MennoR
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Posts posted by MennoR
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Welcome here. It's a fine place. You'll feel at home here!
Menno
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So did they over here a few weeks ago. The McDonald's and the KFC nearby the square where the demonstration was, were completely out of food after the demo. The mess they left behind on the square was so much that the City Council of The Hague needed two full dump trucks to move all the debris and trash...
What's more: lots of these kids were interviewed and -very naive- a few of them told reporters that their family had plans for 3 holidays/year by plane...
My guess: max 10% of the kids on the demo grounds were sincerely there for a better environment. The others were there for a day out. Can't blame them.
Menno
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That's a great find.
Modern magazines like PM can't cope with that nowadays. They've been overrun by dedicated YouTube channels. My science-teaching colleagues think that those channels are the best invention since sliced bread - and perhaps a better invention. You still get the same info, even more perhaps. My wife used to work as a communications director for a Dutch publishing company (owner of UK's Effacts among others) and around the end of the last century, they already started switching to digital content. Which was rather tricky back then, because lawyers etc are (were) pretty 'old school' when it comes (came) to taking in new information.
Still, that PM is, of course, a monument of information from an era gone by.
Menno
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19 hours ago, JohnD said:
I agree. Menno is a very good judge of cars, or people, or just very lucky!
a new, old car is quite different from.one you have known for some time.
take a trailer.
John
1. It wasn't as if I was buying my first Saab 96...
2. Lot's of luck off course: it can easily break down on the trip home.
3. 2800 euros and a cheap ticket would not have been the end of the world. It's not as if I go out to buy a very early 911...
But, in hindsight: a trailer would have been a better solution.
Menno
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A whole heap of cars have found its way the other way around: from the UK to the Continent. Or from Scandinavia to more southern parts of Europe. Like my Saab 96 that came from the middle part of Sweden.
My Saab was advertised on Blocket.se (sort of Gumtree). It had belonged to an older gentleman who had bought the car new in 71. After he'd passed away in '07, his daughter put it up for sale. I bought a plane ticket to Stockholm and took the train to the north (Bollnäs). In my luggage a few tools (spanners, but not knowing what to take with me). The asking price for the car was 30,000 Skr = 2,800 euros (then). I took 35,000 Skr with me. 30K for the car (max) and the remaining for repairs and fuel.
The car was in perfect condition and had only covered 55K kms between 71 and 07! It came with a ton of paperwork. Everything was there. All I had to to was freeing the LH rear drum (some binding) and I could drive the car home: Sweden, Denmark, North of Germany and The Netherlands. Took me 2.5 days (those old cars aren't that fast anymore... the Autobahn was hell...). Make sure that you have proper insurance before you go: I phoned the insurance company before I left to Sweden and agreed with them a temporary policy the moment I would own the car (paid, registered)
Paperwork wasn't a problem. Dutch bureaucracy is used to people importing a car. Here, you can take it home and contact the authorities telling that you own an import vehicle. You have to swing by a designated MoT (not your run of the mill garage) for a safety check etc. Then you can apply for plates. Period-correct I may add.
Easy Jet was super-cheap. But it was a gamble. When the car is less well maintained, I would suggest that you bring a trailer and haul the car on the trailer. When doing the trip again, I would certainly take a trailer.
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Sort of political refugee you mean? I suppose you can. I have no idea if that's possible when you're not already here. I think that you have to live/work here.
The sources of both articles: the first is from an online 'paper'. They're often very sceptical about the EU's movements and actions. The article is written by a law professor who has a weekly column on those pages. The second article is from an old school 'paper'. That newspaper is pro-EU. The second article is written by a historian (also a professor). That historian has written a few very readable essays about 'fake news'. Well, that's where he's known for here in Holland.
Menno
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Here's another one, lifted and translated from a Dutch paper today:
QuoteWhy do the British choose the leap from the cliff? Because it is a sublime choice.
In the discussion about the question of whether the British will go on the cliff with a no deal on March 29, it is often assumed that people do not like jumping from cliffs.
