Geoff Coupe's Blog

Reflections on life at “De Witte Wand”…

Category: Society

  • Mierenneuken writ large

    The Dutch have an expression: mierenneuken. Literally, it means “ant-fucking” (the Dutch are nothing if not straightforward).  The English translate this as “nitpicking”, that is, the practice of meticulously searching for minor, even trivial errors in detail.

    And now, the full weight of the Dutch governmental process has brought into being a ban on the wearing of the burka in public places that seems to me to be the very epitome of fucking ants.

    Thankfully, some manifestations of public life in the Netherlands have recognised this law for being what it is, a pernicious waste of time, money and energy over 150 religious women in a population of 17 million.

  • An Offensive Clown in a Polka-dot Dress

    I’ve never had time for Ann Widdicombe. Her callousness and stupidity have been self-evident for years. Now she has re-invented herself as an MEP. And she’s still spouting stupidity. She and Farage make a pretty pair. They are in Brussels simply to wreck the EU in any way they can, and pocket the pay and pension from the EU whilst doing it. I despair.

    Addendum: Marina Hyde sums up the Widdicombe spectacle better than I could. Read and despair.

  • What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

    So Facebook wants us all to use their new cryptocurrency Libra? I loathe and detest Facebook enough already without this being thrust upon us. As Kenan Malik writes: Libra cryptocurrency won’t set us free, it will further enslave us to Facebook. Count me out.

    The truly terrifying thing is that apparently:

    More than two dozen entities have signed on to be founding members of the Libra organization, including Visa and MasterCard, Uber and Lyft, eBay, and Spotify.

    So Visa and Mastercard have already cast their lot with Facebook? We’re doomed.

  • The Bigger Picture

    Jonathan Cook discusses the the assault by Mark Field on a climate change activist this week, and points out the bigger picture. He states that we are in danger of getting sidetracked. Worth reading.

  • All animals are equal…

    But clearly, some are still more equal than others…

    A walk from the Westerbork Nazi transit camp to Groningen as part of the “Night of the Refugee” fundraising activities has been cancelled after the organisers faced death threats and intimidation.

    What really galls is that Thierry Baudet described the sponsored walk as “scandalous”, and Esther Voet, the editor of the Jewish newspaper Nieuw Israelietische Weekblad said it was “Tasteless”.

    Perhaps Baudet and Voet should be reminded of the poem written by Martin Niemöller: “First they came…”

  • “A Special Place In Hell”

    Donald Tusk hits the nail on the head. The Nigel Farages, Jacob Rees-Moggs and Boris Johnsons of this world deserve nothing less. It is they who have betrayed the British people, not the EU.

  • “A Terrible Failure of Common Sense”

    In recent years, the UK Home Office has increasingly seemed to be driven by checklists, rather than any understanding of the people they are dealing with.

    Here’s just the latest example in a very long list: a man, 90 years old, is being told to fly to the US to get a visa so that he can stay in the UK with his wife.

    Apparently, a Home Office spokesperson has said:

    “All UK visa applications are considered on their individual merits, on the basis of the evidence available and in line with UK immigration rules.”

    As a good friend of mine has said on many an occasion: “Just what is wrong with these people?”.

     

  • Half and Half

    Someone asked me last night how long I had been living here in the Netherlands, and I replied: “35 years”.

    “So, for half your life?” he asked. And up until that moment I had not thought about it, but he’s right: for the first 35 years of my life, I lived in the UK (even though, technically speaking, the country of my birth, the Isle of Man is a Crown Dependency and not part of the UK) and now I’ve been living for 35 years in the Netherlands.

    It gave me pause.

  • Nine Lessons of Brexit

    Ivan Rogers, the former UK ambassador to the EU, delivered a speech this week on the nine lessons of Brexit. The full 10,000+ words transcript is here, but if you prefer a précis, then this will do nicely.

    The basic message is that the choice for Brexit and, in particular, the process of Brexit have both been fucking disasters, although Ivan Rogers is too much of a gentleman to use such words. The blame for this trainwreck, he argues, cannot rest on the shoulders of the Brexiters or the Remainers alone – both sides have contributed to the dishonesty and the confusion that today reigns supreme.

    One might almost say “A plague on both their houses…”

  • Selfie Deaths

    Selfie deaths – a report. But I disagree strongly with the conclusion. It would only serve to affect the number of Darwin Award winners in a negative fashion.

  • Here was a Plague

    That’s the title of an excellent article by Tom Crewe in the London Review of Books about the history of the Aids crisis.

    It seems so long ago now, and I count myself amongst the lucky survivors, but we lost so many friends and lovers in that dark period. It should not be forgotten.

  • Typically Dutch

    The Dutch have a reputation for being straightforward, bordering on rude, in their interactions with other people. I had a prime example of this in an encounter yesterday.

    My Lenovo wireless keyboard and mouse has been giving trouble over the past month or two. The keyboard and mouse become unresponsive at random intervals – and no, it’s not because the batteries are dead. When this happens, the only thing that will cure it is a reboot of the PC. The fault definitely seems to lie in the Lenovo devices, since plugging in a spare mouse and keyboard will immediately work without the need of a reboot. My spare keyboard has one non-working key, and was the reason why I swapped it for the Lenovo keyboard in the first place.

