It's been a long while... In the mean time, I have done all my exams (all 1 of them), done a 'mini-research project' (i.e. in-depth interviews of my two most direct neighbours), furthermore I hung around in London, showed friends and family around London, and removed myself from London.

This blog can no longer be properly called the London field diary of an Anthropologist-in-training. Soon, we can also cut away the "in-training" bit. I am about to embark on my first proper fieldwork. First reconnaissance has already been done in April, when I was back in the Netherlands for two weeks. Tomorrow I am expected at the Municipality. Next week it will all start for real, I hope. "From the door of his Tent", I can recreate for myself some of those ancient images of Anthropology.

I'm uncertain about the future of this blog. I wanted to use as a way to keep my diasporic circle of friends informed about what I was up to and as a place to put some Anthropologcal analyses I felt like writing, although not enough of the latter have appeared here.

In any case, this summer there will probably appear very few articles here. Although I may change my mind, I may change my mind so keep checking occasionally :-)

One of those days...

...that you'd want to walk right up against the walls or one that you pretend you're dancing in the pit while actually your showering, all this just because you're trying to study for an exam next thursday and Marilyn Strathern and old Mr Karl Marx decided that they really didn't give a flying fuck about whether their prose would be enjoyable or even readable or not.

Good. I just needed to let off that steam. Now go back to your work, as I should. I'm writing this in the basement of my halls now because that's where the computer lab is and my computer is in repairs now. At least walking here gives me some exercise and a change of mind and setting that prevents from actually trying to put into the practice the first of the two actions described above. The second of the two actions I suddenly found myself putting into practice just before I came down here to write this: I am severely worried about my sanity and need diversion. Visitors welcome, although thank god some people are already coming :-)

Have a nice article arguing against religion and for the bible as a good and nice moralising story that is still just about as angry and tolerant as I feel right now, but articulate.
Good night.

I R E L A N D & H O M E - T R A V E L S

(for some reason I can't make this post look pretty in any way; so no headings, links, bold or italics, unfortunately)

So easily you slide back in your old life. Three weeks I was gone from London: two week in the Netherlands and a week in Ireland. And now I have already handed in two papers and am stressing out over the fact I need to do a mini-research project and an exam! But anyway, here's some random imagery from the last three weeks for you.

For train-technical purposes I took on my father's identity (his NS jaarkaart) to travel cheaply around the country. Luckily no train conductor noticed I was maybe a bit young-looking for someone born in 1949. The thing was that not only was I visiting Utrecht to have dinner with my friends there and go to birthday parties, but also was I visiting three universities to compare their courses in Heritage Studies, which, as you may know, will be my (near) future. No results yet, impressions got a good shaking, again. Result: I still don't know which programme I like best. I did send in my applications in the end, but whether I'll be in Amsterdam (UvA or VU) or Utrecht (UU): no idea.

God, already it seems so long ago since I was home. When I was there I finally got to see my brother again, after some 4 1/2 months. He arrived the day after I did, so my father and I went to pick him up. At the airport were two of his friends as well; they kept themselves hidden until the very last moment when they rushed towards him and almost knocked him down. Classic idea, well executed. Iberia managed to lose my brother's luggage for the second time, though. Great service that. Anyway, there was much Mate (MA-tay, not MAYT, look it up in Wikipedia) and it was enjoyed in great quantities by all those who could bear its strong taste and smell (like tobacco, according to the parents). It's good stuff and my brother brought me some and my own Mate cup with reed. Very unfortunately, I managed to lose my reed on the way home from the airport! Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit. Now let's hope the cousin can bring a replacement from Argentina.

And then I left for London after the Father's birthday where I got to see the extended family again. The day after my departure Brother went away as well: building tents in France to get himself a living when he starts his studious life in the Great Northern City of Groningen. But only just arrived in London, I took flight to Ireland, to Cork to be precise, there to visit a Croatian friend of mine who's on university exchange in that town and also to see another (Irish) friend living in Dublin.