That assumption is incorrect. He is also dangerous - especially now that we have ended up in a situation where the opponents of a no deal brexit seem to underestimate the enthusiasm for such a cliff jump, while the proponents play down the height of the cliff. Many of the people in and around the House of Commons try to put a stop to a no deal brexit believe that they only have to prove that an abrupt departure is actually a cliff to a large part of those well-tempered fools on the abyss to let their steps return.
From Davos Tony Blair says that 'the only sensible thing Great Britain can do is: think again.' Right-wing Brexiteers for their part argue that there is no cliff, that we might end up in 'unknown territory', but that the consequences of a no deal brexit will be noticeable. As Nigel Farage says: "No deal? No problem! "
With a brexit, the UK chooses a situation in which it will be worse off than before - the only question is how much worse.
It is by no means impossible that both groups are right for exactly the wrong reason. Everything indicates that a no deal brexit is indeed a jump from a cliff - as the opponents argue. But the proponents of a no-deal brexit may well be right with their statement that the enthusiasm for an abrupt departure is much greater than the softies and the remainers presuppose. In other words, it is quite possible that jumping from a cliff is exactly what a significant number of the British are after. And that with the judgment of these willing people is little wrong: that they know very well that this cliff is not just a quay hour but at least as high as that at Dover.
It is of course only a metaphor, that cliff image, but that makes the four ingredients that make up the metaphor no less real: the outcome is uncertain, the 'amount of change' that the decision will bring about is great, the risk that the living conditions will be short and medium term decline is considerable and, fourthly, the change will happen from one moment to the next. The first three ingredients will occur in any case. In a report released last month, the UK Treasury Department predicted that all of these options generate uncertainty, bring about major changes and lead to a decline in GNP.
The latter is in itself a unique fact: the United Kingdom chooses with a brexit for a situation in which it will in any case be worse off than before - the only question is how much worse.
Historically unique
I do not know of any other example from a history of a country that opted for loss of welfare with open eyes and wished so little for it. Of course, the decline in prosperity in the past also occurred in the past - for example, if a country decided to collapse in a war - but never for such a regressive reason as the need to withdraw from it. And the fourth ingredient of the cliff metaphor, the willingness not to implement it gradually, but in one dizzying leap, is already quite a raised middle finger to the 'well-understood self-interest'.
The prevailing theories about the way in which people make decisions are, in the case of Brexit, grossly inadequate. According to these theories, choice behavior is determined by either the prospect of 'profit' (however defined) or the fear of 'loss'. Numerous studies show that the tendency to avoid losing weight (loss aversion) normally prevails over the tendency to maximize profits.
According to the book, the British would have had to vote against the overthrow of the status quo, even if there had been a chance that they would go forward with a brexit. Both the anticipated loss of prosperity and the created insecurity count as 'loss' - no sensible person would start it.
“Sometimes people have to close their eyes and take the plunge.”
The fact that something can not theoretically does not mean that it does not happen. It may be a historical uniqueness to deliberately choose for loss of wealth, examples of countries, cultures and people who at crucial moments did not have a message to loss aversion and dared to leap into the dark, is certainly no shortage. In which I note that these moments only became crucial by ignoring the decision-making principle that the prevention of loss must outweigh the chance of progressing.
'Being a bit wild'
The Japanese Prime Minister Hideki Tojo said on the eve of the attack on Pearl Harbor: "Sometimes people have to close their eyes and take the plunge." Helmut Kohl decided to introduce the euro with the words "the most important thing is that it is clear that what we do is irreversible. On the road to political unity we now cross the Rubicon. There is no way back. "And of course Donald Trumps classic:" Sometimes it pays to be a bit wild. "
Historians call events where rational calculation makes way for the willingness to take a leap into the dark 'sublime historical events'.
That 'sublime' is not a value judgment but a category derived from aesthetics: it is a combination of horror and fascination, attraction and repulsion.
The most famous example is Trump. He is sublime both in the way we devour the news he figures in and in the way people in the voting booth, 'God Blessing the Hold', muttered and cast their vote on him.
In a sublime historical event, a semi-conscious aversion to the status quo makes it difficult to act against the equally semi-conscious urge. In a sublime historical event, the urge to enter cleanness leaping - as the poet Rupert Brooke described the beginning of the First World War - becomes too powerful for us.