    At any rate, when the Lenovo keyboard and mouse froze again yesterday, I thought enough was enough, and resolved to get a replacement keyboard (I already had a spare mouse). I jumped in the car and sped off to the local computer shop in town. Unfortunately, this being a Saturday, the shop closes at 16:00 – as I saw, with a sinking feeling, on the door as I opened it at 15:59.

    “Am I too late to buy something?” I asked. “I’ve just cashed up – what do you want?” came the reply. “I need a new keyboard, because my old one has just died”, I said. “I can’t help, I’ve cashed up”, came the rejoinder. No “Sorry”, no sympathy for my plight, just “I can’t help, I’ve cashed up”. I knew that he wouldn’t help, but could he not have softened the blow with a simple “sorry”? That’s so typically Dutch…

    Oh well, his loss – I ordered a new keyboard from CoolBlue, and it will be delivered today (on a Sunday!)…

  • Pride Badges

    The LGBTQ+ Pride season is upon us. Today was the London Pride march, with 30,000 marchers. The Guardian also had a story about a treasure trove of LGBTQ+ badges being found in an attic.

    That reminded me that I must still have a box containing a small collection of my own. Sure enough, a rummage in a cupboard produced:

    20180707-1856-49

    A few of these come from the 1970’s. The Campaign for Homosexual Equality badge may well date from 1974, when I helped organise the second annual CHE conference, which was held in Malvern, Worcestershire. I suspect the GLF badge will date from the mid 1970’s, whilst the Heaven badge was produced to celebrate the opening of the Heaven nightclub in 1979.

    I attended a number of marches in those days. The early Pride marches, of course, but also anti-Fascist marches and Women’s Rights marches. This photo of me and my mother was taken in June 1975, shortly after I had finished marching (along with 20,000 others) in the demonstration organised by the National Abortion Campaign.

    Mum & Geoff 1975

    Heady days…

  • Jaron Lanier and Social Media

    An interview of Jaron Lanier, and why he thinks that Facebook and its ilk are bad for us both as individuals and as society.

    He’s absolutely right, of course, but the damage has probably already been done. The one false note in this interview comes right at the end with a truly insulting observation from the interviewer, Krisnan Guru Murphy. Fortunately, Lanier is too much of a gentleman to rise to the bait.

  • The Sermon

    So, today there was a wedding, a Royal Wedding. And while I wish Harry and Meghan to live happily ever after; I remain a republican. This Royal Wedding was unlike any I have previously seen. Today, I witnessed the sermon from the Rev. Michael Curry. And  “witnessed” is the apt term.

    Yes, I’m an atheist, but I loved this. Probably shook up the congregation a bit, but quite right.

  • The Internet Apologizes…

    … that’s the title of a sobering article on what has gone wrong with the internet. Well worth reading.

    The apology is necessary, but it’s too damn late – the damage is done. I’m not sure how it will ever be possible to undo the damage that platforms such as Facebook and Twitter have caused. To many people, Facebook is the internet, and it is a global monopoly. And it has connected people for both good and ill. The recent Buddhist violence against Muslims in Sri Lanka is but the latest example.

  • Dance or Die

    A documentary about Ahmad Joudeh. Watch it

  • You Are the Product

    That’s the title of an article about Facebook by John Lanchester. Published back in August 2017, it is eerily prescient about the shit that has now hit Facebook’s fan.

    It’s a long article, but definitely worth a read. As Lanchester writes:

    I am scared of Facebook. The company’s ambition, its ruthlessness, and its lack of a moral compass scare me.

    His conclusion is sobering:

    Automation and artificial intelligence are going to have a big impact in all kinds of worlds. These technologies are new and real and they are coming soon. Facebook is deeply interested in these trends. We don’t know where this is going, we don’t know what the social costs and consequences will be, we don’t know what will be the next area of life to be hollowed out, the next business model to be destroyed, the next company to go the way of Polaroid or the next business to go the way of journalism or the next set of tools and techniques to become available to the people who used Facebook to manipulate the elections of 2016. We just don’t know what’s next, but we know it’s likely to be consequential, and that a big part will be played by the world’s biggest social network. On the evidence of Facebook’s actions so far, it’s impossible to face this prospect without unease.

    I deleted my Facebook account yesterday. I hope that I can remain outside its walled garden.

  • A Stranger in a Strange Land

    Joris Luyendijk is a Dutchman who has been living in Britain for the last six years, writing articles for the Guardian. He is a writer, journalist and anthropologist, specialising in Arab and Islamic countries.

    He’s recently written an article in the Prospect magazine, provocatively titled: “How I learnt to loathe England”. It’s a good article (i.e. I mostly agree with his analysis). One thing that at first surprised me was that he supports Brexit (I don’t), but as he says:

    …by the time the referendum came, I had become very much in favour of the UK leaving the EU. The worrying conditions that gave rise to the result—the class divide and the class fixation, as well as an unhinged press, combine to produce a national psychology that makes Britain a country you simply don’t want in your club.

    And that was a novel perspective; the reaction that the EU might well be better off without Britain: good riddance, and don’t let the door hit you on the way out… There may well be something to be said for that stance.

    As I head on into my twilight years, the possibility that I will end up living here alone in the depths of the Dutch countryside becomes real, if I outlive Martin. In such circumstances, I may well end up as a “stranger in a strange land”, but quite honestly, I think I would prefer that to a return to what England seems to be becoming.

  • Public Service

    Some officials know what public service means and fulfil their duties to the best of their abilities, serving the public good. And the people react accordingly.

    Eberhard van der Laan, you’ve set an example to us all.