| Mead |
[Jul. 9th, 2009|10:39 am] |
I have 5 bottles ready for our camping holiday to the Ardennes with Shane and Karen in September. These melomels are; elderberry, cranberry, apple, rosehip and orange with ginger.
In second fermentation, that is still fermenting over fruit I have; lemon and mint, raspberry and cherry. These should be bottled and ready for the trip also.
What to do next? elderberies will be in season soon and also blackberies. I'm definatly going to make an experimental rowanberry batch this autumn. Joop, one of our neighbours, has a young rowan growing on his mooring spot. |
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| The Power of Concentration |
[Jun. 23rd, 2009|01:30 pm] |
I have found that since the kids came along me powers of concentration have gradualy been shot to pieces.
I noticed it first with the poetry. With no time for abstract thinking it became immpossible
I just stopped reading books. Mostly because I didnt have the time anymore and trying to read in bits and pieces on a story or subject doesnt realy get you anywhere.
Then I stopped posting to the internet. I now no longer argue my point unless I can do so quickly. Whereas I used to post to this blog I am now more likley to read an artical and post a link rather than write what I think on the subject.
Even with the TV I now have problems. It used to be I could not concentrate on Dutch TV programs if the kids were in the room but this has now progressed to even English speaking programs!
I need to do something about this situation.
When I was 7 years old I was top of my class and had to sit at the front whenever we were in a lesson with Mr Lockhart. Another boy, Tony Sibbons had to always sit at the back because he was disruptive. One Day Lockhart decided it would be good for Tony if he sat next to me where he spent the next two hours humming, mumbling, scratching, banging and all sorts of shit. I asked him a couple of times to stop because it was a massive distraction to me but he just couldnt help himself.
My frustration blew out at lunch break when the first thing I did upon entering the school playground was seek him out and kick him straight in the bollocks.
Siltje is my new Tony Sibbons. Unfortunatly a swift kick to the nuts doesnt solve the situation this time. |
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| It’s a Depression Alright |
[Jun. 21st, 2009|12:22 pm] |
"To sum up, globally we are tracking or doing even worse than the Great Depression, whether the metric is industrial production, exports or equity valuations. Focusing on the US causes one to minimise this alarming fact. The “Great Recession” label may turn out to be too optimistic. This is a Depression-sized event."
http://www.voxeu.org/index.php?q=node/3421
Just check out the graphs. |
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| Quote of the Day |
[Jun. 13th, 2009|09:09 pm] |
Wouldn't it be nice to get on with me neighbours?
But they make it very clear they've got no room for ravers...
The Small Faces |
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| Keeping up with the Jones's |
[Jun. 8th, 2009|10:21 pm] |
Sje is our 75 year old neighbour from 3 boats along on our side of the canal. He is also my Dutch language teacher although I havnt been such a good student these last few months due to other commitments. I saw him on the way to work this afternoon and invited him round this evening to taste a bottle of elderberry mead I had bottled two weeks ago.
When he got here the woman from social services was here who videos us and then comes back a couple of weeks later with a CD to show us where we are going wrong or right with Sil. We all sat down and had a glass but because she was driving and wanted to get home anyway she didnt stay long.
Ome Sje (Uncle Sje as he is known to Sil and Nina) admitted he had had a couple of glasses of white wine before comming over and concidering Francien doesnt drink much we virtualy split the bottle. This made Sje very talkative and some interesting facts came out.
He was the first person to move a boat to the canal here 30 years ago. When he first got here he had nothing. No TV, no gas, no electricity, no running water!
"What was you drinking then?" I asked.
"Rain water for the first 8 years" He replied. |
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| Quote od the Day |
[Jun. 6th, 2009|02:46 pm] |
Lawyers and Judges are trying to catch a few criminals.
They don’t realize the entire Industrial Society is criminal.
Psychologists and Psychiatrists are trying to classify a few people as abnormal.
They don’t realize the entire Industrial Society is abnormal.
Sushil Yadav |
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| Quote of the Day |
[Jun. 2nd, 2009|12:41 am] |
"They came up with this term 'too big to fail'. Of course what this means is the rest of us are, too small to save."
Gerald Celente |
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| Anecdotes from the great Depression |
[May. 31st, 2009|06:14 pm] |
I remember asking my grandfather what he would stock up on if another
depression hit the U.S.A.? His reply, food. For almost 10 years he
ate nothing but bread and water for breakfast and lunch. Dinner was
his only "big" meal. He also advised paying off all debt, including
one's mortgage. My grandmother remembers going to the bank with her
mother and withdrawing all their money out. Their bank closed that day.