Different thinking window
I now go beyond the fact that such 'leaps forward' are invariably legitimized as attempts to revert to something behind us. What I am concerned with here is that in the current Brexit situation two decision models are active. On the one hand, a considerable part of the brexit buckets wants to plunge with a sublime clean break from the cliff, while on the other hand the right-minded people in the parliament, the establishment and the remain camp try to limit the damage as much as possible with the help of rational choice theory.
There is a complete lack of understanding between these two camps. In fact, neither camp is aware that the opposing party has a different frame of mind. The cliff-jumpers are annoyed by the mess that makes the thinking in their attempts to make something of it - which only strengthens their willingness to take the plunge. Interviewers who give them a microphone, hear texts like 'It must be over now', 'We just have to get out' and 'They're just watching'. For their part, the right-minded people do not understand that all the new information about the consequences of a hard brexit does not bring the cliff springs to mind.
The situation is complicated by the fact that we are now in phase 2 of the Brexit Revolution. It should be clear that the choice of the British to opt for a brexit in the 2016 referendum was sublime moment number 1. The result was then managed according to the classic principles of loss limitation and profit maximization. The mantra of Theresa May, that it is her job to deliver on the brexit, is exactly that: an attempt to translate the sublime people's will into a calculated deal.
Rebirth
But now that the quadrature of the circle with which May hoped to pull the House of Commons over the line last month, so the television genius has been voted out, the British are again faced with the question: are we going backwards or are we farther ahead? Anyone who is somewhat of a good thought advocates the first - and opts for postponement or a second referendum. Tony Blair: "It is only reasonable, a second referendum."
Reasonable, yes indeed, but history shows that people who have the taste of the sublime are barely susceptible to reason and have an irresistible urge to have a new one on the first somersault. See the cascade of accomplished facts that together form the French Revolution and the escalation orgy that started the First World War in August 1914.
Who wants to assess what is happening around the brexit, must realize that in the House of Commons the calculators are far in the majority - only the 5 to 7 percent of the members who are included in the lunatic fringe of the hard brexiteers are prepared to a sublime leap in the dark. Or, as their foreman Jacob Rees-Mogg puts it, a 'rebirth'.
Well-understood self-interest
The calculations of the calculating 95 percent lead to divergent, difficult to reconcile outcomes. However, a coalition of Tory backbenchers and Labor filed an amendment to make a no deal brexit impossible, in an effort to turn the brexit into an 'ordinary' rather than a sublime issue. Although the amendment was adopted, it only has an advisory and not a legislative function.
How big among the population the support for a no deal cliff hopping is difficult to say. Polls suggest that a small majority would now vote against the brexit. But both the election of Trump and the brexit referendum have shown that the sublime voice does not get caught up in opinion polls and only at the moment suprême - in the voting booth - comes out of the bottle.
If it leads to postponement or a second referendum, the fact that the calculators have enforced this will lead to radicalism being pushed in by attempts to push in the plebs what their "well-understood self-interest" is. The face of the British Revolution of 2019 is not a yellow vests throwing stones, but one in the seclusion of the voting booth Tell them again thinking juvenile who votes for no deal because he prefers an uncertain future to the certainty of a marginal existence.
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33 minutes ago, JohnD said:
Quote Menno, " (crossing referring to the '39-'45 period when Dutch citizens crossed the North Sea in small boats to England)" when they were welcomed with open arms (I hope).
So unlike the zenophobic rants that feature in Brexit propaganda!
I can't read the datelines on all these redtop (the Telegraph counts) headlines, but they are typical. Our parents were a more generous, as well as braver generation.
John
The Dutch have great memories of the welcome they received from the Brits. No doubt about that! (In fact, there's a musical about one of the 'Engelandvaarders' (one single word as in: 'Those who went to England'). That guy later became Adjudant to the Dutch Queen Wilhelmina who stayed in London during the war. His real life turned into a Ian Fleming saga and the musical runs since 2010, 6 days/week. That 'warm welcome' is very much alive in Dutch modern history! Therefore, when people from the UK come over to Holland (or better: The Netherlands), there's a 100% warm welcome. My wife has 5 British men working at her office. They've even invested in 'hardware' for 'cups of tea'. The only downfall is the fact that those guys want to use a different sort of milk for the tea than is sold over here. Her rule about Brexit-related conversations: 'only between noon and 1 PM (lunchtime).'
