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Tanak's scribbles and thoughts

Twenty-first of February 2020, 21-02-2020

And so it begins. Or rather, it has begun.Since some time, the Thursday beofre the actual weekend it's WeiberFastnacht' in Germany. It literally translates into Women's Carnaval. A day aimed at and dedicated to women wanting to celebrate it without men around. And althought that might have happened in the beginning, it's not so strict anymore.
Today, in Eindhoven, there's a massive party called 'Diree uurkes vurraf' Or in English 'Three hours in advance'. In olden days, the 90s of last century, you could turn up at the day, and walk in, or wait a bit if the rooms were full. Not anymore, in current day and age you have to buy your tickets well in advance (three months) and the available tickets are sold out in less than 15 minutes.

Like with many other events, Carnaval too has become too busy. A lot of outsiders (people from the north of the country) come to the south. Often not knowing how to behave, thinking it's only a feast to get drunk and grope around (yes, there are people who think that). And with social media these days, even other countries think to have demands how 'we' celebrate it. Carnaval in this little corner of the world (West Germany, South Netherlands and Belgium) has always been a three or four day period to make fun of seriousness. To light-heartedly ask attention for what goes on in the world, close by or further away. Always and ever with sarcasm and humour. And if you're not local, it's damn hard to understand how its meant. Things are taken out of proportion.

It's not stopping me to love it, but unlike when I was in my teens and twenties, one day, the parade on Saturday, is plenty for me. Together with my mum we watch the parade, something we've een doing for as long as I can remember, and afterwards she goes home and I hit town. And perhaps this afternoon I'll go 'taste a bit of the atmosphere'. Because the 'Three hours' has become so big, that the city will be flocked with party-goers.
If I can figure out how to post pictures in here, I'll drop a few next week. Any suggestions on how to do that? Send me a PM please. But keep in mind that the pictures will be on my laptop and nowhere else.

Alaaf! (Traditional Carnaval greeting, with your flat right hand before your face touching your left ear!)
 
Twenty-second of February 2020, 22-02-2020

This was supposed to be a very happy and cheerful message. For it's the day of the Parade. But weather is interfering and the Carnaval Federation of Eindhoven has decided to cancel the parade. Safety first, as they say. And while I fully agree to that, the general thought is that they have been extremely early in cancelling it. There's nothing as changeable as the weather in the Netherlands, so only by 6pm tonight can I tell if the Federation did the right thing or not.

But it will be fun no matter what, fun is what you make yourself, by being in a good mood and make the best out of a bad situation. Which is what I am going to do.
 
Twenty-third of February 2020, 23-02-2020

For the third Sunday in a row, the weather is absolutely vile. But where the previous two Sundays, it was inconvenient, today it's terrible, for many of the Carnaval parades have been cancelled. I think the one in Eindhoven, yesterday, was rightfully cancelled, for there were some real gusts which would have been dangerous for high trucks. I feel sorry for all those people who have spent months building their trucks, only for the weather to interfere. I remember years where there has been snow, and years where it has been very sunny, but still cold. But it's been years ago since we had a proper winter over here. That's global warming for you. Eindhoven is, on the world map, higher north as New York for instance, but we don't get frost anymore. This weekend it's been 12C, ridiculous for the time of year.

For me though, it's back to normality. Carnaval will go on for a couple more days, but the two days is enough for me. It costs too much money, money that I don't have. I've saved up for the two days, so now I'm done with it. Tomorrow, hopefully, the German Parades of Cologne, Dusseldorf and Mainz will go ahead, they will be shown on German TV and then in the evening they have the big indoor show from Cologne. That's my Monday sorted, hopefully, if the weather gets better.

And for today, it's going to be a bit of writing, and this afternoon I've got a birthday to attend. A quiet Sunday, as Sunday's should be.
 
Twenty-fourth of February 2020, 24-02-2020

As I have mentioned before, I see myself as a fairly limited writer. Limited in a sense of wishing to stick to human male (MC0 v human female (the opposing character). And not just that, I only wish to write with those that were born female and still are. I know full well that in sticking to that, I will probably miss out on some awesome writers, but it's just the way I work. I think I can stick to that rule. I have a few really big preferences in how the female I wish to write with models her character. It's not about looks, it never is. I really don't care how someone wants to make their character look like in a play. But I crave large to very large age-gaps and height differences. But those are really minor things, as it is a story I want to weave with a female. Setting is much more defining in 'can I write with you or not'.

I think to know that many people will disagree with me, but I think that slice-of-life isn't limited to modern times. You can just as much create a story between a bandit and a fair maiden, and keep it slice-of-life, but set it in medieval England. One of the problems you run into, setting it that far back in time, is that you cannot really have a BDSM story, or rather, you can't call it like that. Donatien Alphonse, the name-giver of Sadism, didn't live until the 18th century, so why name something after someone in the future? Yet, at the same time, if you play along the antics, that's possible. It's an interesting thought though, would it be possible to play out a BDSM scene between two peasants in rural France in 1044? Writing an incest story with the same settings in the same era is much more plausible, a goat-herd and his daughter for instance.

I have learnt, in the few months I am here, that my idea of dark is very different to that of others. For them dark almost always involves vampires and werewolves, which makes me think of young adult or teen-books and films. Not quite darkness I think. A kidnapper or murderer, yes, that's dark, and scenes of humiliation and degradation, of torture and pain, that's my kind of dark. I have mentioned that before, in another thread, and it led to me getting in touch with @AndNich123, who has the same ideas about darkness as I do.

I am debating whether or not to write my first ever request thread here. I have done some research, have been in contact with site-staff, for there is a setting I would see if i can find a female for to write with. I have been given green light, on the basis that nothing in the play will be against site rules. But to me that's pretty obvious. By signing up here, creating an account, we have all declared that we shall abide by the rules. Rules which are, in my personal opinion, very easy and open. A lot more is allowed here, than I have seen on other sites.
I only have two hard no's myself and everything else is up for discussion. But I trust on the intellect of the people on site, that they won't come to me suggesting a pairing of MxM, when I clearly state that I am looking to write an MxF story. It makes me think that people don't actually read what I request. 'Yeah, but you said everything else is up for discussion'. True, but within my request.