My great-aunt Martha was a young mother with 3 kids under 5 y/o when the
Great Depression hit. Her husband went somewhere overseas to get a job
and sent her back money, but it was almost a year before he got established
and the checks started coming. In the meantime, she said she lived for that
whole year on corn meal and oil--she would dig a hole in the back yard,
make a fire, and cook corn cakes in an iron skillet. That's all they had.
She would pick cotton all day in the summer, with the two toddlers playing
in the cotton rows and the baby pinned by his diaper to her cotton sack.
My mother esp always remembered the inability to buy many things -
she and her parents had money - they simply could not buy many items.
She loved canned fruit and canned soup - they were her mainstays. But
she also kept lots of spices. My father just kept out of debt - his great
mantra. He also taught me to always keep an eye on the news and to think
about what was happening about me.
My ex-father-in-law lived through the great depression on a farm in Michigan.
He had lots of food to eat since they grew it themselves. The one thing
that was missing, though, were spices and pepper since they couldn't grow
them and they were too expensive to buy. His memory of the great depression
was bland food, but lots of it.
My grandmother lived through the Depression (in the Detroit area) and her
big thing was: SAVE EVERYTHING. Don't waste anything. Don't throw anything
away; it can all be used somehow. And any job is a good job.
What I remember her talking about was how people shared. Most people knew
how to do a LOT of different things, men and women. But as the people
above noted, the overriding compulsion was making things last.
Use it up
Wear it out
Make do
Or do without.
I recall very vividly how she said one of the neighbours had 5 or 6 kids and the mother would go through the trash, find a piece of macaroni, wipe it off and eat it.
All of my family (both sides) were farmers during the depression. My aunt said they set bear traps in the corn crib to keep people from stealing the corn they had to feed their animals. Sad times.
My dad's family have always distrusted banks. They have always kept their money buried in mason jars in the yard.
My mother's family was probably the ones that had the hardest times during the Great Depression. Grandpa bought an apple farm in 1920. He did so well the first few years, he paid extra on the mortgage, thinking that was a good thing. Well it was until he had had a bad year and couldn't make the full payments on the mortgage. He lost the farm, and found out that extra money would have been better saved for lean years. The bank didn't care he'd been paying extra, they wanted their money for the year.
My parents were a young married couple with two growing boys during the
depression. My dad pastored a small church in rural Oklahoma. They kept a vegetable garden and a few chickens behind the parsonage and the people paid their tithes in goods and services. A railroad ran along the outside of town near the church and nearly every day, my mom said, as the train slowed down one or two men, sometimes more, would jump off the train and head for the parsonage where they would ask for a meal and work. My mom asked my dad about that one day and he took her out to the side of the house nearest the railroad and showed her where someone had put a "hobo sign" on the side of the house. The symbol
(she never said what it was) could be seen from the train as it slowed and the men crossing the country looking for work knew they'd get a meal there.
My father was a butcher but quickly lost his job once the depression began. He eventualy got a new job hauling rocks in a cart building a new golf course. It was cheaper to pay men to pull the carts than horses. The man who pulled the cart with him had been a surgeon.
My grandmother grew up during the depression. Her father lost the family home after losing his job, and the family of 5 was forced to live in a growing tent city next to the railway lines. My grandmother remembers the train drivers would "accidentally" drop shovelfuls of coal over the side and the children of the camp would run to pick it up to be used for cooking or to be on-sold for whatever they could get.
The striking thing my grandmother remembers is the drinking though- her father became an alcoholic, and it got worse after the government relief jobs provided him with cash.
My mom's parents had a small grocery/general store in a rural town, also ran a boarding house, they actually made quite a lot of money during the depression, by taking jewlery, gold, work for trade on food and goods.
I remember my grandfather telling me about how he paid the workers in his textile mill 3x a day with wheel barrows of money during the German collapse. They would be paid at morning break, lunch break and mid afternoon break. Everyone would scarper out the gate to the baker or butcher with armloads of money and home to make it there before the prices were too high to afford food.
My Mother was born at the end of the collapse, but things were pretty shitty for a long time. I remember her telling me about how they used to raise rabbits in the back yard, and how there were two which she considered her pets. One day she came home and they were gone. That nite there was rabbit for dinner, and she finally realized what had happened. She couldn't eat them, and so went to bed a bit more hungry and with the heartache of her missing pets. |
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| Quote of the Day |
[May. 25th, 2009|11:09 pm] |
"The term 'sustainable growth' is perhaps the greatest oxymoron ever coined and an instant indicator of imminent Darwinian deselection for anyone who uses it."
