A Zwartsluis church
Friday, June 03, 2005
Friday, May 20, 2005
Week 52 – “Just when I thought I was out, they pulled me back in”
Well, so this is pretty much the one year mark of my time over here, all but four days, and my new contract is about to start. I am, fabulously, poised to tell my current agents, the Ewings, to go forth and multiply - I have renewed belief in their ability to perform such rudimentary addition and multiplication because, after only ten and a half months of invoices, telephone calls and emails, they have finally admitted that they still owe me for eight hours overtime that I worked in the week ending 2nd July last year, and have now agreed to pay it. My only remaining complaints regarding their representation of me relate not to the agency itself, but specifically to the expansive prevarication of the agent to whom I was assigned, whose litany of mistruths regarding the conditions of my employment, accommodation and flights were exceeded only by his cowardice, hiding tremulously behind the excuses of his subordinates ("he's on another line…..oh, no, he's out of the office"), and who patently failed to address any of the issues or questions which I brought to his attention during my first year here. Still, all’s well that ends.
Having travelled using EasyJet now for a year now, I can honestly say that I’m very impressed: by and large, the flights are punctual, and the staff are always smiling, courteous, efficient, good humoured and friendly – I cannot fault them. The passengers, on the other hand, are an entirely different story: for a start, when it’s announced that the holders of the first thirty tickets can now board, sixty people start to queue; then, during boarding, everybody just has to sit at the front of the plane, so they can get off first, and so they block the aisle while they pile their hand-luggage into the racks (because, it seems, delaying lift off by stopping other people from getting on the plane doesn’t make any difference to arrival time). Beyond this, a large number of them are clearly ignorant or stupid, since they find it impossible to follow even the most basic instructions, such as: switch off mobile phones, put seats upright, don’t switch mobile phones on (in fact, pig ignorant and stupid, because going through customs after the flight there are big signs saying ‘MOBILE PHONE USE PROHIBITED IN THIS AREA’ in addition to giant pictures of cell-phones with big crosses drawn through them – although, in fairness, nobody could be expected to see these because they’re all peering at their phones while they SMS whoever the hell they think cares that they’ve landed). I do my best to ignore them, which is helped by my recent interest in world theologies leading me to indulge in reading the Koran on the aeroplane, which seems to make my fellow passengers wonderfully uncomfortable (I’m still an agnostic, but I’m now an agnostic who knows that he’s definitely going to go to hell – heck, sometimes, in Schiphol, I’d think I was already there if it wasn’t for the sight of sparrows rather entertainingly hopping around under tables in the lobbies and living on discarded fries. Luton, by contrast, is far too thoroughly squalid to be confused with hell).
Koninginnedag, (the previous queen’s birthday, oddly enough) was on Saturday the 30th April, and everything was closed. Get this: it was a Saturday and everything was closed (remember shops closing? For reference, compare to the UK on Christmas Day or Easter Sunday). Mind you, it was also the current Queen Beatrix’s Silver Jubilee this year, so I suppose it’s fair comment. They really go all out for their festivities, too: bands, flags, fireworks, and scooters driving around blaring their horns all night, streets filled with tables and beer abundant. Never one for daytime drinking (or much of one for competent evening drinking, as my imbibing companions of late can readily testify), I chose to cycle to Zwartsluis (Blacklock, about 32km ≈ 20 miles) to view my new digs, which Fons is completing the conversion of from its previous incarnation as a bakery below his house. The place is fantastic: a really spacious apartment with two bedrooms,a bathroom and separate toilet, a large kitchen/lounge and a small garden where I can sit and watch the boats come through the lock. The village is about fifteen klicks out of Zwolle, across a ferry from the neighbouring village of Genemuiden, and I got to spend the day (and have lunch – fish, of course – and sample some Belgian beer) with Fons, his elegant wife Ingrid; their three lovely children, Bart, Marelijn and baby Eline; Fons’ parents, Jan and Martha; and his charming and well travelled sister Marga. Oh, and his Dad’s beautiful King Charles spaniel who has the fantastically unlikely name of Glen Whiskey.
I’m still trying to overcome my frustration that Visa cards don’t work in shops, supermarkets or railway stations – “we only take cards from local banks” – and, combined with the “Chipknip” card payment system, this makes it virtually impossible for any non-Ned to spend any money at all except in cash (which, curiously, isn’t accepted everywhere) – even their internet sites will only take money from Ned accounts. [As an aside, I wonder what monumental brain decided to do away with exchange difficulties by adopting a single currency, and then chose to pursue a cashless society using 19 different and non-interoperable systems (count ‘em: Quick, Proton, Danmønt, Avant, Geldkarte, P-Card, Paycard, CASH, Opera, VisaCash, MiniPay, Cassamat, Chipknip, Chipper, SIBS, SEMP, CECA, 4B and Mondex) across the continent. Pure genius.]
Which brings me, once again, rather neatly to my issues with lunch. Since I am no longer able to eat in the canteen, I have actually been saving money by bringing fruit into work and eating at the local snack bar, Anytime (open 10:00-19:00, Mon-Fri – go figure) where they make a superb Filet American. The human digestive system is not designed to deal with raw meat for more than three days in a row, I found out the hard way, and so I have been forced to return to more convenience food. The office has no microwave, but there is a kettle - ah, Cup a Soups and Cup Noodles (it seems Pot has other, rather different, connotations over here); and to think I was afraid I’d go hungry. The tragedy of this is that the canteen, whilst scarcely providing haute cuisine, was pretty much the only real food I was getting.
And so, circuitously, to supermarkets again: if you shop in the Netherlands, then make absolutely certain to check the sell-by dates on every item you pick up, ‘cause sure as hell no-one in the shops is – I’ve seen stuff over two weeks past date still on sale, and grow increasingly weary of telling shelf-stackers their jobs. In an attempt to stabilise my shopping, I have taken to doing a full weeks shop in one go and balancing my steering by hanging one grocery bag on each side of my handlebars. Unfortunately, this presents the bags at pedal height, and so judicious packing is essential to ensure that produce is not damaged – I learnt this through making inadvertent mashed banana one recent evening. In my defence, my attempts at trying to do too much on a bicycle are justified by the blatant overuse of such vehicles by the Nederese themselves: I have seen people walking dogs from bikes, towing trailers, pushing prams in front of them …
And to the job. I’m still re-producing hand-drawn bonding plans on CAD, so that we can make design modifications, and I’m checking and re-checking my measurements of distances and angles and I can’t find my mistake but I know that it’s there because the drawing just isn’t turning out right; but no, what I’d failed to take into account was that the rails on the original plan are getting closer together – I mean, what kind of trains are they running out here? Oh, and the kilometrages are getting harder and harder to believe: the other day, I came across ±67.502 – that’s about as vague as it’s possible to get, it really makes you wonder why they bother.
For the information of those lucky enough not to work in railways, the presence of a train is detected by track circuits: the basic principle being that one rail carries a positive feed and the other is the return leg, so the passage of a train shorts these circuits progressively and hence its precise location on any given route is known. Well, I’m working on this bonding plan (last updated in 1992), and I’m presented with a positive feed which runs straight into a return leg and thinking ‘this can’t be right’; but the scary thing is that, if it is right, then for thirteen years the piece of track in question has appeared to be constantly occupied by an immobile train and yet signalmen have been setting routes for other trains straight through it.
Other rather disturbing observations on electrical wiring occur in the office: if the kettle is boiled whilst the drinks machine is dispensing, all the computers go down; when the cleaners switch on a vacuum cleaner in the early evening, all the screens warp and roll. Having said which, last Thursday the whole of this part of Zwolle lost power thanks to building work going on near the station – a familiar scenario to Amey veterans who worked in the Rotunda, Birmingham, during the Bullring construction.
