Meanwhile, back in the Netherlands...

You may be surprised to hear, but I was not washed away by the 10 metre high waves that battered the Netherlands last week. Nor have I been abducted by aliens. In fact, there are no really good excuses for the neglect of my blog. The fact that my computer utterly died did not help, and the fact that I have got a bit addicted to Facebook in the meantime (yes, me and half the planet it seems - I am definitely not an early adopter!!) have both contributed, but it has more to do with that thing - once you drop a habit, it is hard to get started again.

Anyway, I am going to ease my way back in to it today with a couple of short news items from the Netherlands.

The first is that I have discovered a new sport. Korfbal is a ball game similar to netball in which men and women play alongside each other - a team consists of four men and four women. Korfbal was invented by Dutch schoolteacher Nico Broekhuysen, who adapted a game he saw
in Sweden in 1902 - replacing the hoop with a basket (korf).

Anyway, the Netherlands took the world korfbal title for the seventh time on Saturday, beating Belgium in the final 23-10. The competition is held every four years. Of the eight world korfbal title fights to date, the Netherlands and Belgium have met in every final. Belgium won once, in 1991.

The second is courtesy of Dutch News, which reports that "the latest issue of weekly magazine
HP/DeTijd explores what it identifies as a shift to the right among gay men in the Netherlands.
Homosexuals, apparently, have had enough of the too tolerant left not doing enough to combat gay-bashing by immigrant youth. Research this summer shows that gay men are far more likely to vote for the free-market Liberals VVD [who are also outspoken on immigration issues SR] - 21.5% as opposed to 15% in the population at large. And support for left-of-centre parties as a whole has fallen among the gay population from 65% in 1998 to 41% this year."

The report does not carry sample size or other such information to really be able to analyse this story in any depth, but it is an interesting insight in to a broader social debate and attitude in the Netherlands right now. Actually, this is not a debate confined to the Netherlands, and it is not really a new phenomenon - fear of different people, or foreigners, has a much longer history. I think for me it is always just a surprise here in the Netherlands. It certainly challenges that international stereotype of a tolerant society. But that is another whole posting...