Magnetic Crane Grab

What else would you leave behind when closing down a factory that clearly was rolling steel plate? A crane with magnetic grabs. Because who would you sell it to?

The X-Bow, Amsterdam

This is the Polarcus Nadia, an oceanographic ship currently laid up at Amsterdam. That weird bow - roughly the reverse of the shape the bow "should" be - is called an Ulstein X-Bow. It's supposed to make the vessel much more stable, stop it hammering up and down in heavier seas, and thus let the crew get more rest. I thought it was an icebreaker at first, but what the frak do I know about ships?

What A Suburban Railway Station Should Look LIke

This is what a suburban railway station should look like. Notice that the track and the trackside are clear of weeds. Nor has it any litter. The surfaces are clean. There are no tacky advertisements - though there are a couple of small covered billboards by the entrance.

It's in the Netherlands, outside Utrecht. It belongs to the Dutch national railway company.

Why can't UK railway companies keep their tracks clean and weed-free?

No profit in cleanliness. And no pride to do it just because.

More Zandvoort

 

Like I said: I like beaches. And I didn't have two deserts: the pannacotta looked delicious and I'm sure you will love it, but it has ameretto in the sponge, so it's a no-no for me. Hence the apple pie. I'm surprised at how understanding cafes are when I ask them if it has alcohol and then say I can't have it. I should and usually do ask, but sometimes there are fringe cases, of which pannacotta is one.

These were touched up and levelled out using Pictures for the first time. Haven't quite got the workflow down pat, but it's getting there. I have cheated in two and removed a flagpole. And I tried the panorama function on my Lumix DMC-TZ 40 for the first time (I'm a Late Adopter).

ZOUT - Zandvoort

Spent the weekend over in the Netherlands, and have been Python-ing again. This was where I went after arriving at Schipol. When I arrived the sky was overcast, but I'm a believer, and within an hour it looked like this.

I like beaches. If only the good ones weren't so darn far away.

Four Days in the Netherlands: A Walk Round Utrecht

Utrecht has a university, where Nobel Prizewinner Gerard t’Hooft is a professor, and a number of parks and canals which make a very pleasant circular walk to pass the middle of Sunday, stopping at the Louis Hartlooper Complex for lunch and returning via the town centre.

Four Days in the Netherlands: The Amsterdam-Rhine Canal

The Netherlands is about canals. These are not cute, narrow English canals with houseboats that used to carry a few tons of china clay, salt or pottery about the place. These are wide and deep and look more like rivers and very large specialised low cargo ships with big engines and the Captain’s 4x4 on the roof and a couple of hundred tons of something bulky, proceeding at a decent clip. These are serious industrial canals for a serious industrial economy.

The top two photographs are of the same freighter. That's how big those things are.

The canal is on the right of the train (going away from Amsterdam) until a few miles outside Utrecht when it turns south towards the Rhine. So that's a canal in the bottom photograph, not an actual river.

Four Days in the Netherlands: Amsterdam

Lunch at the Cafe American on the Liedesplein, then to the Art Unlimited postcard shop on the Liedestraat, just by the bridge over the Prinsengracht, and then I forgot to take pictures. Except the one with the girls in the window. Amsterdam manages to be at once in a time warp and up-to-date and I’m not quote sure how they do it. Possibly by not allowing anyone to build anything new in the Centruum at all. Next time, I’ll know what to look for.

Four Days In The Netherlands: Rijksmuseum

The first time we tried to visit the Rijksmuseum last year, soon after it reopened, the queues were up the stairs and along the block. We passed. This time I had to wait about five minutes to buy a ticket. (I remind my readers that the National and Tate Galleries are free.) There were people taking photographs of the paintings, but you already know what all the Vermeers look like, and the Nightwatch (Rembrandt), and the Meagre Company (Hals) and the Swan and all that other stuff. So I took pictures of anything but the paintings.