What I learned from doing my essays

So, now my essays are done and I can relax for a few days before polishing the essays and going all out on my dissertation.

Some of the things I learned from doing these essays:

• The Netherlands are really very much over-regulated, so much so that any amount of information available on things for which the government is responsible is completely overwhelming - but not necessarily very helpful. I think they're trying to create opacity through transparency. That said, really crucial information still needs to be WOBbed (Wet Openbaarheid van Bestuur, or the Law on Transparent Governance) and won't be released easily.
• I really don't like the system of amendments to British laws. It's incredibly opaque. 
• The different legal approaches of the Netherlands and Britain make for legal constructions that are surprisingly similar despite being based on completely different legal ideologies.
• Britain is safety before privacy, the Netherlands vice versa - for now.
• I really enjoy doing comparative legal research.
• The Media are evil.
• People don't care about what's real, only about what fits with their own idea of reality. 
• The Media pander.
• The Media have always been evil. There has never been such a thing as "oh my, the media sure weren't that bad-news-oriented when I was a kid" - they were, it's just the same state of mind as the one that goes "today's youth sure weren't as badly behaved in my time!" that makes you think differently.
• I really enjoy doing media-sociological research.
• Effective policing is really difficult. 
• Transnational crime hinges on market forces, not on transnational policing efforts.
• Europol has a really annoying website.
• Europol's annual OCTA reports are very clear, but not very helpful.
• Europol's publications reflect the country that Europol is located in - the Netherlands.
• Europol's publications are mainly pro-Europol propaganda.
• Europol is really pessimistic with regards to the future of transnational crime in Europe.
• I should never toss out old papers, and also not any of the paragraphs I take out of papers to diminish the word count.
• In order to actually effectively approach transnational crime, law enforcement in Europe needs to be harmonized to a degree that would make even the most pro-European party cry about loss of sovereignty. 

So that's some of the stuff I learned from doing these essays. Fascinating stuff, really. 

The Netherlands are idiotic

It's 5 am and I'm still awake and I can't stop thinking.

I love Britain, and the Netherlands are an idiotic country.

In the Netherlands...

...Politicians debate whether the titles of academic and professional degrees should be made the same - that is, people who would've previously gotten a B Eng or a B Ec or something of the sort will suddenly all get a BSc or a BA in the future, supposedly because B 'Something not Sc/A'-degrees are not recognized abroad (nevermind that there are plenty of foreign educational institutions that offer precisely such degrees), while ignoring the fact that this will tremendously devalue all current BSc/BA-degrees;

...Politicians debate whether to (finally) abandon the Law against Blasphemy - yes, that was an actual law that existed in the Netherlands until 2013, and yet even in 2013 there were parties trying to keep it. I have no problems with religion but people's faith should not be imposed on other people's lives just like that;

...Politicians accuse each other of "nibbling space cake";

...For the inauguration of King Willem-Alexander, the composer of some of the Netherlands's most successful and simultaneously worst songs (the Dutch should be famous for their tremendous lack of any taste in music) is employed to write a song, which predictably ends up bad - when everyone is suitably outraged, he withdraws it, and then despite there being fairly okay-ish alternatives, the Inauguration Committee says "screw the public, we're going with the bad song anyway" because that's just how Dutch committees roll;

...The release of and criticisms on said bad song actually received about the same amount of coverage as the Boston Marathon Bombings;

...The Rijksmuseum is finally open after ten years of refurbishment and restoration - it took about three times longer than planned and went about four times or so over budget because the Stadsdeelraad of the part of Amsterdam in which the Rijksmuseum is located was actually making an expensive fuss over a stupid bike passage;

...State secretaries who make a mess of their responsibilities don't actually get kicked out of office;

...UPDATE: Political parties (though the same as the one that was making a fuss over Blasphemy) are now trying to move to forbid adverts for the website SecondLove, because the site encourages adultery. Seriously, regardless of what I *personally* think about adultery, who gives a toss about what other people do in their spare time, as long as it's not illegal?

Despite all this, I've lived in that stupid country for 22 years. It's my stupid country.

Despite all the idiotic over-regulation, there are things I miss about it.

I miss how the Dutch are open to the point of rudeness. I find it tremendously difficult here to gauge what people think of me (if they even do so), while of Dutchies I'd generally know fairly quickly whether they like or dislike me. I think I'd rather have a "sod off" than a blank stare.

I miss how Dutch supermarkets have a proper selection of vegetables. I'm getting really annoyed of alternating between cauliflower, sweetcorn and green beans. Though I did see that the greengrocer on Queens Road has rhubarb, so I'll have to drop by that place.

I miss how the Dutch don't look at you funny when you try to make small talk while queuing in the shop and actually respond.

I also kind of miss not having a strange accent.

Funny how it's the little things that make me feel somewhat homesick after 7 months in the UK.

Tuesday Drinks

As the weather outside is getting warmer again, I am reminded of going out in Middelburg. Do mind that this post concerns memories that might be slightly rosy-tinted.