Compare it to a job advert. A company asks for an accountant, someone who's good with numbers. And yet they still believe to have to mention that the persons they are looking for should be good with numbers? Doesn't it defeat the purpose if I apply for such a job knowing I can't add one and one up? Perhaps I think too simple, if I request a certain pairing, in a certain setting, there is room for discussion on the things that will happen, on the characters, but not on the things I don't request.

I haven't decided yet if I will make my request thread, if I know the answer myself, it will appear in the list. If not, it's useless looking for it.
 
Twenty-fifth of February 2020, 25-02-2020

Ever since I made my way back into roleplaying, now some fifteen months ago, after another of my absences, I have noticed that it's become more common to ust leave a play without further notice. And what's even more frustrating, it's happened on more than one occasion that a lengthy process of plotting has preceded me writing a starter. I really don't understand why people do that. I can fully understand that during plotting or conversation at that time, you don't get the right vibe from the other person. A simple 'okay, this isn't going to work, good luck', would be fine. And even while a play has started, give it at least some chance to blossom, write a couple of posts, and if you don't like it, give up with an apology. I've done that a couple of times, it happens.

But to do (extensive) plotting, get everything sorted what you want to write about and where you want to have it set, let me (in most cases) write a starter and then ghost me? Why? I think the answer to that is not just one simple thing. As many people have as many reasons.
For today, I am going to post a starter I wrote a little over a year ago. After that starter I got no reaction from the girl I had done the plotting with. It was, as far as I can remember, supposed to be a pretty sweet story about two tourists meeting on holiday.
 
The moment the plane had touched down, was the first moment Max Rossi felt that his holiday had finally started. It was also the first time he would be on holiday in his life. A proper holiday, away from the places of his youth up to the age he was now. He was born and raised in a small village just north of Aix-en-Provence, in the Southern parts of the Provence region in France, where his parents had ran a camping-site. Throughout his youth and teenage years he had helped his parents with all possible little and big jobs. But after high school, he had chosen to study to take over the hotel his uncle had in the heart of Aix.

From the first day of his education, he knew that he had made the right choice, and during holiday times he helped his uncle in the hotel. They made a lot of plans for the years after his graduation, but in his final year, two weeks before his last exams, his uncle suddenly died. With the help of his father and the management staff at the hotel, Max was able to finish his degree, to find himself a hotel-owner immediately after receiving his diploma. Under his ownership and passionate guidance, the hotel had thrived, expanding the number of rooms on three occasions, before selling the hotel after he had ran it for twenty years.

Max now had enough money for the rest of his life, it wasn’t that he belonged to the super-rich, but he would be able to live comfortably, without ever having to worry about a thing. When he got up from his plane seat, he noticed that once again he was one of the tallest men. Despite his heritage and his Italian sounding name, he was French, but with the built and attire of a more Northern European man. He was 6’5” tall, weighed around 180lbs and was of normal built. There wasn’t a gram of fat on his body, contrary to what his peers looked like. His dark blond curly hair never seemed to be in model, he always let them dry naturally and his green eyes were open and inviting.

The Air France plane had landed at José Marti Airport, south of Havana, coming from Paris, where it had been on the cold side, for the time of year. But as soon as he got out of the plane, he was hit by the warmth. It was a big change, the heat in Cuba much more humid than he was used to in his parts of France. As a former hotelier he could of course only stay in one hotel in Havana, the world famous Hotel Nacional. Ever since he had heard about it, it was on the top of hotels he had to visit. And now, with just a bus-ride from the airport to the hotel, he was nearly there.

Max had never been married, he had never enough time to maintain a family, of course, he had the occasional girlfriend, but none that he found interesting enough to tie the knot. Most Europeans going to Cuba would stay in Havana only a couple of days, before heading to places like Varadero, where the main resorts were, but Max had opted to stay in Havana for 10 days. His room would be on the top-floor, with a view over the gardens at the back of the hotel and the sea a little further on. When he had made his way through customs, after collecting his luggage, he walked to the exit doors, looking around for the shuttle bus that would take him, and other holiday-makers to the hotels in Havana.

The drive to the city didn’t last all that long, but it turned out that Hotel Nacional was the last of the drop off points and all in all it took an hour and a half before he could finally check into his hotel room. He took the elevator up, and when he got to his suite, he was impressed by the grandeur of it. He took a quick shower, changing his clothes afterwards, and made his way down to the hotel lobby. It was a Friday, just before 6pm, the time difference 6 hours with France, meaning his own body clock would think it to be nearly midnight. But, he knew he had to eat something, and before that change his euro’s to Cuban convertible peso, the coinage foreigners had to use.

The girl at the reception desk pointed him, after his enquiry, to a restaurant with local food at the grand boulevard at the sea-front, Malecon, but a little outward from the city center, Hotel Nacional situated roughly halfway the restaurant and the city. He asked her for directions, but she told him it wasn’t to be missed, if he would walk around the hotel and turn left, passing the American Embassy first. He politely refused her offer of getting him a taxi, wanting to walk and get the fresh sea air in. The walk took him not more than twenty minutes and after he was shown to a table, he finally relaxed. Well Max, he thought to himself there you are, in Havana, Cuba. Let’s make this a wonderful first holiday. He was given the menu, in both English as Spanish, but only looked at it briefly. When the waitress came back to his table, he just asked to be given something a typical local three-course menu. The view over the sea was magnificent, even though it was dark outside, but the lighting made up for everything. His holiday had started.
 
Twenty-sixth of February 2020, 26-02-2020

On various places I've mentioned the fact that it had been years since we had snow. But to my big surprise this morning we had a small layer of the stuff. It's gone again, of course, because snow never lasts very long with the warm winters we're having. Within an hour the pavements were clear enough again and now, some five hours later, the rooftops are nearly clear as well. I really don't like the kind of snow we're having here. It gets mushy and muddy. It's not like that we get half a meter or so. I think the last time that happened was in 1963 and only because of snowdrift.