In case of a Brexit, every Brit here in Holland gets 15 months (and probably more) time to make up his mind what he/she wants to do. Stay/leave/ask for a permanent work-permit like the US, Can and South Koreans or become a Dutch citizen.
About the pic of the newspapers... Those newspapers headlines are unthinkable here. Saying loud what's written on the pic above is close to discrimination and racism according to Dutch law (not: general opinion!). Interestingly - and it springs to mind when writing this- NONE of those British workers for British companies is seen as economic refugees! Whereas people from the 'sub-Sahara countries' are often seen as economic refugees.
M
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Over here, we simply don't know what to think. On one hand, it will bring logistic companies into trouble (is the idea, no-one knows exactly when and how). On the other hand, newspapers' headlines are "Brexit will be a gold mine for us!" British companies moving to Holland = jobs, houses to build etc.
Having said that: in 2018, data was issued about the number of companies and employees that had gone over to us. One newspaper wrote: "Meager result, only a handful companies made the crossing" (crossing referring to the '39-'45 period when Dutch citizens crossed the North Sea in small boats to England). The other newspaper wrote: "Hundreds of new jobs due to the UK companies settling here!" Both articles were written on the same day using the same data...
It's nearly impossible to get a good picture of the whole situation.
I have not enough knowledge about the Irish border question to say anything useful about that. I only think that when that problem hadn't been a problem (for whatever reason), the EU would have turned to the Gibraltar/Spain issue as an issue to discuss. (Don't get me wrong. Not bagatalising the Irish / Northern Irish issues here - I used it as an example ).
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This appeared on a Dutch news website. Translation is done by Translate Google. Grammarly and Translate do not recognise the word 'ocaze'. It's from the Dutch word (borrowed from the Russians) 'Oekaze' and stands for: The last and final word of the Emperor.
QuoteThe EU demands a solution that does not exist according to its own logic.
The insult of Donald Tusk was carefully timed. Just like Juncker's earlier insult. It is a filthy tactic where brutal domination is shown, and the other party is forced to first waste energy on normalization of political relations. Violent Goliath versus diplomatic David. It is characteristic of the climate in Brussels.
The EU took it even further, with a targeted campaign on British youth. A Brexit may give more expensive European data roaming. The EU also offered mutual visa-free travel, even with a strong Brexit. That sounds fun, but means that the UK must allow unlimited and uncontrolled migrants with fresh papers in the hope that they will leave again.
The negotiations had the same line. The EU unilaterally stated in 2017 that it was first necessary to negotiate an exit agreement, and then a trade agreement. That ocaze now gives a huge problem. Because the trade relationship is not known, it is unknown what kind of border is needed. This stalemate comes from the sleeve of Brussels politics.
The demand from the EU sounded noble: No hard boundary between the Ireland and Northern Ireland. It made less difference for the warring parties in 1998 whether they were part of the UK or Ireland, because it became a gray area as part of the EU. Twenty years later the knives are still sharpened, and it can go wrong again.
The first proposal from the EU was that the UK would pay 100 billion. Even more brutal was the proposal that only Great Britain would really leave the EU, and Northern Ireland would stay behind in the single market. A hard line between the EU and the rest of the UK on the Irish Sea. Here the EU draws stripes through countries, such as colonial rulers that did in Africa.
This step from the EU was part of a broader divide and conquer campaign in response to the Brexit. Gibraltar must go to Spain, and the EU immediately flirted with the government of Scotland. When the Catalans wanted to divorce, it was condemned and treated as a domestic issue, but parts of the UK can be removed again.
The latest proposal regulates eighty-year EU imprisonment through a transitional period including backstop. The UK may only withdraw from it after full EU consent. During all these negotiations, the UK is parked as a dairy cow in the single market, including free movement of people, without voting rights or direct influence in Brussels. The vassal state scenario.
Even the question of reducing this period a little bit was not supported by Juncker and Tusk, because a border on Ireland can never come. The EU makes all kinds of nice commitments about fast and fair negotiations, but does not want a clear deadline, or the possibility to build that this period may be terminated unilaterally with a shorter notice period.
