National stereotypes debunked (and confirmed)

I've been in the Netherlands one day so far and I can already confirm one national stereotype. Two, actually, if you contrast it with one about the Germans. The object of our visits to our European operating companies is to roll out our company's Enterprise Monitoring System. So far we've had a meeting with the chief technical officer of the Dutch opco and one of his senior network guys. They expressed enthusiasm for the project and showed considerable willingness to give us whatever help we need to get our work finished before we leave. In this and the whole laid-back, friendly office environment they tend to confirm the stereotype of the Dutch as relaxed, helpful, congenial people.

This is in stark contrast with the attitude of the German engineers (with two notable exceptions), whose miserable, uncooperative and awkward demeanour tends to confirm their stereotype as humourless, unhelpful, obstructive gits. This irritated me greatly for two reasons. Firstly my considerable experience of dealing with people in Germany, my favourite destination, shows that Germans are not at all humourless and are generally friendly, helpful and hospitable. Secondly at least one of my two cow-orkers on this gig had never been to Germany before and was thus presented with a false impression of your average German. Sure there are people like that there, just as there are miserable unhelpful Dutch people, Parisians who drive perfectly safely and bank employees who actually understand whose money it is, but it's not generally the rule. Happily we went out with these guys in the evening a couple of times, where they metamorphosed, in Kafka-esque fashion, into the friendly, generous, hospitable types I'd promised was normal.

In fact this project gave me the chance to test another famous stereotype, that of Parisians as fantastically rude, obstreperous, unhelpful bastards. I'd never been to Paris before and having now spent a week there I can cheerfully report that said reputation appears wholly unfounded. We encountered precisely one snotty Parisian and she was a cash register operator in the office canteen, an occupation which seems unlikely to fill anyone with the joys of spring. In general quite the reverse was true and people were fine, friendly and unhurried, even on the Métro in rush hour. People just seemed happy to enjoy what is probably the finest city anywhere on God's green earth, certainly the most fabulous place I've ever been.

Parisian drivers, on the other hand, fully merit their psychotic reputation. Everything you've ever heard about them is true. They don't just want you dead, they want you flat as well. You are taking your life in your hands if you attempt to cross Place de la Concorde to get to the Tuileries Gardens or the Louvre. Take my advice. Go around the outside and cross Rue Tivoli instead. It's worth it. Takes a bit longer but the view is much better when you get there than the one you get with your head mashed into the tarmac at the end of the Avenue des Champs Elysées.

A little mouse with clogs on

I saw a mouse!
Where?
There on the stair!
Where on the stair?
Right there!
A little mouse with clogs on.
Well I declare!
Going clip-clippety-clop on the stair.
Oh yeah!

Sorry, I'm in a very whimsical mood today. I arrived in the sunny Netherlands this morning to do a couple of weeks' work. Thanks to Morgan, one of my cow-orkers on this project, we've all had clogs on the brain for two weeks leading up to coming out here. Which is a shameless stereotype, but that's Morgan for you. When he wanted a screenshot of the topology of our German network he emailed the request with the subject line "Schnitzel".

And sunny the Netherlands mostly certainly are, much like the rest of western Europe at the moment. It was certainly hot enough at home yesterday. Because I would have had to get up at stupid o'clock in the morning to get to Heathrow for my flight - 4:30am, to be precise, a time I normally only hear rumours about - I figured it was next to pointless to go to bed at all. Just as well anyway, as my house was like a Turkish bath last night. I would never have slept, just sweated a lot and sworn even more.

Nonetheless, having to set off that early blows goats, especially when the prick driving the 5:30am airport bus from Reading is one of those goons who takes every oppportunity to stomp on the goddamn brake with leaden feet when the bus is moving slowly, thereby pitching all the passengers forward and making me for one come perilously to puking my ring up all over the seat in front of me. Just as well I hadn't eaten for eight hours. And I'm fucking paying for this privilege.

Sorry, I forgot where I was a moment. That really wound me up. You may already have surmised that for yourself.

Permit me to offer you a recommendation, should you ever find yourself flying to the Netherlands. Don't fly KLM. At least don't fly on a KLM Exel service. The vessel in question is less a plane than a single-deck bus with wings and twin props. It's lavishly uncomfortable to travel in and when bowling down the Heathrow runway it felt noticeably less stable than my VW Beetle does at 120 mph down a backroad.

