Monday, June 30, 2008
Saturday, June 21, 2008
Summer lovin...
image: Greg E (CreativeCommons Attribution-Non-commercial-Sharealike licence)
Mum and I are staying with Brian, a family friend, resident in an outlying suburb of the ´Dam. Together we drive to Harlingen along the giant dyke the dutch forged over a decade in the 20's and 30's. It´s a huge wall of rock, bricks, sand and now motorway that turned what was once a bay into a lake. (The original plan was to fill most of the bay in, but after a few polders, the locals valued their new lake more than the land that could be claimed from it.) ´With typical Dutch romanticism, they named it Afsluitdijk, which means the closing dyke´ Brian drily quips . We stop at Harlingen, the port where it seems most of Holland is leaving for the freisan islands, riding bikes loaded with several months worth of camping supplies strapped to any possible surface
Oh the bikes in the Netherlands! I could rave for hours. H.G. Wells said, ´When I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair for the future of the human race´ I´m the same, so in the Netherlands I am optimistic to the point of absurdity.
Image: Gen Gibson (creative commons attribution licence)
On the return trip to Amsterdam I follow the thinnest of leads concerning a gig by an up and coming soul band and we end up in the dormant satellite town of Monickedam looking for what I assumed was a little festival… Besloten Feest. After asking some locals and receiving some skewed glances, someone finally cracks the code for me… it is not Besloten Feest, but a besloten feest – a private party - one I wasn´t invited to and had little chance of finding. Luckily I have a good plan b, which is going to the city centre to watch the…
Euro 08 quarterfinal Holland v. Russia
Over the past few days, Amsterdam has gradually turned visibly orange. Orange hats, wigs, all manner of orange clothing, and of course, strings of orange flags flutter from buildings. I considered buying an orange inflatable hammer and an orange boa, but in the end decide to save my euros for impending emergency hostel stays and visits to Norwegian supermarkets.
Instead I pick up a freebie orange hair-net and rip it apart to make an impromptu hat band for my trilby. Looks kinda odd with it´s elastication and jagged edge. ´you look like you´ve got panties on your head´drawls Dean, a random Texan I meet. We both shrug.
As the teams tussle, with Russia looking dangerous, I move from crowded bar to crowded bar to a spacious but depressed coffee shop (´who’d watch the football in a coffee shop?´ - Tikitu) Finally I settle in a bar on the lively Spuistraat. Nearby graffiti quotes Raoul Vaneigem: Those who speak of revolution and class struggle with no explicit reference to daily life, without understanding what is subversive about love, and what is positive in the refusal of constraints, they have a corpse in their mouth.
Yeah, yeah, how subversive can football be? At least there are no corpses here, - some guy at the window is yelling home-grown commentary through a megaphone. An Italian is blowing a whistle and initiating chants with his minimal Dutch. ´I don´t really care about football´ he tells me, `I just know it will be a good party if they win´ Me too.
I don´t know much about football, but it doesn´t look good. The Russian team (coached by a renegade Dutch manager) has looked swift, organised, and lethal. They have almost scored numerous times, and been ahead for most of the second half. The dutch finally equalise, sending it to extra time. Much tension. The Dutch keeper Van der Saar is screaming at his team-mates. The Russians seem calmer. Then Russia strike twice. By the time Arshavin sends a cheeky strike between Van der Sars´ legs, their style has won the respect of many as well as the game.
I watch the management of the bar desperately trying to erase the depressing effect of the impending loss by switching the soundsystem to dance music instead of the commentary. They respond to shouts and switch it back. Many people are leaving for home already, but the die-hard fans remain, stunned.
The party is over, the city is in mourning. I see the Italian who was acting as cheerleader. ´catastrophe´ is all he says.
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
Leaving my second home.
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
British Wildlife Report #2
For a long time I've been meaning to write about the wildlife here - subtle and cryptic, seasonal, evocative.
When I first came it boggled the mind to have no substantial wilderness around, now the little woods and moors bounded on all sides by development seem normal. Another aspect to the countryside that took getting used to was the smog-haze. Sometimes on a clear day, even in rural areas, a hill one mile away can seem hazy and indistinct. Anything more than 15 miles away can be virtually invisible! It's a combination (an interaction?) between moisture, dust and pollutants. More recently though, I've noticed the variation in this. Some days, especially in summertime, after rain, the atmosphere is as clear as in New Zealand - you can guess I relish those days!
I also relish the seasonal changes here - I caught the end of Autumn in Sussex, with its glory of russet and gold, then the bleak winter in Northumberland, Argyll, Derbyshire and London, when the land lies truly naked. (In most parts of the country, evengreens seem to account for just a few percent of the trees around) I watched the trees dress up again, one by one - beginning with the chestnuts and ending with the limestone-loving ash and the elegant lady: northern beech. Then, to cap it off, the sea of bluebells that rises to lap among the trunks in early May was breathtaking.
I can't put my finger on the particulars, but there seems to be birds around that weren't here in winter - the birds of prey in particular. I should check their migration details out. The kites with their v-shaped tails and the astounding kestrel (you may know G.M.Hopkin's The Windhover) are favourites. The crow family was faithful though, and have stuck around enough for me to identify between jackdaws (gregarious, whitefaced) and ravens (large, curved beaks, mainly solitary). Both were plentiful as I walked the vertigo-inducing path along the clifftops in south-west Cornwall. Crows and rooks are harder to distinguish. Readers' digest tells me rooks appear to wear 'baggy breeches'. Dubious
Jackdaw (Photo by John Haslam- CC Attribution licence)
There are three animals I wouldn't have seen without the aid of keen British wildlife-watchers. Walking along a canal towpath in Derbyshire, an elderly gentleman is staring at something on the other side of the canal. 'It's a grass snake'. Indeed! With the naked eye, it looks like a stick, but we are offered the view through others' binoculars and zoom lenses (by now there is a crowd). It's funny to say this, but, my first impression was... it's got no legs! A brain, a tongue, eyes.... but no legs! Like a fish, but on land. Weird.
Amazingly, it transpires it is not just one grass snake but two. Trying to eat the same toad. Incredible, to watch the drama of these three creatures, maligned in our folklore but beautiful. It is again, a fellow nature junkie who shows me the peregrine falcon chicks, perching on the custom-built nestbox on the spire of Derby Cathedral. They are fledglings, at home in the city centre, with their aggressive curved beak and comical head-bobs.
Badger, of course! (Public domain)
In Devon, around 10pm, my cousin's neighbour calls up to tell us 'the badger is here'. We head to his kitchen and watch it through the large window. It is out, on the steps, thinner than i imagined, but many times more beautiful. It picks up the bread left out for it nightly, and scoffs a slice in the shadows, before returning again and again for more. I am entranced.