All in stark contrast to the article 50 procedure. It was unilateral to start, and lasts no more than two years. The question now is whether the British House of Commons wants to hand over all control. After years of extremely difficult negotiations without any result or movement, after some vague words there must suddenly be confidence in a quick good outcome.
The EU has repeatedly and grotesque indicated not to deviate from its vision, now and never. Actually, that is already a direct denial of Brexit. A country that leaves a union will set a limit unless there is complete free movement of goods, services and persons from a free trade agreement. Legal retirement is allowed, practical retirement is not allowed.
The EU will never want to break through its single market through a free trade agreement with a former member. A free trade agreement that does not need a border on Ireland will never come, without the same treaty requiring that the UK, as an EU member, remains part of the single-market. The EU demands a solution that does not exist according to its own logic.
On the other hand, the British will never agree to treaties that definitively lock the UK into a customs union, without the possibility of establishing free trade agreements or conducting an immigration policy independently. That would be an unconditional capitulation, breaking down the main advantages of a Brexit.
Jeremy Corbyn offered this customs union, just as Labor campaigned for a Brexit with access to the single market. The EU then requires free movement of persons and no trade agreements, so that there is hardly any leftover of sovereignty or a Brexit. Just like the call for new elections or a new referendum, it only creates more uncertainty.
Juncker and Tusk demand a solution that does not lead to a hard limit on the island of Ireland, but forget that the border through a hard Brexit can be there within a few months. Faster than through any other diplomatic path. The EU is negotiating hard to achieve something, while they will lose it that way in the first place. So something completely different. This is not about Ireland.
There will also be a vote on the Brexit for some time to postpone, to make some time to come to an agreement. Something like that only makes sense if the parties come together slowly. The UK and the EU have been in this stalemate for years, within completely buried positions. Both parties have interests that they can never let go for the benefit of the other.
Postponement only gives time for a repeat of moves. Speeding up or slowing down this process does not improve her outcome. The continuous uncertainty slows growth in the UK and the EU. A hard Brexit is already called a humanitarian disaster. That is quite offensive to victims of real disasters in Yemen or Venezuela.
If it does not go as it should, then it should be as it goes.
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When I close my eyes, I can see people in the Vegas' streets running like ants when their nest is under attack: all in shock and awe 'what to do when that nasty stuff falls on your head'!
I remember a holiday season in Southwest Florida when on a certain day, the temps dropped below 20C in the morning. Locals wearing hoodies and mittens, older 'snowbirds' wearing a fur coat... And we, being on holiday from NW Europe and together with the snow-beaten people from the northern East Coast states, were still strolling along in t-shirts, shorts and flipflops!
Menno
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Quote
Totally aside from what Darren did or did'nt do it is unforgivable to put in print in a National Magazine findings and decisions which create a bias to the Membership and give individuals who are named a detrimental reputation.
I have been invited back with free membership and my old number but my perceptions of the TRR as it now is have grossly dissapointed me, I will still mix and chat with TR Owners but am appalled how an organisation with a "Shop Window" of business as usual and "look at what we're doing" can treat fellow man in such a manner.
2^^^ this ^^^
... and change 'National' into 'International'. As I told before, I found a copy of TRA on the table in the waiting room of a classic car / tyre & wheel repair shop here in Holland...
MEnno
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15 hours ago, chippieman said:
Unecessary, unfair and to be honest Menno,
beneath you.
John.
There's a Dutch saying that goes like 'even when you change the outside, the inside stays the same'. That saying is in rhyme. You can't translate this into English and keep the rhyme. So I looked for a 'fitting'(...) translation online. Looks as if I found a 'heavy-footed' one.
Menno
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BoD = MT? ... something with 'lipstick' and a 'pig' springs to mind...
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A while back, someone from the TRR came over for a sort of survey here among us, the 'dilittants'. Is there an outcome of some sort about this or was it a sort of hit-and-run action?
Menno
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Welcome here. Or better: 'Welkom!'
Given the fact that you've never done a ground-up resto and that you know the 2000 in and out, I would say: go for the 2000. Bring the GT6 to Arthur Denzler or Geert Timmer for a full resto (chequebook resto) and try to get the Stag in driveable condition.
