So therefore I resort to sending those old-fashioned group emails, with always forgetting to put a few nice people in the to (Ok, BCC, I have progressed) line and with getting real emails as responses. Yay! Funny how fast the adjective old fashioned became relevant for group emails. I remember that 10 years ago we would send those from Saint Petersburg (scaring my parents away by claiming one of us was in prison, one of us got married and we sold another to a well to do pimp- I thought it was clear we were joking, they were not-so-sure) and think it was very modern. We even had to explain our parents the concept of it before we left. And now I talk on Skype with them!

Those group emails can be read by those attention payers as well, and they very well might be, but at least those people will know that they are reading into private stuff. Babbling about drinking too much beer with my friends and about how my work goes well, lifting some of the veil (I assume that’s just a Dutch expression) about what the result will be. (Oh, and there is also this thing that I don’t want to give my research away to colleagues whose deadline is earlier than end 2010… but that sounds less adventorous as well…) Yes, I’m a good girl.

And I am, actually. The stories are everywhere, I just have to catch them. And they are sometimes even weirder or sadder than anticipated. Sometimes I read an article in which something happens that makes me think: Ooo, that journalist must have pinched himself with this gift to his story. Well, something like that happens to me several times a day now. (So the new bruises are my own doing as well). That means I should be happy. And I am, especially since I have a proper weekend this weekend with doing nothing and being on my own to think instead of gaining more information, thoughts, impressions etc. This thinking leads to post it notes all over the house and a frightened girl. Yes. Now I’m happy & scared.  How will I ever get all (alllll…) this in a book? Maybe I should drink some wodka. If it helps against radiation (everybody tells me so…) it probably helps for inspiration too. Or at least it will take the stress away.

I managed to sprain my thumb last week, at Schiphol airport. I was a little late for check in, so I rushed out of the bus. I was walking on the pavement with my big backpack on my back. And just seconds after, I was on the street, lying and asking whether my glasses were still intact. They were, but I wasn’t. I still don’t know what exactly happened there or how I fell. I just know that I remember the actual falling and worrying about a possible falling on my head (which happened, I felt dizzy afterwards). But how the pavement became an obstacle just too big for me is still a mystery.

(When you take into account that just about 50 minutes later a plane fell out of the sky at Schiphol, I think I was good of just falling of the pavement.)

I happen to have this kind of accidents quite a lot the last few months. Two weeks ago I was in my office, which has no door and is next to my bedroom were S was already sleeping. I had to take something from my desk, so I took it and switched of the lights. Then I walked to the bedroom, or so I thought. I took a right turn just seconds too early and bumped into the wall. It hurt badly and I got nausea of the dizziness.

Friend F joked that all this kind of accidents sounded like I am a woman who walks into doors. Well, OK, that thing has never happened to me yet, not in the literal nor in the metaphorical meaning of it. It was that F actually saw me falling, but otherwise I would have thought that he actually made the joke to inquire if, maybe, really…. I would probably do that too.

Some 10 years ago a friend and I fell of my bike, on the middle of a street that would have been busy if it weren’t something like 3 a.m. I had an aching elbow, cheek and leg and  more important, I looked really bad. When I went to the drugstore the next morning (or come to think of it, probably the next afternoon) to buy some ani-brusing cream the counter lady advised me: ‘I would leave him if I were you.” I didn’t understand it at first. I thought. “Him? Who?” There wasn’t really a ‘him’ in my life back then so I had no idea what she was talking about. I only realised when I was already outside the store. She wasn’t the only one to make such comments, I found out.

Just a week or so later the same friend fell of his bike as well (in daytime this time, so you won’t all think that it was all alcohol related). He also was full of very visible bruises. No one advised him to ‘leave her’. People asked him if he had been in a fight.

(I actually wrote my first published column about this, but that’s another story).