On May the ninth, it was announced that our designer Cornelus and his wife Petra’s new daughter, Kim, had been born: weighing in at 8 pounds and 52 cm long (they use long instead of tall, presumably for bragging in the pub purposes) a zusje (sister) to their thirteen month old son Timo – I’m telling you, they don’t mess about to catch their breath or anything in the lowlands. I expressed surprise that the weight was given in pounds, and you are absolutely NOT going to believe this, but I have learnt that it is usual to weigh babies in pounds and it is also common practice in the Netherlands to go into the butchers or a supermarket and ask for half a pound of meat, because it’s easier than asking for 250 grams and it’s near enough the same weight.
Weather, while much like that in the UK, is still continuing to exhibit schizoid tendencies: we have so far had brilliant sunshine, pouring rain, and now snow in May. I have already touched on the concept of cycling with an umbrella in previous posts, but it’s raining a lot harder now so I’m slightly more experienced at it. Riding into the wind is near impossible, like Sisyphus pushing the boulder up the mountain; riding with the wind behind me is quite scary, because the brolly acts as a sail; but the most alarming thing is stopping: I have the umbrella in my right hand, because I’m right handed, and this seems fine until I apply the brakes – I now know that the left lever applies the front brake. Thanks be for bushes, the cyclists’ airbag.
A brief mention for Dewi, who made an appearance in the office late yesterday afternoon to catch up with everybody. She’s really getting back to her old self, and is looking more like the Dewi we remember every time we see her. I was invited to join her and her brother for the evening, and we enjoyed a typical Dutch meal of Big Mac and fries (with mayonnaise instead of ketchup - a small cultural difference, I’ll grant you, but a difference nonetheless) and chatted for several hours. During this time, a friend of hers dropped by and, during her brief visit, her bicycle was stolen; she was kicking herself, because she’d left it unlocked - the UK equivalent would be leaving the keys in the ignition - so really it wasn’t surprising.
Finally, an observation made last Saturday regarding economies of scale: it takes one to two hours to perform one week’s domestic cleaning, but if said cleaning is left for six months then it can still be satisfactorily completed in only eight hours. As luck would have it, just as I finished my round of dusting, polishing, vacuuming and mopping, Wendy (the house’s owner, returned from her South American travels) dropped by unannounced to discuss arrangements for the handing back of her property, and said she was pleased how nice I’d kept it. I told her it was a good thing she didn’t arrive a few hours earlier, but I’m fairly sure she thought I was joking. I am, however, still kept unpleasantly occupied killing literally hundreds of little black winged insects which have started emerging through holes in the brickwork and taking a position of occupation in my digs every time I go out or sleep: in, around and under everything. On the upside, the fly-spray I’ve been using seems to hang around, so I’ll go out in the morning from a clean room, and when I return in the evening I find insect corpses carpeting the floor, which are easily vacuumed away. I will have to mop again thoroughly before I move out, of course, because the floors and windows are now liberally smeared with the blood of these slow moving creatures. I’ve mentioned this infestation to Wim, Wendy’s father, and he related that the same thing happened last year: even the insects out here are immortal, it seems (“Hollander, you cannot die”).
Anyway, the week draws to a close, so I’m back off to Kampen to continue the carnage of these multi-lived beasts. Live from Zwolle.
Having travelled using EasyJet now for a year now, I can honestly say that I’m very impressed: by and large, the flights are punctual, and the staff are always smiling, courteous, efficient, good humoured and friendly – I cannot fault them. The passengers, on the other hand, are an entirely different story: for a start, when it’s announced that the holders of the first thirty tickets can now board, sixty people start to queue; then, during boarding, everybody just has to sit at the front of the plane, so they can get off first, and so they block the aisle while they pile their hand-luggage into the racks (because, it seems, delaying lift off by stopping other people from getting on the plane doesn’t make any difference to arrival time). Beyond this, a large number of them are clearly ignorant or stupid, since they find it impossible to follow even the most basic instructions, such as: switch off mobile phones, put seats upright, don’t switch mobile phones on (in fact, pig ignorant and stupid, because going through customs after the flight there are big signs saying ‘MOBILE PHONE USE PROHIBITED IN THIS AREA’ in addition to giant pictures of cell-phones with big crosses drawn through them – although, in fairness, nobody could be expected to see these because they’re all peering at their phones while they SMS whoever the hell they think cares that they’ve landed). I do my best to ignore them, which is helped by my recent interest in world theologies leading me to indulge in reading the Koran on the aeroplane, which seems to make my fellow passengers wonderfully uncomfortable (I’m still an agnostic, but I’m now an agnostic who knows that he’s definitely going to go to hell – heck, sometimes, in Schiphol, I’d think I was already there if it wasn’t for the sight of sparrows rather entertainingly hopping around under tables in the lobbies and living on discarded fries. Luton, by contrast, is far too thoroughly squalid to be confused with hell).
Koninginnedag, (the previous queen’s birthday, oddly enough) was on Saturday the 30th April, and everything was closed. Get this: it was a Saturday and everything was closed (remember shops closing? For reference, compare to the UK on Christmas Day or Easter Sunday). Mind you, it was also the current Queen Beatrix’s Silver Jubilee this year, so I suppose it’s fair comment. They really go all out for their festivities, too: bands, flags, fireworks, and scooters driving around blaring their horns all night, streets filled with tables and beer abundant. Never one for daytime drinking (or much of one for competent evening drinking, as my imbibing companions of late can readily testify), I chose to cycle to Zwartsluis (Blacklock, about 32km ≈ 20 miles) to view my new digs, which Fons is completing the conversion of from its previous incarnation as a bakery below his house. The place is fantastic: a really spacious apartment with two bedrooms,a bathroom and separate toilet, a large kitchen/lounge and a small garden where I can sit and watch the boats come through the lock. The village is about fifteen klicks out of Zwolle, across a ferry from the neighbouring village of Genemuiden, and I got to spend the day (and have lunch – fish, of course – and sample some Belgian beer) with Fons, his elegant wife Ingrid; their three lovely children, Bart, Marelijn and baby Eline; Fons’ parents, Jan and Martha; and his charming and well travelled sister Marga. Oh, and his Dad’s beautiful King Charles spaniel who has the fantastically unlikely name of Glen Whiskey.
I’m still trying to overcome my frustration that Visa cards don’t work in shops, supermarkets or railway stations – “we only take cards from local banks” – and, combined with the “Chipknip” card payment system, this makes it virtually impossible for any non-Ned to spend any money at all except in cash (which, curiously, isn’t accepted everywhere) – even their internet sites will only take money from Ned accounts. [As an aside, I wonder what monumental brain decided to do away with exchange difficulties by adopting a single currency, and then chose to pursue a cashless society using 19 different and non-interoperable systems (count ‘em: Quick, Proton, Danmønt, Avant, Geldkarte, P-Card, Paycard, CASH, Opera, VisaCash, MiniPay, Cassamat, Chipknip, Chipper, SIBS, SEMP, CECA, 4B and Mondex) across the continent. Pure genius.]
Which brings me, once again, rather neatly to my issues with lunch. Since I am no longer able to eat in the canteen, I have actually been saving money by bringing fruit into work and eating at the local snack bar, Anytime (open 10:00-19:00, Mon-Fri – go figure) where they make a superb Filet American. The human digestive system is not designed to deal with raw meat for more than three days in a row, I found out the hard way, and so I have been forced to return to more convenience food. The office has no microwave, but there is a kettle - ah, Cup a Soups and Cup Noodles (it seems Pot has other, rather different, connotations over here); and to think I was afraid I’d go hungry. The tragedy of this is that the canteen, whilst scarcely providing haute cuisine, was pretty much the only real food I was getting.