But we might get some tomorrow again, they're predicting a day temperature of 2C, which will be the coldest this winter. It's not even cold in my books. So long as it's not -10C, I don't class the weather as cold. Nippy, yeah, but cold? But, I can't wait for the temperatures to get to 20C again, or even 15C with a lot of sun. Dutch girls are just the best where it comes to clothing, the moment they think it's warm, the skirts come out. And really, for a man, there are little things nicer to look at as a nice pair of girl's legs.
 
Twenty-seventh of February 2020, 27-02-2020.

Last night I saw a documentary on Belgian (public) TV. A documentary about the standard of life in both the best and worst country on a certain ranking. A ranking, it appeared, where inhabitants themselves could vote and give their quality of life a number. Belgium turned out to be number 13 on that list. I don't know where the Netherlands ended up, I'd say a bit higher. We Dutch are in general quite satsified with how things are going here. Number one on the list is Norway, which is both ironic as understandable. Norway was subject to one of the biggest mass-murderings in post war history, the attack on the island of Utoya (and a bombing previous to that) by Anders Breivik, killing 77 people. But nowadays Norwegians are very happy with the quality of life.
At the very bottom of the list was South-Africa, which is also very understandable. Arguably one of the most dangerous countries in the world, and despite there being a non-apartheid status anymore, racism is still very much present.

One of the most striking items in the documentary was about a young girl, under 10, who had some terrible disease. The medicin to treat her (not cure I think) costs around 1.9m per year. I believe it was dollars, but it could have been euro. Either way, an incredible amount of money. But the child was lucky to live in Norway, for after the parents started a crowd-funding, to get some of the money, the Norwegian government stepped in and changed the law. From that moment onwards, every bit of health-care costs, for *every* child in Norway would be covered by the government. They made that into a law. No matter how high the costs. I think it's an example worth following.

Yesterday the Scottish government won a vote that all costs, for every female in Scotland, with regards to periods and menstruation, in other words, stuff like sanitary towels etcetera, will be taken by the government. They had proposed that law, because apparently there's a big taboo about poor people not being able to buy simple things as sanitary towels. And that when there is little money in a household, girls and women use make-shift solutions, such as toilet-paper. As someone who has very little money to spend, I fully understand that choices need to be made, but healthcare should never be last on the list. I rather eat less in a day, than that I am willing to risk my life.

But I am Dutch, from the Netherlands, and I am obliged, like every adult in the country to have health-insurance. It costs me a little over 100 euro in the month, which is 10% of my monthly income. But, and that's the beauty of the country, I get tax-benefits, because I am on such a low income. All but 2 euro of my health-insurance is covered by the government.

This morning I read an article in the Dutch news, about an American man who had himself tested for the corona-virus. You'd think that's a good thing, he had been in one of the risk-zones, and didn't feel good enough. So he got himself tested. Unfortunately, and I think it's setting a terrible example in preventing the spread of the virus, his insurer sent him a bill for the test. The bill an amount of over 3,000 dollar. Is it really more important to make a profit of people who want to test themselves? Or is it more important to stop a virus spreading?
Like the people who buy those masks (and it''s not proven they work for Joe Public, only for medical staff it's working and they've got different ones anyway) in bulk, to sell them on for ridiculous money?

Here's me thinking that health, anyone's health, for we are all humans, is the most important thing. But it feels like a lot of people don't' agree with me on that.
 
Twenty-eighth of February 2020, 28-02-2020.

Corona has landed in the Netherlands. Or rather, the virus, not the beer. And I genuinely thought that we would be dealing with the virus in a more down-to-earth manner. But no. I'll tell that in a bit. An entreneur from a village some 30 miles west of where I live has contracted the virus while he was on a business trip in the Lombardy region of Italy. Bang-smack in the middle of where the outbreak was in Europe. So it was bound to happen, even though we're one of the last countries in Europe to get a case. The man's gone to the hospital, got tested and is now in a quarantine-room. No problem, no panic. You'd think. But another guy, who almost certainly hasn't been in contact with the sick one went to his work this morning and got sent home. On the fact that he lives in the same village as the sick man. I mean, really?

There's something ironic, in a terrible way, about the way viruses enter Europe. Ever since the plague, in the 13th and 14th century, Italy is always the port of entry. In those days, with the silk-route, viruses also came from the far east to here. But it happens and we have to deal with it. I'm totally not worried about getting anything. If it happens it does, if not, I've always been very healthy, so I'm not at risk much. And I live in the Netherlands (see yesterday).

And that's the last I'll write about it. Unless of course, it's going to the proportions of death like the Spanish Flu of 1919.
 
Twenty-ninth of February 2020, 29-02-2020

Thsi year my birthday is not on the middlest day of the year, because it's a leap-year. And that means an even amount of days this year and then there is no single day that is the exact middle. But at least I get to celebrate my birthday on the day itself every year. For people who are born today, it's just once every four years. A bit like the Olympics. A whole ago, decades at least, I read somewhere about a family where the mother and two of her children were all born on the 29th of February. It makes me wonder how people celebrate it when it actually comes.

But for me it's a normal Saturday, one where I know I have to write a starter for someone. And I have a great outline of what I'm going to write. But Saturday's are a always a bit meh for me. It's a day I don't really want to do anything, watching sports on TV, have a few naps and that's about it. And it's the start of the classical cycling season, with the first road-race in Belgium. They're expecting storm again, so it's got all the signs of becoming an epic race. But maybe later on, I will write a bit too.
 
First of March 2020, 01-03-2020

For as long as I can remember, I've had a thing for numbers. And although I've always worked in financial administration as a book-keeper, my interest is more for the weird and wonderful numbers. How is windspeed calculated and why is Windforce 12 in the Netherlands not as strong as F0 in the US? What makes an earthquake of magnitude 8 so much more deadly than one of 7. And who came up with all the various numbers and codes and things like that. And even more interesting, why do we all accept those explanations?

