his buddies and persuade them to perform on the Erasmus Bridge in Rotterdam. I guarantee that the public will definitely prefer the English trio to the entire Dutch police force. I for one would...

Rumble

It is almost a month since Nepal was rocked by a massive earthquake. Rumor has it that is was caused by a bunch of idiots who thought it was funny to have their bare asses photographed on Everest, a holy mountain to the Nepalese people. Although I sympathize with the Nepalese, I do not think that there is a relation. between one event and the other. For one, because it took the gods rather a long time to make up their minds and act on it. And like training a dog, or cat, it does not make sense to whack a dog a couple of days after it misbehaved. Neither to the dog. I like to believe that people react similarly. Kids do. 

Or should gas extraction be considered an attributing factor? After all, Dutchies know from the ongoing rumble in the north-eastern part of the Netherlands that there is a direct relation between gas-extraction and earthquakes. Well, with the exception of the NAM, that are still in denial. Regrettably, I have to rule it out as a cause of the recent disaster. Because no natural gas has been found in the Himalaya, bar the occasional fart resulting from improperly digested butter-tea. Yak. I therefore think that I have to resort to scientists and see if they can come up with a plausible theory. As a matter of fact, they can. It has something to do with shifting tectonic plates and such. More precisely with the fact that India is slowly swept under the carpet, or in this case the Himalaya, meanwhile pushing the Himalaya up. Do not be surprised when Sir Edmund Hillary happens to have climbed 9000 m to reach the summit of Mount Everest, rather than the meager 8848 m we thought before. His star continues to rise, literally. 

Still, the story about the gods being pissed-off is more appealing to me. It leaves room for the imagination. Like, maybe the gods were totally aghast by the demonstration of such denseness and forgot to teach them a lesson right there and then. Or they just were asleep and only saw the event in the evening news.

I think that we, Dutchies should consider ourselves lucky that there are no mountains in the Netherlands. Mind you, the highest elevation that we have resembles a mole hill rather than a mountain. No need for them bare asses to come over here and defy the gods. Nope. Bugger off. We have a hard enough time dealing with the NAM...

Fighting a loosing battle

As you may have noticed, the football event of the year has started. That is, when you are from the feminine side. Our girls are playing at the World Cup tournament in Canada. Yep. Canada. Unlike with the World Cup tournament football for men in 2022, which will be held in Qatar, FIFA has come to their senses this time. Not such a good idea to play football in the blazing sun after all? So you would think. I think there is another explanation. There just was no one to pay a bribe to FIFA in that region. Not all that surprising too. I mean, If I were to pay good money to have women playing football in my country I also would like to be able to see them playing. And that is not happening in the Arab world. Women have to cover themselves, more or less. Often more. It must be very awkward trying to run for the ball wearing a Hijab. But at least you can see the ball and where you are going. Try that in a Burka. Like running around in thick fog. No fun at all for the spectators, watching wheelie-bin-likeshapes going for the, I suppose, ball. One might as well walk through the street just before the garbage truck is due, and all the wheeliebins are lined up on the pavement. Same thing.

So Canada it is. Good choice, I can tell you. Check out  www.howiddiz-in-Canada.blogspot.com. Our girls are not doing that well. China got the upper hand and beat them, just. But are we really doing that badly?

Let me put things in perspective. The Netherlands has about 17 million residents, China has 1300 million. So they should be roughly 76 times better than the Dutchies. Therefore, 76-0 would have been the expected outcome. Shame on China! And way to go Dutchies. Neither is football the only sport at which China excels. Ping-pong, named after the brothers Ping and Pong who invented the sport, is another one. And diving, and gymnastics, and.... But still not as good as expected.

I for one like the idea that having a large pool to choose from does not automatically guarantee a place on the podium. Otherwise, what would be the point of participating in any sport, with countries like China, or India for that matter, taking part. And no, I do not believe in Pierre de Coubertin's slogan 'participating is more important than winning'  After all, who does remember the silver medalist of the World Cup Football that was held in Amsterdam. Neither do I.

Still, the Dutchies are a long way from raising the world cup to the sky...

Undertaker

Government in the Netherlands does not have a long list of successful projects to show for. Of course there are exceptions like......ehhh. Nope. Cannot find anything out of the ordinary. From C2000, the new digital mobile radio communication system for the Police to renovating Palace Huis ten Bosch. The result either does not work or costs are skyrocketing. Thus the Police are still wondering what is happening in the world around them. The king and queen would have been a lot cheaper off, building a new palace from scratch. Or should I say 'we'? Because it will be the taxpayer, unlike the Greece we still have them, that will have to pick up the bill. And it makes no difference who is overseeing the job, apparently.

 

Why am I not surprised? Well, I know that civil servants are mainly that. Civil and servants. Not particularly a blue print for a successful entrepreneur, I would say. But yet, it are civil servants who are in charge of public undertakings. Renovating a palace, building a tunnel under the streets of the Hague, providing the ministry of Defense with a state of the art ERP-system named 'Speer', or Javelin for my friends in Canada. It is all supervised by a civil servant. 'Speer' obviously did not hit 'bulls-eye'. One thing an ERP-system should be good at, I have been taught, is keeping track of goods on their way from sender to receiver. Speer does not, as the Dutch Army found out when they opened a container supposedly stuffed with military supplies send home from the Middle East. It weighed like a ton of bricks. Literally. Neatly packed as it was, with ..... Yep. 

I think I have got the solution though. Put Queen Maxima in charge! For starters, of renovating her own palace. Although women are said to have a hole in their hand through which a Euro disappears faster than black figures on car-maker Spijker's balance sheet, I dare say that this is somewhat exaggerated. And there is more positive news. Maxima is very into micro financing. Meaning that she is accustomed to spending small amounts of money at the same time.  Or paying for a very, very small house. Not very likely though, the latter. So, Maxima it is then. From then on every civil servant undertaking a big project should apply for their share of the pie. Overspending civil servants would not be given a Royal Pardon or get away easily. Nope. I suggest a reintroduction of public flogging. Gives the bourgeoisie something else to go to then the dreariness of IKEA. And they would be allowed to throw things at the culprit too. Like javelins and such. That would teach them civil servants to throw the taxpayer's money down the drain. 

Would it not be better, I philosophized, when we should think twice before embarking on those megalomaniac projects. Not pushing civil servants to make ideas look very shiny and nice, as it is in their nature to be overly optimistic. Except when it concerns their own wage increase. I therefore propose to ask the opinion of a real businessman on any project proposal spat out by zealous civil servants. And pretend it was his money on the line. That would separate wheat from chaff, I guarantee.

So, why not ask a real undertaker...?