And so, circuitously, to supermarkets again: if you shop in the Netherlands, then make absolutely certain to check the sell-by dates on every item you pick up, ‘cause sure as hell no-one in the shops is – I’ve seen stuff over two weeks past date still on sale, and grow increasingly weary of telling shelf-stackers their jobs. In an attempt to stabilise my shopping, I have taken to doing a full weeks shop in one go and balancing my steering by hanging one grocery bag on each side of my handlebars. Unfortunately, this presents the bags at pedal height, and so judicious packing is essential to ensure that produce is not damaged – I learnt this through making inadvertent mashed banana one recent evening. In my defence, my attempts at trying to do too much on a bicycle are justified by the blatant overuse of such vehicles by the Nederese themselves: I have seen people walking dogs from bikes, towing trailers, pushing prams in front of them …
And to the job. I’m still re-producing hand-drawn bonding plans on CAD, so that we can make design modifications, and I’m checking and re-checking my measurements of distances and angles and I can’t find my mistake but I know that it’s there because the drawing just isn’t turning out right; but no, what I’d failed to take into account was that the rails on the original plan are getting closer together – I mean, what kind of trains are they running out here? Oh, and the kilometrages are getting harder and harder to believe: the other day, I came across ±67.502 – that’s about as vague as it’s possible to get, it really makes you wonder why they bother.
For the information of those lucky enough not to work in railways, the presence of a train is detected by track circuits: the basic principle being that one rail carries a positive feed and the other is the return leg, so the passage of a train shorts these circuits progressively and hence its precise location on any given route is known. Well, I’m working on this bonding plan (last updated in 1992), and I’m presented with a positive feed which runs straight into a return leg and thinking ‘this can’t be right’; but the scary thing is that, if it is right, then for thirteen years the piece of track in question has appeared to be constantly occupied by an immobile train and yet signalmen have been setting routes for other trains straight through it.
Other rather disturbing observations on electrical wiring occur in the office: if the kettle is boiled whilst the drinks machine is dispensing, all the computers go down; when the cleaners switch on a vacuum cleaner in the early evening, all the screens warp and roll. Having said which, last Thursday the whole of this part of Zwolle lost power thanks to building work going on near the station – a familiar scenario to Amey veterans who worked in the Rotunda, Birmingham, during the Bullring construction.
On May the ninth, it was announced that our designer Cornelus and his wife Petra’s new daughter, Kim, had been born: weighing in at 8 pounds and 52 cm long (they use long instead of tall, presumably for bragging in the pub purposes) a zusje (sister) to their thirteen month old son Timo – I’m telling you, they don’t mess about to catch their breath or anything in the lowlands. I expressed surprise that the weight was given in pounds, and you are absolutely NOT going to believe this, but I have learnt that it is usual to weigh babies in pounds and it is also common practice in the Netherlands to go into the butchers or a supermarket and ask for half a pound of meat, because it’s easier than asking for 250 grams and it’s near enough the same weight.
Weather, while much like that in the UK, is still continuing to exhibit schizoid tendencies: we have so far had brilliant sunshine, pouring rain, and now snow in May. I have already touched on the concept of cycling with an umbrella in previous posts, but it’s raining a lot harder now so I’m slightly more experienced at it. Riding into the wind is near impossible, like Sisyphus pushing the boulder up the mountain; riding with the wind behind me is quite scary, because the brolly acts as a sail; but the most alarming thing is stopping: I have the umbrella in my right hand, because I’m right handed, and this seems fine until I apply the brakes – I now know that the left lever applies the front brake. Thanks be for bushes, the cyclists’ airbag.
A brief mention for Dewi, who made an appearance in the office late yesterday afternoon to catch up with everybody. She’s really getting back to her old self, and is looking more like the Dewi we remember every time we see her. I was invited to join her and her brother for the evening, and we enjoyed a typical Dutch meal of Big Mac and fries (with mayonnaise instead of ketchup - a small cultural difference, I’ll grant you, but a difference nonetheless) and chatted for several hours. During this time, a friend of hers dropped by and, during her brief visit, her bicycle was stolen; she was kicking herself, because she’d left it unlocked - the UK equivalent would be leaving the keys in the ignition - so really it wasn’t surprising.
Finally, an observation made last Saturday regarding economies of scale: it takes one to two hours to perform one week’s domestic cleaning, but if said cleaning is left for six months then it can still be satisfactorily completed in only eight hours. As luck would have it, just as I finished my round of dusting, polishing, vacuuming and mopping, Wendy (the house’s owner, returned from her South American travels) dropped by unannounced to discuss arrangements for the handing back of her property, and said she was pleased how nice I’d kept it. I told her it was a good thing she didn’t arrive a few hours earlier, but I’m fairly sure she thought I was joking. I am, however, still kept unpleasantly occupied killing literally hundreds of little black winged insects which have started emerging through holes in the brickwork and taking a position of occupation in my digs every time I go out or sleep: in, around and under everything. On the upside, the fly-spray I’ve been using seems to hang around, so I’ll go out in the morning from a clean room, and when I return in the evening I find insect corpses carpeting the floor, which are easily vacuumed away. I will have to mop again thoroughly before I move out, of course, because the floors and windows are now liberally smeared with the blood of these slow moving creatures. I’ve mentioned this infestation to Wim, Wendy’s father, and he related that the same thing happened last year: even the insects out here are immortal, it seems (“Hollander, you cannot die”).
Anyway, the week draws to a close, so I’m back off to Kampen to continue the carnage of these multi-lived beasts. Live from Zwolle.
Thursday, April 21, 2005
Week 48 – An Infinite Number of Monkeys
So, as I settle in further into the culture out here, reconciled to my extended residency, I find that many of my initial impressions were wrong. To elaborate, I had previously opined that there was no crime in the Nederlands, but I now learn that bicycle theft is epidemic to the extent that is considered normal and not even a criminal activity. The shocking thing about this is that the populace actually seems unconcerned, because the loss will be covered by insurance. Also, it seems to be deemed a bonus that, whenever people are out, they can always buy a cheap bicycle to get home. Equally, shortly after I got here, I suggested that all the swear words were English, but I now suspect that I may have got that the wrong way around: it appears that most of our swear words are actually taken from real words here. For example, the word for rent is huur, breed is fokken, and pissen also means exactly what you think it does (work out the pronunciations for yourself, but I think you’ll get the idea).
Beyond this, my impression of the Nederish as friendly, helpful people only seems to apply to their behaviour toward foreign visitors. Coming back from Schiphol a few weeks back, I saw a lady struggling with bags and so, of course, I helped her. ”You must be English,” she said, and went on to tell me that most Nederers tend not to help each other out, or even take much notice of people in difficulties, almost appearing oblivious of their surroundings in a way which will be very familiar to users of King’s Cross station. “Everyone tends to be out for themselves,” she continued, “not like the English.” I didn’t have the heart to tell her the truth, but it’s good to see the rest of the world still regards England as being cultivated.
On a particularly thirst provoking Tuesday recently, at 17:30 I pop into what they euphemistically refer to as a café after work, accompanied by two colleagues, who I shan’t name here to spare their blushes. There are always newspapers and magazines left on tables for customers to browse as they imbibe, which I have never taken the time to look at since they will not be written in English, so I’m frankly flabbergasted when the Fries Design Manager and the Persian Designer in question pick up a couple of copies of Playboy and start to peruse the pages of said literary supplement and discuss the relative merits of various images whilst sitting in window seats, as the waitresses bring us our beers. Seldom do words fail me, but, really, what is the point of trying to educate or cultivate a people who have abandoned the mores of social acceptability so completely? There are times when I begin to suspect that this is all some kind of a dream and that reality has left the building. The concepts of what constitutes reasonable, respectable behaviour and normal adult sensibilities in a developed social structure seem to have almost completely bypassed this enclave of Europe.
Another surprising revelation which I have noticed is the amazing detergent properties of Dutch air, which enable some people to wear the same shirt for several days in a row, apparently without being in any way sullied by sweat or the environment. Then again, we’re not that far from France, I suppose, and at least they seem to wash daily.