I generaly dont like Mike Rupert, because of his false calls and the fact he likes to blow his own trumpet on the rare occassion he predicts something right, but here is a good quote from him. |
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| Koolcancie |
[May. 25th, 2009|10:11 pm] |
Koolcancie is a new word that Nina made up during our short holiday to Zeeland where she combines the words Skool and vacancie (school and vacation) into one.
We borrowed Shane and Karens old tent when they visited for Karnival so we just drove to the general area where we wanted to stay and found a camp site.
We ended up at the small city of Sluis (as in a watergate) which was not on the coast but had quite a history and some typical old Dutch archtecture.
Our camp spot was not the best one. Behind was a small field where sheep were grazing. I was so busy the first evening trying to put up the tent, which was very complicated and the last time I had helped put it up was six years before in Cornwall, that I didnt realise the sheep would be a problem.
Eventualy figured the tent out and got it up and we all went to bed as it got dark.
The next morning Francien and I were first awake while the kids both slept on. Some of the sheep came right up behind the tent and started bleeting which made quite a racket. This eventualy woke Nina up and the first thing out of her mouth was;
"Muma niet zingen" (Mummie dont sing)
I knew that Nina had no taste for Franciens singing but to mistake her for a sheep bleeting made me cry with laughter for 20 minutes and Francien almost pissed herself.
We spent the next couple of days enjoying the amazing weather (we expected 20 degrees and cloudy but we got 25 degrees with full sunshine), exploring Sluis and the beaches at nearby Cadzand and Nieuwvliet.
It was the first time the kids had seen the sea and at Nieuwvliet, where there was a small inlet between the dunes, the waters were calm, warm and shallow and we went exploring for shells, crabs, jellyfish and skools of fry.
We ate out a few times and one of the restaurants in Sluis realy gave us a good meal. I'm naturaly fussy and critical of resturants, being such a good cook myself, but I couldnt find anything bad to say about the place.
This morning, now we are back, the kids wanted to look constantly at some brochures we picked up of a campsite near Nieuwvliet. We all had a great time and are looking fowards to breaking the drudgery of living on our lovely houseboat and roughing it again. |
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| Anti Depressants Added to the Tap Water of Groninger Province, the Netherlands |
[May. 12th, 2009|09:48 pm] |
Antidepressiva in Groninger drinkwater
De gemeente Groningen overweegt 1 juni 2009 te beginnen met het op proef toevoegen van een lage dosering antidepressiva aan het drinkwater. Aanleiding is de constatering van de Raad voor Gezondheidsonderzoek dat depressie druk bezig is de belangrijkste ziekte in Nederland te worden. In hun op 29 oktober gepresenteerde advies Van gegevens verzekerd. Kennis over de volksgezondheid in Nederland nu en in de toekomst staat te lezen dat op basis van longitudinaal epidemiologisch onderzoek geconcludeerd kan worden dat depressie en aan depressie verwante ziektes binnen vijf tot tien jaar de belangrijkste reden van werkverzuim zullen zijn en een zwaarwegend beroep op de gezondheidszorg zullen vormen.
Prof. dr. Spakkers, hoogleraar psychiatrie van het UMC St. Radboud, heeft zich uitgelaten over dit voorstel. Volgens haar zijn de torenhoge kosten van werkverzuim te voorkomen door een preventieve toediening van een lage dosis SSRI’s (stoffen die de heropname van serotonine in de hersenen blokkeren), die van haar eigenlijk geen ‘medicatie’ mag heten. Ze vergelijkt het met het toevoegen van jodium aan keukenzout ter voorkoming van schildkliervergrotingen: “Daar was in het begin ook weerstand tegen, maar uiteindelijk blijkt een kleine, haast onschuldige dosis jodide veel gezondheidsproblemen te voorkomen. Zo moet het voornemen van Groningen ook worden bezien: water drinken wordt niet de genezing van depressieve patiënten, daar is de dosis SSRI natuurlijk veel te laag voor, maar met deze pre-emptive strike wordt het prevaleren van lichte depressie naar schatting met 25 tot 30 procent teruggedrongen. Het in lichte mate prikkelen van de neurotransmitters blijkt daarvoor dus al voldoende te zijn.”