Menno
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1 minute ago, Nick Jones said:
It’s possible to accidentally agree with them just by navigating around, then you don’t get the message again unless you clear your cookies.
Gonna try that.
I certainly didn't agree with those rules.
Menno
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Just stumbled upon the TRR forum (still in my 'favourites') and noticed that I landed on the Forum homepage without the bizar 'you have to agree with this first' page. What happened?
M
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My son's mates are sailing the World Sailing Series in Miami as we speak. No news from them about cold weather. And the pics don't show it eighter: young men and women in shorts and summer-style sailing gear. I'm having my eye on Orlando's weather on behalf of the boss here in the house.
We have also some snow on the ground. Last week about 4 inches. That has melted away overnight. Yesterday evening a second front brought about 3 inches here. 20 kms to the east, there's a lot more snow on the ground: about 8 - 10 inches.
Menno
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Bizarre digits on TV for the last few days when looking at the Can and US weather charts. All-time lows or nearly all-time lows. Both my wife and my father-in-law are always telling about the winter of 96. That must have been something special. It looks as if this winter is catching up with that one!
We have a few fellow forumites here from Can and the Northern US. How are they doing? Is it still manageable? -42C in Wisconsin, -32C (daytime) in Toronto... that's very, very cold.
My Canadian in-laws (80+) had the bright idea to spend the winter in Spain and France. So they are pretty safe here. My wife had a business meeting planned in Boston next week but she's steering away from that and has invited her US and Can crew to fly to Orlando instead for the meeting. No-one protested when she changed the location of the meeting...
Menno
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Due to the geographic position, Switzerland is surrounded by 'foreigners'. And they want to keep it that way... Their strict policy of being neutral trickled down to a not-too-friendly attitude and laws against foreigners. My neighbours across the street have lived in Switzerland for almost 6 yrs. (He was the financial director at Nestlé). The only reason for their return was the heartbreaking fact that their twins got systematically bullied at school for being a 'stinking foreigner'. The first time my boys and the twins took a football out and started a game in the street with a lot of laughter and fun, she came over to my wife and started crying telling how happy she was that their sons weren't harassed by other kids...
Switzerland was around before the EU... and during the 20th century, a lot of Europeans (and leaders) had a financial interest in Switzerland. Becoming a 'preferred partner' of the EU wasn't a problem back then. I even think that some Europeans prefer(red) a Switzerland outside the EU. Mind you, when you buy stuff from Switzerland, you still need to 'donate' VAT... Therefore, a lot of items are taken across the border by the seller to one of the neighbouring countries, packed and posted there to an address inside the EU.
About 'Schengen': The German-Swiss border is the only one I know on mainland Europe with a chicane / roadblock-ish contraption before you can enter the country.
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Take an old screwdriver and start grinding away. If you grind off too much, cut it off and start again. After that, you have a permanent tool for the job in your tool drawer!
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According to a Top Gear episode (where they adjusted a combine harvester into a snowplough), Britain has 3700 vehicles for clearing the streets (snow). I've looked up how many we have, here in Holland: nearly 1000. Dutch councils have nearly another 1000 smaller vehicles like Kubota tractors for gritting cycling paths and less important roads. Given the vast difference between landscape and the length of the roads between the UK and NL, I can imagine that you're not too happy with the result of gritting and ploughing in the UK! We, with a dense network of anti-snow vehicles are not satisfied with their work. Mind you, it's not the work that's done by the drivers, it's all about the roadmap they have to follow to get the roads clean.
An example: my neighbourhood has small and twisty roads. In the centre of the neighbourhood are two large schools (2x 1000 pupils) and a small school (250 p). All those kids come and go by bike. Combine that with tons of commuters in their Audis, Teslas and BMWs (yup that's the sort of neighbourhood I live in) heading for their work. For about 60 mins/day it is mayham. But not single 'gritter' in sight, so the roads are super-slippery. I'm amazed that there hasn't been an accident. Only after the schools have started, there's are 'gritter' in the streets, around 11 AM, when no-one is on the roads...
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Their last one as well.
children climate change & schools absence
in General Discussions on anything
Posted
Merkel warns for hybrid warfare from Russia and mentions the youths' climate strike as an example...