TBR

Hey, the New York Times has an article about Utrecht! Looks interesting. Maybe I’ll read it sometime.

no machetes yet

I always think a government “collapse” sounds so dramatic. The mental picture I get looks sort of like when they blow up a building and it just sinks into a cloud of dust. But nope, here we are in the middle of one, and everything will go on as normal, and there will be new elections at some point.

Have I ever been in a country while the government was falling before? I don’t think so, but the way they do it here in Europe, maybe I was and just didn’t notice. It’s so civilized. Nobody running around with machetes, no need to stockpile bread and milk or figure out ways to smuggle your children over the border.

I kinda liked Balkenende, what I knew of him anyway, and I actually really admired Wouter Bos’s response to the financial crisis in 2008, so this is probably not going to be a good election. Especially because Geert “I will blame everyone but myself for the fact that I have stupid hair” Wilders is predicted to be the big winner, and good lord, the last thing any country needs is a dipshit like that within shouting distance of any kind of power. So we won’t need to be stockpiling food and forging IDs while this government is falling, but we might need to once the next one comes in.

Should be interesting times coming up. Though upon reflection, I rather hope not. Boring certainly has its charms…

Song du jour of the day: We Throw Parties, You Throw Knives, by Los Campesinos.

…and stuff

We are in publish-crunch mode, wherein DrBob’s book must be to the publisher by the end of this week and so I am profreading it (again), a task for which I need ABSOLUTE SILENCE and also for my family to be at least five miles away or preferably in another country – oh wait, we’re in the Netherlands, so it’s the same thing, isn’t it?