Column | Forgot flowers! – NRC

For work I flew to the never boring New York this week. On the way there, the pilot sounded like Rick Nieman. That is a wonderful, reassuring note to leave our country with. I entertained myself with typical Dutch news. Such as the brilliant Floriade debacle in Almere, which cost the municipality not 100 million, but more than 200 million. Can happen. That as an organization you are wrong by a million or a hundred. They obviously blame corona, but an amusement park expert intervened The parole guess it’s just stupid. At that time, Keukenhof simply attracted the public. A little less, just like the zoos, but people came everywhere. The funniest cause of this financial drama? They forgot the flowers. Forgot what? The flowers. Everything has been thought of at this gigantic horticultural event: souvenir shops, a car park with plenty of space for the disabled, gender-neutral toilets, a vegetarian restaurant, an inclusive cloakroom and a real cable car. Just forget the flowers. That’s stupid. Think about it next time. Flowers! Good tip.

And because there were no flowers, there was no audience. Only the then mayor Franc Weerwind of Almere made a proud tour of the completely deserted Floriade site twice a week in his municipal service limo.

Then I read about the Marengo trial and that the head of the Public Prosecution Service should stay on. Yes, he had forgotten to warn the family, the lawyer and the adviser of the star witness Nabil B. that they were in danger. Dangerous even. Did the OM know that? Yes, they knew that there. But yes, forgot. Just like the flowers at the Floriade. Who is the only one who thinks that the head of the Public Prosecution Service should stay on? That is what the head of the Public Prosecution Service thinks.

After this sad case, I had a wonderful chuckle at that gas report that was published last week. Rutte in particular was shocked. Was even ashamed. Mark was the only Dutchman who did not know that Groningen is a shameless mess. Disrupted families, torn and sagging houses, screwed up families and ordinary oil bastards who just don’t want to settle. In fact, that gajes wants compensation because the Dutch State stops drilling in Groningen soil. And they get that money too. But don’t those Shell scum and their companions have to deal with those poor Groningers first? Compensate for the damage? No, that’s a misunderstanding. If you don’t understand that, you’re stupid. Oildom.

The best text, of course, came from Mark himself. He skillfully said that it was not about him right now, but about the abandoned Groningers! Brilliant words from the man who is gradually losing sight of his own reed because of all the clumps. Does he have to leave? Mark himself thinks not. He said that this week to the head of the Public Prosecution Service, who of course fully agreed with him. Retirement is so last century. He’s back anyway. Because the people want him.

I now understand that he will soon be cozy with the men of Inside today sit down? Elections eh! What will he do there? Light-hearted laughter, a bit of goats with Gijp and being happy with the questions that he ultimately does not answer. stupid? Absolutely not. Far from stupid even.

That’s how I whizzed across the ocean. Every now and then Rick Nieman on duty told us that everything was fine. We were well on schedule. Not a cloud in the sky. Wonderful flight information. As if I heard Mark himself.

I got further and further away from our touching nitrogen state with its own problems and associated politicians. Also read that Sylvie Meis is divorced and Eva Jinek pregnant. Emeritus professor Maarten van Rossem has seriously said in a podcast that he finds the time between Eva’s children a bit on the long side. The elderly chairman of the jury of The smartest persononce a historian at Utrecht University, is publicly involved in Eva Jinek’s family planning.

You wonder if I will come back to our country? I am more than doubtful.