The Ambassador Wasn’t A Very Nice Man

When I was a kid I practiced Pencak Silat. Nowadays it is a martial art, but in my childhood it was more of a mix of martial arts and dance “(“seni“). Our class consisted of Indonesian and partly Indonesian children, and one day we were invited by the Indonesian Ambassador to the Netherlands to perform in the Indonesian Embassy in The Hague. Every ambassador in the Netherlands was invited, and we were very excited.

We were “kacongs“, streetwise kids, and our parents didn’t have time for us while they were pursuing their careers. We were proud, clever and no-one could fool us.

We arrived at the Indonesian Embassy, quite early, so we sort of mingled with the public. When I went to the bathroom I saw the Swedish Ambassador, rather drunk, and he was very abusive toward the Indonesian lavatory attendant. I felt sorry for the man.

After our performance the Swedish Ambassador came to us – he seemed to be rather drunk – and he asked if I would help him by finding the right words to thank the Indonesian Ambassador for his hospitality.

I wrote down the words he needed to say, and even helped him to pronounce them correctly: “Mari kita nyentot paha didalam kakus sampai keluar bo-ol.”

So that’s exactly what the Swedish Ambassador said to the Indonesian Ambassador, in front of everybody, including the Indonesian staff.  “Mari kita nyentot paha didalam kakus sampai keluar bo-ol.” (“Let’s go ass-fucking in the toilet until the piles come out.”)

The Indonesian Ambassador wasn’t amused. He walked out of the room and his secretary told the Swedish Ambassador that his words hadn’t been chosen wisely. I don’t think the relationship between Indonesia and Sweden has ever been fully recovered.

After this incident my buddy Frits came to me and asked me if it was me who told the Ambassador what to say. I nodded. “Do you know what it means?” he asked. Well, I knew it was nasty, but I didn’t understand the details. “Aduh!” said Frits, and he tried to explain. “Nyehe, up your ass,” he said. To me that sounded like a rather extraordinary place to “nyehe“.   

We had so much fun in the bus that took us home.

Burning Flames

Een belangrijk attribuut in een keuken zonder gasgrill is de gasbrander. Nu kun je in keukenspeciaalzaken speciale brandertjes kopen om je crême brulée mee op te fleuren, maar dat is heel onvoordelig.

Je kunt het best gewoon een hobbybrander kopen. Die is veel goedkoper, heeft een krachtiger vlam en je doet veel langer met het gasflesje (A4 type). Mijn brander is een Bright Spark met een piezo-ontsteking, zodat je geen lucifers nodig hebt om hem aan te steken. Gewoon het kraantje open draaien, op het kraantje drukken, en de brander doet het.

Ik gebruik mijn brander vooral voor pannekoeken met spel en kaas (zie boven). Ik maak een beslagje, doe er wat runderbouillonpoeder door en een snuifje djinten, ketoembar en kerrie. Vervolgens bak ik wat ontbijtspek, die ik in een schaaltje leg. Als de onderkant van de pannenkoek klaar is, draai ik ‘m om en beleg ik de bovenkant met plakjes gebakken ontbijtspek en twee grote plakken jonge kaas. Vervolgens gebruik ik de brander om de kaas te laten smelten en wat aan te schroeien.

Toen ik een jonge knul was, was het zaak om een half uur voor sluitingstijd van de kroegen in de shoarmazaak te zijn, want dan hadden de branders het vlees lekker kunnen schroeien. Wil je dit effect ook bij de shoarma die je thuis maakt? Gebruik dan de brander. Gebruik de maximum vlam en schroei het vlees aan. Even omscheppen en de handeling herhalen.

Eet smakelijk!

 

Excessive Police Force Causes Death

Yesterday morning, 22 October 2011, an innocent man of 35 was killed on the A2, one of Holland’s main motorways. Many more could have been killed.  

That morning two young motorists left a petrol station along the A2 from Utrecht to Amsterdam without paying. A witness followed them with his car and the petrol station manager called the police.

