Sunday in Amsterdam

 

Week 4

We had to pick up some of Ben's stuff in Amsterdam, as he was leaving for South Africa and is sub-letting his apartment. We had to make room for the new person!

Ben took us "walkabout" as he usually does, this time to Westerpark - a round trip of about 8.5 kms. We stopped for some Chinese crepes and dim sims along the way. That was on the edge of the park and a stones throw from an old bridgekeepers cabin which has been made into a "hotel".

History of the park 

Westerpark was actually the first municipal park of Amsterdam, originally named Westerplantsoen (Western Garden). It was constructed in 1845 in this emerging working-class neighbourhood as a breath of fresh air from the industrial pollution of the growing city. In 1891 the garden was torn down to make room for the relocated Western Canal, and today’s Westerpark was born. Behind it still stands the old gasworks, the largest gas extraction plant of the Netherlands at the end of the 19th century, which closed down in 1967 after natural gas was discovered in the North Sea. 

Designed by renowned architect Isaac Gosschalk in popular Dutch neo-renaissance style, the thirteen remaining buildings of the gas plant were used as storage until they gained the status of national monuments in 1989. As new life was infused into the area by artists flocking to exhibit their work in the beautiful red bricked, uncannily symmetrical buildings, the municipality turned its attention to cleaning up the grounds which were heavily polluted with by-products of gas production: tar, cyanide and other mineral oils. It took years to rid the soil of the toxic substances, but envisioning a larger park made sense as the area was gaining in popularity, and the adjacent neighbourhoods of Spaarndammerbuurt and Staatsliedenbuurt, officially part of the ‘Westerpark’ neighbourhood, were gentrifying and developing a cultural life of their own. Museum Het Schip, a magnificent example of Amsterdamse School architecture, opened in 2001. 

I was more taken by the old gas works - one of the three huge storage tanks has been made into a music hall - the bases of the other two have been made into walking areas - walking on a (floating) wooden footpath made within the old tanks....you get to see just how big they are. The gas was used at first for street lighting and cooking.

Typical of the red brick buildings which have been preserved. Apparently, they were only saved from demolition because "squatters" had taken up residence and fought to keep them intact. 

It was all a bit drab due to our Covid Winter, but it was easy to imagine a very lively, enjoyable place during a normal summer.

This complex of late 19th-century industrial buildings in Westerpark was once the city’s gasworks, but after a complete redevelopment in 2003 it re-opened as a cultural complex, housing a selection of independent shops, galleries, trendy restaurants and interesting venues. The complex hosts a busy schedule of exhibitions, food markets, festivals and cultural events

Covid news...

Basically, everyone is resigned to having to "open up", but still with some basic restrictions of distancing and masking. There are still anti-vaxxers and "let's all get Covid" parties - thanks social media.

I'm trying to find where to buy the book "The Loop: How Technology is Creating a World Without Choices and How to Fight Back". I heard the author interviewed on Meet The Press - I was already concerned about being algorithmed, now I'm alarmed...I try to keep myself out of their clutches, but who knows, these days. One wouldn't knowingly allow oneself to be so manipulated...but that's the point, I guess.

Two separate podcasts this week had the same topic - fraudulent claiming of Covid Relief funds - an American estimate was around 100 Billion Dollars and a British one was around 20 Billion Pounds. It raised the question for me "What about the Netherlands"? I have to investigate a bit more, but my preliminary enquiry (to "She Who Knows Everything") revealed that "yes, the Government are trying to get back at least some funds from people who ended up not really needing it". Does that count as fraud?. In England the reporter said that "people set up businesses, trousered the money, and then went AWOL". 

In the Netherlands, money was only given to businesses more than 5 years old (apparently), so at least there was not that element of fraud.

I, for one, was just thankful that we were helped out to the degree that we were.

I was really worried when it first became obvious that we couldn't have any clients. 

I suppose there was fraud, but I just shake my head at the thought of it...

There are also plenty of warnings about fraud against individuals - on the increase during the Covis crisis - I shake my head at this one, as well!!

Around the farm...

Tjeerd and I finished off the last of 17 lamps that we had to replace. One of the "things" that burnt, unravelled or exploded had actually blown a small hole in one of the plastic covers!

We're just about all LED now - as far as I can tell.

I've been trying to figure out why they deteriorated so badly. Apparently they were not crucial to the operation of the lamps, which is why they (the lamps) kept working. The best that I can come up with is a lightning strike that we had about 10 years ago - it fried our fire alarm panel and a few other electrical items - all of which we were able to claim on insurance. 