Refreshingly, the whole greetings card industry is a lot less complex in this country. I’m searching for birthday cards (I know a lot of Taureans – who seem to believe in astrology and hence keep telling me their star-signs - which makes this a busy card time of year for Hallmark) so I’m looking for cards for fiancées, sisters, brothers in law and all that sort of stuff; but there’s nothing. Either it’s your birthday or it isn’t, there’s none of this special relationship card nonsense. Now cakes, well that’s different, of course: there’s a special cake for every conceivable occasion, as well as a whole cornucopia of cakes for no occasion whatsoever.
The more I see of cars in this country, the clearer it becomes that the Neds drive like they cycle: all over the place (they cross into the left hand lane to take a right turn). Yes, the shortest route between two points is a straight line, but please, they cut blind corners - it’s like a demolition derby without, miraculously, the impacts. Having said which, at least they don’t double-park their cars – I’ve returned to my bicycle on a few occasions to find I have to move four or five others just to get at it.. It’s also only fair to say that there’s not much problem with people talking on cellphones while they’re driving; ever frugal, the Neds prefer to text – I swear, I’ve seen it..
Indeed, the love affair with communication technology is more plague-like here than it is in the UK. Even with the office relatively quiet, there is time to dwell on the tragedy that cell phones (also known as mobile phones) aren’t made lightweight and conveniently sized to enable them to fit easily into pockets, rather than be left ringing unattended on desks – and yet, simultaneously, I like to bask in the glorious truth that the tune a cellphone plays when it rings is a reflection of its owners personality and a measure of their essential individuality and taste, which simultaneously confers a measure of the coolness of the original ‘artiste’ upon them.
Despite my prior observation on Nederers not helping each other out, there is a real sense of teamwork in the office – sometimes as many as three or four people gather together to send a fax or operate a photocopier, and often they’ll stop for a coffee and a chat afterwards. Then again, this is also a part of the wonderful, laid-back culture which is exemplified by the attitude that just standing or sitting around chatting still constitutes work, as long as it’s done in the office.
Given that I am set to be here for at least a further twelve months (while the rail network is allowed to sink into a deeper state of decay back in Blighty), I have decided to make a concerted effort to learn to speak Nederish and, to this end, I’ve attempted to research courses in Ned as a foreign language. However, since no courses are advertised in English, I have no idea if they’re available or not.
Back to the job, and I am currently working on a project in a province called Purmerend Overwhere. Overwhere? Yes: it seems the name Overwhere is considered far more acceptable over here than it would be over there in the UK. I just give up. The signalling itself isn’t that problematic, or it wouldn’t be if they used tunnels (admittedly unwise, since the country is only about three feet above sea level) or bridges. As it is, I’m looking at a stretch of line which has seven level-crossings over a two mile stretch (three of which are only separated by one eighth of a mile -That’s virtually adjacent) and the gates on every single pair are called ‘a’ and ‘b’. Well, that helps to distinguish between them. There are other letters available, guys. “But we can use the kilometrages,” I’m told. This in a land where they don’t even produce scale drawings – I, for one, have absolutely no faith in their ability to accurately measure distance. Then there are the abbreviations, which make no sense to me at all: for some reason Paggen (a gate close to the track) is abbreviated to pag’n, and yet aggen (a gate not so close to the track) is abbreviated to ag’s. Why? Because it is. Whatever. Oh, and symbols I don’t recognise which no-one else recognises either. “Just re-produce it like it is there.” Sure. Somewhere, an infinite number of monkeys with an infinite number of PCs are just copying each other, with no idea of what they’re doing or why, and waiting until the cake comes out.
So to April Fool’s Day, and I figure something’s expected of me, so the night before I re-arrange the keys on Arjen’s computer keyboard, which I figure is harmless but entertaining – and perhaps it would have been, if he’d noticed. As it was, he got his password wrong three times and got locked out of the system. He tried to blag an excuse by saying he touch-typed, and didn’t look at the keys, but I pointed out that in that case he would have got his password right (I only moved the keys, I didn’t rewire the keyboard). That just kinda takes all the fun out of practical jokes, really. On the other hand, it gave me a further opportunity to expand my language knowledge, and I now know that ‘lijp’ means daft or silly, and ‘onverlaat’ is a rogue or villain. There were other words, but I don’t think it’s necessary to detail them all here. Co-incidentally, later that day, I sent a sound-clip to a blonde receptionist who has asked not to be identified (presumably to avoid embarrassment in the eyes of her husband, Raymond; her son, Justin; or her co-workers Simone and Claudia), and she emailed me back to say that she couldn’t play the sound but the video was nice. Ah, sometimes the amusement just seems to generate itself.
A couple of weeks back, I was intending to put in some extra hours over the weekend to build up credit, but Martin, the boss, said that while I was here he considered himself to be responsible for not only my physical well-being, but also my mental well-being. Now, I respect a man who likes a challenge, but frankly I don’t think he knows what he’s taken on there – fools and angels spring to mind. Anyway, the upshot was that, since it was going to be a good weekend, he thought that I shouldn’t work the Sunday, and instead suggested I to cycle from Kampen to Zwolle alongside the river Ijssel. It was a scenic ride, but it was a scenic eighteen kilometres. I reached Zwolle and dismounted walking like a cowboy. There has got to be a market for more comfortable saddles. Well, just around the corner from our office is a large building called the Eco-Drome, which has always kinda interested me, so I decided to check it out. It’s a great place, with lots of different environments created inside its climate controlled building - they have otters, owls, vultures, turkeys (the first time I think I’ve seen one that wasn’t on a plate) spiders (all kinds, from all over the world), fish (really, really huge fish) and lots of endangered species which have been killed and stuffed so that coming generations don’t miss out on them. All in all, it was a really good outing. I mentioned it to the guys in the office on the Monday, but obviously, since they live right by it, no-one else has ever been.
As an aside, of late, elastic band fights have started breaking out around 17:00 (everyone uses 24 hour clock all the time in the Nederlands, both in writing and in conversation), which started out as just friendly sport but seems to have developed into an England versus Nederlands thing, leaving me significantly outnumbered and frankly without a chance. I have tried to point out the unfairness of this, but I guess when a country hasn’t won a war in five hundred years they’ll take any victory they can get. In fact, they claim it’s not even England versus Nederlands, but track versus signalling – although, since most of the signalling team starts to leave at 15:00, that still means it’s only me defending myself against the pagan hordes.
Good news from Dewi, meanwhile, who is back with her parents and is now able to eat small quantities of food properly, rather than through a tube; except to say that, since she is getting her senses of taste and smell back, she may not want anything further to do with us in the near future. Them’s the breaks, I guess.
During my time in the Nederlands, I seem to have retained a static weight of 93 kilos (if not going to convert that to imperial for you, but look, I’m big-boned, alright?), although obviously the gym is paying off because my belts are having to be tightened and my trousers are now too big for me around the waist. Re-assuringly, I am able to take this as conclusive evidence that dieticians are all talking nonsense, since I am practically living on convenience food and beer (alright, Mum, and fresh fruit). Nonetheless, work has seen fit to enforce a diet upon me with the introduction of a Chipknip only system of payment in the works canteen. Chipknip is some kind of card payment system for small amounts of money which is a function included in the Neder bank cards and which has the incredible advantage of having had the pin-code and signature requirements removed so that there is absolutely no security on it - Genius. This means that, since I don’t bank out here, I can’t eat (opening a bank account as a foreign worker with temporary residence is, apparently, virtually impossible. Not that I would use Chipknip anyway: idiot bloody system – I mean, what are they thinking?).
