Sunday, December 23, 2012

The Netherlands

More complicated than I figured.

Totally unrelated update: A subscription to this is really the perfect Christmas gift.

8 comments:

bruce said...

Brilliant. Reminds me of Fractured Fairy Tales, but even better.

The Dutch East India Company, I've heard, paid investors 11 per cent per annum for a century.

Robert of Ottawa said...

I must correct the gent who did the video about the British Isles.

First, Wales is not, and never has been, a "nation". It is, currently and officially, a principality. It never had a king.

Second, all people in the archepelago of the British Isles, including the Southern Irish and the Manx, are British People by geographical definition.

Third, it is a great insult to Scots, Welsh, Manx and Irish to call them English. For their part, the English pity the Scots, Welsh, Manx and Irish for not being English.

Fourth, The British People are a mongrel race, made up from many peoples, Beakers, Celts (Scotts, Picts, Gaels), Vikings, Angles, Saxons, "Romans" and Frenchified "Normans".

Fifth, remember it was the British Empire, not the English Empire.

Happy Christmas!

Col. Milquetoast said...

I had no idea the Netherlands Antilles doesn't exist anymore. wiki says it was dissolved and restructured as shown in the video in 2010.

rinardman said...

All I know is the Dutch in Amsterdam were friendly, and liked to sell you little bags of what looked like tobacco, if you were out walking at night.

And, in one part of town they had all kinds of stores with women in the front window, that seemed to be for sale if you wanted to buy one.

The odd thing was, they didn't have any price tags on them.

Col. Milquetoast said...

stores with women in the front window, that seemed to be for sale if you wanted to buy one.


I think those are rentals.

rinardman said...

I think those are rentals.

Oh, I see. That would be better. If she didn't clean your house like you want, you could return her and get another.

JorgXMcKie said...

As for Zingerman's, I live close to Ann Arbor and the place and their products are just wonderful. Heck, even hard-core New Yorkers and New Jerseyites agree that their food products are "the real thing".

They work very hard at getting their food right. It shows. No trip to AA is ocmplete without a stop there.

My wife and I go there occasionally as a treat.

If you like great deli food, it's the place.

RebeccaH said...

Most of what I remember about Holland (excuse me, The Netherlands) are the shopgirls who followed me around the gift shops saying, "Be careful!" and "Don't break that!"

Oh, and the waiters all spoke English (unlike the Italians, although I suspect the Italians did too, they just refused to).