Well, after only 2 blogs I've sold out. I've traded my journalistic integrity on a promise; a promise to a work colleague that I would write a blog on demand. So here I am, under the spotlight of write-or-be-lambasted-at-work pressure. Trust me, reader, I'm not proud of myself. I wanted to resist. I wanted to fight. I wanted to make a stand, like a literary William Wallace. But without the skirt.
But I caved in like a Chinese highway. Not so much William Wallace but more William Hague. But, in my defence, this was down to a very good reason; said colleague is a bloody big Dutchman. Now, it's not the physical size of him that's my primary concern - it's the Dutch angle. And before anyone accuses me of being some sort of xenophobic Eurosceptic, I would like to quantify my stance on all things Oranje.
The Dutch have given us great things over the years. There is the usual stuff; Edam. Tulips. Countryside that's very easy to bike around. High-quality adult entertainment. "Those" cafes. But, primarily, there is the Holy Trinity; Dennis Bergkamp Marc Overmars and Robin van Persie (my long-standing support of The Arsenal has no bearing on this, what with me being an upstanding member of the journalistic community...ahem...). So, needless to say, if you want to see some good football, eat some mind-expanding baked goods, jelly-wrestle with some top totty and be able to cycle home after it all without needing a 21-speed bike, then the Netherlands is the place to be.
Unfortunately though, despite giving us the men that gave us THOSE goals against Newcastle & Argentina, THAT volley against Nottingham Forest and THAT Intercontinental Ballistic Missile against Charlton Athletic, our cloggy chums have also done their best to scupper everyone's fun at some point during history. They ruthlessly wiped out elm trees in the 1980's. They neglected to point out the 2 SS Panzer divisions hidden in Arnhem in 1944. And they also gave the Germans the Synchroniser Gear, which allowed machine guns to be fired between propeller blade strokes on World War 1 aircraft, turning the tide of aerial warfare for the majority of the conflict. But their most damning crime? Their most glaring defacement of Mother Nature's sweet tapestry? They wiped out the dodo. That's right, the dodo. Gone. Extinct. Ceased-to-be. Small, flightless bird versus scores of fresh-meat-deprived Dutch sailors, their dogs, ships' cats & rats. Quite simply, de Vries, that's just not cricket.
This has stuck in my craw for a number of years now. Whenever - and I literally mean, WHENEVER - discussing our low-landed cousins, I would typically be heard to spew forth something along the lines of ; "Ah, yes, well...they maaaaaay have given us the Cape Canaveral cookie, but they wiped out the dodo!" The sad, lingering thoughts of Biggles getting trounced by the Red Baron's superior firepower, the Para's getting royally stitched-up whilst trying to get to a bridge that was just too bloody far, and the splinters from all those elm-wood pencils I had to use as a school kid - these all pale into comparison when I think of the dodo's doomed existence once Jan & his pooch first stepped ashore for a banyan.
"Why?" I hear you ask. "Why the poorly-evolved-bird love?" I'll tell you why. The dodo was, effectively, a 1-meter-tall, 30kg, flightless pigeon. Have you ever tasted pigeon? It's bloody lovely. And here was 30kg of the stuff that couldn't get away! More to the point, probably 10kg of it was pure, plump, juicy breast meat that'd never been used to flap a wing in it's life and was just aching to be pan-seared with some juniper berries, wild mushrooms & and a dash of port. Did the greedy bastards think of sharing it? NO!!! Did they, for one minute, consider that somewhere down the line, a slightly chubby Englishman with a penchant for game & fine red wines might want to savour such a veritable smorgasbord of pigeony goodness? NO!!! They robbed me of what would undoubtedly have been my Judgement Day meal and, by God, I am pissed about it and will remain so for the rest of my days.
Yet, I dare not voice these feelings in public & certainly not to my Dutch acquaintances, for let us remember that they had thousands upon thousands of such delectable, docile dodos....and chose to wipe them out. It takes a special mentality to wipe out your primary source of fresh meat along your primary trade route from one of your primary colonies back to the moederland. I mean, there's shitting on your own doorstep, and then there's shitting on your own doorstep whilst torching the house as well. I bloody love KFC, but I'm not so unhinged as to eat it out of existence. That is just plain bonkers.
So there we are. It is with the spectre of such Nederlandische genocidal tendancies looming over me - quite literally given said colleagues 6'4" frame - that I write this. If you don't hear from me again, assume that I have met the same fate as our poor pal from Mauritius...although being noshed to death by a Dutch sailor is in fact a fate worse than a fate worse than death, and so I will gladly go out begging my colleague for Death by Dutch Elm Disease if it saves me the ignominy of being served up on toast with chocolate sprinkles.
In summary, Sister Holland has given us much to tickle and titivate our fancies, but like every fickle maiden she is capable of taking it all away without so much as a "Thanks for the Brownie". And the lesson we should all remember is that Mr Fokker so capably helped the Kaiser whilst wearing wooden shoes; it can only make you wonder what the result of the Great War would have been if he'd got his skates on.....