In the United Kingdom the number of innocent people killed in high-speed police chases are rising every year, prompting serious concern about the skill and judgment of some police drivers, and most of all the neccesity of these chases. Police officers ought to race to incidents only where lives are in danger, and the public should not be put at risk in defence of property, and certainly not in defence of 40 litres of petrol. I was always proud to tell my British friends and relatives that such a thing could never happen in the Netherlands. “The Dutch police is far more relaxed,” I used to say. “Moreover, if the car isn’t reported stolen, if the police knows the address of the culprit, they will pay him a visit later that day, or the next day.”How wrong I was…

Soon after the lads were on their way with their stolen petrol,  they were followed by many, many police cars, which tried to stop them. The lads panicked, were flabbergasted by this excessive police force, and tried to get away.

A couple of miles ahead of them the police created a traffick jam on the A2, using traffic lights which brought all traffic to a halt. The petrol thieves weren’t able to stop their car in time and crashed into the back of a vehicle in the back of the traffic jam. The 35-year old driver of that car was killed.

The petrol thieves had minor injuries. They were arrested.

I am deeply embarrassed. Recently the Dutch police had to abandon their chases of drug dealers several times because it was too dangerous for them to pursue (automatic weapons were involved), so I can understand their frustration, but they shouldn’t have projected this frustration on a couple of petrol thieves.

Most important, this police action was against all rules and regulations and several police procedures were violated. First of all the excessive police force didn’t fit the crime. When the police chase started, the petrol thieves weren’t identified as dangerous criminals who were wanted by the police.  Second, after the petrol thieves refused to pull over the first time, the pursuit should have been taken over by a helicopter and/or unmarked police cars of one of the available Arrest Teams (ATs).   

Again, the public and police officers shouldn’t be put at risk in defence of property. While the law permits officers to breach traffic regulations, this should only be when it is justified by the risk of the emergency. It should be clear that every single police officer in this case who breached police procedure, should be brought to court and should be fired from the police force.

Moussa Ibrahim – such a loyal friend of the Gaddafi clan

Moussa Ibrahim was a Libyan political figure, first serving as a spokesman of the regime, but quickly becoming the Libyan Minister of Information and the official spokesman for Muammar Gaddafi as of March 2011. During the 2011 Libyan civil war he came to general international attention, defending Gaddafi’s regime on tv, lying about the facts, ignoring the facts, admiring his Leader, and most of all staying loyal to his childhood buddies, Gaddafi’s sons. In those days he reminded us so much of Muhammad Saeed al-Sahhaf, Iraqi government spokesman under Saddam Hussein, nicknamed Baghdad Bob and Chemical Ali.

Moussa Ibrahim (1974) belonged to the Quadhadfa tribe, just as the Gaddafis. This meant he belonged to the privileged few. In the early 2000s he studied political science in England, at the University of Exeter. He lived in London for 15 years and enjoyed every minute of it. Of course he didn’t mix with other Libyan students, as they were all anti-Gaddafi.

Despite the fact that he is married to a German woman and has a son with her, Moussa Ibrahim belonged to the gang of Gaddafi’s sons, a gang that lived the life of rock stars, a gang that had access to all the drugs and expensive hookers in the world, a gang which financial resources were unlimited, and so was their power. Like them, Ibrahim lost his faith, because it was so passé. Because it seemed to be impossible and unthinkable that this wealth of money, power, sex, drugs and rock and roll could ever come to an end, Moussa Ibrahim dedicated his life to the Gaddafi clan. In Tripoli he lived the life of a prince – his family had a street reserved for themselves and enjoyed a visible level of wealth.

As the whole world was witnessing Gaddafi’s downfall, Moussa Ibrahim upheld his loyalty, hoping that it would pay off in the end. To picture what kind of guy he was, he commented on a woman who was violently raped by Gaddafi loyalists, saying she was a “prostitute”, and of course, according to his culture, he was right, because a raped woman is no longer “pure”, so she is a “prostitute”.

Yesterday, 19 October 2011, when Moussa Ibrahim, Muammar Gaddafi and Moatassem, one of his sons, were trying to get out of Sirte, they were spotted by French fighter jet pilots, who fired at them. Gaddafi and his son were wounded, Moussa Ibrahim wasn’t, but realised the fairy tale and his loyalty had come to an end. He tried to escape before the rebels would find him.

Today Gaddafi and one of his sons were caught by the rebels. They were killed by the rebels, which is ashame, because they should have been brought to the International Crime Court. Both Gaddafi and his son’s bodies were taken to Misrata, a place they wanted to visit anyway.  