In fact, while I'm on the subject of airlines, permit me to offer another recommendation. Don't fly Air France either, or Terre France, as I've subsequently referred to them. Anywhere. Ever. Least of all to or from Paris. They couldn't organise an orgy in a knocking shop. When we were returning from Paris we were delayed by over two hours - which, for the avoidance of doubt, is significantly longer than the duration of the flight itself - because there was simply no plane to fly on. Forgive me for being picky, but isn't that the sort of thing an airline ought to be able to organise without undue difficulty? Not that we were given any explanation whatsoever for this until we were finally on the plane, whereupon we sat on the fucking tarmac for another half hour, also without explanation.

I will say however - looking for something positive on this subject - that the service level in general and the attitude and demeanour of the stewardesses in particular on my least favourite airline, British Airways, have improved beyond all recognition in the last six months and they are now a pleasure to fly with. I thought hell would freeze over, thaw out and freeze over again before I'd have ever cause to say that.

Random notes, w/e July 28, 2001

Been a strange week, one way or another. Well, more unusual than strange, actually. Been out every weeknight, which is at least four nights more than usual. Been out with Nick and the very lovely Cathy a couple of times. Seen Anna twice which was pretty cool. Would have been nice to see more of her, though. Went to Henley on Tuesday for a wander along the river and a few drinks. She came out for a drink Thursday night after Andrew and I had been working on some ideas for songs. He's got some pretty cool riffs, including a great one which started life as an attempt to re-write "Pretty Persuasion" by R.E.M. but which is similar only in feel, not in sound. I played him a tune I was working on last week when he was in Spain and that seems to have potential too, so between us we've got four or five pretty good ideas we need to work on. Best thing now seems to be to record them and swap tapes, so he can work out some electric guitar to go over my 12-string acoustic and I can put some bass lines under his Rickenbacker.

Work continues to suck like an Electrolux, though at least for the next two weeks it should be slightly less mind-numbingly, spirit-crushingly dull, as I will be working in Holland. Eindhoven to be precise, continuing the rollout of our Enterprise Monitoring System. So I've been to Duisburg, Paris and Warrington. Duisburg was okay, Paris was fantastic and Warrington blows goats.

I'm also looking for an alternative source of peanuts at the moment. I had a proper full interview for a gig at SGI, after a phone interview last week (in German, which was way scary). OK, it'd be back to customer support which I left behind a while ago, but it's bi-lingual so I'd get to speak German all day and learn a lot more UNIX/Linux which I've wanted to do for a long time. They're also committed to training, with everyone getting 20 days' training a year, which is 20 more than I get at the current comedy outfit masquerading as my peanut supplier. I guess I'll hear next week. I'm not optimistic. My German was apparently more than good enough, which is nice, but whether or not my UNIX is good enough or whether I was asking for too much money, I don't know. We'll see.

Patience is a virtue

Which, lamentably, I do not possess in even the smallest measure. Instant gratification takes too long. So you meet somebody really cute whom you really want to see again. As soon as possible. You're even informed by an allegedly reliable source that she is keen to see you too. But you can't reach her by phone, by e-mail or even by SMS, because she's busier than an overworked bee and then she's away for the whole weekend. Sigh...

Oh, and I neglected to mention the other day that she's barking mad too. Nuttier than a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs. She's just too cool. She cannot possibly be interested in me.

So it's not just me...

I swear Tasha used to talk about me this way at work. It's kind of scary that Al has managed to portray me so vividly whilst actually talking about her own boyfriend. You should click on the After link at the bottom of the page too; there's a follow-up. Tasha seemed to think this was very amusing.

rathersnappish: I have a strong suspicion you used to say things like that about me to Rachelle :-))))
Tasha: It does sound a little familiar.
rathersnappish: Dammit. I harboured a faint hope you wouldn't say that.
Tasha: No. Sorry. Not going to happen. I have never met anyone who knows more bizarre and fairly useless bits of weird information than you do.
rathersnappish: Kewl!
Tasha: You see - that's why it's so odd - you think that's cool?!
rathersnappish: Of course! I think it's odd that you don't!
Tasha: Yeeeess.....

The Princess and the Dolphin Queen

If this isn't the sweetest photo you've ever seen then you don't have a heart, my friend, you have a swinging brick.

Little mysteries

I met a friend of a friend last night. She is very friendly, very sweet and really funny. She has a truly lovely face, fabulous legs and the most beautiful big brown eyes I've ever seen. I have no idea how it is possible that she can be single.