Take today's date for instance, In the Christian world we all call it March 1st today (I know that at the time of writing there are still people on February 29th, but that's because of time-zones). Why is today March 1st and why is it 2020. The March 1st, meh, the emperors and popes of Rome, Julius and Gregorious mainly, invented a calendar, based on a number of days. Julius Caesar put the year to 365,25 days. Three years of 365 and one of 366 days. And although he was pretty close to the actual amount of days in a year, it didn't work perfectly. So in 1582 when the Gregorian calendar was put in place, 11 days were skipped. From the 4th of October they went straight onto the 15th.
But the 2020 is even more confusing. We've agreed, somewhere in the past, that the birth of the man from Nazareth, Jesus, was going to be our starting point. The AD (Anno Domini) behind 2020 shows for that. But he wasn't born in the year zero. It's not quite clear when exactly he was born, but somewhere between 14BC and 4BC are the best guesses. And another thing, the date that we've picked as his birth-date? December 24/25? Ridiculous of course. The shephards were in the fields with their lambs. Anyone ever seen a lamb in December? Bethlehem in December is really really cold, there's no-one outside during that time of year.

Somewhere in the early 90s I got a really cute little book for my birthday, It's called (translated) The Richter-scale and other numbers. Mainly aimed at Dutch people, so a lot of the chapters won't mean a thing here.

A number on a credit-card might seem random, but it isn't. It's not like they started at 1 and then counted onwards. The number is carefully calculated, with numbers on it for the company it's from, all the way up to the last number, which is always the control-number. The previous numbers calculated give a result and that result is the last digit.
There's chapters on the classification of eggs, salt, the density of water, the periodic table, the quetelet-index and about 100 more. Too much to individually describe them here. And I'm sure there are similar books in whatever language there is. Because people like me, are everywhere.
 
Second of March 2020, 02-03-2020.

It's one of those days where I really want to be outside. It's only four and a half months to go until the Nijmegen Four day Marches and while I am not participating, my mum is. And for her to be able to walk the four days of 30 kms each, we really need to do some training. Training for an event like that, is something you build up. Starting with about 10k, to eventually end up with waks of 30k. In February we managed to do one walk, where it should be one a week. And this week it's going to shit-weather again. With a lot of rain every day. The rain is good for nature. It's been so dry in the Netherlands over the past couple of years, that all the rain we've been getting was excellent for the ground-water levels. But from barely any reason for 24 months, we just had the wettest February in 64 years.

A friend of mine showed me the weather forecast for Sydney for today. It was going to be 36C there. And although they're still in their summer, those temperatures are ridiculous. Not that long ago temperatures around 40C were found around the equator, and now we get them and Australia. But where they have sun and a lot of bushfires, we got rain today. And tomorrow, and the rest of the week, right up until (according to my weather app) well into next week. Oh well, it will make the flowers grow, probably. But winter? That's something from paintings from the Dutch Golden Century. No idea what winter is, I have forgotten.
 
Third of March 2020, 03-03-2020

I've written something meaningful every day since I started. Up to today. I have a good piece in my head, but I'm just feeling a bit meh today. People that I thought I could talk to seem to disappear, and no matter how others pop up, I don't feel like writing much today. Perhaps tomorrow.
 
Fourth of March 2020, 04-03-2020.

Today, actually yesterday but I didn't feel up to it, I want to talk football. Real football, as it is played in nigh on every country in the world *and is called that name*. So not the American version, which has a wrong name anyway. If they'd have called it American Rugby, that would have made sense. A lot of sense actually. No, football is a very simple game, to be played with two balls, one is about 9 inches in diameter, the other about 12,740 kms in diameter. And the purpose of the game is to hit the first and not the second. WITH YOUR FEET.

This piece isn't going to be about the rules and regulations, google it if you want to know. No, this piece is about my love for the game as a fan. Something I have been all my life. My first ever match was in September 1973, a match my home-team won 10-0 and I basically never left. My home-team, PSV - Philips Sport Vereniging - was founded in 1913 as a factory football team. Philips should be known to everyone on site, I'd be highly surprised if there are people here who have never in their life held at least one item Philips produced. Anyway, the stadium where PSV plays their home-matches is about 200 meters from my apartment. But also in years long gone, I have never lived very far from the ground, apart from the time I lived in England. I kept the season-ticket I have since 1974, because there's an eight year waiting-list for the stand I'm in.

My time in England brings me to the second team I avidly support, Leicester City. Not because I lived there. I've been LCFC since 1980, when, on holiday in Southern France I met a few of the locals who asked me if I followed a team in England. Eh no. So from then on I followed City, and when I moved to England, I only wanted to live in Leicester, because of the football team. But, enough about me and the teams I follow.
In most European countries, there's a rule that clubs cannot be owned by money. The licence of the football-team, basically why they are allowed to take part in the national competitions, has to be owned by the club itself. England is the biggest, and most well-known exception, for there it makes no difference who owns the club. At the moment there's a really big debate going on in Germany, where the fans, the ultras, are of the most fanatic in the world. The German national football association, has allowed three rich companies to take ownership of a club and that doesn't sit right. But they've also allowed one individual to take ownership of a team from a tiny village called Hoffenheim. And that, my dear reader, means war. Literally.

German fans are expressing their hatred for said individual, with banners where he is being portrayed as the son of a whore (In German: Hurensohn). It started with the fans of Borussia Dortmund, who are now banned from travelling to Hoffenheim's away matches and last weekend there was a coordinated banner action in the highest two German football-divisions. Fans who normally cannot stand the life out of each other, now coordinated to have banners in all grounds. At one match, the players protested and just passed the ball to each other for the last 13 minutes. So there's a real war going on now between the clubs and the fans. And I am very curious to see who's going to win that. I have my money on the fans.
 
Fifth of March 2020, 05-03-2020.