But Moussa Ibrahim is still alive and on the run, and it’s extremely important that he will be caught alive and make it to the International Crime Court, because it’s very interesting to know which people, politicians and businessmen alike, profited from the Gaddafi clan and their money, enjoyed their hospitality, their “untouchable” world of sex, drugs and rock & roll.

Update: a few hours after I published this blog, Reuters reported from Sirte, Libya, that Moussa Ibrahim was captured near Sirte. ”Abdul Hakim Al Jalil, commander of the 11th brigade, also said he had seen the body of the chief of Gaddafi’s armed forces, Abu Bakr Younus Jabr.

“I’ve seen him with my own eyes,” he said and showed Reuters a picture of Jabr’s body. “Moussa Ibrahim was also captured and both of them were transferred to (our) operations room.”

What can we learn from the Conrad Murray case?

That money corrupts. That money makes you dependent. That money makes you forget about your professional ethics.

Conrad Murray used to be Michael Jackon’s personal physician until Michael Jackson died of acute propofol intoxication after he suffered cardiac arrest at his home in Los Angeles. On August 28, 2009, the Los Angeles County Coroner ruled Jackson’s death a homicide. Before his death, Jackson reportedly had been administered propofol, along with two anti-anxiety benzodiazepines: lorazepam and midazolam. Law enforcement officials investigated Jackson’s personal physician. On February 8, 2010, Murray pleaded not guilty to charges of involuntary manslaughter, and was released after posting a US$75,000 bail. His trial started on September 27, 2011, and people in Europe have been able to watch the trial on Sky News.

Since 2009 Michael Jackson paid Conrad Murray US$ 150,000.00 per month for being his personal doctor. Conrad Murray’s lifestyle was based on this income, and very soon he became dependent on Michael Jackson’s money. If you hire a physician, you can also fire him. That’s how Conrad Murray was confronted with a terrible choice, because Michael Jackson wanted Murray to give him drugs that were bad for his health, and if Murray kept refusing to give him those drugs, Jackson could easily fire him and hire another physician.

The Hippocratic Oath is an oath historically taken by doctors and other healthcare professionals swearing to practice medicine ethically.

Six of the values that commonly apply to medical ethics discussions are:

• Autonomy – the patient has the right to refuse or choose their treatment. (Voluntas aegroti suprema lex.)
• Beneficence – a practitioner should act in the best interest of the patient. (Salus aegroti suprema lex.)
• Non-maleficence – “first, do no harm” (primum non nocere).
• Justice- concerns the distribution of scarce health resources, and the decision of who gets what treatment (fairness and equality).
• Dignity- the patient (and the person treating the patient) have the right to be treated with dignity.
• Truthfulness and honesty – the concept of informed consent has increased in importance since the historical events of the Doctors’ Trial of the Nuremberg trials and Tuskegee Syphilis Study.

From this follows that a physician should think of the patient’s health first, and no matter what the patients wishes and needs are, his health comes first.

So Conrad Murray had to choose between his patient’s health and his patient’s money.

On June 30, Cherilyn Lee, a nurse who had worked as Jackson’s nutritionist, said that he had asked her in May to provide propofol to help him sleep, but she refused. He told her he had been given the drug before for persistent insomnia, and that a doctor had said it was safe. Lee said she received a telephone call from an aide to Jackson on June 21 to say that Jackson was ill, although she no longer worked for him. She reported overhearing Jackson complain that one side of his body was hot, the other side cold. She advised the aide to send Jackson to a hospital.

Cherilyn Lee did what her ethical code demanded from her. Maybe if Michael Jackson had offered her US$ 150,000.00 a month she would have responded differently.

Corruption is about making choices. Many professionals, like physicians, lawyers, policemen, judges, and politicians, are faced with these choices. Of course Conrad Murray didn’t want Michael Jackson dead; who would want to lose a sugar daddy like him?  But he had to make choices, and he gambled. And he put his money on the wrong horse.

 

The Devaluation of British University Degrees

For more than ten years I was an executive manager in probation services, managing all kinds of professionals, like social workers, psychologists, probation workers, sociologists, nurses and physicians. After my retirement I came to know young people who graduated and worked as psychologists in high offices. It stroke me that they lacked intelligence, general knowledge, and most of all professional knowledge and skills.

