Dutch Donderdag - Dutch Shoe Formula

Well I haven't been out & about much these last two weeks. Last week I managed to put my leg into spasm & I spent my days hobbling around like a little old lady. This week I have been sampling the delights of Dutch flu... kindly provided by my boyfriend. Anyway today's blog entry is related to my leg spasm...

I have a lot of shoes. I have been referred to many a time as Imelda Marcos although, to be fair, my shoe collection comes nowhere near hers. I also have a penchant for heels... the more brightly coloured the better. However, with it's pretty cobbled streets, heels are not the best footwear for Amsterdam. So my task recently was to try & find a nice pair of coloured wedges, a shoe with all of the hight but none of the danger of getting stuck in a crack & twisting my ankle. Now hear-in lies the problem... colour. Dutch shoes seem to come in two colours, black or tan. Look in any high-street shoe-shop & you will see rows & rows of mainly tan shoes, with a smattering of black (don't even get me started on the prevalence of cowboy boots, yuck!). I'm surprised I wasn't handed a pair of tan, low-heeled cowboy boots when I registered my residency.... “welcome to Holland... here's your mandatory footwear”. If you want coloured shoes then that's fine, as long as you can walk in stilettos... which is nigh on impossible on Amsterdam's pavements.

An example of "compulsory" Dutch footwear

The next problem is price. Shoes are so darn expensive in this country. I come from the land of New Look, Matalan & Shoe Express. A place where you can get a decent & pretty pair of shoes for about £15 - £20. Here in the Netherlands these dull shoes will set you back at least €45 (about £40)... that's UK high-end high-street price like Office or River Island.

So with this in mind I tackled the shoe-shops of Amsterdam. To cut a long search story short it took 2 days of looking, interspersed with a blizzard, before I finally found a decent pair is Sacha that ticked all the boxes; coloured, wedge, a sole with grip (most wedges in this country have zero grip which is not good on slippery cobbles) & non-cowboy boot shaped. They still cost close to €50 but hey, I can't complain too much.

Dutch shoe formula finally completed... wedge heel + non-slip sole - black colouring - brown colouring =

This brings me to my gippy leg. I wore my lovely new boots out the other week. The trouble is, in heels, I am a toe-walker. I walk on the balls of my feet instead of walking heel to toe which, unsurprisingly, makes the balls of my feet hurt. So I tried to compensate for this & walk “properly”. Unfortunately the muscles in my leg weren't used to this movement & cramped up, so by the time I got home I had shooting pain through my leg & spine & spent the next few days barely able to walk.

Well, as they say, “no pain no gain” & I gained a pair of pretty boots to stand out from the crowd. Even if it means I can't stand for the rest of the week.

Dutch Donderdag - A Lot of Ice & a Little Taste of Home

I was going to do a blog post on the recent freeze & the outbreak of Dutch Skating Madness (it's a bona fide disease over here) but thanks to its rarity there are a plethora of articles on the occurrence (though I'm not sure if any have made it into medical journals yet). To sum up the facts; it got real cold... the canals got real frozen... mad Dutch people with no sense of personal safety walked, skated, dined & even cycled on the canals for about a week in a total frenzy of excitement not seen for nigh-on 15 years. I did not contract said disease... opting instead to take photos of the nutters.

Skaters on the Kloveniersburgwal canal © Kate Redman

What has got me recently is a need for little tastes of home. I have been living in Amsterdam now for 9 months now (feels like half that) & occasionally I'll get a craving for British food. When I first moved here I was overjoyed when I found out that my local Albert Heijn sold Marmite... especially after my first jar was purchased from a British food store about a one hour round trip away.

Recently I've been having a hankering for cheese & pickle sandwiches. To be honest I rarely ever bought Branston pickle when I was in the UK... or ever bought a cheese & pickle sandwich for that matter, but the last few days I've been really longing for one. So yesterday brought a trip to Waterstones book store to see if they still sold food stuffs. Actually, I had gone in there a week ago but hadn't seen any food. I thought it had just been a Christmas thing but after a rant on Twitter I was told that there was still food there, only it had been moved. Ironically it had moved to where the magazines were. I had bought a magazine but never thought to turn around. Doh! Thankfully the food section had been put back to its rightful place at the top of the stairs & low & behold they had Branston pickle. YAY! I also bought a jar of Bisto gravy granules on impulse with a mind to make [veggie] sausage & mash.

Much needed British fare

I've also got my fingers crossed that one of my British friends has bought some Jaffacakes back with her after a weekend in the UK. I'm sorry but how has Holland, a nation of stoners, not discovered the joys of Jaffacakes? It just seems wrong somehow.

