YesBut its time to go home

Mrs YesBut is starting to pack her bag ready for the journey home tonight.

I’ve failed to acquire ear plugs, but remembered to buy an orange. So if a passenger starts snoring on the homeward journey, I’ll have a solution.

Because the coach starts from Amsterdam, it’s normally given extra special attention by the UK Customs and Immigration. Our passports will be examined by UK Immigration Officers based at Coquelles near Calais. Invariably most passengers don't hold European Union passports, so there is a lot of scrutiny. Last time we travelled, we were delayed for over an hour while a West African gentleman, searched through his luggage to find documents to prove the two year old child travelling with him was his son. Of course any delay means we miss the Eurotunnel shuttle, so the coach and passengers have to wait for the next train with free space. Fortunately this time of the year, the trains aren’t fully booked.

When we finally arrive at Folkestone, our passports will be examined yet again by UK Immigration. Then we will have to unload all our luggage, lug it into the Customs Hall. While it’s being examined sniffer dogs search the coach for drugs. I’m still waiting for some hippie type dude approaching me to ask “Help me out man, carry my guitar and this potted plant, I bought as a present for my dear old mother, through Customs for me”. It just goes to prove you shouldn’t judge a person by appearance. There I had assumed the long haired bearded individual was a drug smuggler, while all along he was a devoted son!

Last time I flew into Heathrow Airport, I was minding my own business walking through the “Nothing to declare channel“, when the passenger in front of me was stopped by Customs. He completely lost his cool and accused the Officer, “The only reason you have stopped me is because I’m black. You wouldn’t have stopped me if I was white”. It was just my luck! As a gesture and to shut the complaining passenger up, I was stopped and asked, very apologetically, to open my cases. I have no problem with being stopped, the only annoying thing is, despite the combined efforts of Mrs YesBut and myself we can never seem to get all the contents back into the cases! It’s really embarrassing trying to pack your underwear and things in public. I suppose it’s even more embarrassing for passengers who have purchased items from Amsterdam sex shops.

So its going to be another sleepless night tonight

Click here to see today’s image - others making their way home.

YesBut its so so flat.

Holland is so boring! No bumps lumps, no need a hill or mountain - just flat. And so uniform - the Dutch do not close their curtains so you see into their tidy neat houses. If they have a potted plant on the right side of their windowsill they must have an identical plant on the left. Tall vase on the right, tall vase on the left. And the little gardens in front of their houses are laid out in geometric patterns of shrubs and heathers. Streets and streets of boring uniform sameness. Even when they look different, they give the impression of conformity.

The small towns look so clinical, as if they are reconstructed every night. Perhaps as a reaction to their inherent uniformity, they indulge in nonconformity. It is jarring to see the streets of the prim little towns polluted with dollops of dog shit. The Dutch make no effort to stop their dogs fouling the pavements, and wouldn’t dream of cleaning up the disgusting mess.

And their Capital city - well which is it Amsterdam or De Hague? How could the good Burghers of Amsterdam allow their city to degenerate into Europe’s brothel, overrun by drunken British hen and stag parties - they leer at the prostitutes flaunting themselves in red lit brothel windows, and ogle, like children at a sweet shop, at the videos and toys in the sex shops.

You have no idea how difficult it has been postin this blog. The computer thinks I'm Dutch and I'm faced with the choice of Archief, Wijzig, Weergave and a lot more words i have no idea what they mean.

I have learnt the hard way, verwijder means delete!

YseBut this is the country that gave the world: Rembrandt, Vincent Van Gogh and Gouda cheese.

Click here to see today’s image - an apple a day

YesBut what a journey.

I think Eurolines must have a group of highly trained individuals whose sole reason for existence is to make my life a misery.

Mrs YesBut and myself left London by coach last night to travel to Holland. As soon as the coach moved off from Victoria Coach Station, the woman seated in front of us started a series of phone conversations. I don’t know why she used a phone, because she was speaking so loud her relatives in the North of Scotland could have heard her. It was incessant yak yak until we reached the Channel Tunnel. Thank goodness phones don’t work in the tunnel.

I don’t particularly like travelling through the tunnel. It’s like being broiled in a cigar tube. I prefer when the coach crosses by ferry from Dover. OK sometimes the crossing can be rough, and in really bad conditions sailings are delayed. But at least on the ferry you can walk around, have a cup of tea, wander around the duty free shop and go to the toilet. But going by the Eurotunnel you just have to sit on the bus as it is transported by train.

As soon as we got into the tunnel, the snorers started. Why is it ever time we travel, there is a World Champion Snorer on the bus? They are normally fat men whose snore starts at their toes and gains in volume as it resonates up through their body, until it is finally expelled with gusto out of their cavernous wobbling foul smelling breath flabby mouth. The one we had on last nights coach was a real champion, he could simultaneously snore and whistle.

I sat there getting more annoyed devising ingenious plans to shut up the snorting pig. I could tap him on his shoulder to wake him up, and ask him politely not to snore. Or I could stuff an orange in his mouth, (I’ll have to remember to add an orange onto my list of essential requisites). Perhaps I could shout “stop”, the driver would break, and the snorer would be catapulted out of the bus.