Walking around with a heavy bag full of money isn’t fun. But throwing all your coins into a machine that you have to jiggle to get the money really in and that makes noises all the way is. So that’s what I did. For the first time in my life I used the coin changing machine in Sainsbury’s. I was paying a whopping 8 pence for each pound, but then again, sitting on it would cost me about the same. After the machine ate all the various coins, I got a receipt. At customer information I would get my money back.

I handed over the voucher and the customer information lady started counting. Then she started giving me …. coins. She said she was out of paper money. British people would probably have been too polite to complain and tell her to get paper money then. Good thing I’m Dutch.

Of course, being a 30 year old in students rooms (which were, by the way, suspiciously clean and tidy, o my, they surely weren’t like that back in my days!) felt a little awkward at times. I wasn’t so much scared of being spoken to by the actors- that’s what you can expect if you go to such intimate performances- but more of being called lady or anything other meaning a female that is not a girl anymore. It didn’t happen, I was called a girl. And a bitch, but that was just part of the show.

In the tram back to the central station, friend W and I were both very tired so we just listened to the other passengers, which was easier than providing the entertainment ourselves. There were three hard core old school punks standing next to us. I couldn’t figure out their ages but guessed that they would be legible to vote or serve in Afghanistan.

They were showing off about their use swear words, drugs and alcohol. The boy with the biggest mouth and Mohawk told the world around him that he was keeping latter two down, but then he met his girlfriend. He giggled: “You know what that means.” In the meanwhile, she was talking on her phone. “Yeah, I am still in Amsterdam. No, I will not be home tonight; I’m just going to sleep at some friends place. Yes yes, I will make it. I will go to my internship straight from there. Yes, good night to you as well, dad.”

When she finished her call, the other guy almost jumped on her. “You know that girl I spoke to at the gig, right? The one with the red hair? Yes. I asked her number, she said she didn’t have any. But she said she’s got MSN. So that means she wants me to contact her, right? But do you have her MSN name?” The girl told him the name and the entire body language of the boy mimed happiness. “Alexandra. That is a really uncommon name, isn’t it? But wow, 86! Eighty- six! 1986! I looooooove older women.”

Still, I have never been a great fan of big words that mark unclear concepts and try to shake up the entire idea of history/life/future/politics. I’d rather see examples of what people mean instead of the sheer bluntness of the thought that you can name what is going on.

Here’s an assignment to you (I am making assignments for a course I’m going to give shortly and that’s my mindset right now.) Figure out how I am going to bridge between the paragraph in which I use confusing big words to express my dislike of confusing big words and yet another paragraph on Big Brother gossip.

….

….

Since most of you failed, I will give some background information before I give the missing link. When I was living in England, I naturally had to keep track of the news. Since the newspaper I worked for appreciated it, I also kept track of the gossip news. O poor me, buying Heat and Hello and putting them on your expenses.

I also watched popular TV programmes, because they were watched by a lot of people, so they were giving me a clue about England and thus a step in my integration process. Especially Big Brother was a favourite; it kept on fascinating me forever. Of course, it is a Dutch invention and the first Big Brother delivery was below sea level. So the concept of it wasn’t so strange to me. But in the Big Brother house, you see what is accepted in society and what not. The things that go uncommented are much more interesting than those that cause uproar. Unless it’s really big uproar, and I will come to speak about that just now.

Jade Goody (getting there with the imagination task, right?) is a British phenomenon. She is a signboard for maleducation (and in that for education as well). There is hardly anything she knows, is skilled in, good at or even willing to learn about. She’s plain dumb and obnoxious. Normally this kind of people never gets famous, so you only find out about their existence when you bump into one and are surprised.

But now, Big Brother has made this species available to the entire nation. Jade took part in one of the shows and did not even win. Because she would take every media gig she could, and would spill every single counted bean about her terrible upbringing (drug using disabled lesbian mum who’s converted to Islam) so there would always be something ‘new’ about her, she soon appeared in media everywhere. She became very famous. And rich. (So there’s some talent there, apparently).