Going out in Middelburg was completely different from the way we go out here in Leicester. It did often include a pub - Seventy Seven, De Mug, or, before it was demolished, Barrel - but usually ended in a Koestraat common room or Bagijnhof living room..

Actually, on warm spring and autumn evenings, going out in Middelburg would often be punctuated by lying down on the Market Square, gazing up at the stars, and discussing life, the universe and everything. Actually, every place in Middelburg attended by RA/UCR students was a place to discuss life, the universe and everything.

One of my favourite traditions of the time was Tuesday Drinks, a fairly random and small collection of people, and we would gather on Tuesdays (but not every Tuesday) around 9, 10-ish, as Wednesday was our traditional day off (though over my six semesters at RA, I've only had three in which I didn't actually have class on Wednesdays). There would inevitably be six-packs of whatever brand of beer was cheap that week - 'but not the really cheap stuff because that's like flavoured water' - crisps, chocolate, a stack of plastic cups and a deck of cards. We'd start out discussing the latest gossip - inevitable in a university college of 600 - but quickly moved on to discuss politics. I vividly remember having a discussion on whether Mubarak's reign in Egypt around the end of my first year - mind, this was way before the Arab spring - was democratically valid, and whether he'd last much longer. Politics often led to philosophy and theology, while the deck of cards and the plastic cups led to games of King's Cup and, once bored of it, Never Have I Ever.

What strikes me in retrospect is the ease with which we switched from topic to topic, and the respect we had for each other's points. We had markedly different political views, and of course our discussions turned quite heavy and a bit shouty every once in a while, but it was all done in good fun. Some of the discussions touched on topics that might have solicited very different reactions from different people - for instance, though our little collection was half female, half male, there was no rudeness from anyone with regards to sexuality, whether we discussed pornography (it was easily taken for fact that yes, women like porn too), experiences (no slut-shaming) or anything else of the sort. Everything was up for debate, whether we should put the fake goldfish floating in a half-empty Bagijnhof fish bowl into the King's Cup which at that moment held a particularly awful mixture of beer and Bailey's, or whether Plato or Aristotle's model of the perfect government would be better suited to deal with the global economic crisis.

We even put forward Quidditch practice once as something to try out - which we did, even trying to set up a team, before our efforts fizzled as graduation approached.

Going out in Leicester's good fun, and I'm sure that everything is still up for debate and I'm sure that my fellow Criminologists would approach such topics with the same kind of respect and sensitivity. Actually, I know they will, as similar things have been discussed here, both at parties and, for instance, in the library.
But in Tuesday Drinks we had a forum, and if there is one desire I have for the next room or flat I rent, it's that it needs to have enough space to invite people over for dinner parties and drinks.

To Tuesday Drinks.

Things that are Cool

Now they've gone and done it.

Alright, they went and done it back in 1965, but still.

I think they've now covered just about everything I find supremely cool in Doctor Who. They've done Egyptians (Nefertiti in Dinosaurs on a Spaceship), Napoleon (Reign of Terror), Vampires (sort of, in Vampires of Venice), Shakespeare (more than just one episode), Frank Sinatra and Marilyn Monroe (well, they mentioned them in A Christmas Carol). And I'm watching The Chase now, and not only is Ian's dancing and his remark to Barbara to "get with it" slightly embarrassing ergo hilarious, they've featured The Beatles. On telly, but still.

I also find Vicki's remarks regarding The Beatles surprisingly apt. Mind, this was 1965. They were big, they were massively big back then, but they still had 5 years to go, to get even bigger.

Mind you that nowadays, Abbey Road is still crowded on cold Thursday mornings with people trying to take pictures of themselves on the crossing. That's almost 50 years later. Would the BBC have known, back in 1965, how big The Beatles would still be years and years later? How it would endure? Mind you that nowadays no one expects - whatever Deity you choose to believe in, please help us if I'm wrong and they do endure - Justin Bieber or One Direction or Nicki Minaj or whatever's the most popular thing going on right now to still be THAT popular in 50 years. Okay, sure, Vicki's from 400 years into the future and perhaps The Beatles will have faded in 400 years, but they haven't as of yet.

Also I love her classification of them as 'classical music'. I suppose they are, though. Classical pop.

Pigeons

So, turns out my trip to London had completely wrong timing - not only is the weather much better this week, but they also shot stuff for Doctor Who today. My dear friend Danou saw them though, on Trafalgar Square. I'm only slightly jealous ;)

Coincidences continue with this clip: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p017gl8h, mainly because Strax says 'flying predators called pigeons' - it's coincidental because though most people really hate pigeons, me included, my Dad and I had a thing going all week about pigeons secretly being aliens out to destroy all of humankind - my Dad had this hilarious thing going on when we walked back from Buckingham Palace to Green Park station about pigeons hiding teeth in their beaks and how one pigeon marching back and forth among a small group was a general inspecting the troops and how a pigeon on the path was out to attack me. He also pointed one out to me telling me how that was the evil one and that you should never trust a pigeon.

It's a good thing though my Dad and I are certifiably not mad. I think.

Yet Another London Adventure

If you're a regular reader, you might've noticed my week-long absence. Or at any rate, you might've noticed I wasn't as active on Facebook last week as I normally am.