In the interests of owning up to my mistakes, regarding the public holiday detailing of my last post: okay, Whitsun day, not Whit Sunday: Whitsun begins on Whit Sunday, but apparently lasts the full week. Also, it seems, known as Pentecost, Whit Sunday is the seventh Sunday after Easter (which, itself, is the first Sunday after the first full moon after the Spring equinox – sounds a little pagan to me, but who am I to comment?), and supposedly originally named White Sunday, after the white baptism cloths, because Whit Sunday was a very popular time for baptism. Yes, I’m sometimes wrong, but at least I research it.
Defending the honour of the British, I am sometimes forced to resort to making derogatory remarks regarding the lineage of my hosts by making recourse to references to Dutch in English expressions, and it seems there are a few more than I was previously aware of. I am always hearing references to the English as drunkards, so I was first, naturally, driven to inform my colleagues of the concept of Dutch courage, which apparently was first used in the mid-seventeenth century, and alluded to Nederish sailors gaining their sea-battle nerve from rum. Following hot on the heels of that, I learnt that "well, I'll be a Dutchman's uncle!" originally meant "thank-you for your unsolicited, useless advice!", rather than simply "bugger me!", which was what I’d always understood of it. Obviously, Double Dutch refers ably to the gibberish that I hear around me all day, but it seems also that it refers to a game of jump rope in which players jump over two ropes swung in a crisscross fashion. Going Dutch seemed to surprise them, despite the fact that ladies are always expected to buy their own drinks (that Dutch frugality again). Needless to say, after I’d concluded my listing, I found myself to be in Dutch - in disfavour or trouble.
Well, that’s all that’s fit to print for now. I’m off Schiphol and a flight to Blighty for Mary’s birthday celebrations. Till next time. Live from Zwolle.
Beyond this, my impression of the Nederish as friendly, helpful people only seems to apply to their behaviour toward foreign visitors. Coming back from Schiphol a few weeks back, I saw a lady struggling with bags and so, of course, I helped her. ”You must be English,” she said, and went on to tell me that most Nederers tend not to help each other out, or even take much notice of people in difficulties, almost appearing oblivious of their surroundings in a way which will be very familiar to users of King’s Cross station. “Everyone tends to be out for themselves,” she continued, “not like the English.” I didn’t have the heart to tell her the truth, but it’s good to see the rest of the world still regards England as being cultivated.
On a particularly thirst provoking Tuesday recently, at 17:30 I pop into what they euphemistically refer to as a café after work, accompanied by two colleagues, who I shan’t name here to spare their blushes. There are always newspapers and magazines left on tables for customers to browse as they imbibe, which I have never taken the time to look at since they will not be written in English, so I’m frankly flabbergasted when the Fries Design Manager and the Persian Designer in question pick up a couple of copies of Playboy and start to peruse the pages of said literary supplement and discuss the relative merits of various images whilst sitting in window seats, as the waitresses bring us our beers. Seldom do words fail me, but, really, what is the point of trying to educate or cultivate a people who have abandoned the mores of social acceptability so completely? There are times when I begin to suspect that this is all some kind of a dream and that reality has left the building. The concepts of what constitutes reasonable, respectable behaviour and normal adult sensibilities in a developed social structure seem to have almost completely bypassed this enclave of Europe.
Another surprising revelation which I have noticed is the amazing detergent properties of Dutch air, which enable some people to wear the same shirt for several days in a row, apparently without being in any way sullied by sweat or the environment. Then again, we’re not that far from France, I suppose, and at least they seem to wash daily.
Refreshingly, the whole greetings card industry is a lot less complex in this country. I’m searching for birthday cards (I know a lot of Taureans – who seem to believe in astrology and hence keep telling me their star-signs - which makes this a busy card time of year for Hallmark) so I’m looking for cards for fiancées, sisters, brothers in law and all that sort of stuff; but there’s nothing. Either it’s your birthday or it isn’t, there’s none of this special relationship card nonsense. Now cakes, well that’s different, of course: there’s a special cake for every conceivable occasion, as well as a whole cornucopia of cakes for no occasion whatsoever.
The more I see of cars in this country, the clearer it becomes that the Neds drive like they cycle: all over the place (they cross into the left hand lane to take a right turn). Yes, the shortest route between two points is a straight line, but please, they cut blind corners - it’s like a demolition derby without, miraculously, the impacts. Having said which, at least they don’t double-park their cars – I’ve returned to my bicycle on a few occasions to find I have to move four or five others just to get at it.. It’s also only fair to say that there’s not much problem with people talking on cellphones while they’re driving; ever frugal, the Neds prefer to text – I swear, I’ve seen it..
Indeed, the love affair with communication technology is more plague-like here than it is in the UK. Even with the office relatively quiet, there is time to dwell on the tragedy that cell phones (also known as mobile phones) aren’t made lightweight and conveniently sized to enable them to fit easily into pockets, rather than be left ringing unattended on desks – and yet, simultaneously, I like to bask in the glorious truth that the tune a cellphone plays when it rings is a reflection of its owners personality and a measure of their essential individuality and taste, which simultaneously confers a measure of the coolness of the original ‘artiste’ upon them.
Despite my prior observation on Nederers not helping each other out, there is a real sense of teamwork in the office – sometimes as many as three or four people gather together to send a fax or operate a photocopier, and often they’ll stop for a coffee and a chat afterwards. Then again, this is also a part of the wonderful, laid-back culture which is exemplified by the attitude that just standing or sitting around chatting still constitutes work, as long as it’s done in the office.
Given that I am set to be here for at least a further twelve months (while the rail network is allowed to sink into a deeper state of decay back in Blighty), I have decided to make a concerted effort to learn to speak Nederish and, to this end, I’ve attempted to research courses in Ned as a foreign language. However, since no courses are advertised in English, I have no idea if they’re available or not.
Back to the job, and I am currently working on a project in a province called Purmerend Overwhere. Overwhere? Yes: it seems the name Overwhere is considered far more acceptable over here than it would be over there in the UK. I just give up. The signalling itself isn’t that problematic, or it wouldn’t be if they used tunnels (admittedly unwise, since the country is only about three feet above sea level) or bridges. As it is, I’m looking at a stretch of line which has seven level-crossings over a two mile stretch (three of which are only separated by one eighth of a mile -That’s virtually adjacent) and the gates on every single pair are called ‘a’ and ‘b’. Well, that helps to distinguish between them. There are other letters available, guys. “But we can use the kilometrages,” I’m told. This in a land where they don’t even produce scale drawings – I, for one, have absolutely no faith in their ability to accurately measure distance. Then there are the abbreviations, which make no sense to me at all: for some reason Paggen (a gate close to the track) is abbreviated to pag’n, and yet aggen (a gate not so close to the track) is abbreviated to ag’s. Why? Because it is. Whatever. Oh, and symbols I don’t recognise which no-one else recognises either. “Just re-produce it like it is there.” Sure. Somewhere, an infinite number of monkeys with an infinite number of PCs are just copying each other, with no idea of what they’re doing or why, and waiting until the cake comes out.
So to April Fool’s Day, and I figure something’s expected of me, so the night before I re-arrange the keys on Arjen’s computer keyboard, which I figure is harmless but entertaining – and perhaps it would have been, if he’d noticed. As it was, he got his password wrong three times and got locked out of the system. He tried to blag an excuse by saying he touch-typed, and didn’t look at the keys, but I pointed out that in that case he would have got his password right (I only moved the keys, I didn’t rewire the keyboard). That just kinda takes all the fun out of practical jokes, really. On the other hand, it gave me a further opportunity to expand my language knowledge, and I now know that ‘lijp’ means daft or silly, and ‘onverlaat’ is a rogue or villain. There were other words, but I don’t think it’s necessary to detail them all here. Co-incidentally, later that day, I sent a sound-clip to a blonde receptionist who has asked not to be identified (presumably to avoid embarrassment in the eyes of her husband, Raymond; her son, Justin; or her co-workers Simone and Claudia), and she emailed me back to say that she couldn’t play the sound but the video was nice. Ah, sometimes the amusement just seems to generate itself.