If you would hear what she would say about, say her sex life or her ‘life philosophies’, you (or at least I) couldn’t stop thinking: “shouldn’t we protect this vulnerable girl against herself?” But then you might think she’s clearly enjoying it and maybe life didn’t have much else for her in store.

Of course I did not write about Jade for the entertainment pages. Whoever in the Netherlands cares for someone who doesn’t actually do anything but is very famous in Britain? She isn’t Paul Potts… But at a certain point Jade hit the foreign pages. Quite an impressive fact because even most government ministers wouldn’t receive that honour by our mighty newspaper.

She was in the Celebrity Big Brother house, along with her wacky mom and felon boyfriend. And a rich, charming, smart and terribly naïve Bollywood star, Shilpa Shetty. Jade and two other girls in the house (a model and a girl group singer) would tease ‘Shilpa’ with everything. They wouldn’t let her prepare chicken ‘because you never know where these hands have been’, they purposely mispronounced her name ‘because it ain’t exactly Tweed or so…) and they just kept her outside every conversation. Shetty majestically kept her cool most of the time, but Indian viewers and others were extremely angry about this ‘racism’ row. Gordon Brown, who was still actively playing second fiddle back then, even had to explain and say sorry about Jade to the Indian government while he was on a trade mission there.

I myself never thought it was a race issue but a class issue. Somehow Shetty was of such a higher class (caste if you wish) that the other girls couldn’t stand her ‘arrogance’. The fact that 31 year old unmarried Shetty publicly declared that she never had sex, made them angry. Jade would tell her that starting to have sex at 15 is normal.

Eventually Goody was taking part in the Indian Big Brother variety. But she was taken of the house early because her test showed that she had cervical cancer. Serious stuff. At first she would tell all media that she wouldn’t want to tell her two boys about it, because it was too heavy for them, but now she probably told them. The illness has spread and Jade won’t be around much longer. Sad.

It get’s sadder. Goody and her younger boyfriend Jack Tweed who is just released from prison are tying the knot. The whole wedding is exclusively sold to OK magazine, so her boys will have some financial sustainability in the future. I can see that. Goody herself said that she spent most of her life in front of the camera’s, so why not her dying. There is no other Jade Goody outside her media persona. It suits her. And besides, and that’s only and just a good thing, the percentage of women getting the thing that is called a smear in English and not only therefore scares every 25+ woman away, is getting up, up, up.

But why is Elton John lending her his manor for this wedding? Why is Piers Morgan (Dutch people don’t (want to) know him but he’s famous overseas) going to be a ‘special reporter for the day’? Why is Gordon Brown (now on first fiddle) telling the world that he feels sorry for a girl that wasn’t even a soap star? Why is justice minister Jack Straw sending out a press release stating that Jack Tweed will get a relaxed curfew so that he can spend his wedding night with his wife? Why wouldn’t all those nice people just shut up and put a pound or ten thousand in the boys’ trust funds? Why so publicly?

It feels like the media savvy are having a field day. They didn’t have a proper one since Diana died and that’s over eleven years ago so it was time for another. But here it is where I am loosing track. I tried to tell my friend M, a devoted PhD student and mother, about this Goody-thing. I said that if it were a book, I would think it was good. Exaggerated, but a good, poignant way of criticising today’s society. M just asked me if I didn’t feel I was wasting time getting up to date with celebrity stuff and I just told her that was exactly the point of keeping up to date with celebrity stuff. So that subject was put on hold.

But this novel that wasn’t a novel but a very sick way of reality kept buggering me so I started to read even more about it. Cynically enough, this very public swan song is listed under ‘entertainment’ on the BBC’s website. In another magazine, one critic used a big, overly meaningful word that I normally would give me the jibbers, that suited the situation perfectly. Hyperreality.