Wel waarschuwt professor Spakkers voor een al te eenzijdige aanpak. “De kous is hiermee natuurlijk niet af. Psychosociale factoren, zoals de leefomgeving, kunnen een onderhoudende of zelfs oorzakelijke rol spelen bij het ontstaan van depressies. Het is dus zeker van belang je niet te beperken tot alleen de biologische aanpak.”
Bron:
http://www.speld.nl/2008/11/06/antidepressiva-in-groninger-drinkwater/ |
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| Quote of the Day |
[May. 10th, 2009|12:51 pm] |
Think of it this way, if the only tool one has is a hammer, then everything looks like a nail. What other possible solution can an economist recommend to the problem of too much economic growth, except more economic growth? So send the economists into retirement and call out the scientists, engineers, and systems people!
Nate Hagens www.oildrum.com |
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| Work |
[May. 9th, 2009|01:41 pm] |
So I start a new job on Monday. Its two hours a day, Monday to Friday, cleaning a school and its only for 3 weeks. It sounds shit and it is but after the work at the factory fizzled out its the only work I have got out of 10 or 12 vacancies that I have tried for in the months since then.
I have been turned down for the most trivial of reasons. As help on a rubbish truck I was, at the age of 39, to old. For a cleaning job I had the wrong sort of cleaning experience. At a Crysler (Crysler has just gone tits up in case you didnt know)call center where they wanted native English speakers so they could understand British accents I was turned down even though I had call center experience. You know, Jesus fucking Christ, How many British people with call center experience do they think are fucking living in Maastricht!
Francien and I both went to the job center a few months back and applied for cleaning work. I'm the one with the experience but she got the job, and immediatly. She works two hours a morning cleaning at an abused childrens home. The first day they gave her a pay rise to 10.27 Euros per hour. Back in London that is the equivilent of semi skilled pay, a hod carriers or painters pay. The best I get is around 8.5 Euros per hour.
So this week we also went for Uitcaring which is Dutch for welfare benifits. The first thing they said is that because I have not lived here 5 years I'm not eligable (only been here 4.5 years) OK fair enough if thats their rules. They then said only Francien can receive benefit. But then they wanted to look in my bank account and they said that the money we had from the sale of the house in England was spent too fast and Francien would receive a further penalty to her benefits.
As Francien then pointed out; firstly what the fuck has it got to do with them how fast or what we spent the money on in the past? Its not as if everyone else was hunkering down and preparing for finacial armageddon so why should we? Secondly If I'm not in the picture to receive benefit then why are they looking into my bank account and taking my money into account on this matter? Thirdly its not as if we were spunking the money on 6 week holidays to Thailand every year. Since I was here we went back to England twice to visit family and one of those visits was Nans funeral! The money from the house was used to pay for our mooring spot, boat, new car (second hand), renovation work to the boat, and the general cost of living and raising the kids.
So I pointed out that if they dont help us now even in a small way then we will eventualy sell the car and then the boat and they will have to house us in council accomodation but he didnt seem to give a shit.
Its not as if you get the money for free here anyway. They come and price your house (or boat in our case) and when you are finished with Uitcaring you then have to pay 60% or so back to the government. Also for the first 6 months you receive benefits you have to go and work in some goofy government sponsored project putting spokes into bike wheels or something just as boring. I can do boring work but I dont think I'm even going to get a chance at it.
I'm hoping I can find another part time job maybe early in the mornings before Francien starts work and then we can tell them to shove it up their arse. |
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| The Advance of Civilization |
[May. 5th, 2009|12:49 pm] |
Observing a prisoner exchange between the Iroquois and the French in upper New York in
1699, Cadwallader Colden is blunt: “ notwithstanding the French Commissioners took all the
Pains possible to carry Home the French, that were Prisoners with the Five Nations, and they
had full Liberty from the Indians, few of them could be persuaded to return. “Nor, he has to
admit, is this merely a reflection on the quality of French colonial life, “for the English had as
much Difficulty” in persuading their redeemed to come home, despite what Colden would
claim were the obvious superiority of English ways:
No Arguments, no Intreaties, nor Tears of their Friends and Relations, could persuade many
of them to leave their new Indian Friends and Acquaintance; several of them that were by the
Caressings of their Relations persuaded to come Home, in a little Time grew tired of our
Manner of living, and run away again to the Indians, and ended their Days with them. On the
other Hand, Indian Children have been carefully educated among the English, cloathed and
taught, yet, I think, there is not one Instance, that any of these, after they had Liberty to go
among their own People, and were come to Age, would remain with the English, but returned
to their own Nations, and became as fond of the Indian Manner of Life as those that knew
nothing of a civilized Manner of Living. And, he concludes, what he says of this particular
prisoner exchange “has been found true on many other Occasions.”