After talking to one of these psychologists for more than an hour, from one professional to another, I thought, “This person really needs supervision”, and when I suggested this, she replied, “You must be joking. I am the supervisor. I’m not being supervised myself.”

I found this rather disturbing, because these young professionals, in their early thirties, are making decisions which severely influence the lives of other people. They decide if a prisoner should be released or not, they decide if a prisoner is a danger to society, they decide if a prisoner should be placed in a maximum security unit or not. And these are the same persons who won’t hesitate to call everyone who doesn’t take their OCB or their drama-queen behaviour seriously a “psychopath”.

Enlarging my circle of investigation I studied the social lives of young academics. Being highly valued on the workfloor and getting well paid, they live in expensive apartments, they buy the newest gadgets and the oldest antiques, they wine and dine with equally qualified professionals, and they think the world of themselves. However, they refuse to mix with more experienced and more qualified colleagues, who would see through their “professionalism” within minutes. Talking with these young professionals I met social workers and psychologists who never heard of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, of human self-reflection, of Erikson’s stages of psychosocial development, etc. But they were able to tell me all about the newest iPod.

In the 1999 AGR manifesto (“Talent, Opportunity, Prosperity”) Tony Blair set a target of 50% of young adults going into higher education by 2010. Government-imposed targets designed to increase the number of students from deprived backgrounds risk could be met only by lowering the academic standards of the institutions that meet them.The result was that polytechnics were allowed to become universities, while the currency of a degree was devalued and the standards were driven down by forcing thousands of students to enrol onto programmes that lack academic rigour and which are delivered by “below-average institutions”.  

In 2007 Dr Paul Buckland resigned as professor at Bournemouth University, in protest at the decision of university authorities that 14 students whom he – and a formal examinations board – had judged to have failed a course should nonetheless be deemed to have passed it. In so doing, the university authorities appear to have endorsed the view of a senior official that students should have been able to pass the course merely on the basis of lecture notes, without doing the required reading.

Academic standards were (are?) deliberately undermined (“dumbed down”) in the interests of public image, league-table position, and student-derived revenue. Administrators were (are?) being interfered with the judgments of teachers, of deliberate lowering of thresholds, of external examiners being pressured into toning down critical comments and of evidence being withheld from Quality Assurance Agency inspection (“audit”) teams. According to the July 2009 report from the Commons Select Committee on Innovation, Universities and Skills, different universities demand “different levels of effort” from students to get similar degrees,  suggesting that top grades from some colleges are not worth the same as others.

In his article “Why university standards have fallen” (The Guardian, 10 March 2010) professor Geoffrey Alderman wrote, “I believe that there has been a decline in academic standards overall in British higher education over the past two decades, but not for the reasons advanced by the AGR. The evidence for this decline is contained in the 2009 report, Students and Universities, of the then select committee on innovation, universities, science and skills. In my written and oral evidence to this inquiry, I identified the following factors as fundamental to this decline:

1. The league table culture that has permeated the senior leaderships of many British universities, resulting in intolerable pressures on academic staff to pass students who should rightfully fail and to award higher classes of degrees to the undeserving.
2. Pressures to maximise non-governmental sources of income, primarily from “full fee-paying” non-European students, to whom it is deemed prudent by these same senior leaderships to award qualifications to which they are often not entitled, so as to ensure future “market share”. 
3. The increasing and increasingly stupid use of students’ course evaluations as pivotal factors in the academic promotion process. To put it bluntly, a conscientious academic with poor student evaluations may find it difficult or even impossible to obtain promotion because her/his students do not like getting the low grades they may well richly deserve.
4. The breakdown of the external examiner system, due partly to the near-universal modularisation of degree programmes and partly to the abysmal remuneration for work of this sort. The evidence given to the select committee of improper pressure on external examiners makes exceedingly grim reading. 
5. The relative leniency shown towards academic dishonesty, coupled with the tendency of university administrators to insist that plagiarism be viewed through the prism of what I believe is termed “cultural relativism”.

So, let me be quite clear: I do not believe that “more” necessarily means “worse”. But I do believe that more has come to mean worse because of the toxic combination of factors I have listed above, and which are obviously interrelated.” End of quote.