Last week I was waiting for the traffic light, not because it was red (I’m not sure it was) but because there was traffic on the road. I was staring at the sky, looking at the birds that were circling above the water. Then I saw something falling from a bird. Didn’t take much notice. Then I heard someone shouting and uttering various useful Dutch damnation words. Only then I did the maths and started laughing.

About one and a half years ago I was in Belfast for a story. The photographer and I were walking through the catholic neighbourhood that is famous for its violent murals and yes for it’s violence too. The pouring rain was annoying us a lot. Then we saw two men sitting in the doorstep. They shouted at us. ‘Hey, where you’re from?’ but didn’t bother about the answer. ‘Wanna have a beer’. Well hell yes, why not?

The beer was to be consumed inside. The room had floral wallpaper except were there was pink paint. There were statues of angels in gold paint. En there was classical music coming from a cassette player. It was actually so loud that I couldn’t understand my hosts, so as I accepted my can of beer I asked to have it turned down. No problem. ”‘It’s just to annoy the neighbours”.

Finding a place to sit was harder because both couches were loaded with unwashed clothes, newspapers and things from which I did not want to find out what they were. The men were easygoing though and suggested we sit on the floor, where indeed it was easier to create some space. They told us they liked to have guests and chat.

So we started chatting and I found out the reason that I couldn’t understand them was that their accent really took me very very long to get used to it. The men wanted to find out where the photographer was from. “You, you, we already know that. London of course” they told me and they didn’t tell me that to make me proud.

While one of the men was getting lost in translation with the foreign photographer, whose English is fine but who was not accustomed to rapid drunken Irish, the other man showed me a picture. “Do you know who that is?” he asked me, pointing at himself.  “Yes, it’s you.” I said. Then he pointed at Macaulay Culkin who was in the same picture. “Do you know who that is?” I did, and told him I thought it was the kid from Home Alone because I don’t know how to pronounce Macaulay Culkin. Then he pointed at another guy in the picture. “That’s my son.”

His son was a starting Hollywood actor who was going to be in a movie about Ireland with Steven Spielberg. I was listening to it and hardly believed it- there were a lot of empty beer cans on that floor, so I had reasons for my doubt.

Then I saw that the other man was tattooed on his fingers. H A T E the friendly letters spelled. I asked where and why he got that tattoo. “In jail, everybody did it.” So I asked: “what have you been in in jail for”  because I wanted to know. He said “I am a bank robber” , using the present tense indeed. I was read into the Northern Irish history so I tried not to look surprised. Then he started ranting. “Fucking IRA are sell out men!” He asked me whether I knew someone, who I coincidentally interviewed just the week before, before that his name could have been anyones. So I said yes. He didn’t ask how, or why I knew him, but went on with his rant. “The fella is a sell out. He used to be good, but he has five houses in Manchester. Five houses, can you believe it? ” I couldn’t, but I thought it more interesting not to answer that question. “We getting all the money and go to jail and they get rich. Sell outs.” Then he told us he was not so happy with the power sharing government which includes protestants ánd Sinn Fein. “They doing nothing for us, just having the power for themselves. Sell outs” Then, without asking, he said some things about the topic I was writing about, thus proving even more that that was a topic to write about.

Then we had to leave because the rain had stopped and the photographer needed to catch the last light of the day. I shook their hands and thanked them for their hospitality. “Come again” they said.

You can imagine this was a very instructive rain shelter. Of course as soon I was back in the hotel I did my googling. The story about the kid being an actor is probably true- there is a Belfast kid with the same name in a movie with Spielberg and he looked like the boy in the picture with the man I just met and Macaulay Culkin. The story about the Sinn Fein guy owning the houses in Manchester was entirely true. I assume the bank robbing story is true too- it was the way the IRA sponsored itself after all.  These men didn’t seem ready for the next level at all.

So if you play one of the songs that made you big bucks in the past, you expect that when you switch of the chorus part of it, you’ll hear how loud the party can get. But then… nothing, silence. Everyone is looking happy and expectantly in your direction, but they wouldn’t use their voices. Poor Shantell was playing for a big bunch of twits and boyfriend S and friend S were part of it.