So my meals for today are sorted... Marmite on buttered toast for breakfast; cheese & pickle sarnis for lunch & sausage, mash & gravy for dinner. Good ol' British stodge!

Now if only I could lay my hands on a tin of Heinz baked beans..... mmmmmmm

Marine Mammal Monday – An Uncomfortable Truth

Story 1...

 

There are a circuses in developing nations... locations kept secret... who's vast majority of performers are young children who perform tricks to willing audiences. An audience happy to pay considerable sums of money to be entertained. These children are forced to do shows repeatedly through the day... hour after hour... from morning to night. If they do not perform well, or refuse to perform, food is withheld until they do their tricks & get them right. The circus arenas are small & quite often open to the glare of the hot sun. The living quarters for the children are even smaller &, again, often exposed to the elements. These children don't have the luxury of their free brethren. They don't get to run in the fields, play games on their own terms or learn life-skill’s from their parents. Many of the children where separated from their mothers when they were very young & still reliant on them for growth & development. They will never have a chance to learn about their culture, their language, their family or proper human etiquette.

The circus owners ignore the natural development of the young girls... In normal human society a young girl may come into womanhood at 13 years of age but will, in all likelihood, not have her first child till 15... if not later. At the circus the young girls are pushed into motherhood as soon as their bodies are fertile & it's usually through forced insemination. Because many of the girls have had no mother figure to teach them how to raise a child they end up rejecting their babies. No matter. The circus owners raise them themselves... an ever ready supply of performers separated from the laws of the outside world.

These children are worked to death... literally. Those that are lucky to survive their first few years will, on average, be dead before they're 20! Disease & exhaustion claiming them. Rather an abhorrent death rate when a human, free of this kind of servitude, can live until they're 80!

A few performers, brought in when the circuses were starting up, have made it into their 30's. But time has taken its toll on their health & mind. Some of these adults have lashed out in frustration against the circus masters. In so doing they find themselves placed in solitary confinement. Isolated from their own kind. Humans are an incredibly social species & this kind of isolation causes depression (for which they are fed anti-depression drugs) or more violent outburst... yet still the circus masters make them perform tricks. Freedom comes with death.

Story 2...

There are a circuses in developed nations... locations widely advertised... who's vast majority of performers are young orca who perform tricks to willing audiences. An audience happy to pay considerable sums of money to be entertained. These orca are forced to do shows repeatedly through the day... hour after hour... from morning to night. If they do not perform well, or refuse to perform, food is withheld until they do their tricks & get them right. The circus arenas are small & quite often open to the glare of the hot sun. The living quarters for the orca are even smaller &, again, often exposed to the elements. These orca don't have the luxury of their free brethren. They don't get to swim the ocean depths, play games on their own terms or learn life-skill’s from their parents. Many of the orca where separated from their mothers when they were very young & still reliant on them for growth & development. They will never have a chance to learn about their culture, their language, their family or proper orca etiquette.

The circus owners ignore the natural development of the young orca females... In normal orca society a young female orca may come into womanhood at 13 years of age but will, in all likelihood, not have her first calf till 15... if not later. At the circus the young female orcas are pushed into motherhood as soon as their bodies are fertile & it's usually through forced insemination. Because many of the females have had no mother figure to teach them how to raise a child they end up rejecting their calves. No matter. The circus owners raise them themselves... an ever ready supply of performers separated from the laws of the outside world.

These orca are worked to death... literally. Those that are lucky to survive their first few years will, on average, be dead before they're 20! Disease & exhaustion claiming them. Rather an abhorrent death rate when an orca, free of this kind of servitude, can live until they're 80!

A few orcas, brought in when the circuses were starting up, have made it into their 30's. But time has taken its toll on their health & mind. Some of these adult orcas have lashed out in frustration against the circus masters. In so doing they find themselves placed in solitary confinement. Isolated from their own kind. Orcas are an incredibly social species & this kind of isolation causes depression (for which they are fed anti-depression drugs) or more violent outburst... yet still the circus masters make them perform tricks. Freedom comes with death.

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So which of these two stories made you the most sickened or outraged?

I'm sure if a cause was created to help free the children from the first story you would be a willing participant. You would be furious that this type of thing can still occur in our civilised society.

What about story 2? Would you be as willing to join the cause of freedom or would you be the same as thousands of other people & buy a ticket to the show... to gorp, & laugh & go “ooooo-aaaah” as the orcas perform their tricks?