I admit: I envy my Cork-based friend. She lives in a great house (people-wise, not necessarily architecturally) and it's a nice little town generally, but very impressive. However, I cannot account for my time spend in Cork: it was lost in visits to the local Butter Museum, one day of studying (paper-writing in my case), and almost nightly pub-visits with great people. One of them was a Swede, working at an Apple Call Centre there. You must know, dear reader, that I had infected my Croatian friend with the love of the Swedish band Kent and now we had arranged that we would have a Kent translation / discussion session one night with the three of us. This was finally set for Friday night, my last night in Ireland. Cue for the Swede to get piss- and piss-drunk and maybe something else, who knows? Anyways, he was able to communicate still, but not walking straight and seemingly seeing stuff. He constantly tried to walk the streets as if he were the Pink Panther or something. So, we brought him home: this wasn't going to work with the Kent session, obviously. No keys. Good, we'll drop him on a couch. But the Kent session! Let us have the Kent session! insisted the swede, he was all up for it, he still spoke swedish, after all. So, we ended up listening to Du & Jag Doden in the middle of the night with a piss drunk Swede on whom this had a lullaby-effect, so we stopped quite soon. End good, all good. Next morning it turns out he was carrying two keys on him and despite his hang-over we were going to have the Kent session again. No problem, it's always great music. We listened to Du & Jag Doden again and talked about how big they are in Sweded (huge), and about how their lyrics are so not-standard for a pop-band. (in translation: "I shot a DJ dead last night // His blood splattered and became a Pollock in his booth" (Palace&Main) or, from their hit-single: "500 Miles in the snow // A UFO over the lake // And in a flash I see // Keats standing next to Baudelaire" (Max 500)

Furthermore, I also took a bus from Cork to Dublin to see my friend there. This took 4 1/2 hours, but at least I saw some of the countryside. There were yellow flowered bushes everywhere ("Brem" in Dutch). Interestingly, Ireland has an enormous amount of Polish workers, in a country that in the not so distant past was sending people overseas to work. So, even in the remotest towns I saw a Polski Szklep. But to Dublin! Unfortunately, in Ireland they don't do bus schedules I didn't know when I would arrive. The result however was that my friend had been waiting for me for hours at the bridge... We met though and that's what mattered. He lives in a gorgeous neighbourhood that is getting gentrified fast in this booming economy, but his father is now a pensioned dock worker and his mother still occasionally works odd jobs, so we entered a classic working class neighbourhood hiding behind the splendidly renovated facades at the sea-side (Did I say the view over the Dublin bay was gorgeous? It almost reminded me of Croatia / Montenegro last summer). At his house I finally got to meet the people that inhabited his stories: the mother, the father, the nephews (the tall one and the little jumpy one whose peanuts got crushed by me trying to put him down :-) ). We saw some of the city, which, as a city, is more interesting than Cork, but like Cork seems to breath a certain sadness, especially around their rivers (the Liffey in Dublin, the Lee in Cork). Tide comes in and tide goes again, a difference of metres covereing and uncovering grey stone. Maybe the people of Ireland become as they are in compensation.

I shall stop now, abruptly. I need to sleep. Time as I finish this is 00:40.

Back in the Netherlands!
I'm back in the NL for two weeks: excellent. And mien breurtie is back too, so I'll enjoy myself here. Looking forward to seeing everyone again!

Happiness in the City.
(warning: may get excited an political towards the end) Sorry for Length.

These days I feel on top of the world, I act, I walk, I think with a clarity, a consciousness of myself that I have not often experienced: everything is under control, no uncertainties about the future seem threatening. I am happy. But I am aware that not everyone in this city is, despite it being spring, the sun shine and the unusual amount of birds chattering and singing in the parks on the way to uni, where all sorts of flowers bloom amidst the crumbling graves.

Just now, when I left my halls I overheard what probably was a bit of a confidential counselling session between a student and one of the staff. The chinese guy said: "I feel I cannot trust anybody." Moments before that, when I left my flat I ran into my flatmate who, still in her pyjamas, had gone to the toilet and went back into her room and locked the door behind her! I wondered: "you are in your own flat, this corridor, this kitchen, these toilet and these showers; all of them are also yours, and this flat AND this building both have a front door that automatically locks when it closes, why would you lock even your room door?" I pity this girl, it is the same as the one of Lily-fame: apparently she is affraid or something. Affraid of us, her flatmates and probably the rest of the world. Here she is far away from the USA, where everything is familiar. Or is that it? She has been here in London longer than any of the rest of us (she went to LSE before coming here) and she even has an English boyfriend. But somehow she locks herself up: she even told me at some point that she wouldn't cook anymore in our communal kitchen because she thought it was too filthy. For anyone that has ever lived through UCU kitchens this sounds ridiculous: every week a cleaner comes, the rubbish is taken out daily (and not by us, but by cleaning staff!), and we, the rest of the inhabitants, may not do our dishes immediately after our dinner but we certainly do not leave them to rot for weeks on end. Still, she tries to be nice and all that, but it is clearly what I would call that classic American facade. Or as my neighbour, who is also from the States, would say: she is fake. But I mainly see someone who is scared or something. I feel she would rather curl up in bed and cry rather than confront this big bad world that exists outside her door.