A couple of weeks back, I was intending to put in some extra hours over the weekend to build up credit, but Martin, the boss, said that while I was here he considered himself to be responsible for not only my physical well-being, but also my mental well-being. Now, I respect a man who likes a challenge, but frankly I don’t think he knows what he’s taken on there – fools and angels spring to mind. Anyway, the upshot was that, since it was going to be a good weekend, he thought that I shouldn’t work the Sunday, and instead suggested I to cycle from Kampen to Zwolle alongside the river Ijssel. It was a scenic ride, but it was a scenic eighteen kilometres. I reached Zwolle and dismounted walking like a cowboy. There has got to be a market for more comfortable saddles. Well, just around the corner from our office is a large building called the Eco-Drome, which has always kinda interested me, so I decided to check it out. It’s a great place, with lots of different environments created inside its climate controlled building - they have otters, owls, vultures, turkeys (the first time I think I’ve seen one that wasn’t on a plate) spiders (all kinds, from all over the world), fish (really, really huge fish) and lots of endangered species which have been killed and stuffed so that coming generations don’t miss out on them. All in all, it was a really good outing. I mentioned it to the guys in the office on the Monday, but obviously, since they live right by it, no-one else has ever been.
As an aside, of late, elastic band fights have started breaking out around 17:00 (everyone uses 24 hour clock all the time in the Nederlands, both in writing and in conversation), which started out as just friendly sport but seems to have developed into an England versus Nederlands thing, leaving me significantly outnumbered and frankly without a chance. I have tried to point out the unfairness of this, but I guess when a country hasn’t won a war in five hundred years they’ll take any victory they can get. In fact, they claim it’s not even England versus Nederlands, but track versus signalling – although, since most of the signalling team starts to leave at 15:00, that still means it’s only me defending myself against the pagan hordes.
Good news from Dewi, meanwhile, who is back with her parents and is now able to eat small quantities of food properly, rather than through a tube; except to say that, since she is getting her senses of taste and smell back, she may not want anything further to do with us in the near future. Them’s the breaks, I guess.
During my time in the Nederlands, I seem to have retained a static weight of 93 kilos (if not going to convert that to imperial for you, but look, I’m big-boned, alright?), although obviously the gym is paying off because my belts are having to be tightened and my trousers are now too big for me around the waist. Re-assuringly, I am able to take this as conclusive evidence that dieticians are all talking nonsense, since I am practically living on convenience food and beer (alright, Mum, and fresh fruit). Nonetheless, work has seen fit to enforce a diet upon me with the introduction of a Chipknip only system of payment in the works canteen. Chipknip is some kind of card payment system for small amounts of money which is a function included in the Neder bank cards and which has the incredible advantage of having had the pin-code and signature requirements removed so that there is absolutely no security on it - Genius. This means that, since I don’t bank out here, I can’t eat (opening a bank account as a foreign worker with temporary residence is, apparently, virtually impossible. Not that I would use Chipknip anyway: idiot bloody system – I mean, what are they thinking?).
In the interests of owning up to my mistakes, regarding the public holiday detailing of my last post: okay, Whitsun day, not Whit Sunday: Whitsun begins on Whit Sunday, but apparently lasts the full week. Also, it seems, known as Pentecost, Whit Sunday is the seventh Sunday after Easter (which, itself, is the first Sunday after the first full moon after the Spring equinox – sounds a little pagan to me, but who am I to comment?), and supposedly originally named White Sunday, after the white baptism cloths, because Whit Sunday was a very popular time for baptism. Yes, I’m sometimes wrong, but at least I research it.
Defending the honour of the British, I am sometimes forced to resort to making derogatory remarks regarding the lineage of my hosts by making recourse to references to Dutch in English expressions, and it seems there are a few more than I was previously aware of. I am always hearing references to the English as drunkards, so I was first, naturally, driven to inform my colleagues of the concept of Dutch courage, which apparently was first used in the mid-seventeenth century, and alluded to Nederish sailors gaining their sea-battle nerve from rum. Following hot on the heels of that, I learnt that "well, I'll be a Dutchman's uncle!" originally meant "thank-you for your unsolicited, useless advice!", rather than simply "bugger me!", which was what I’d always understood of it. Obviously, Double Dutch refers ably to the gibberish that I hear around me all day, but it seems also that it refers to a game of jump rope in which players jump over two ropes swung in a crisscross fashion. Going Dutch seemed to surprise them, despite the fact that ladies are always expected to buy their own drinks (that Dutch frugality again). Needless to say, after I’d concluded my listing, I found myself to be in Dutch - in disfavour or trouble.
Well, that’s all that’s fit to print for now. I’m off Schiphol and a flight to Blighty for Mary’s birthday celebrations. Till next time. Live from Zwolle.
Thursday, March 24, 2005
Week 44 – Prettig Paasdag
Spring is upon us, and whilst I shall miss the sight of children building little igloos and babies normally pushed in prams being pulled on sleighs, I am relishing the higher temperatures (which are still five degrees below what you are enjoying back in Blighty). This is fortunate, because it appears that I may be continuing out here beyond my initial twelve months, but I sincerely hope that I shall no longer have to be dealing with my current agency, who I shall henceforth refer to as the Ewings (which won’t present viewers of Countdown or mental goats with any serious challenge to interpret, but avoids leaving me open to litigation), an agency which consistently takes the mick, screws me (a cryptic agent name reference) and then, in an effluvial stream of prevarication, claims that they didn’t make any of the statements and promises that they have been making for the last ten months. If you can deduce who I’m talking about, then be warned. On the other hand, one advantage of dealing with the Ewings, has been that it has taught me that statements and apologies which are not made sincerely are empty and worthless, so I would like to take this opportunity to withdraw my apology of the previous posting to blondes, and IT and admin people.
Totally as an aside, I was finally able to get back to the UK two weeks ago (after my snow cancellation a fortnight earlier, which I’m pleased to say EasyJet refunded promptly and without quibbling), and while I was there I bought some new spectacle lens cleaning cloths from Vision Express. I was mightily disturbed to see that the instructions specify ‘Not suitable for use with contact lenses’. The whole world has gone mad – oblivion, take me now. I try take heart that the Mayan calendar ends on December 21st 2012, though I suspect the conspiracy theorists are wrong, and this is just where the Mayan’s ran out of ink, rather than the end of the world.
Arianne made a brief appearance in the office a couple of weeks back, and I’m pleased to be able to say she’s looking good: still walking with a crutch, but she seems happy and she’s obviously getting back to her old self despite the chemotherapy – certainly, she wears her head-scarf jauntily. We’re expecting her to come back to work a few days a week in June, and she’s as pleased as Punch because her hair is starting to grow back.
Dewi, meanwhile, has had her recovery hampered by pneumonia, but Alfons, Shahram and I went to visit her in the hospital (zeikenhuis is curiously denoted H on road signs, go figure) in Groningen on Wednesday and the anti-biotics seem to be doing their job. I showed up with ‘VERVELLEN’ stamped on my forehead, in an attempt to give her a laugh (hey, I’m already the ‘Crazy Englishman’, what have I got to lose? Anyway, it only took twenty minutes to wash it off at the end of the day). [In actuality, I was lead to believe by the guys in the office that this translated as ‘deleted’, but disturbingly AltaVista’s Babel Fish gives it as ‘to expire’, so I count myself lucky that I didn’t run into any hungry Neds.] Dewi seemed to be really doing well, and was in better health than we were expecting, which is re-assuring, but there were too many of us there (including her father Michael, mother Jessica and sister Jennifer) so we were only able to stay for about ninety minutes before heading back out, at which point Alfons (an ex-resident of Groningen) took us to a rather good Shoarma restaurant for a late snack (Turkish and Greek food in the Netherlands, in contrast to the Indian and Chinese food here, is really rather good).