Benjamin Franklin was even more pointed: When an Indian child is raised in white civilization,
he remarks, the civilizing somehow does not stick, and at the first opportunity he will go back
to his red relations, from whence there is no hope whatever of redeeming him. But when white
persons of either sex have been taken prisoners young by the Indians, and have lived a while
among them, tho’ ransomed by their Friends, and treated with all imaginable tenderness to
prevail with them to stay among the English, yet in a Short time they become disgusted with
our manner of life, and the care and pains that are necessary to support it, and take the first
good Opportunity of escaping again into the Woods, from whence there is no reclaiming them.
There was always the great woods, and the life to
be lived within it was, Crevecoeur admits, “singularly captivating,” perhaps even superior to
that so boasted of by the transplanted Europeans. For, as many knew to their rueful
amazement, “thousands of Europeans are Indians, and we have no examples of even one of
those aborigines having from choice become Europeans!”
Frederick Turner: Beyond Geography: The Western Spirit Against the Wilderness (1980)
John Zerzan: Against Civilization - Readings and Reflections (1999) |
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| WILL EVERYONE PLEASE JUST STOP THROWING UP! |
[Apr. 29th, 2009|09:50 pm] |
I caught a bug on Saturday, felt sick in the evening which graduly got worse. By 2 O'clock in the morning I was bathing in the toilet. The next morning I layed on the sofa but by lunch I could eat. I also ate my dinner but later in the evening began to feel rough again.
2 O'clock again I was woken by Sil throwing up all over the bed. We sat up together for the rest of the night with him puking every half hour and me envious of him because I felt sick but couldnt get anything out.
I finaly got some sleep when Francien and Amber woke up.
Later that Day I was taking a wiz and shit my pants as I stood there. That was my suprise onset with diarrea.
The day after we were all fine although I cant say I felt 100%.
Then this morning Sil woke up and shit his pants too. Like Father like Son (thats my boy) but this was just the beginning of the nightmare.
About lunchtime Nina started puking. She wanted to get in the bath a lot because she found it dirty. At one point she was sitting there in her 3rd change of water and her head just dropped from tiredness. I got in the bath with her so she could lay down and have a bit of a sleep.
Then the birthday girl, Francien, came and told me she wasnt feeling good either. We got Nina out of the bath and laid her on the sofa then shortly after Francien ran out of the boat and puked directly into the canal. Nina was now waking and asking for drinks but she could never hold it down no matter how small an amount I gave.
suddenly Sil now tells me he has belly ache and 5 minutes later throws his dinner up all over the living room. Shit and I had just moped the entire floor!
I've now got 3 patients and I'm running round like a blue arsed fly trying to get drinks, hand out towels and clean up puke when Amber phones.
Amber had gone to Amsterdam with friends for Queens day celebrations which start tommorow but on the way to the house she was staying she had puked on the tram and now was sitting there with diarreea unable to move.
I gave the phone to Francien and made my dinner which was some left over Indonesian takeaway from the night before. I sat down to take my first bite when Francien streaks past me to throw up in the canal again. I swallow the first bite as Francien is outside making a noise like something from the film The Exocist and all our neighbours can hear. Then Nina starts to cry so I put my plate down to go and help her and she pukes, coughs and spits it all into my face and over my arm.
Anyway I'm on a break putting Sil to bed who seems to be OK for now. I'll reload my mop and go and see how the other two patients are doing. |
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| One Way to Stop House Prices Falling More |
[Apr. 28th, 2009|04:51 pm] |
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qvrc7x3Amps
They have just made a new law here (Limburg, the Netherlands) that because so many people are leaving the province builders must knock down two houses before they can build a new one. This of course effectively halts all new house construction.
Maastricht has been losing people at a steady rate for years now. The city population is currently 118,000 and falling by about 1000 per year. It realy makes me wonder why the city council has given the go ahead to these new building projects in my neighbourhood.
On the main road just over the canal they built a new block of luxury flats, houses and a couple of shops. The flats are up for rent from 1000 to 1500 Euros per month. A few people have moved in paying that price but now the housing association is moving in students for 150 Euros per month. The company says its to stop the flats being squated but naturaly the full paying tenants are up in arms over this.
As for the proposed Belvadere project, a massive development of luxury flats on our side of the canal taking over the industrial estate and city rubbish tip, I cant see it even getting off the ground. Who is going to fucking live there??? |
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