It's one of those mornings where I really wish that someone would be online. And yes, I know there are plenty of people here, just look at the list - at the time of writing, 10.46am Thursday - there's 96 members here. What I mean is, people I talk to regularly, I'm in the mood for something fast and quick. And I also know that I could put a small RT out, but I've already concluded that I am not on par with a lot of people here. My ideas about dark, for instance, have got nothing to do with vampires or werewolves. I've written about it before, somewhere. The biggest issue, if I can call it that, is my location. Those in Europe are all at work or at school, the US is still asleep (or should be) and the Far East is heading to bed.
It is what it is, it's been like this during all the time I have been RPing. I'm not even complaining about it, but, it's just one of those mornings where I have an itch. And, as we all know, itches need to be scratched.

So, instead, I think I'm going to head down the local library, to see if I can find some nice books. As of late I'm going through the books classed as Classics, and I'm waiting for the translation of a few books. My library has gone down in budget by a lot, meaning they cant afford much books in English anymore. It really sucks, but that's how culture and the arts are treated in the Nettherlands. They're things for intellectuals, a word that seems to be a curse these days. If you say out loud you love to read books, quite a few people look at you as if you're some leper. And even more because I insist on reading my books in its original form. Ink on paper. It shows again that my introductory title here, about a dinosaur, still is true.

So, it''s off out I go, for now. But it won't ever last long before I'm back home.
 
Sixth of March 2020, 06-03-2020

Yesterday there was a very unexpected news-item in the local news. Eindhoven is going to try to get Formula E to the city for three years. And not just for 'normal' races, but for evening ones. Because, Eindhoven is Light Town and it would be suitable to hold the races during evening-time, when it's dark. Strangely enough, the city has been close to bankruptcy for a few years now and getting an event like this is going to come at a price. And to make matters even stranger, there's no circuit yet. Not that a new circuit has to be built, because all Formula E races are in city centers. In cities with well over a million inhabitants, whereas Eindhoven has got a little over 230,000. And in the city center, there's no real space.

Of course, we have the only ring-road in the Netherlands where you can keep driving on, but at 12 kms, it would be at least double the size of any other track. It would be massive advertisement for the city, but I fear a few people are majorly overshooting the possibilities here. The whole circus around any motorsport event needs a lot of hotelrooms and that's something we don't really have. It''s not that Eindhoven hasn't got any hotels, because we do, but we can't offer the luxury that cities like London and Mexico City (to name but two organisers of other races) can offer. And I can't really see the Mercedes Formula E team booking rooms in one of the many budget hotels we have.

But, the main thing will be to plan a track in the city center. Eindhoven city council is heavily reorganizing its roads, to make them less favourable for cars and more for cyclists and pedestrians. And what will be left, are single lane, one-way streets, where overtaking definitely will be impossible. And if something is boring is a race where cars (or motors) will just drive in one queue, lap after lap. So it's probably not going to happen, not the way things are at the moment. But, I'll keep you posted.

One last remark, about my library trip yesterday, I did manage to find four books, which are:

Ten Loves (Tien Liefdes, original title Shi Ai) by Zhang Yueran (translated in Dutch from Chinese), a collection of short stories about love, but in a strange way

Diary of a Thief (Dagboek van een dief, original title Journal du voleur) by Jean Genet (translated in Dutch from French), an autobiographical novel by Genet

The mermaid and Mrs. Hancock (De meermin en de courtisane) by Imogen Hermes Gowar (translated in Dutch from English) about London in the 18th century

The Russian novels (De Russische Romans) by Vladmir Nabokov (translated in Dutch from English), a collection of novels Nabokov wrote in Russia 1933-1939
 
Seventh of March 2020, 07-03-2020.

My friend (see my entry on the tenth of February, I posted a poem of her there) was looking for a building, to use in a group play on a different website. And she had no idea or inspiration, after, in her own words, she had written the best opening sentence to a roleplay ever. I'll post that sentence here:

This is the first sentence: 'The sun had started its slow ascent in the sky, illuminating the silhouette of the magnificent building.'

It really is a wonderful first sentence, but it was all I had to go on, together with the fact the building she mentioned, was to be some sort of Academy for vampires and witches. Totally not my thing, which is why I didn't take part in the play. But, I know my way around the internet a bit and I am always happy to help her out, so I did a search for a building. And I stumbled across a website with hundreds upon hundreds upon hundreds of pictures. All free to share. It could well be that people here have heard about the site, I hadn't. Its name is unsplash.com. Photos for everyone. So I copied and pasted the link into our conversation and she absolutely loved it.

It's this building:
unsplash.com

Photo by Danny Saltaren on Unsplash

Download this photo by Danny Saltaren on Unsplash
unsplash.com unsplash.com

But, I told her, for the play itself, the two legs of the building aren't really of any use, so for that purpose, tell people to imagine them to be cut off and some grand doors be located right underneath that cone. I was really happy with myself, for finding such a picture, because with her first sentence, it is not very hard to imagine the sun illuminating the building.

Afterwards I had a better look at the website and to my really big surprise, it's very neatly categorized, so if I ever need a picture as reference in a roleplay, I know where to go to. Of course, a free to use website like this won't have any images that I could use for pure smut, but I'm sure that I could find that sort of images somewhere else. Not that I'm really a person to use images in the first place. I find it - and that is purely my own personal opinion - lazy to use a picture, instead of describing a scene or a building. But then again, I'm not really a writer who finds buildings very important for a play, for me it's all about the interaction between two characters and how they are together. I will use other references, books are never far away, some paintings could be part of the play. And even those paintings are non-existent in the world. I love making them up.
 
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Eighth of March 2020, 08-03-2020

Sometimes seemingly random, there are 10 by 10 cms tiles put in the pavement. Throughout Eindhoven, for instance, there are nearly 250 of those tiles. On it are the words 'Here lived' (in whatever language is applicable), with a name and three years/dates. The years or dates are year of birth, year of deportation and date of killing. The last date is always during World War II and with it the place of the concentration-camp is noted. These tiles are called Stolperstein can mean 'potential problem', but the Dutch have translated it into stumbling stones. Stones, or tiles, you stumble across. The people who's names are on the stones are always Jews and the Stolpersteine are part of a Europe-wide remembrance project.

