Stet » The nether lands

Delving A’dam, espying Eve

Ria — Sat, 17 Mar 2012 23:46:52 +0000

After a series of workshops at the University of Amsterdam, we retired to Café Van Zuylen for beer and soup, waiting out the Friday evening traffic before heading south on a three-hour drive done in 2 hrs 10″, thanks to my driver’s belief that speed radars don’t work at night.

Mobile photo, edited in-camera

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A very Dutch death

Ria — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 21:38:48 +0000

The new year had barely begun when I learned of the death of a colleague who worked in the office opposite mine. A very Dutch death, he was out cycling on New Year’s Eve, probably going home to celebrate with his wife and four kids, when he had a heart attack and ended up in

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The limits of tolerance

Ria — Fri, 11 Mar 2011 00:08:02 +0000

The Dutch like to think of themselves as an exceptionally, even uniquely, tolerant people. The precedent is often cited as Amsterdam’s reception of refugees fleeing religious persecution in the 17th century, although London too hosted Huguenots and Jews, in perhaps greater numbers than Amsterdam. And to the outsider today, the Netherlands is not obviously more

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Moving house, by bike

Ria — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 21:12:06 +0000

Have bike will travel

Students are beginning to drift back into town, clogging the bookshops with their reading lists for Art History and Unemployability (Comb. Hons.)

Proving the Dutch can do anything with a bike, I spotted these intrepid housemovers while cycling back from the crèche. With a child perched on front and another

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Rollin’, rollin’, rollin’

Ria — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 08:20:52 +0000

Keep those wagons rollin’ …

Life is rollin’ on chez les Bacon — school’s almost out for summer, my contract at the university has been extended for another year, baby Didi is up and walking, and we interviewed a woman last night to come help clean for us, which of course meant we spent a

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Family lives 4 years with dead brother

Ria — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 11:53:25 +0000

The northern province of Friesland is considered to be on the outer fringes of the Netherlands, with its own language, cows, and … weirdness. Proof of just how weird was the following news story from last night:

In the village of Minnertsga, the body of a man who died four years ago has been found

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Orange was the color

Ria — Sun, 25 Apr 2010 22:34:51 +0000

In between the creche and the day job is Balans, a cobbled street that splits at a hilltop, curves behind the Abbey walls and rejoins in front of St Joris, built in 1582. And within Balans is a small fountain with four jets shooting straight up. Best appreciated by students who love throwing in a

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Blue and yellow

Ria — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 23:49:56 +0000

Back to work on Monday after an exhausting IKEA weekend: long trip to the mainland on Saturday, then six hours shuffling round the blue and yellow megabox, sustained only by Swedish meatballs and a family-size bag of Daims; Sunday busy with the allen keys, baffled by pictogram instructions simplified for our 23-language community.

What

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Call me stupid

Ria — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 23:44:21 +0000

It’s heading for 1 am. About to shut down for the night, I carelessly copied over the whole folder of my current editing job in progress onto my USB stick, thinking that I’d be super efficient by having access to the files during the day tomorrow. Two seconds later I realized to my horror that

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Future proofing

Ria — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 23:07:33 +0000

I’m trying to get my head around joining up various online activities. It’s a challenge, which may be ultimately pointless, but the potentialities of crossover are too inviting.

Current linkups include Squeezebox to and from Flickr, LastFM and Facebook; Stet (this blog) to and from Flickr, LastFM and Twitter, with a pending bug query

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