In Amsterdam you really have no choice. It is like being in Manchester and deciding whether you support Man U or Man City. There is no saying “Oh well I am not sure – let’s see who wins the next match”. You either have mice or you have cats.

A bar without cats

Amsterdam cats have a special European directive that slipped through whilst delegates from outside Nederland were asleep. I think that it happened about the same time that bikes were deified, but then I have to admit that my understanding of Dutch politics is, if anything, worse than my understanding of why Canada isn’t part of the USA…..and I am one of the people that know Canada sent a hit squad to DC and burnt the White House down.

Cats here are happy and looked after, and photographed often. Two of the major celebrities are Molly and George. They live in different parts of town, and are from very different generations, but if only things had been different it would have been a match made in heaven.

Molly (above left) hangs out in Cafe ‘t Spui-tje, Spuistraat 318, (map) and George (on the right) supervises everyone at the Tig Barra, Overtoom 31 (map).

Of all the bars in all the world……??

This evening a friend of mine who works for a local bar sat down to take a break whilst nobody needed serving, lit up a cigarette, and said ‘thank god for lulls’. By some bizarre quirk of fate many of my friends over the years have worked for local bars, and I often feel the need to visit them, as I know how lonely such a solitary job can be. The concept of there not being anyone that needs serving immediately is not one that is familiar to anyone who, like me, has spent much of their life in Camden Town, but in Amsterdam it happens – honest.

His comment bought to mind the first job I had as a teenager working for a local greengrocer’s. This was a shop that had been in the same family for several generations and, as far as I could tell, had tried to remain faithful to the family gene pool whenever possible. As a result of natural evolution it has as, of course, long ago been taken over by an estate agent, whose products are (only marginally these days) less perishable. The idea of a lull when you could relax just didn’t happen in that shop. I remember the manager marching through when we were having a quick chat at a quiet moment and being outraged. He paid us to work for every single minute, regardless whether there was anything to do. I was led to the basket of mushrooms and commanded in no uncertain terms to ‘just count the ****ing mushrooms’. No problem in terms of the mental arithmetic, as the tills in those days knew even less about adding and subtracting then the average 30 year old does today, but not the most interesting job that I have ever done.

Like many foodstuffs that are readily available now mushrooms were a bit of a delicacy when I was young. Green peppers were had arrived, but after a long trip they were definitely not for putting into salad, and their skin made my grandmother look like a model from an Imperial Leather advert. I remember how delighted the whole family was when one of my sisters dated a mushroom farmer and he gave her a whole basket full. These were proper round flat mushrooms that melted in your mouth – none of your modern shit-ache stuff!!!

Having three older sisters (5, 7 and 9 years older than me) had its plus and minus points though. Dating and dumping my woodwork teacher was bad. At least if it had been the maths teacher the worst that could happen was a piece of chalk thrown at me but in a woodwork class there are far more options. “NOW OLNEY I WANT YOU TO TAKE THIS VERY SMALL PIECE OF WOOD AND THIS VERY LONG THIN CHISEL AND HIT IT WITH THIS HUGE HAMMER” On one occasion, as I sucked at my bleeding thumb, the boy standing next to me fainted as he couldn’t stand the sight of blood. The woodwork teacher was nicer to me after that.

Still – at least it wasn’t the PE teacher!

As I sat pondering on the obvious, and yet slightly obscure, meaning of this conversation the lord spoke to me saying (with a curiously perfect Essex/Hertfordshire border accent) “Partake of one more of the holy beverage in this place outside the inn and it is possible that a long line of young girls in tight white t-shirts will walk in front of thee”.

And lo it came to pass.

On the West side of Amsterdam there are four part parallel, part concentric, canals; Singel, Herengracht, Keizersgracht and Prinsengract. Leidsegracht runs across the latter three of these at the start of what is called the ‘Golden Bend’, as it was the area where the richest merchants lived, and thus has some of the grandest architecture.

On a sunny day in Amsterdam (something only marginally, though nevertheless significantly, more likely than one in Manchester) the main canals are patrolled by a massive fleet of huge scary creatures called tourist boats. These things have six separate drives and can turn on a euro cent (or maybe it should be a five euro cent, since single cents have long been a thing of legend). They are built exactly large enough to get all through the central bridges on the various sightseeing routes with about 0.0001 mm to spare. Leidsegracht is a key connecting canal in these routes, as I discovered when presented with the long port side of one of the aforementioned tourists boats as I timidly emerged into the Keizersgracht junction.

My motor has three gear positions. Forward, neutral and a third that is jokingly called ‘reverse’. I say this because on the whole boats really aren’t good at reverse, If they have two pointed ends like a canoe maybe – but then you are unlikely to be powering the thing with an outboard motor clamped to one end. Reverse gear is really used as a brake – or to back up very, very slowly. Confronted with the juggernaut my natural reaction was to throw the thing into reverse and up the throttle. I was about to learn about a small defect with this motor. When in the vertical operational position it didn’t actually lock. This is fine when moving forward as the backward force created by the propeller pushes the shaft against the back of the boat. When the motor is put into reverse, however, the opposite effect occurs.

As the shaft of the motor rose out of the water, accompanied by the deafening scream of a propeller freed from its watery muffler, I became the centerpiece of one of the more amusing scenes in about 200 photo and video sets that would bore Japanese neighbours for years to come.

Thoroughly embarrassed and rather shocked I managed to moor the boat to some steps near the house. After a long walk to the water authority office to get a mooring permit I discovered that it was closed until Monday morning. The only other option was a booth actually in the middle of the Amstel (Amsterdam’s major waterway), and I had a feeling that I should get a bit more practice before attempting such an audacious trip.

Monday morning inevitably came (doesn’t it always?) and I was perturbed to find upon opening my curtain that there was a white official-looking paper in a plastic bag taped to the boat.

An amusing interlude with BabelFish made it clear that I hadn’t actually been fined (yet), but that the boat was to be moved within three days, as it was moored to steps meant for people who had inadvertently fallen into the water (of which more later!). After a brief struggle with errant mooring ropes I was out on the open canal. Sitting on the correct side helped no end, and I made it the 100 yards or so to a mooring on the other side of the water. The boat was secured. It spent the next week bailing out water and collecting empty beer cans, before appropriate weather conditions coincided with sufficient courage to try again.

Translation of the mission statement of Albert Heijn – a Dutch supermarket chain:

‘Everyday payable, it particular bereikbaar’ , that is the mission of Albert Heijn. It is in fact exact what had the oprichter of our company for eyes. On strooibiljetjes he let the next text press: ‘ Very well quality, large turnover, small profit. Poor and realm is possible their purchases doen.’ at me; Beside particular products and action, we are also a payable shop for the everyday messages. That underlines we with our mission.

That clears that up then!