They are always placed with the text of reading in front of what would have been the front door of the house they lived. And not only is it good to remember them, it is also some sort of history lesson of how a street-plan was in a city during World War II. There are two such stones in my street and they still point at the front door of a house. The small area I live had its houses built in 1928 and 29, and wasn't affected during the three bombardments Eindhoven had to endure in the war. Two allied bombardments and one German (a day after liberation). But if you walk through the city center, you 'stumble' on those tiles, seemingly very random. The only thing you can know is that during the war, there was a house there.

A friend of my parents was a Jewish man, who was deported in 1942, and survived six (6!!!!) concentration-camps. He was also part of a large group of people who were put on (foot-)transport from Auschwitz into Western Germany. He once told me that only a few thousand out of more than 300,000 people survived. A couple of years before his death one of his grandchildren had asked him to come on a trip back into Auschwitz, which he did, for the first time in over fifty years. A week or so before his trip, I went to his house to talk to him about the things he had witnessed. We spoke for three or four hours. I am not going to talk about that, for I promised him that whatever he told me would stay with me. But some things were truly horrific.

My own grandfather, my mum's father, worked for Philips at the start of the war, and because he was a normal, healthy Dutch man, the Germans ordered him (and many other healthy Dutch males) to work in the war industry in Germany. They called it Arbeitseinsatz, which translates as Work Assignment into English. He had never spoken about his time there, he had to work in Dresden mainly. On the Monday before his death, when it was clear that he was on his last legs, I went to visit him, and with him I spoke too about what he had witnessed. A few years later my mum was asked by a colleague to help her clear out *her* fathers house and they stumbled across a bag with black and white photographs. And to my mum's utter surprise, there were pictures there that resembled a holiday camp, but after digging a bit deeper, they were pictures from Dutch men who had to work in Dresden. And my mum discovered that her father and her colleagues father were in Dresden at the same time.

I have those pictures now, and it's astonishing that it could really be holiday pictures, and if you don't know when and where they were taken, you'd believe that. A couple of years ago, my mum moved house (apartment really) and before the move we went through a few boxes that belonged to her father. She had never looked in them, no matter that her parents had long died. But, curious as I am, I opened them and found the most amazing items. And my prized possession is an original newspaper (the local Eindhoven paper), dated 5th of May 1945, the official liberation date of the Netherlands. It's not in pristine condition anymore, but when I found it, I framed it immediately. Perhaps for my entry of the fifth of May this year, I might post it here (if I can figure out how to get a picture from my phone into this thread).
 
Ninth of March 2020, 09-03-2020

When I was in secundary school, a long time ago, one of my subjects was Economics, and my teacher at the time had taken an option to buy coffee at the stock exchange. Not that he would actually buy the coffee, but the right to trade the option could make him money, or lose it of course. I'll spare you the technical details of how the exchange and trading works.. If you're interested talk to a broker. It was the first time in my life I had met anyone who did something with stocks and shares and options and it interested me enough to dive a little deeper in the world of coffee. And pretty quickly I discovered that my teacher had stepped into it at the right time. The weather had been bad, and a much lower coffee harvest was to be expected, meaning that the price of coffee would only rise. But at that time it wasn't entirely certain by how much.

So him and I made a little sport about it, to see where it would end up and at some point I called a figure, the end price for a ton of coffee (a thousand kilo), which was so ridiculously high, that he didn't believe me. But the price kept rising and he had another four or five weeks before he had to decide to take his gains. And so he got scared, by that time he had already made a virtual profit of around fifty thousand guilders, a sum of money twice his annual salary. And no matter how I predicted that in four weeks the price would be double that amount, giving him one hundred thousand guilders as profit, he sold the option. He remained a teacher at the school for another four months, until the end of the year, quit teaching and with the money he had gained, started a computer business. Mind you, we're talking 1985, and he was one of the very first people who started a business for computers and towers.

It made him a lot richer, that business, giving him enough wealth for the rest of his life. I have no idea what has become of him, as I moved schools shortly after and I lost track of him. Some fifteen years later I knew he was still in the business, for his company had deals with several schools in the region, to supply PC's to staff for discount prices (It was a thing back then, subsidized by the government, to make people more computer savvie), but that was about the last I heard.

I have got some shares myself now, not very much and not for a big amount, it's more out of a bit of fun. The amount I bought the package of shares for isn't enough to ever make me rich, you can only make money with money. But it's fun to have them. I have invested in green and good shares, only from companies within the EU. Nothing to do with fossil fuels, nothing to do with weapons, no American or English ones. And they're doing pretty alright, at the end of last year I had a small profit, enough to buy me a few books, which was fun.
The first thing I read this morning in the news was that shares and exchanges have crashed massively. Royal Dutch Shell has lost a fifth of its value this morning (won't affect my shares, as Shell is fossil fuels), and exchanges at London, Amsterdam and Frankfurt have lost close to 10% in a matter of minutes. New York (Wall Street) will open shortly and I am expecting a very large plunge. The reason? The corona-virus and its effects on world economy. And because of the effects on world economy, there is less demand for oil. So OPEC had decided to lower the amount of barrels being pumped up. But less barrels means less income and therefor Russia (the second largest oil producing country, but NOT a member of OPEC) didn't follow OPECs lead.

So Saudi Arabia has single handedly upped the amount of oil that's being pumped up, putting the price of oil into a plummet. The Saudi's can manage that, Russia can't, and this price=war is just to force Russia to follow OPEC's orders. Fun, fun, fun.

Oh, in case anyone was wondering, I was right about the end-price of the coffee. Had my teacher waited those extra four weeks, he'd have doubled his money.
 