Absolute torment sitting there for six hours feeling wretched, exhausted but unable to sleep because of that ##### snorer. What a relief when he got off the coach at Breda.

But would you believe it, the coach stopping at Breda woke up the woman in the seat before us. Suffering from withdrawal symptoms having not made a phone call for eight hours, she was immediately on the phone.

What dastardly act did I commit in the past that I am punished now?

For the return journey, as well as an orange I’ll need to put ear plugs on my must get list.

Click here to see today’s image - please sit here

YesBut pack up

Mrs YesBut and I are going to Holland tonight.

For a week Mrs YesBut has been rehearsing her packing. Every time we travel, she goes through the same ritual. Mrs YesBut collects, on the spare bedroom bed, all the cloths and things she thinks she will require. She then packs all the items. Then unpacks. Then repacks all the items in another case. Then unpacks. This cycle of activity continues until she is satisfied she has selected the most appropriate bag.

Then she asks me to put on the bed, all the things I want to take, with strict instructions to keep them to a minimum. Then she goes through the process of deciding whether one bag will be sufficient or whether we should have to take two separate cases. All very time consuming, that’s why she has to start a week before the departure date.

After she has finished I have a rummage through what she has packed. “Why do you want to take a box of salt?”. “And what’s this jar of Lemon Pickle doing here?”. ”Bananas!?”. All the contraband is removed.

After the final pack is completed I add the essentials: a box of Twinings Chai teabags, a jar of honey to sweeten my chai, a container of drinking chocolate for my bedtime drink, a box of coffee mate for the chocolate drink and finally a jar of peanut butter for breakfast - the absolute minimum essentials.


Click here to see today’s image - memories of wetter days

YesBut Passing moment, present moment

When I go out I carry a small digital camera with me. I’m not a good photographer because I miss the moment. As I walk along I see an image and think:

“That will make a good photo, YesBut”.

But that’s as far as it goes, I don’t convert the thought into action. If I was a goalkeeper I’d see the ball being kicked, but would stand still as it rolled by my feet into the goal.

If only I had stopped and taken the photo I would be a famous photographer by now. But invariably I see the image and walk on. Sometimes I would try to salvage the situation and go back, but “The moment” has past.

Same with topics for this blog. Have a thought in the middle of the night, instead of writing it down on a notepad, I scratch myself turnover and go back to sleep. Another literary masterpiece lost for ever!

Life is like that, a series of missed moments. The only comfort is the realisation if I had responded differently to any of those moments I wouldn’t be where I am now - and frankly I am very happy with this present moment typing this blog - its just as well that I am, because:

“Right here, right now things cannot be other than as they are”

Click here to see today’s image - a bridge to culture

YesBut’s carbon footprint.

“Those who tell us what we must do” say to stop global warming we must reduce our individual carbon footprint. This can be achieved through reducing our dependence on fossil fuel, by among other things installing loft and cavity wall insulation, double glazing windows, using low energy light bulbs and lowering the thermostat setting on central heating systems.

No one who has been in the UK the last month would deny the existence of global warming; some days the temperature has reached 23 ~ 26°C, over 10°C higher than the average for April.

April is normally the time when the number of central heating radiators in use are reduced but this year the heating system has been turned off completely since March. Some days widows have had to been opened to let in a cooling breeze. If the climatic trends continue, air conditioning will have to be installed. So the question arises, why install thermal insulation?

We arrogantly assume we are in control, we think we can manipulate and exploit nature. One day we will appreciate science does not provide all the answers, it has limitations and its exploitation can and does have detrimental consequences.

Despite humankind’s involuntary efforts at self-destruction, the time is approaching when the dominance of science will diminish. Then we will understand the benefits of having a balanced approach involving the arts, philosophy, spirituality and science.

I wish at the time of reading I had taken note of who wrote:

“The world does not need you or anyone else to manipulate and organize it.

It runs quite well by itself”.

Click here to see today’s image - they have other things on their mind

YseBut what’s the real news

Yesterday I wrote about the immanent departure of Tony Blair - firstly as leader of the Labour Party, and subsequently as soon as a new party leader is elected as Prime Minister.

Blair’s resignation announcement will become the main news story on the television and newspapers. But that will not truly be the main news story! After all it will not even be news - we have known it has been coming for over a year. What will be the true news? Well, answering that question is going to be the challenge.

It is anticipated that the Government will use the coverage of Blair’s resignation to sneak out bad news and announcements. The press are well aware of this, and the Government are well aware that the press are well aware. So it’s going to be a challenge for the Government to hide/camouflage the most embarrassing announcement, and for the press to identify it.

I anticipate the Government will try to hide the wood in the trees. On the day every Government Department will flood the news services with a combination of trivial announcements and hidden in the middle bad news.

Blair could make his announcement next Saturday, in order to dilute the undoubted disastrous news for the Government of the trouncing it will get at Thursday’s Local Elections and more importantly the Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly elections.

It’s going to be interesting times for British politics watchers. YesBut I’ll be too busy celebrating Blair’s departure to care.


Click here to see today’s image - more wood and trees