Signalling Creatures

So, the end of the twelfth week and the end of the holidays. Next week everyone returns and the Nederlands come back to life, kinda like Bagpuss and the mice, only backwards. It’s now Monsoon season over here, which means still uncomfortably hot but now very, very wet as well. But even in this weather, which is pretty much constantly drizzling or pouring or tipping, you still see police on the streets, talking like it was in the UK in the late seventies/early eighties; and there’s no crime over here. Mr Blunkett take heed.

Work is slower, but still quite busy, and I’ve discovered that our department, Seinwezen, translates literally as Signalling Creatures. I mean, I’m aware that as a group signalling designers are a little quirky, but that’s just taking it too far in my opinion. I can’t wait to find out what they call testers.

I decided to try more local dishes this week, so I had a Fillet American (curiously, a Dutch speciality unavailable in America), which is essentially raw liquidised beef in a bread roll with onions and mayonnaise (trust me, much nicer than it sounds) and inspired my second, much less popular, song adaptation, to the tune of Stand & Deliver:

Soured Milk and Herring
by Adam And The Ants & Julian Self

Soured milk and herring!

I'm the Crazy Englishman
Who you so often mention
I spend my cash on pie and mash
With ketchup for convention
The Devil take your mayonnaise, your pickling obsession
The way you eat you'll qualify for lifelong indigestion

Soured milk and herring
You consume them all your life
HWOAH!
Try a different menu
‘Cause your cold meats give me strife
HWOAH!

I'm the Crazy Englishman
So sick of menu trashing
The deep-fried dish and cold raw fish
That people think so smashing
So what's the point of restaurants when nothing is worth eating?
It's just too much to tell the Dutch their meals keep on repeating

Soured milk and herring
You consume them all your life
HWOAH!
Try a different menu
‘Cause your cold meats give me strife
HWOAH!
And even though you fill your mouths your taste buds have resigned
Maligned

We're the Drunken Englishmen
Who you so often mention
We spend our cash on getting smashed
And making bad impressions
We’re the Crazy Englishmen and here's our invitation
Throw your cheeses overboard and join our roast beef nation!

Soured milk and herring you consume them all your life
HWOAH!
Try a different menu‘cause your cold meats give us strife
HWOAH!
And even though you fill your mouths your taste buds have resigned
Maligned

Raw fish
Cold meat processed cheeses
Cold meat processed cheeses
Cold meat processed cheeses
Raw fish
Cold meat processed cheeses
Cold meat processed cheeses
Cheese cheese cheese cheeses

Think maybe I’ll give the whole song adaptation thing a miss for a while now.

Anyway, I’m teaching the locals correct use of English. For example, there are fifteen types of tea in the office: Sterremunt (absolutely foul, Spearmint), Rooibos (quite nice), Groene (Green), Mango, Blackcurrant, Zoethout (no idea, odd taste), Cherry, Melon, Strawberry, Southern Fruits (what were they thinking?), Peach, Cinnamon, Raspberry, Vanilla (starting to sound like an ice cream shop now) and what they laughingly refer to as English. Anyway, I ask my cellmate (cubicle sharer, whatever) if he wants a drink and he says ‘tea’, so I ask which one and he says everything but Rooibos, then wonders why he gets a mug with fourteen tea-bags and not much water. So, now he knows the difference between anything and everything.

I’m also trying to teach them about sarcasm, which is proving to be more of a challenge, especially for Shahram, who Amey veterans would recognise as effectively the Grontmij Dharmy, only louder (I know, I didn’t believe it either).

Coffee, by contrast, is much better out here, but with so many coffee shops that’s hardly surprising really. All that caffeine, no wonder everybody seems so wired.

Oh yeah, and the most amazing thing happened today, you could never re-produce it. I’m stood chatting to Schuart, and Egbert is practicing his putting in the office. Egbert taps the balls back towards the tee, which is next to the cupboard I’m leaning on, and it hits the lip at the base of the shelves and takes off, shoots up and lands in my shirt breast pocket. Unreal. I just wonder what he was aiming for.

Anyway, looks like a break in the rain, so I’m gonna make a run for the station, try to get home still dry.

More news as it breaks.