Monday 19 January 2015

Atheist, Coffee Making, 112 Year-Old Pope on a Conveyor Belt


I've sussed why the Dutch are happy riding old bone-shaker bikes; bike envy just doesn't exist here, whereas it's rife in the UK.

I often wonder how the Dutch government deals with old bikes that have been abandoned, or where the owners have died. That's probably why there are so many bikes here - they've been lying around for decades and no-one has bothered to gather them up. Millions of dead people's bikes littering the streets.

We've been frequenting a bar in town that serves the best beers in Europe (Gollem). The problem is it's very small, and thus the opportunity for expanding the business is severely limited - it's all down to throughput. I think they should reverse the Japanese fast food restaurant concept - the one where you have a conveyor belt of food going past the diners - and instead have the customers on a conveyor belt so they have to finish their drink by the time they've done a circuit of the pub. The bar staff can then speed up the conveyor during busy times, or slow it down in slack periods.

The Britain's oldest woman celebrated her 112th birthday yesterday (no, not Hay - it was only her 50th). Do you think that, like most women, she was lying about her age?

Muslims in Niger attacking and burning churches. Isn't that a bit like the UK declaring war on Mexico at the start of WWI or WWII? The stupidity of religious fanatics simply astounds me - it has no bounds. I would posit that the majority of the people poking Islam through Charlie Hebdo are not in the least bit identifiable as Christians in the first place. The problem is you can't attack atheist churches, so you have to make do with the next best thing. Crass idiocy!

"The pope is God's representative on earth, and so speaking to him is like communicating directly with God." Saw that on the BBC news site yesterday concerning the pope's visit to the Philippines. Got news for the Filipinos - the pope is an old bloke, voted for by some other old blokes, in response to political developments in a multinational conglomerate known as the Catholic Church. I don't think God had much to do with it, if anything. Dead phone line!

Can I expect a papal punch after that?

Talking of God, was a tad surprised yesterday. Jesus is not dead, he's alive and well and working in an Amsterdam sandwich shop (at least the western idealised version of Christ depicted in Renaissance art as a blonde Nordic type)..


Philips Senseo Up coffee maker - 70 Euros in Holland (50 Euros if you look hard); £229 on eBay in the UK (although you can find them for £99 on the Cool Shop website, which took a bit of finding). Rip-off Britain?

Holiday over and back to Blighty this evening.


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