Ik hou van de dodo!
But I caved in like a Chinese highway. Not so much William Wallace but more William Hague. But, in my defence, this was down to a very good reason; said colleague is a bloody big Dutchman. Now, it's not the physical size of him that's my primary concern - it's the Dutch angle. And before anyone accuses me of being some sort of xenophobic Eurosceptic, I would like to quantify my stance on all things Oranje.
The Dutch have given us great things over the years. There is the usual stuff; Edam. Tulips. Countryside that's very easy to bike around. High-quality adult entertainment. "Those" cafes. But, primarily, there is the Holy Trinity; Dennis Bergkamp Marc Overmars and Robin van Persie (my long-standing support of The Arsenal has no bearing on this, what with me being an upstanding member of the journalistic community...ahem...). So, needless to say, if you want to see some good football, eat some mind-expanding baked goods, jelly-wrestle with some top totty and be able to cycle home after it all without needing a 21-speed bike, then the Netherlands is the place to be.
Unfortunately though, despite giving us the men that gave us THOSE goals against Newcastle & Argentina, THAT volley against Nottingham Forest and THAT Intercontinental Ballistic Missile against Charlton Athletic, our cloggy chums have also done their best to scupper everyone's fun at some point during history. They ruthlessly wiped out elm trees in the 1980's. They neglected to point out the 2 SS Panzer divisions hidden in Arnhem in 1944. And they also gave the Germans the Synchroniser Gear, which allowed machine guns to be fired between propeller blade strokes on World War 1 aircraft, turning the tide of aerial warfare for the majority of the conflict. But their most damning crime? Their most glaring defacement of Mother Nature's sweet tapestry? They wiped out the dodo. That's right, the dodo. Gone. Extinct. Ceased-to-be. Small, flightless bird versus scores of fresh-meat-deprived Dutch sailors, their dogs, ships' cats & rats. Quite simply, de Vries, that's just not cricket.
This has stuck in my craw for a number of years now. Whenever - and I literally mean, WHENEVER - discussing our low-landed cousins, I would typically be heard to spew forth something along the lines of ; "Ah, yes, well...they maaaaaay have given us the Cape Canaveral cookie, but they wiped out the dodo!" The sad, lingering thoughts of Biggles getting trounced by the Red Baron's superior firepower, the Para's getting royally stitched-up whilst trying to get to a bridge that was just too bloody far, and the splinters from all those elm-wood pencils I had to use as a school kid - these all pale into comparison when I think of the dodo's doomed existence once Jan & his pooch first stepped ashore for a banyan.
"Why?" I hear you ask. "Why the poorly-evolved-bird love?" I'll tell you why. The dodo was, effectively, a 1-meter-tall, 30kg, flightless pigeon. Have you ever tasted pigeon? It's bloody lovely. And here was 30kg of the stuff that couldn't get away! More to the point, probably 10kg of it was pure, plump, juicy breast meat that'd never been used to flap a wing in it's life and was just aching to be pan-seared with some juniper berries, wild mushrooms & and a dash of port. Did the greedy bastards think of sharing it? NO!!! Did they, for one minute, consider that somewhere down the line, a slightly chubby Englishman with a penchant for game & fine red wines might want to savour such a veritable smorgasbord of pigeony goodness? NO!!! They robbed me of what would undoubtedly have been my Judgement Day meal and, by God, I am pissed about it and will remain so for the rest of my days.
Yet, I dare not voice these feelings in public & certainly not to my Dutch acquaintances, for let us remember that they had thousands upon thousands of such delectable, docile dodos....and chose to wipe them out. It takes a special mentality to wipe out your primary source of fresh meat along your primary trade route from one of your primary colonies back to the moederland. I mean, there's shitting on your own doorstep, and then there's shitting on your own doorstep whilst torching the house as well. I bloody love KFC, but I'm not so unhinged as to eat it out of existence. That is just plain bonkers.
So there we are. It is with the spectre of such Nederlandische genocidal tendancies looming over me - quite literally given said colleagues 6'4" frame - that I write this. If you don't hear from me again, assume that I have met the same fate as our poor pal from Mauritius...although being noshed to death by a Dutch sailor is in fact a fate worse than a fate worse than death, and so I will gladly go out begging my colleague for Death by Dutch Elm Disease if it saves me the ignominy of being served up on toast with chocolate sprinkles.
In summary, Sister Holland has given us much to tickle and titivate our fancies, but like every fickle maiden she is capable of taking it all away without so much as a "Thanks for the Brownie". And the lesson we should all remember is that Mr Fokker so capably helped the Kaiser whilst wearing wooden shoes; it can only make you wonder what the result of the Great War would have been if he'd got his skates on.....
Ik hou van de dodo!
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