Tenth of March 2020, 10-03-2020

It's hard to miss any news on the coronavirus over here. Some things are, in my humble opinion, plain stupid. People hamstering on things that are of zero use. Getting anti-bacterial gel for your hands for instance. The stuff is meant to kill bacteria. But corona is a virus. It won't work. People buying and carrying those mouth-caps, which causes a shortage for those who really need them, like dentists. And for normal people they don't prevent anything. The Dutch government, by word of the prime-minister said that as of the speech he did yesterday, Dutch people shouldn't shake hands for a while. And what does he do when he finishes his speech? He shakes the hands of the guy on the podium with him. Right, great message mister!

The province I live has been 'hardest' hit in the Netherlands. About a third of all cases are here, mainly in the west of the province though, but people should work from home as much as they can. Easy for office workers, but at the same time a *lot* of teachers have called in sick, meaning that some schools had to be closed. And that means that children had to get last-minute babysitting. The first people applicable are the grandparents. BUT it was said as well that visits to grandparents should be stopped for a while. You know, old people, they die sooner. Sure. Of the 350 or so cases that are now registered in the Netherlands, THREE people have died. Percentage-wise that's nowhere near the average. And all those three were above 80, with other underlying illnesses.

But in Europe sports is affected majorly, football behind closed doors, cycling cancelled, and on a more global scale, a lot of Olympic Qualification Tournaments are cancelled too. It means that a lot of sporting people might miss out on their last chances of qualifying for Tokyo 2020. If it goes ahead of course. Last weekend the MotoGP in Qatar (I think) was cancelled, but Moto2 and 3 went ahead. In Australia public is welcome at the Formula 1 race, but in Bahrain they aren't. This coming weekend, PSV is having a home match, and up to the moment of writing, it is still going ahead with public. But for me, as a season ticket holder, apart from it going ahead as scheduled, I rather have it cancelled completely than being played behind closed doors. If it's cancelled it will be played in a later stage, if I can't go I loose money over it.

Yesterday I read an article about the numbers per country of confirmed cases. There's something really strange about those numbers. The US, one of the biggest countries in the world, only has 600 confirmed cases, and percentage wise a very high number of deaths. It really made no sense to me. But then I read that for the whole of the US, there have been 1,500 tests in the six weeks since the first confirmed case. In South Korea, they are testing 10,000 people A DAY. And in a twisted way of thinking, if you don't test people for the virus, you don't have any confirmed cases and then the government can say, proven say, that the US is barely affected by the virus.
I'll not say too much about it, I think everybody can make their own mind up.
 
Eleventh of March 2020, 11-03-2020

There's really no escaping the corona-virus. Yesterday I was in the city center for a coffee with my mum and a lunchroom I pass on the way to the center has closed up until Sunday as a preventive measurement. Closed because of the virus. And in the afternoon the heads of the three safety-regions (which hold the mayor, hospitals, police etcetera in a certain part of the country) held a press-conference. They want to halt the spread of the virus. There's 161 confirmed cases in the province, on a total of over 2.5 million people. But the measures they've taken nigh on halt social life. Every event with more than one thousand spectators is being forbidden, initially up to next Monday. It means that the home match of PSV of this Saturday is forbidden as well. And in a way I'm glad about that. I've paid for my season ticket and playing matches behind closed doors would mean I lose the money. Now the match will be postponed. It's what I hoped for yesterday, and I'm in luck for once.

Everyone who can work at home, should work at home, but that doesn''t affect me, as I don't work anyway. But the most drastic measure is that people in the province should 'refrain from (new) social contacts for seven days'. Yes, you are reading that correctly. Put your social life to a halt for seven days. Especially the contacts you have with your grandparents and your sickly mother. Good thing I have neither. My grandparents have long died and my mum is as healthy as can be. Schools will be forced to have the children, not to teach them, for a lot of teachers are ill, but to prevent grandparents having to babysit their grandchildren.

I''m afraid it's not going to be enough. the Netherlands is too international a country to stop the spread, but I am convinced that how it's being tackled is the right way. In Italy they've been too lapse with it and the whole country is now in lock-down. There's even talk that the last 12 matches in the Serie A, the highest football division will be cancelled completely. But the way Israel is tackling it, isn't the right way either. They've closed the country for foreigners, meaning that the tourism sector is going bankrupt. I really thought a recession was going to come this year, but I thought it would be because of Trump re-elected and definitive Brexit. Not a virus like corona.

But, since I have to refrain from new social contacts for the next seven days, I'm afraid can't start plays with people I don't know. Sorry girls. You'll have to wait to meet up with an exceptional writer. The ones I have are fine, you're not new social contacts.
 
Twelfth of March 2020, 12-03-2020

I often forget to put a smily after something I write. In my head it's funny and I don't think that someone else could interpret it differently. But of course it happens a lot that I think I am using the right words, but other people would never use that word or have a different meaning for it. It doesn't help of course that English is my third language and the longer I am away from speaking it regularly, the more I seem to be forgetting. And because people cannot see me, my facial expression or otherwise expressions, a communication mistake is easily made. It made me think back to communication training I had a while ago, and more specific interview training. They used a research by Albert Mehrabian to divide three skills in percentages.

Firstly, words. But purely words on a screen or on paper, like for instance an application letter. With words you are only using 7% of your whole potential of communication. Verbal communication, according to my training is 38% of the total, and body language would be the last part, and the biggest, at 55%. But apparently the interpretation, 7% for words etcetera is up for a big debate. It doesn't seem to be how Mehrabian meant it in the first place. It seems that a lot of people, experts and amateurs, 'translate' words into verbal communication. It's not how they taught me. Words, the 7%, are just this, the words you read here, in this piece. And if I don't use any smileys, they are cold words, that each and everyone has to interpret in their own way.
Yesterday, at the end of my piece, I said something about refraining from new social contacts and that I couldn''t write a DM to a new request thread. It was a joke, of course, and still it makes me wonder if I should have put that smiley at the end.

I called the 38% verbal communication, as that's what I was taught, but Mehrabian called it voice. Technically you could say it's the same, and perhaps it is the same. If this was a spoken piece, instead of a written one, I could put intonation into it, and emphasize certain words. Still, the 7 and 38% are less than half your potential. Nobody can see my body language while I write this. Eyes do a lot, a smile as well. And if I wish to express anger towards someone, when I stand very close to them, I seem to be invasive, with my nearly 2 meters of length.