How the hell can I 'lok' (≈ to seduce, Dutch) somebody out of his/her shelter? These sort of feelings, I believe, are common. And what is worst: they lie at the basis of such horrible institutions as, in the USA, the 'Gated Community': a worse denial of the world I cannot conceive. Fear wants consolation, such as a only a strong figure, a Real Leader can give. And if enough people are affraid in a democracy they will elect the one who best exploits these fears. Such as George Bush in the USA, Pim Fortuyn in the NL, and -I am not ashamed to make these comparisons- Mussolini in Italy and Hitler in Germany.

People in these urban times are affraid of crime. The streets of the city - and London is a megalopolis - replaced the forest as the place where potential injury lies. Especially in the Anglo-Saxon countries, people are a fearful lot (cf. 'The Culture of Fear' by B. Glassner, which I read some years ago). One interesting thing I noticed about reporting on crimes in the UK is that, even in the so-callled quality 'broad-sheets', there is much more personal information about the victim(s) and the perpetrator: result both these people become so normal they could live around the corner! In fact: even your daughter / son / husband / wife / grandma / granspa / uncle / aunt / nephew / niece / cousin / some other distant relative could be a secret killer and/or fraud. But what I gather from such books as 'the Culture of Fear' and various other writers / columnists such as Naomi Klein, George Monbiot, and others, is that this information is usually never complete: in search of scandal, these papers want to sell. And scandal sells. they do not want to render crimes understandable, which they always are, in my opinon. Anything is understandable , but understanding ≠ condoning. There is no morality in these reports. Or rather a morality that clashes with mine and I am always right, so: meh. But this is not a conspiracy, this is simply how things work! But the result is fear.

Here is an inconsistency: when you fear crime: murder, robbery, fraud, and your response is to up the force with which you fight it. I.e. not to make an effort to understand what drives people who commit crimes, you will always fight the symptoms but not the roots of crime. And these are, again in my opinion, not in some sort of essentialised 'greed' of these 'Others', but in very real material conditions. Now you can call a marxist.

And I am afraid too: my fear is that the Netherlands will become or has already become yet another fearful society. God verhoede!

Brainssss
While writing my papers I pause to bring you this, world's first ever pictures of MARK's BRAIN. No doubt you have all long been waiting for this!

The Cold, The Stonehenge, and The Future.
Not much news, except that I have declared myself officially ill for the day due to a nice cold that blocks about anything there is to block in my head. Donations of Oranges are welcome, just as warm cups of tea with lots of milk and sugar. Appropriately enough London is quite dreary today, and probably cold too, but I am not going out!

The hammer that drove the cold home must have been last Saturday's day trip to Stonehenge, which was great, but tiring and very, very windy. We saw the stones themselves and many of the other monuments in the surrounding area, about which my teacher for Landscape Anthropology had a lot of interesting stuff to say. As he is also an archeologist, he has studied the area and he is involved in a team that is completely reinterpreting the site. So, there was an excellent guide. But already most of last Sunday was spent in bed.

Monday I was a bit more active, but I spent most of the day at my computer drinking vast quantities of tea with milk and sugar to soothe my throat. Good thing I didn't really need to talk all that much. However, apart from the tea, I also wrote a tremendous amount of e-mails begging for references, asking enquiries, and annoucing visits. I finally booked my flight to Ireland, which I will visit in April, and yeah, the references mean I have decided upon a future. I am applying to Masters in Heritage / Museum Studies both in the UK and the Netherlands, possibly even in Amsterdam! *gasp*, *shock*. This will (hopefully) mean I will end up working at some point in my life, preferrably in the Heritage Industry (e.g. a Museum, something like Monumentenzorg, or some cultural institution like the famous 'Bureau' Meertens Instituut).

Vamos a Ver wat de toekomst brengt. Maar vandaag even niet veel, hopelijk.