Story 1 is purely a work of fiction yet Story 2 is true. Are you one of the people who sees the enslavement of young people as abhorrent whilst the enslavement of orcas (& their dolphin cousins) makes you shrug your shoulders & go 'meh'?

Last week PETA went up against $eaworld in court to argue that orca should be freed* under the 13^th Amendment. The case was quickly thrown out by the court as they claimed that the 13^th Amendment only covered humans.

The 13^th Amendment

SECTION 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

SECTION 2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

Now I don't pretend to understand law & constitution but Section 1 does not mention humans. If a 21^st century lawyer was to write that Amendment specifically for humans then I would expect the words 'human' or 'person' or 'mankind' to feature in it. With the wording of the 13^th Amendment as it stands I can understand why PETA took up the case against $eaworld. I assume Section 2 is where they came unstuck, as the court enforced this article in their own appropriate way.

However PETA has a very important point. Going back to my two stories in can be though that the treatment of orca in captivity is akin to slavery. What's more is that more & more scientists are calling for cetaceans to be classed as non-human persons. Their can be no denying cetacean intelligence & how it mirrors our own... they recognise themselves; they morn their dead; they have their own cultures, gained through knowledge passed down from mother to calf & they can learn to communicate with (& take orders from) us through complex sentences.

PETA may have lost this particular battle but the powers that be can't turn a blind eye to the slavery of sentient species for ever.

*When we talk about freeing orca we mean intense rehabilitation & then freedom. We DO NOT mean simply chucking them back out in the ocean to fend for themselves, as most pro-caps would want you to believe.

Dutch Donderdag - Of Mice (& Cats) & Men

They say in the UK you are no more than 6 feet away from a rat at any one time, especially in the big cities where rats can outnumber the human inhabitants. Apparently the same can be said for mice in Amsterdam & it’s something I can attest to. Last week, after I had left a restaurant, I happened to glance in the window of a neighbouring café… only to see a little brown mouse staring back at me. As I went in for a closer look it got spooked & dived down the radiator shelf it had been sitting on. “Well that was a first” I thought as I went to the pub next door for a quick drink.

However, it wasn’t my last… as a mouse running across the floor in the pub then freaked-out two of the women I was drinking with (something to do with open toed shoes). Me being ever the biologist I wanted to see it, but it was too quick for me & for the shrieking 30-something women I was with. Nothing like giving in to stereotype hey ladies?

The prevalence of rodents in Amsterdam warrants a course of action & this being the Netherlands things are done a little differently. Whereas in the UK café after café would be shut down & fumigated here in Amsterdam a more practical approach is taken. Cats! Walk down a restaurant-lined street after closing time & you will quite often be greeted with a pair of luminous eyes staring at you out of a window.

The feline guardians aren’t just there during closing hours. I was once surprised to see a very well fed cat weaving its way between packed tables in a busy restaurant, although the size of it was probably more down to scraps than mice. That’s just something you wouldn’t see in an eatery in the UK. With our council’s overdeveloped sense (& I use the term “sense” loosely) of health & safety an animal’s presence in an establishment that sells food just wouldn’t be tolerated… even if it did more good than harm.

In Amsterdam I’ve seen cats not just in restaurants but also in veterinaries (I assume they weren’t just escapees), pet shops (again… not escapees) & had a lovely time cuddling the most gorgeous black kitten between potting balls & my local pool hall.

Amsterdam maybe overrun with mice but that doesn’t mean the rodents are getting it all their own way. The battle lines have been drawn. All hail the cats, our new overlords (& don’t they just know it)!

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A Windmill In Old Amsterdam

A mouse lived in a windmill in old Amsterdam
A windmill with a mouse in and he wasn't grousin'
He sang every morning, "How lucky I am,
Living in a windmill in old Amsterdam!"

Chorus:
I saw a mouse!
Where?
There on the stair!
Where on the stair?
Right there!
A little mouse with clogs on
Well I declare!
Going clip-clippety-clop on the stair
Oh yeah

This mouse he got lonesome, he took him a wife
A windmill with mice in, it's hardly surprisin'
She sang every morning, "How lucky I am,
Living in a windmill in old Amsterdam!"

Chorus

 

First they had triplets and then they had quins
A windmill with quins in, and triplets and twins in
They sang every morning, "How lucky we are
Living in a windmill in Amsterdam, ya!"

Chorus

 

The daughters got married and so did the sons
The windmill had christ'nin's when no one was list'nin'
They all sang in chorus, "How lucky we am
Living in a windmill in old Amsterdam!"

Chorus

 

A mouse lived in a windmill, so snug and so nice
There's nobody there now but a whole lot of mice.