We had a great, great, great party however on this Balkan Bonanza the local pop venue threw. It started with a local band who were make believe Bregovices, with golden necklaces and shining chav suits. The music wasn’t douze points but the party was on right from the start. Then there was a real Orchestra from the Balkan. Our hopes were high, but they pretended to be Jazz musicians, variations on the same theme by different instruments and not even speeding up in tempo. Boyfriend S loved it but, I was slightly bored and friend S, who happens to be a Balkan pedant kept complaining that ‘the band should walk through the audience.”

Eventually they did and I re-evaluated my judgement on them instantly. Wow, what a band, what a music, what a sound, what a party, what a night.

None of this all in Copenhagen. Everything is exactly like you expect it to be. You need to take a train to Herlev? Within five minutes you’ve figured out which train you need from which platform and you are a lucky owner of a transport ticket as well. Need a locker? Well, you go downstairs and perform the same actions you’d do in Amsterdam.

My friend A from the B-country and I visited the glyptotek. I was especially interested in seeing the Danish art collection, because of course I’ve never seen Danish art. (Why would I?) We were making jokes of the typical Danish features in the faces of the men in portraits. We encountered famous Danes as well, and A, who is following classes on Danish culture and habits, lectured me about them.

Then we saw a lot of romantic countryside landscapes. They were from the 19^th century, so I told A that in the Netherlands there was a movement to reappreciate the romance of the countryside in the same period. They would also paint beautiful peasants. Before this movement became popular, Dutch painters would merely write Italian or imaginary landscapes. Thus I did my part of the mutual lecturing. “But that’s Dutch history of course, and this is Denmark.”

Yes, in the next hall we saw healthy and blushing farmers maids and in the following hall it were picturesque Roman ruins.

As I said, A is learning about the Danish society and that involves a heavy part of politics, so she filled me in with everything. Now I know for example that the education minister is contemplating putting a maximum of years on studying, as least where the right to state funding is considered. My, what an original that person!

But when a country is so similar to your own, you find every difference, even the tiniest ones, very exotic. Why do they use this font on stations? And why do they use this ridiculous language?

So indeed, it wasn’t the only  reason.

Two years ago, I was ill. A just through the needle kind of ill, but we only figured that afterwards and then it’s less scaring. But it was still ill enough to keep me of working for months and have me hospitalised twice. I didn’t want to share my various adventures that were mainly located in the bathroom with all of you.

And it felt irrelevant. I didn’t dare writing about it. Because at the same time, one of my most loyal readers, a friend and a blogger herself, was ill as well. Compared to hers, my stays in hospital were mere vacations. It felt mundane, unreal to write jokingly about it.

She could though. She kept on blogging. She wrote a perfect, very well written, very balanced and even often witty blog on her disease.

She did’t make it.

I saw it coming (well, she announced it would happen on her blog, so I better saw it coming- although I skilfully kept on telling myself I probably misread what I read) but it hit me hard.

I had to go to Belfast to write about the celebrations of the Catholics and the protestants sharing governance. A dream assignment, yes, and I spend most of the time as if I was in a dream. It all felt so unreal.

I blamed myself for the pain I felt, because she wasn’t my best friend or something. Wasn’t it up to her boyfriend and parents and close friends to feel so down? Was my sadness legitimate?

I tried to write about what I felt and thought, but I just couldn’t. So I didn’t. And it didn’t feel like there was anything else to write. So I stopped blogging.

I was now trying to express what has changed for me so I can start a blog again. But I don’t manage to. It has something to do with not stopping what you enjoy and don’t keeping yourself from what you would have wanted someone else to do. It also has to do with remembering and…

I am not even sure whether I am comfortable with posting this. And that’s not for the abundance of I’s at the beginning of paragraphs.