So, what are the effects in society of the devaluation of British university degrees? Just look around you. My vet in St. Leonards is from Poland, where he finished his education at the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine at the Warsaw University of Life Sciences. He is very skillful. On the workfloor you will find that young managers with British university degrees are less able to motivate and stimulate their staff, and that they’re not willing to work with more experienced and better educated employees, because they could and would see through them.

And in Her Majesty’s prisons for many prisoners any form of rehabilitation is not even taken into consideration, because of the “professional” opinions of “senior” psychologists of the Home Office. Rather, intense surveillance, sometimes to the limit of removing the prisoner’s human rights, are often the norm rather than the exception. These “professional” opinions are caused by the fear of being wrong, a fear which in turn is the result of lack of intelligence, lack of professional knowledge and lack of professional skills. Surveillance and repression only pushes the most vulnerable to more extreme acts, and then the Home Office’s senior psychologists’ professional opinions, their self-fulfilling prophecies,  come true.

For at least 20 years to come these people with a so-called British university education will determine the standards of many institutions and commercial enterprises.  No rule and regulation can change the intellectual skills of these people. We’re stuck with them. Thank you for nothing, Tony Blair.

Phil Bloom – A Woman Who Changed Dutch Society

Phil Bloom (November 27, 1945) is a Dutch artist who in the 1960s was active in a countercultural artists movement called Fluxus. Fluxus aimed to change the middle-class mentality of the Dutch people, and Phil Bloom volunteered to help these people to overcome their smugness.

In October 1967 Phil Bloom was the first woman to appear in the nude on Dutch national TV, in the VPRO-program “Hoepla”. This caused a lot of commotion, and lawmakers even asked questions in the Dutch parliament. The foreign press interviewed her and she became an international celebrity. In October 1968 Playboy magazine published an interview with Phil, “TV’s First Nude”. The Daily Mirror wrote, “Such a fuss as a blonde goes on tv in the nude”. In fact Hoepla was much more than a program that shows titties; the Jimi Hendrix Experience performed with “Foxy Lady”, and there were interviews with Mick Jagger, Pete Townshend and Eric Clapton.

Phil Bloom was offered 150 guilders for her first performance in Hoepla, and all she had to do was to walk from one side of the set to another, in the nude, with a bunch of plastic flowers. As a result 67 VPRO members cancelled their membership. In the second episode of Hoepla you could actually see Phil’s nipples, and that’s when the shit really hit the fan. “Where have all the flowers gone?” wrote the Daily Mirror.

The third episode of Hoepla was scheduled on November 10, 1967, but was rescheduled to November 23. Two controversial items, the detailed coverage of a cow being slaughtered and a report of  the Prime Minister speech, mixed with film images of a female striptease artist, needed to be cut from the episode.

On January 8, 1968 many people were sitting in front of their TV’s, waiting for the fourth episode of Hoepla, waiting for another opportunity to watch Phil Bloom in the nude. But that episode was never aired. Instead, the VPRO showed an episode of “Young People’s Concert”. Hoepla was cancelled forgood.

The official statement of the makers of Hoepla was that they didn’t mean to shock the viewers, that it was meant to be “funny”, but they were delighted when questions about the program were asked in parliament. In fact this was rejuvenating television and that’s exactly what Dutch society needed in those days. After Phil Bloom’s performance in Hoepla everything changed, and everything was possible.

In the 1970s Phil Bloom worked and lived in New York. She was fed up with people who could only associate her with the nude girl on TV, and wanted to be appreciated for her artwork. She even brought her case to court, in which she tried to prevent newspapers to publish nude pictures of her. It was in vain, because she had become a public figure, only because of her nude performances.

After she returned to Europe, she went to live in Antwerp, Belgium. “Here in Antwerp people respect me, and here I’m not stamped for that one minute nudity on TV. Actually I was never bothered because of that happening, I’m still behind it, but in Holland they often won’t give me the opportunity to be anything else than the girl of 1967. People should finally realise that reading the newspaper in the nude is not the only thing I’m good at,” she told a Dutch womens’ magazine in 2000.

Once a controversial performer, Phil Bloom is now  an artist who seeks to fathom the most unexpected aspects of the human body through painting. Click here to visit her website.