That's because my Dad was over, and seeing as Leicester's not thrilling enough for a week's holiday, he flew west and I took the train south and we spent an almost-week traipsing around London.

It's been years since my Dad was last in London (a truly vintage city map that's now in my possession dates back to 1990, which may not seem like much until you remember that that's 23 years ago), so we did all the touristy stuff while trying a bit too hard not to seem too much of a tourist - " 'tourist (noun):  loud with polyester coats and bum bags and tennis shoes" - which was fun.

Many of my photos - I didn't take many though, I'm not really the photograph-clicking kind, plus my Dad took a picture every three steps so I'll just rely on his collection - are basically just of things I find tremendously cool just now and/or that would work nicely as a Facebook profile pic. So here's my stuff.

The first Leaky Cauldron. Because once a Potter fan, always a Potter fan. Also photographed now because I couldn't find it last time I was in Leadenhall Market - turns out, I'd walked right past it. Well. So much for my ability to observe stuff. 

The global zero centre coordinate point that I wrote about in the post about Time. Photographed on a massive map in Greenwich. 

Me at the Greenwich meridian. Loved being here. Loved seeing this. It's such a weird thing to be real, to think that this is where the Earth supposedly starts and ends. I've been close to another important map-line before, the Tropic of Cancer, back when I was in Abu Simbel, but then I still was a bit away from that particular latitude, so now I've truly stood on an important place for coordinates.

Also I've travelled in time by jumping back and forth on the line. 

Of course we visited Madame Tussauds, so here's me with the magnificent Humphrey Bogart.

I do love Casablanca. 

So many people walked right past him, not recognizing him. People these days have no regard for classic films. For shame. But at least I didn't have to work my elbows to take a pic with this particular wax statue - I think I had to battle an entire army of middle-aged mums to take a photo with the statue of George Clooney.

Ah, there's a vacancy in the Bates Motel. Yes, let's stay there.

Further epicness (and lack of elbowing - truly people, for shame!) was ensured by the wax statue of Oscar Wilde. I just about kept myself from throwing a teenaged-girly fit over the awesomeness.

But our visit wasn't just limited to stuff for teenage girls on a trip with their middle-aged mums, or slightly weird students - my Dad battled a battalion of greying and grey dads to get a pic with Paul, Ringo, John and George. I think he was also the one holding back a teenaged-girly fit over awesomeness when I took him to see Abbey Road and the studios on Thursday morning.

On Wednesday we went to Oxford, because I wanted to show my Dad the Bodleian and some other pretty buildings, plus I needed to pick up some things - also I was slightly desperate to visit Blackwell's, and it's now almost been a year since I had a chat in Oxford with two academics, one from Utrecht and one from Glasgow, over a very fancy dinner, where one of them told me that you don't need to be clever to do a PhD, just be really passionate about something, and where I most or less made the definitive decision to give Academia a serious shot.

As I sat in front of the Criminology section in Blackwell's, I held three books in my hands. I wanted all three, but I reasoned with myself that buying all three would be senseless. I most desperately wanted the one that - of course - also happened to be the most expensive one.

I still bought it, of course.

Crime and Economics. C'mon. I'm a Law and Economics (well, Social Sciences but those were my main tracks) BA. I've been contemplating going back to RA/UCR in, say, a decade and forcing them to expand Crime and Law Enforcement into a full track, and because of my background I've considered a course that draws on both criminology and economics.
I couldn't just walk away and leave it there. It would be a betrayal of all my interests.

So, Thursday was Abbey Road. It was also our day of walking around, from the London Eye to Westminster Abbey to Trafalgar Square to Piccadilly Circus. Of course that was also the day we were hit by snow and bitter cold, so I quickly turned quite cranky - sorry about that, Dad.

We had an absolutely lovely afternoon tea at Fenwick's, which was quite fun because we were sat next to two very posh ladies, who were absolutely delightful.

Friday we met up with Danou and indulged in a day of amateur Egyptology - wandering 'round the British and Petrie Museums, pointing out deities to one another and, while in the Petrie Museum, finding stuff that has been featured on the Joann Fletcher documentary-set that's been on the BBC.

I said goodbye to my Dad on Friday night, as he had to catch a very early flight out again, while I stayed another night to travel back to Leicester on Saturday.

As I transferred from the Central to the Hammersmith & City Line, I suddenly walked past something that I hadn't expected to see at all this week. Surely I'd been looking at maps of Central London to figure out where it could possibly located, as I'd been watching a documentary on it the other day, but I never intended to go and see it for real. But I did.

You see, as you transfer lines there, you have to walk from White City station to Wood Lane station, and as you do so, you walk right past the BBC Television Centre. Quite extraordinary.

But now I'm safely back home in Leicester, and I'll probably unpack in a bit, then eat something and then watch the newest Who.

Thanks again, Dad, for the trip.

PS Okay, so the new Who is quite cool. Bit deus ex screwdriver, as is to be expected, and I felt slightly worried about that system because after the parasite collapsed, what was that system's main point of gravity? Other than that, nice ep. Looking forward to next week - submarines!