It has become apparent that my knowledge of Nederish is weaker than I previously thought – I have now learnt that the health warning ‘Roken is dodelijk’ does not mean ‘Smoking is easy’, although I still think it was a perfectly understandable mistake to make. Oh, and the term ‘lekker ding’ has to be used with discretion, to avoid being slapped in the face. Experience is a good teacher, but always too late to be of any use.
Requiring hair maintenance and shopping, I went in to Zwolle at the weekend, and I was quite impressed to notice how many public buildings had wheelchair access, until the real reason for the ramps became clear when I saw someone cycle out of a restaurant. What was I thinking? Anyway, it has been driven home to me that it is probably unwise to get a haircut from a non-English speaking hairdresser. I know what I think I asked for (a trim, and to remove my sideburns) and he assured me that he knew what I meant. So, I’m sitting in front of the mirror, but with my glasses off, obviously, and it doesn’t look like he’s doing what I expected, but, hey, he must know what he’s about, right? I now have fully an inch of shaved clear head between my ears and the start of my hair, a look apparently popular with gabbers (dead-head-Neds: refer to http://www.gabber.nl/ for disturbing images of Dutch chavs, check http://www.chavscum.co.uk/ if you don’t know what a chav is). Still, it’ll grow back – probably not as fast as I’d like, but you live and learn.
Whilst travelling about, I saw (well, you couldn’t miss it) that last weekend there was a national annual bike race – evident from the number of closed roads and bridges, switched off traffic lights and junctions manned by eight police, two cars and a motorbike. Everything stops: you simply can’t get anywhere for like twenty minutes while all the bicycles go past, fist in blocks and then in dribs and drabs. Now, I can understand restricting traffic for the first fifty or so riders, but, after that, there are only losers – maybe it’s a little harsh, but I say, let them take their chances with the traffic.
Back in Zwolle for a Saturday night (Kampen offers mighty few options for socialising) and I run into a guy from Yorkshire in Sally O’Brien’s, the Irish pub (everywhere you go, theme pubs like a plague), who is so pleased to meet someone who speaks English that he chats to me for twenty minutes before he decides he’s too drunk to stay out and goes home. Fabulously, this farewell sentence was the first thing he’d said to me that I’d been able to reconcile into coherent words. Ah, the English abroad: ambassadors for our country, every last one of them.
So, back to the job, and I’m currently reproducing track plans digitally from paper prints. This is mind-numbingly tedious, and is only really challenging because the prints I have to work from look as though they were projected onto the side of a building, those projections were photographed from a tremendous distance, the photographs were photocopied and then those copies faxed before I even got to see them. Despite this almost total illegibility, it is apparent that the original drawings were produced digitally. "Why don’t we just work on the digital files?" I ask. They weren’t kept – well, who could have known that these computer thingies would catch on? In fairness, the UK made the same mistake (railway people aren’t always the quickest at grasping new ideas), but certainly not since the early 1990s – the practice remained here until early 2004.
Far, far scarier, I’m in the middle of a track layout and I see a platform set between two sets of tracks, and next to it a set of level crossings. Well, obviously the only way to the platform wouldn’t be through the level crossing, would it? Well, yes, it would, apparently. The only platform at the station, and you can only get to it by crossing the tracks. And this is normal, of course. Safety? I don’t believe they don’t know the meaning of the word.
Meanwhile, the whole office is out two days a week at the moment on training courses, although I’m still in, obviously, since the courses are in Nederese. Thanks for that, then. The lights, which I believe I already mentioned are controlled by sensors, keep switching on and off all day; the silence is deafening. The upside is that I can play my own discs all day (Tears for Fears, Howard Jones and Talk Talk at the moment - I never really did get much past the eighties); when everybody else is in it seems to be a diet of dance music or house, and yet they have the nerve to bitch about the leaking sound from my headphones. D’ya know, I long for the silence of a proper design environment.
I’m still having issues with the concept of version control out here: 3 in black scribbled out in green with 2 in green ringed in blue and 4 in red. This is apparently to indicate that the version was 2, is currently 3 and is now becoming 4. I suppose this is very useful for anyone who doesn’t know what order numbers normally come in, but I’ve always assumed that engineers would need to know how to count as an absolute base level of education. Having said which, these are the same people who seem to think that 4.284km falls between 4.278km and 4.282km. Then, somehow, there are ‘J’s that look like ‘3’s and ‘4’s that look like ‘9’s – fortunately, I’ve never been one to complain. Beyond that, equipment that is new is coloured green; recovered kit, which was but is no more, is also coloured green – I have asked why, in the name of all that is holy, and have been told that this is in the interests of keeping things simple. Of course it is. I’m just impressed they use three different colours for their signals. Clothes, on the other hand, use more colours than I was aware existed: boldly checked and striped shirts seem to be making a real comeback, inexplicably, and some days I get a headache just looking at my colleagues.
Then there are the concepts which are clearly backwards: the timesheet software (and I use the word in its loosest sense – I always thought that computers were supposed to make things easier, but no) is called Oracle. Now, traditionally, in ancient Rome, an oracle was a person considered to be a source of wise counsel or prophetic wisdom, essentially a seer into the future. Timesheets look into the past. A fairly obvious difference, I would have thought, but not one that apparently registers with people to whom the concept of time is meaningless.
Curiously, for a nation with such religious proclivities, it seems that they don’t do Good Friday here. On the other hand, they do celebrate 2e Paasdag (2nd Easter Day, Easter Monday), Koninginnedag (Queen’s Day – I don’t know, Gay Pride? - 30th April, lost because it’s a Saturday), Hemelvaartsdag (Ascension Day, 5th May – a Thursday), Bevrijdingsdag (Liberation Day, commemorating the end of WWII occupation; also 5th May, this year, much to the chagrin of the populace), 2e Pinksterdag (2nd Whit Sunday – 2nd Whit Sunday? Be honest, it’s Monday, isn’t it?) and Kerstdagen (Christmas, obviously).
If it seems I’m becoming increasingly sarcastic at the expense of my hosts, this might be explained by my bitterness at having to feed, conversationally, on the scraps from the table of dialogue that my colleagues and acquaintances deem fit to translate for my consumption. If you’re used to taking part in any kind of decision making process or the debate of any issue of interest, then you don’t want to be here unless you’re fluent in Nederese. I ask questions relating to design procedures, which prompt twenty minute discussions resulting in “do it like this,” with no further explanation supplied. If apathy ain’t a trait you’re anxious to develop, then this is not a way you want to be working. Having said which, in the early days, when I could still be bothered to press for a why, it usually came down to ‘that’s the way we’ve always done it.’ Yes, similar logic used to be used to explain the practices of sacrificing virgins and worshipping the moon….. Apparently, people still get stoned over here.
Anyway, I’m off to Schiphol for a long weekend chocfest in the UK. Tot straks. Evil from Zwolle.
Totally as an aside, I was finally able to get back to the UK two weeks ago (after my snow cancellation a fortnight earlier, which I’m pleased to say EasyJet refunded promptly and without quibbling), and while I was there I bought some new spectacle lens cleaning cloths from Vision Express. I was mightily disturbed to see that the instructions specify ‘Not suitable for use with contact lenses’. The whole world has gone mad – oblivion, take me now. I try take heart that the Mayan calendar ends on December 21st 2012, though I suspect the conspiracy theorists are wrong, and this is just where the Mayan’s ran out of ink, rather than the end of the world.
Arianne made a brief appearance in the office a couple of weeks back, and I’m pleased to be able to say she’s looking good: still walking with a crutch, but she seems happy and she’s obviously getting back to her old self despite the chemotherapy – certainly, she wears her head-scarf jauntily. We’re expecting her to come back to work a few days a week in June, and she’s as pleased as Punch because her hair is starting to grow back.
