Most Recent - Next - Previous - Page 1 - Photos - Index - Topics - Jazclass Links Tuesday April 1, 2008 (history, bio, diary) As children we used to chant : On April 1 (the Spanish Duke of) Alva lost his "glasses" In Dutch "bril" means (eye) glasses, but the rhyme is a pun on Den Briel ("Brielle" on the map, 25km W of Rotterdam), the second city the Spanish lost 400 years ago in our 80 Year War with that country. The conquest to free our country from the Roman Catholic Spanish was led by William of Orange who later became the first Dutch King. His dynasty has continued to this day as one of his ancestors Queen Beatrix rules our country now.
William's initial Kingdom consisted of the two coastal provinces North and South Holland only. This is why our country is still often called after them ("Holland"). Gradually 9 other provinces joined the new Kingdom : Groningen, Friesland, Drenthe, Overijssel, Gelderland (where I come from), Utrecht, Brabant, Zeeland and Limburg. Our country The Netherlands ("the low countries", "De Lage Landen", "Les Pays-Bas", "Die Niederlande") therefore now consists of 11 provinces in total. (Note that the pink on the map are the areas below sea level.) Today in Darwin is a lovely day again. I see my GP who recommends I just rest the shoulder and see how things improve, which they are doing already. Lunch at Bar Zushi where I take some photos, then to Stokes Hill Wharf for a coffee and my midday read of "The Selfish Gene" (fascinating). I enroll for a Photoshop Course at the Seniors College. Their third term starts early August, which is great because I am then just back from Europe.
I also contact the Darwin Repertory Club and offer my (free) services as
improvisor over any play or reading they may perform when I get back. They seem
enthusiastic about the idea. I much prefer to play in a situation where people
actually listen too your music rather then providing just background music. Also
creating improvised musical support for a play or reading is always challenging
and much more interesting than going through the good old repertoire each
time.
Most Recent - Next - Previous - Top - Page 1 - Photos - Index - Topics - Jazclass Links Wednesday April 2, 2008 (awareness, bio)
Awareness 11 continues from March 22
Living in Europe however (I suspect and feel when I am there) can be a
bit of an awareness trap. You virtually live within a time box, its walls
consisting of the extend of Western culture, only a few millennia old. I find it
very hard to think beyond these dimensions on that Continent, and therefore largely miss the 4th
level of my awareness when I am there.
For anybody who has not had the experience and comparison of both the European
and Outback Australian environments it may be hard to imagine what it feels
like.
PS Most Recent - Next - Previous - Top - Page 1 - Photos - Index - Topics - Jazclass Links Thursday April 3, 2008 (diary) Yesterday I moved to a friend's place, Paul Hedrick from the Arafura Bridge Club. We always get on well and he generously offered me a room before my departure to Germany. This gives my son Jeroen and his partner Lisa the privacy they should have while going through their somewhat traumatic process of an IVF program.
For dinner I drive to the Palmerston Hub Club, where I play a weekly bridge competition with Freda, one of my bridge partners. The organiser, Betty Mills, is there already. She is a few years older than me, still very active and a life time bridge enthusiast who still travels each year to numerous tournaments throughout Australia and New Zealand. She is glad to see me again and we have dinner together before getting things organised for the evening. Many members are away at present so we have only two and a half tables, but the evening is most enjoyable all the same. After a final drink I return home at about midnight.
I had not received any reply from the Hotel Zum Schwarzen Kreuz in Altenahr in the Ahr valley. So Wivica phoned them and booked on my behalf for 7 nights there (April 20-26). Sounds like a great deal. Only Euro 33 per night for a single room with shower, toilet, TV and including breakfast and a 3 course dinner. The Hotel is recommended in the Lonely Planet Guide and I trust them to give good advise. Most Recent - Next - Previous - Top - Page 1 - Photos - Index - Topics - Jazclass Links Friday April 4, 2008 (diary) Dry in the morning but some heavy showers in the afternoon. After my Bar Zushi lunch I drive to my bank in Coolalinga to transfer some money to Germany and get some cash. I pick up the mail from my Virginia PO Box. It includes my new tencel jeans from the Outrigger Mens shop in Mooloolaba which fit well (thank you Prue). At the mango farm where I camped everybody is working, so I can't help but join Andrew briefly with a paint brush. Margaret and Brian are cleaning the tiles inside the new house, now almost ready for grouting, and David Jones is riding the lawn mower around the property cutting the grass underneath the mango trees. It is a happy gang, in due course to be expanded by a few more friends. I will probably be the last one back on the farm on August 1.
Back at my host's home Paul has cooked dinner tonight, grilled snapper using various herbs, which is quite delicious. I am in bed early with two new books I bought, Jane Austen's "Pride and Prejudice" and "The Woodlanders" by Thomas Hardy. I just love the way these two authors write. Their language is so flowing and beautiful. Good relaxation reading for in between the heavier stuff.
Most Recent - Next - Previous - Top - Page 1 - Photos - Index - Topics - Jazclass Links Saturday April 5, 2008 (diary, food, concept, history)
There is an enormous lag time between new ideas and discoveries being made and
the acceptance of them and their logical consequences by the general public.
It is great to have these new ideas presented in readable form by authors
like Brian Greene, Richard Dawkins and others. This hopefully will help
to speed up the process of "raising the consciousness" (Dawkins) of
humanity to a level in line with the reality of modern discoveries and
thinking. Still I imagine it will take hundreds of years to shed our old belief
systems (so embedded in our cultures) and become truly modern
humans.
Failing to do so can have its consequences, as I read in Geoffrey Blainey's A
Short History of the World. The Chinese culture was for thousands of years
well up with, if not in front of, the Western culture. However their largely
inward looking focus kept them chained to the old belief that the earth was
flat until into the 1500s. This put them way behind the West which had shed
this idea decisively well before that time. Columbus and others tested and
proved the round earth theory and in the process discovered and conquered
the World.
Copyright © 2008 Michael Furstner
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