 

In Memoriam Harry Muskee

Gisteravond is Harry “Cuby” Muskee overleden. Harry is 70 jaar geworden. De kranten staan er vol van.

In de jaren zestig heb ik een paar jaar op de Nieuwstad in Groningen gewoond, en ik was stamgast bij Café De Clown in de Pelsterstraat. De jongens van Cuby and The Blizzards, waaronder Herman Brood, kwamen daar ook regelmatig.

Vele jaren later verhuisde ik naar een klein dorp in Drente, en ik deed vaak boodschappen bij de Albert Heijn in Rolde, waar ik Harry met regelmaat tegenkwam. Hij maakte graag een praatje met de cassières; ze kenden hem allemaal.

Een icoon uit mijn jeugd is van ons heengegaan. Ik ben benieuwd naar de reactie van Johan Derksen.

Harry: rest in peace, man.

UPDATE: Johan Derksen heeft inmiddels gereageerd op TV Rijnmond: “Ik heb 45 jaar mijn lief en leed met Harry gedeeld. Ik ben Cuby niet kwijt, ik ben een goede vriend kwijt. (…) Als hij in de buurt van Rotterdam moest optreden, logeerde hij altijd bij mij, en dan gingen we vaak de dag erop naar het Kasteel, naar Sparta.”

 

How To Cope With Insomnia and Stress

You’re probably suffering from insomnia because you’re suffering from stress, and / or you lead a crappy life.
Let’s first have a look at the advice you will find on the internet. My next step is to comment on these guidelines.

1. Try not to worry. No one ever died through lack of sleep. Worrying will make the problem worse. The body will always find a way to get the rest it needs. 
2. Remember not everyone needs the same amount of sleep. Experiment – e.g., try going to sleep a little later than your usual time – or get up earlier.Then keep a regular time for retiring and rising. 
3. Only sleep when you are tired and try not to sleep during the day. 
4. Get more exercise. 
5. Rave a warm bath or a hot drink before going to bed. 
6. Make sure the room is well ventilated and not stuffy, but free from draughts. 
7. Make sure you are warm enough. 
8. Empty your bladder before going to bed. 
9. Avoid man-made fibres e.g. nylon. Natural fibres allow the body to breathe, e.g. cotton and wool. 
10. If noise disturbs you block it out e.g., use earplugs, heavy curtains. 
11. Some people find a hop or herbal cushion helpful. 
12. Don‘t eat a heavy meal before going to bed. It takes 1 – 2 hours for digestion to take place. 
13. Avoid tea and coffee as they are stimulants. (A warm milky drink is best). 
14. Practice relaxation and breathing exercises (those who breathe shallowly have a high proportion of toxic substances in the body and are therefore poor sleepers). 
15. Don’t spend time in the bedroom during the day.

Try not to worry. Of course this is a good advice, but it’s easier said than done. Besides, worrying is a functional process. It means that you’re faced with problems — from the past, the present, or the future — and that your mind is trying to solve these problems. First of all, only try to solve the problems that really can be solved by you. You will probably not be able to solve the problems of the world, and returning the apple you stole from your neighbours 60 years ago may produce a new problem: how to find them, and what if they’re dead? Second, it’s better to solve problems during the day time, way before you’re going to bed. 

Keep a regular time for retiring and rising. Excellent advice. If there’s no reason for you to get up at 6 or 7am, why would you? A lot of people like to watch late-night TV but don’t, because they need their 8 hours of sleep and they need to get up early in the morning. If this doesn’t apply to you, you can establish your own wake-sleep rhythm, your own biological clock. Usually I go to bed at 1.30, 2am, and I wake up every morning at 10.10am. Having a dog helps you to lead a “regular” life, because it needs to be walked. Your dog will easily adapt to your wake-sleep rhythm and he won’t mind to be walked at 10am, as long as you walked him the night before at 2am. It’s all about expectations. Your dog will soon expect you to wake up at 10am, and he will expect to be walked at 2 or 3pm, as he will anticipate the walks in between. Only when his expectations aren’t fulfilled, he will start to become restless. 

