Disgusted and sickened

I seriously didn’t want to get up out of bed this morning to look at the news – I stayed up to listen to some of the election results on Radio 4, but gave up the ghost before they announced Nick Griffin had won a seat. I just can’t believe that one ex-leader of the National Front and another Holocaust denier have been elected to national office. And I can’t believe how calm and rational everybody is being about it. Where are the protests? The candlelit vigils? Look what happened in France after Le Pen got through to the final round of the election in 2002; look at the protests in Germany after the extreme right started making inroads in the early 90s. Why isn’t that happening here?

It’s like everywhere I look, everything’s turning to shit.

I’m starting to consider, long-term, getting more involved in the Labour Party again. If only to try and do something to improve this current fuck up of a country.

Please excuse the bad language. I’m mad.

Not pleased with the Netherlands

I went for a job interview in the Netherlands this week. I went over on the overnight coach on Sunday night and came back on the train on Wednesday evening. And how glad I was that I returned by train and not by coach – thirteen hours it took to get there and I didn’t sleep at all. Sitting on a cross-channel ferry at two o’clock in the morning is an experience best likened to the seventh circle of hell.

Other than that, it was a most pleasant end-of-exams celebration. I’d originally booked to spend a whole week there, until plans changed for various reasons. But I still got to spend a really nice evening at Marieke’s in Utrecht on Monday – Leonie and Anouk were there too, and we had a fun meal using a piece of equipment called (I think) a ‘gourmettapparaat’ (sort of like a barbecue, except indoors and a lot smaller and with shovels). And on Tuesday night I stayed at casa della Abels in Gouda, where we cooked dinner, watched a political debate, and spoke Dutch all day long. And even the mosquitos left me alone this time!

Thankfully I left the country before the Netherlands voted in its wisdom to make their far-right BNP-lite party the second strongest Dutch party in the European parliament. Apparently we foreigners are not welkom at the moment. And by staying an extra day instead of leaving the day before the election, I’d have run the risk of being driven out of the country by the crazed pitchfork-carrying PVV-voting mob.

For reference, this is the logo of the PVV (Partij voor de Vrijheid / Freedom Party):

They could at least try to avoid the obvious allusion to another famous European fascist party [nsfw?].

How could anybody vote for a party led by two such fine specimen as these? Meet Barry “Madman” Madlener and Geert “Pretty Much A Belgian Anyway So Why Didn’t You Just Stay There” Wilders:

So the Netherlands’ second largest representation in Brussels is now led by an ex-estate agent who looks like Toad of Toad Hall and another man with a victim complex worse than Hitler’s and a face like a melted waxwork. Nightmare. How can I moan about English people being stupid now that the Dutch have gone one better? I’ll have to pin all my hopes on ze Germans.

ANYWAY, I got the job! From September I shall be making as much use as possible of my right to work anywhere I like in the EU. I’ve got to do so while I still can, because Britain probably won’t be a member of it any more in ten or so years’ time. So it looks like I’ll be swanning off on a second year abroad, except this time I actually want to go. The woman at the translation agency I’ll be working for literally asked me when I wanted to start, and because of the plans I already have and the fact that I just want a summer break for once, I said September. She’ll help me find somewhere to live, hopefully/probably in Utrecht, which is one difficult job made considerably more straightforward. The pay’s not amazing, but if all I wanted to do was get rich, then for a start I wouldn’t take a job as a translator, and nor would I just up sticks and leave London, because this is where the money is. Oh yeah, and I was quite proud of myself too, because the entire interview was conducted in Dutch.

So, yes. In other news, I get my degree results on Thursday. And then I’ll leave London two days later, with no idea when I’ll be returning. I’m really still not used to not being a student any more.

A few thoughts about Brussels

A few observations from my two-hour sojourn at Station Brussel Zuid-Bruxelles Midi yesterday afternoon (in between arriving on the train from Rotterdam and leaving on the Eurostar to London):

1. Belgian police are possibly the least intimidating police in the world. Some of them got on the train when it crossed the Dutch-Belgian border (which is practically non-existent anyway, so why bother?) and I was quite unimpressed. They don’t wear big scary kick-you-in-the-balls boots, they don’t carry truncheons, and I didn’t see any kind of individual identification on them. They politely asked to see my passport, I showed them and they went on their way. I expect if I’d told them to get lost they’d have just bowed slightly and apologised for the inconvenience.

2. It turns out that the famed French-Dutch bilingualism of Brussels is just a complete lie. I went into one of the station’s several cafes and asked for a koffie verkeerd and the woman behind the counter just stared at me like I’d just spoken in tongues. Then she replied in English. I just pretended after that not to be English, so continued the conversation in Dutch. She continued equally stubbornly in English. It was quite a ridiculous conversation, really.

3. From the admittedly limited bits I saw from the train(s), Brussels – in fact, most of Belgium – isn’t really that nice. It is quite a shock when you cross the border and see the deterioration in general standards of housing and the public facilities such as train stations. Most of the stations and some of the other trains look like relics from the 1950s. Brussel Zuid station is boring and horrible, even for a train station. All the people look miserable. I’m not exactly excited about spending a week there in August.

And in other news, from September I’ll be working as a junior translator for a company in Zeist, near Utrecht, in the Netherlands. More on that later… now I’m off to vote. Labour, for the record: i. I can’t justify voting Green when they’re so anti-Europe, ii. I don’t want to contribute to the anti-Labour vote if it’s motivated by the stupid expenses rubbish, and iii. the election leader of Labour’s Dutch sister party, the PvdA (Partij van de Arbeid) really impressed me during the TV debate between the six parties on Tuesday night and reminded me what Labour could be like if it managed to cut the crap and focus on what’s important.