Dewi, meanwhile, has had her recovery hampered by pneumonia, but Alfons, Shahram and I went to visit her in the hospital (zeikenhuis is curiously denoted H on road signs, go figure) in Groningen on Wednesday and the anti-biotics seem to be doing their job. I showed up with ‘VERVELLEN’ stamped on my forehead, in an attempt to give her a laugh (hey, I’m already the ‘Crazy Englishman’, what have I got to lose? Anyway, it only took twenty minutes to wash it off at the end of the day). [In actuality, I was lead to believe by the guys in the office that this translated as ‘deleted’, but disturbingly AltaVista’s Babel Fish gives it as ‘to expire’, so I count myself lucky that I didn’t run into any hungry Neds.] Dewi seemed to be really doing well, and was in better health than we were expecting, which is re-assuring, but there were too many of us there (including her father Michael, mother Jessica and sister Jennifer) so we were only able to stay for about ninety minutes before heading back out, at which point Alfons (an ex-resident of Groningen) took us to a rather good Shoarma restaurant for a late snack (Turkish and Greek food in the Netherlands, in contrast to the Indian and Chinese food here, is really rather good).
It has become apparent that my knowledge of Nederish is weaker than I previously thought – I have now learnt that the health warning ‘Roken is dodelijk’ does not mean ‘Smoking is easy’, although I still think it was a perfectly understandable mistake to make. Oh, and the term ‘lekker ding’ has to be used with discretion, to avoid being slapped in the face. Experience is a good teacher, but always too late to be of any use.
Requiring hair maintenance and shopping, I went in to Zwolle at the weekend, and I was quite impressed to notice how many public buildings had wheelchair access, until the real reason for the ramps became clear when I saw someone cycle out of a restaurant. What was I thinking? Anyway, it has been driven home to me that it is probably unwise to get a haircut from a non-English speaking hairdresser. I know what I think I asked for (a trim, and to remove my sideburns) and he assured me that he knew what I meant. So, I’m sitting in front of the mirror, but with my glasses off, obviously, and it doesn’t look like he’s doing what I expected, but, hey, he must know what he’s about, right? I now have fully an inch of shaved clear head between my ears and the start of my hair, a look apparently popular with gabbers (dead-head-Neds: refer to http://www.gabber.nl/ for disturbing images of Dutch chavs, check http://www.chavscum.co.uk/ if you don’t know what a chav is). Still, it’ll grow back – probably not as fast as I’d like, but you live and learn.
Whilst travelling about, I saw (well, you couldn’t miss it) that last weekend there was a national annual bike race – evident from the number of closed roads and bridges, switched off traffic lights and junctions manned by eight police, two cars and a motorbike. Everything stops: you simply can’t get anywhere for like twenty minutes while all the bicycles go past, fist in blocks and then in dribs and drabs. Now, I can understand restricting traffic for the first fifty or so riders, but, after that, there are only losers – maybe it’s a little harsh, but I say, let them take their chances with the traffic.
Back in Zwolle for a Saturday night (Kampen offers mighty few options for socialising) and I run into a guy from Yorkshire in Sally O’Brien’s, the Irish pub (everywhere you go, theme pubs like a plague), who is so pleased to meet someone who speaks English that he chats to me for twenty minutes before he decides he’s too drunk to stay out and goes home. Fabulously, this farewell sentence was the first thing he’d said to me that I’d been able to reconcile into coherent words. Ah, the English abroad: ambassadors for our country, every last one of them.
So, back to the job, and I’m currently reproducing track plans digitally from paper prints. This is mind-numbingly tedious, and is only really challenging because the prints I have to work from look as though they were projected onto the side of a building, those projections were photographed from a tremendous distance, the photographs were photocopied and then those copies faxed before I even got to see them. Despite this almost total illegibility, it is apparent that the original drawings were produced digitally. "Why don’t we just work on the digital files?" I ask. They weren’t kept – well, who could have known that these computer thingies would catch on? In fairness, the UK made the same mistake (railway people aren’t always the quickest at grasping new ideas), but certainly not since the early 1990s – the practice remained here until early 2004.
Far, far scarier, I’m in the middle of a track layout and I see a platform set between two sets of tracks, and next to it a set of level crossings. Well, obviously the only way to the platform wouldn’t be through the level crossing, would it? Well, yes, it would, apparently. The only platform at the station, and you can only get to it by crossing the tracks. And this is normal, of course. Safety? I don’t believe they don’t know the meaning of the word.
Meanwhile, the whole office is out two days a week at the moment on training courses, although I’m still in, obviously, since the courses are in Nederese. Thanks for that, then. The lights, which I believe I already mentioned are controlled by sensors, keep switching on and off all day; the silence is deafening. The upside is that I can play my own discs all day (Tears for Fears, Howard Jones and Talk Talk at the moment - I never really did get much past the eighties); when everybody else is in it seems to be a diet of dance music or house, and yet they have the nerve to bitch about the leaking sound from my headphones. D’ya know, I long for the silence of a proper design environment.
I’m still having issues with the concept of version control out here: 3 in black scribbled out in green with 2 in green ringed in blue and 4 in red. This is apparently to indicate that the version was 2, is currently 3 and is now becoming 4. I suppose this is very useful for anyone who doesn’t know what order numbers normally come in, but I’ve always assumed that engineers would need to know how to count as an absolute base level of education. Having said which, these are the same people who seem to think that 4.284km falls between 4.278km and 4.282km. Then, somehow, there are ‘J’s that look like ‘3’s and ‘4’s that look like ‘9’s – fortunately, I’ve never been one to complain. Beyond that, equipment that is new is coloured green; recovered kit, which was but is no more, is also coloured green – I have asked why, in the name of all that is holy, and have been told that this is in the interests of keeping things simple. Of course it is. I’m just impressed they use three different colours for their signals. Clothes, on the other hand, use more colours than I was aware existed: boldly checked and striped shirts seem to be making a real comeback, inexplicably, and some days I get a headache just looking at my colleagues.
Then there are the concepts which are clearly backwards: the timesheet software (and I use the word in its loosest sense – I always thought that computers were supposed to make things easier, but no) is called Oracle. Now, traditionally, in ancient Rome, an oracle was a person considered to be a source of wise counsel or prophetic wisdom, essentially a seer into the future. Timesheets look into the past. A fairly obvious difference, I would have thought, but not one that apparently registers with people to whom the concept of time is meaningless.
Curiously, for a nation with such religious proclivities, it seems that they don’t do Good Friday here. On the other hand, they do celebrate 2e Paasdag (2nd Easter Day, Easter Monday), Koninginnedag (Queen’s Day – I don’t know, Gay Pride? - 30th April, lost because it’s a Saturday), Hemelvaartsdag (Ascension Day, 5th May – a Thursday), Bevrijdingsdag (Liberation Day, commemorating the end of WWII occupation; also 5th May, this year, much to the chagrin of the populace), 2e Pinksterdag (2nd Whit Sunday – 2nd Whit Sunday? Be honest, it’s Monday, isn’t it?) and Kerstdagen (Christmas, obviously).
If it seems I’m becoming increasingly sarcastic at the expense of my hosts, this might be explained by my bitterness at having to feed, conversationally, on the scraps from the table of dialogue that my colleagues and acquaintances deem fit to translate for my consumption. If you’re used to taking part in any kind of decision making process or the debate of any issue of interest, then you don’t want to be here unless you’re fluent in Nederese. I ask questions relating to design procedures, which prompt twenty minute discussions resulting in “do it like this,” with no further explanation supplied. If apathy ain’t a trait you’re anxious to develop, then this is not a way you want to be working. Having said which, in the early days, when I could still be bothered to press for a why, it usually came down to ‘that’s the way we’ve always done it.’ Yes, similar logic used to be used to explain the practices of sacrificing virgins and worshipping the moon….. Apparently, people still get stoned over here.
Anyway, I’m off to Schiphol for a long weekend chocfest in the UK. Tot straks. Evil from Zwolle.
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