Only sleep when you are tired and try not to sleep during the day. Another excellent advice. You’re probably not able to sleep because of stress, and forcing yourself to sleep when you’re not sleepy will only lead to more stress. But… sometimes you’re so full of stress during the daytime that your problem-solving skills are failing and you need to hide from the world underneath your blanket, to block your thoughts and fears. However, this will destroy your biorhythm.  Try not to give in to this urge.

Get more exercise. Good idea, but only if you enjoy the exercise. Make it a useful exercise with a purpose, otherwise it will only lead to more stress instead of less. For instance, walk to an interesting place to make a photo-blog. It will take your mind off things and you will find it rewarding when you look at the result.

A warm milky drink is best. Fine, if you enjoy warm milky drinks at night. But if you’re thinking, “What for foxake am I doing here, drinking hot milk while I’m dying for a decent glass of wine or a spliff,” then don’t do it, because that will add to the stress more than you can imagine. Whatever you drink or smoke before you lay yourself to rest, use it moderately and use it as a reward, as something you really enjoy. Remember, you need to unwind, you don’t need to be sedated.

The rest of the internet advice mentioned above is pretty common and you can do with it whatever you like. To conclude my comments I would like to share some of my life philosophy with you.

There is no god. God is an invention of people to rule the masses. The belief in a “superpower” that sees and knows everything you do was the best way to prevent crimes and sins, and of course the definition of “crimes” and “sins” were made-up by the same people that created the “superpower”. In the Middle Ages these may have been functional dogmas, but in a time in which most people are well educated and able to have a mind (and a conscience) of their own, these dogmas are obsolete and superfluous. So if you want to get rid of your stress, get rid of the idea that someone is able to see and know what you are doing and thinking. In billions of people religious dogmas are the cause of severe stress.

Hatred is a self-destructive emotion. Although I believe you if you say that your stress is directly the result of other peoples’ actions, hatred will only make you a bitter person, which is bad for your physical and mental health. Like I said before, only focus on the problems you can solve and forget about the others. Mind you, it’s good to be assertive, but hatred doesn’t get you anywhere and it’s certainly not the same thing. If you are frustrated about something you can’t solve by shouting it out, try to write it down. It really helps to get the frustration out of your system, even if you don’t send the letter to anyone (which might be wise).    

Develop self-discipline. Don’t listen to teachers, social workers, health-freaks, and people like me who tell you how to live your life. Make up your own mind, and make yourself responsible for the quality of the life you live. Start to realise that you can enjoy a night in the pub, but that you will feel miserable the next day if you drink too much, and that this feeling is the direct result of your drinking, and not the result of anything the world has done to you. You may think that you definitely need six bottles of beer to be able to sleep, but if you’re willing to test your self-discipline you will soon find out that you are able to sleep after five bottles of beer, and once you’ve found out that this is true, the next step is four bottles, etc. Please don’t try to prove this to anyone but yourself, because in that case you will be the only one to be disappointed by you in case your self-discipline needs some improvement.

Try to control your impulses. Often you will need to be less impulsive, like stopping to go shopping or eating boxes of chocolate to get rid of your frustration, but sometimes it’s good to be impulsive, to be able to reward yourself, especially when you have become a “slave” to expectations you and others have of you. Some rewards you give yourself are immediate, but it might be wise to focus on postponed rewards. To illustrate what I mean with this, I need to use some simple ”if-then statements”.

“If I don’t drink too much tonight, then I will feel better tomorrow.” And be serious, if you don’t show up for work every Monday because you have been pissed all weekend, and you can’t see the relationship between this behaviour and you being sacked, then there’s really something wrong with you and your expectations of the world.

“If I tackle this problem now, then I won’t be anxious about it when I go to sleep and it won’t be a burden when I wake up tomorrow.”  

“If I don’t spend all my money now, then I will still have some left at the end of the month.”    

It’s all about balance. Sometimes you need to treat yourself, and that’s a good thing, unless you structurally treat yourself in a way that will only cause more problems than you already have. In that case you probably need professional help.

Every cloud…

My living room window faces west, and sometimes the clouds from England come in like this, threatening.

 

I live on the coast, in Rockanje, straight opposite Harwich. If the wind is west, we can see the bad weather from England coming in, and sometimes it’s pretty spectacular. I can sit in my garden for hours watching it.

No matter how close it seems, England is far away in my mind, like a hundred years ago, and the distance is increasing.