Unfortunately, I've promised myself a million times already to use more smileys and/or emoji's, but I always seem to forget after a day. They're really a thing of the last decade or so, they're just not in my system. So, for everyone, if what I write isn't clear enough, please ask me about it. There's a massive chance I meant it in a very friendly and humorous way.
 
Thirteenth of March 2020, 13-03-2020

And it's Friday as well. Friday the 13th, nowadays seen as a day of bad luck. Strangely enough not in every country. In Spanish speaking countries the day of bad luck is Tuesday the 13th and in Italy it's Friday the 17th. I tried finding out where it originated from, but as with so many days on the western calendars, there isn't one single event to which is can be pinpointed.

But for me it's a normal Friday, or rather, the first day where the Netherlands, and most of Europe, is coming to a stand-still. Any gathering with more than 100 people is cancelled here, and more and more restaurants and bars are shutting as a precautionery measurement. The effects on the economy are immense, and there will be, undoubtedly, a wave of workers being fired as companies will not be able to survive a crisis of this scale.
But again, I am treating this as a normal day, I'm off to my mum for coffee in an hour, and get some beer afterwards. I'll be around more than I had wished, the weather seems to be improving a little, so it's not the time to stay inside.
 
Fourteenth of March 2020, 14-03-2020

The world is going mad. Mad and berserk. Saturday is my normal day for weekly shopping. I go together with my mum, we have coffee first and then do our shopping. She hers and I mine. And even though I knew that people are going crazy, to actually see it with my own eyes is ridiculous. It's cringing to see people hamstering. As if the world is going to end. The frozen section was empty, dried food, such as pasta and rice, totally empty. toilet paper? Sold out. But also real essentials (this is me being sarcastic) such as crisps/chips (whatever you call it) and butter (to use on your bread for instance, it has a use by date) are sold out. And it's completely and utterly useless. There's no reason for it.

Because, my dear readerr, The Nettherlands are one of the biggest exporting countries for food and food products. We export four times the amount we need for ourselves. If we were to follow the example of closing the borders, we're fine. We have plenty of stuff for ourselves. And even though most people know all that, they still go into a panic and shopping frenzy. I've been on this planet for a little over 50 years and it's the first time I am witnessing something like this with my own eyes. And it makes me ashamed of my fellow Dutch people. Because not only is there totally no reason to panic buy, it's very egocentric too. Because all those working in vital jobs, the doctors and nurses, police, ambulance, fire-fighters, after a hard day at work, and they need to do their shopping, to find empty shelves.

By Tuesday it'll be over, this panic buying. The same happened in Italy, a couple of weeks ago. When they went in lock-down, supermarkets were bought empty, but after a few days the people saw them being restocked on a daily, and often multiple times a day. But Italians are different people than the Dutch. And I honestly didn't think it was going to happen here. I've even said it in one of my previous entries here. So, I stand corrected. I need to apologise for thinking the Dutch were laid-back enough to not go panic shopping. I was wrong.
 
Fifteenth of March 2020, 15-03-2020

There's no escaping corona. It's even hard for me to come up with other things to write about, because almost nothing is happening in Europe. More and more countries go in lock-down, air-spaces are being closed. American Air is stopping 75% of its normal flight, because there's either no more demand or air-planes can't get anywhere anymore. And no matter all governments 'saying' they will financially help businesses, I really can't shake of the feeling that at the end of this, a lot of people will have lost their jobs. And it's not just a normal company, but organisations behind sporting events. Take for instance the NBA, the players will be safe, but what about the cleaners, or the people who run the food and drinks stalls? Will they keep their job if there's no competition, no income, for two, three months? The Giro d'Italia has been postponed, the Flemish Classics too. To hold a licence, to organise a cycling tour, for just one day, take the Tour of Flanders, High Mass of cycling as it's called, just to be allowed to organise it, costs around 300,000 euro. And it's running mainly on volunteers and sponsors.

From various countries come various measures to stop and/or delay the spread of the virus. France is closing every shop, apart from the real essentials, so supermarkets and pharmacists. But the local elections of today and next week Sunday are going to go ahead. It's just bizarre. Why ban gatherings of more than 50, 100 people, but invite the whole of France to go to their polling stations? In the US, some states are not going to hold the Democratic electoral process, but others are going to go ahead with it? Why? Would it be something to put those things on hold too? In times of great crisis, people vote irrational, and I can't think what the consequences would be.

Although I really would love to see the EU evolving into something like the United States of Europe and I won't see that happening in my life. But let's not forget that the US started that process some 200 or more years ago and the EU only started it in 1992, with the signing of the Maastricht Treaty. And you cannot bring change that drastically, in such a short space of time. Having mentioned the EU, there are people who are saying that there should be one policy concerning Corona. And no matter how good that would be, it's impossible. Because the EU doesn't have the powers to impose such a policy. One of the agreements between the member states, is that healthcare is the responsibility of the individual states.

So different countries impose different measures. In Austria gatherings of over 5 people are banned. In the Netherlands it's 100. In Belgium all shops are closed too. Especially bars and restaurants. Belgium is, from where I live, walkable. From my home I can walk in about four hours to the Belgian border, a bit less even. It's that close. And so a lot of Belgians come here this weekend, to have a drink. The mayor of a small town just across the border has called for our bars and restaurants to be closed as well. To prevent their citizens travelling here. Not only do I not agree with the man, he's from a country that held their general elections nearly 500 days ago and they still haven't formed a government. Perhaps doing that should be priority.

Anyway, this is rapidly turning into a daily corona journal. How life in Europe is at the moment. There's one thing that I don't understand, from all those bans on gatherings. Experts keep saying that we need to hope for a rapid herd immunity, for that could stop the spread of the virus. But isn't the ban on gatherings preventing such a herd immunity? How can we, as the human herd, get this immunity if we can't meet up anymore?
 
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