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...?

Appearances are deceptive

My neighbors have a dog, Vinny. It is aptly named after Vinny Jones, a former British football player turned actor. And I must say that I can

 

somewhat see the resemblance. Like Mr. Jones, Vinny looks a bit rough around the edges, as most Steffies do. Bar Steffi Graff of course. But appearances can be deceiving. From experience I can tell that Vinny is a very friendly creature. Always poking its head over the fence when I approach my front door. How can I not oblige to so much friendliness. We thus became good mates. And it is not the first Steffie either that, so to speak, came across my path. South African Patch was another one.

But as I said, appearances can be deceiving. A few Dutchies found out the hard way that a Pitbull, although it looks similar to a Steffie, is in fact a different ball-game altogether. 

'Saturday evening a pitbull bit four family members in 's-Heerenberg' 

I cannot repeat it enough: "Always check the label." Nasty as it is though, things can be a lot nastier. 

Who can resist a furry bundle of joy that a kitten normally is? I fore one cannot. But it is a bit foolish to think that the high level of cuddliness that comes with the average kitten, applies to every cat. An Australian tourist, obviously more used to crocs than to cats, had a minor error of judgement during his trip in South Africa. Nope, a lion may well be a cat but it is not of the cuddly kind at all He was lucky to get away with only a few scratches. 

And I cannot blame the lion for having a go at it, at all. Picture yourself being a lion, laying under a tree on a hot afternoon on the African savannah. Every now and then what appears to be tinned food is rolling by. Most of the times unreachable for the average lion, not equipped with a tin-opener, because windows and doors are shut to keep the cold in and the lions out. Not this tin on wheels though. You spot an open window and a foolish boy looking foolishly at you and your mates. Well, you must have thought, I can either get very tired chasing zebras tonight for a hearty meal or try this idiot of a tourist. A no-brainer, obviously. And the Aussie bloke too. 

Not that it is an incident either. Nope. The internet is littered with blockheads that mistake wild animals for their childhood pets. Much to my liking though, wild animals often remind them yokels that their appearances are deceptive. The hard way.

Paddington may be a bear, but not all bears are Paddington...

Kids

'Kids are our future', is often recited. Mainly by desperate parents who have come to realize that there is not such a thing as a 'money back guarantee'. Once you have them, you are stuck with them. This is not necessarily a bad thing. Nope. Kids can be very well behaved, thus demonstrating a correct upbringing. Really. And do not forget that they can come in handy when you are getting older too. And needy. Taking care of your personal transportation when you realize that getting home by car is more a matter of luck than of your ability to drive a vehicle. It also gives kids a purpose in life, paying back their parents for raising them.

However, it seems that Dutch kids do not feel so thankful anymore. Research has pointed out that youngsters are the most frequent visitors of Dutch mental health organizations. And not to pick up their parents either. Lacking a purpose in life and not being corrected enough during their upbringing seems to be the cause of this recent hike in mental desperation among youth. 

How does this not surprise me at all?! 

I know that it is not done to point a finger at the past and claim that things were much better back then. Nevertheless, I will give it a go. I vividly remember that my dad was quite clear in what to do and what not to do. I often was lucky having shoes with laces rather than clogs as I would have been whacked out of them after a badly executed attempt to figure out where the boundaries of decent behavior were. Corrections were thus frequently made.  And in such a way that there was no room for misinterpretation. Likewise, purpose in life was easily defined. 'If you want something, earn the money to buy it yourself.' No such things as free hand-outs during the weekend by guilt-ridden parents, to compensate for a lack of attention during the week. The 'patat-generatie', 'fries-generation', has obviously been spoiled rotten. 

The 'fries-generation' never received critical remarks when showing of drawings to their parents that could have been made by a visually impaired person. Nope. 'Well done darling', is today's mantra. Even when it is not that difficult to explain to kids what their efforts should amount to. Plenty of examples on the internet.

 

 Should be:

It has even gone so far that parents are suing the Dutch Government for not preventing their kids from doing things they should not do, I read on the website of a Dutch newspaper. How stupid is that. Passing on your own inabilities to an amorphous body like the Government.

I therefor propose a return to a meritocracy. You have to earn your rights. Like sitting an exam that wannabe parents have to sit. Failing means you are deemed unsuited to raise a family.

And not only citizens would be affected. Talking rubbish, nowadays a very common and highly regarded skill in government, will not longer do...

The joy of riding

Rules and regulations concerning driving and riding have changed over the years in the Netherlands. In the old days for instance one could obtain an 'L-plate',stick it on ones motorbike and start practicing riding it. No drivers license needed. And there were few rules attached to it. Do not drive on the motorway and do not carry a passenger. I did not care about the first rule as riding on motorways is very boring anyway. They are fairly straight over here. A different thing altogether was the latter. Unfortunately, riding a motorbike coincided with having girl-friends. However, the cure was very simple. By sticking the 'L-plate' under ones saddle, no one could tell it was a novices' motorbike. And you could ride around with your girlfriend snug behind you on the saddle anywhere you wanted. Life could not get any better. I thought.

Sadly, these times are far behind us. Nowadays one is allowed to drive a car from the age of 17, having a coach sitting on the passengers seat till being 18. It is even more complicated for bikers. One can sit a theoretical exam when being 17, but only start taking practical lessons when reaching the age of 18. How stupid is that? Sitting on one's hands for about a year. Very demotivating. And it even gets worse because you are not allowed to drive a proper bike

till you are 24. To me, driving a donkey cart is even more attractive and a lot more challenging than looking silly riding a moped. No wonder that the average age of bikers is rising fast.

Things are looking better though, as youngsters are looking for ways to get around the system. All aimed at getting to enjoy riding. Sometimes they have their spelling totally wrong though. I mean 'enjoy riding' is totally different from 'joyriding'. Not everyone seems to get it, I noticed the other day.

'Joyrider, aged 13, stopped in Den Bosch'

Not always by the police either. As sane people know, even a small tree will beat the average car in a direct confrontation most of the times. And there are plenty of trees willing to give it a go too. I would advice not to get overconfident and try to beat the foliage. Stay on tarmac.  

Unless you are driving a tank of course. The history of tanks beating trees goes back as far as the first World War. But they are a little hard to come by. Tanks that is. Unlike during the period when discussions about acid rain affecting the forests in industrialized societies, trees nowadays are standing tall.

So, what to do about it? I see a huge potential for farmers. Huhh? Yep, agricultural entrepreneurs.  With the prices for the crops they used to grow hardly keeping pace with the rate of inflation, the idea of allocating a piece of land to help youngsters master the art of riding, or driving for that matter, must be very tempting. There is a lot of money to be made you know. It surely beats breeding pigs or chasing free range chickens.

Nobody gets hurt, no trees are attacked and youngsters get in touch with life in the countryside. A win-win situation I would say...