Last of the boat bits...

One of the clients has been sanding the navigation lamps. I'm finally going to paint them all over - red and green respectively - and not use the oil that I have been using on the doors and mast. Not sure of the "look" when they are mounted, but they should weather better than the varnish (and I won't have to do them so often!).

More vogelhokjes (bird houses)...

One of our neighbours who used to work for us had some wood left over and asked for some bird boxes...

It keeps me out of the way for a while...

We had to replace the glass in our large wood heater out the back. I was able to order the glass on Thursday, it arrived on Saturday and was in place by Saturday evening - we have kids this weekend, so I had to wait for the fire to go out. Luckily, there was only one "frozen" screw (there's always at least one!) - but I could slide the new glass behind the bracket.

Just when we thought...

We've had a few new day clients and we had started to wonder if we could do without our handful of kids - just to get more free weekends during the summer. 

The Youth Protection Services have made it increasingly difficult to meet their stringent rules and demands - so much so that we are one of only a few places that are still providing sleeping accommodation for the kids in Friesland. We're reluctant to stop it for that reason alone.

But, we had to say "no" to one of our new adults - Janny is good at things like that i.e. seeing the problems and dealing with it in a timely manner. It would have been too disruptive for our existing group - and a bit out of our scope.

...and then, within a couple of days, we got requests for three more kids! So much for that idea...

The ongoing gas crisis...

Another podcast (I do a lot of listening while I'm out walking) went through the history of Europe's gas arrangements with Russia. It's more than 50 years now - a lot of the agreements and rules were negotiated by the Dutch. I think the notion of any "agreement" has gone out the window now that Russia has reduced the supply (presumably part of the Ukraine strategy). Although, a spokesperson for Gazprom says that they are still meeting their contractual obligations - yeah, right.

The podcast said that the price of gas has gone up eightfold since 2020!. My calculations for here comes out at about 3 1/2 times - but I suspect that the Netherlands price may have been higher to start off with. There is a high (Netherlands) tax/tarriff which was designed to encourage people to seek alternatives - this has now been reduced in order to help people experiencing the current "Cost of Living Crisis".

There was also a TV news story a couple of weeks ago about a Netherlands Aluminium Smelter having to close because of the cost of the gas!

Today's News

Says that the average price is now €2.24 m3

Momenteel betreft de gasprijs gemiddeld 2,24 euro per m3.

There has been a reduction in the wholesale price of gas partly because of news about trying to get supplies of LNG.

Suppliers of LNG (including Australia and Qatar) are at full capacity but maybe some of the ships can be re-routed to Europe (because of the milder winter in parts of Asia).

Dit tarief is inclusief energiebelasting, ODE en BTW. Sinds 23 december 2021 is er een daling te zien bij de inkoopprijzen van gas op de groothandelsmarkt. Dit heeft te maken met het nieuws over schepen die met grote ladingen gas richting Europa varen.

From nu.nl (translated by Google) (nu.nl is a good news site IMHO)

Qatar is one of the largest producers of LNG in the world. The Gulf state sells the vast majority of its LNG to Asian countries, but about 5 percent of Qatar's gas goes to Europe.

The administration of US President Joe Biden is now in talks with Qatar about increased supplies to Europe if gas supplies from Russia were to fall or be disrupted by a Russian invasion of Ukraine.

The talks between the US and Qatar may serve as leverage to persuade Europe to join the sanctions the US envisions to punish Russia in the event of an invasion.

Russia accounts for more than 40 percent of Europe's gas supply and about a third of that gas is transported via pipelines through Ukraine. As a result, there are major concerns in Europe about gas shortages. Moscow could also turn off the gas tap to Europe if harsh Western sanctions are imposed.

Households stay out of harm's way for as long as possible

In the Netherlands, we have the so-called Gas Protection and Recovery Plan, which describes what must be done in a crisis situation. Energy infrastructure manager Gasunie will issue a signal, warning or alarm at an early stage, a spokesperson explains.

In a real emergency situation, a so-called ladder of measures is used. This starts with a general call for a reduction in natural gas consumption, but can quickly progress to a forced fuel switch by industry to the shutdown of entire regions. Households are protected customers and will remain out of harm's way for as long as possible.

In such an emergency, you actually have a problem all over Europe. As a result, not only our government and Gasunie are taking action, but also emergency scenarios from, among others, ENTSOG (the European network of transmission system operators) come into effect. "Agreements have been made in Europe about mutual solidarity. It will therefore not be the case that there will be a gas shortage in the Netherlands, but not elsewhere," says Van den Beukel.