Martin Fone's Blog, page 250
September 6, 2018
You’re Having A Laugh – Part Fifteen
The Swedish colour TV hoax, 1962
The younger generations, by which I mean anyone under the age of fifty, look at us oldies with faint amusement and ill-disguised incredulity when we bang on about living in an era when there were few television channels to choose from and programmes were in unremitting black and white, the only time we welcomed varying shades of grey into our lives.
At least here in Britain in the early 1960s we had the luxury of two channels to choose from, the good old Beeb and its slightly racier rival, ITV. In Sweden they only had one channel, provided by SVT or, to give it its full name, Sveriges Television. Yes, you’ve guessed it, its entire output at the time was in black and white, mirroring perfectly the outside conditions encountered in the depths of a Swedish midwinter.
On 1st April 1962, though, SVT introduced a programme that would make their loyal viewers sit up and take note. Their technical expert, Kjell Stensson, would address the nation and tell them how they could convert the flickering black and white images on their goggleboxes into glorious technicolour. You can imagine the frisson of excitement that the continuity announcer’s pronouncement caused throughout the land.
Stensson duly addressed the nation but the early part of his spiel was as dull as ditch water, banging on about prismatic nature of light and double slit interference. I’m sure many gave up the ghost at that point, switched their set off and contemplated the fire burning in their hearths – now that would make a great TV programme.
Those who were made of sterner stuff saw Stensson bring home the bacon in some style. He revealed that researchers had made an astonishing discovery that would enable the pictures displayed on their screens burst into colour. And it was a very simple procedure which required little effort or, for that matter, financial investment on the part of the viewer. All they had to do was place a fine-meshed screen in front of the television.
And what’s more, nylon stockings were absolutely perfect for the job. Viewers were encouraged to grab a pair and tape them to their TV screen. String vests wouldn’t do as their apertures were too large.
Those who followed Stensson’s instructions may have been perplexed at first by the lack of colour. They were exhorted to experiment by moving backwards from and forwards to the screen because the distance the viewer was away from the screen was absolutely crucial. As was the angle of your head. Viewers were encouraged to move their heads up and down to ensure that they were seeing the full spectrum of colours.
Stensson signed off by telling his audience that the experiment was still in its early stages and that they should write in to let him know how they got on. He also revealed that the television industry were beavering away, developing a frame with tightening screws which could easily be fitted to the screen – “in very pleasing designs”, natch – to make the transformation permanent.
Thousands admitted to being taken in by the ingenious hoax and, doubtless, hundreds of Swedish women were surprised to be parted from their fine-mesh nylon stockings. Others, though, saw the relevance of the date of the announcement.
It wasn’t until 1966 that SVT started experimenting with colour transmissions and colour broadcasting began in earnest, sans nylons, on the eighth anniversary of Stensson’s hoax.
On 1st April 2004 Swedish newspaper, Dagens Nyheter, ran a reprise of the TV hoax, updated for the modern generation, informing their readers that if they shook their GSM mobile phones vigorously enough they would magically convert into the then state-of-the-art 3G phones.
A pale imitation of the original, methinks.
September 5, 2018
Book Corner – September 2018 (1)
East of Eden – John Steinbeck
Published in 1952, this was the book that Steinbeck was building up through his career to write, or so he claimed. He wanted to describe the rich farmland country that is California’s Salinas Valley for his two sons, to whom the book is dedicated, and the most empathetic character, the Irish dreamer and fount of knowledge, Samuel Hamilton, is based on his maternal grandfather. The narrator of the story, as we slowly start to realise as the novel progresses, is the youthful author himself.
It is a sprawling novel, brutally realistic at times but with moments of comedy, illuminated by Steinbeck’s taut writing style. Taking its title from Genesis 4.16 – and Cain went out from the presence of the Lord, and dwelt in the Land of Nod, on the east of Eden – on one level it explores how the intertwined destinies of the Trasks and the Hamiltons mirror those of Cain and Abel.
The book is littered with biblical allusions. The names of all the major protagonists begin with either a C or an A – Charles and Adam, Caleb and Aron, Cathy Ames and Abra. Cain was a “worker of the ground” and Charles is a farmer and Caleb makes a small fortune by speculating in bean crops. Abel is a “keeper of sheep” whilst Aron trains to be a shepherd of human flocks by training to be a priest. God rejected Cain’s gift, leading him to kill Abel. Cyrus rejects Charles’ gift, provoking his son to launch a near-murderous attack on his brother Adam, while a generation later Adam rejects Cal’s gift of money as tainted from exploiting people’s needs and urges him to follow Aron’s example. Following his rejection, Caleb reveals to Aron that their mother is a prostitute, a revelation which unhinges Aron who then goes off to fight in the First World War and is killed.
There are many more parallels but it would be wrong to see the book purely as a re-run of the Cain and Abel in an American setting. It is about rejection and whether we can be really certain that someone loves us, even someone we think is close to us. It also explores an idea that has fascinated many a writer from the time of the great Athenian tragedians onwards – whether humans have free will to make their own decisions and take their own course of action.
Perhaps Steinbeck sums the philosophy, or perhaps theosophy, that runs through the book in this paragraph; “I believe that there is one story in the world, and only one. . . . Humans are caught—in their lives, in their thoughts, in their hungers and ambitions, in their avarice and cruelty, and in their kindness and generosity too—in a net of good and evil. .” The key to understanding the book is the Hebrew word, timshel, which means thou mayest. After the murder of Abel, God speculates whether Cain will overcome sin. The word he uses is timshel, mistranslated in the King James version of the Bible and other subsequent editions as thou shall. In Steinbeck’s world, man has the ability to choose a path between good and evil. His ability to overcome evil is not pre-ordained.
Literature is full of femme fatales and Cathy Ames, the mother of Caleb and Aron, is right up there as one of the worst monsters. Indeed, she is described as a monster when Steinbeck introduces her and her malevolent influence shapes the saga. The most fascinating character, I thought, was the Chinese servant, Lee, whose diligent researches unlocked the key to timshel and who, with Samuel Hamilton, knocks some sense into Adam Trask.
Despite its somewhat heavy subject matter, it is a fast and entertaining read. Thought-provoking and entertaining is a powerful combination.
September 4, 2018
A La Mode – Part Nine
Crakows or Poulaines
Do you remember winklepickers, the fashion accessory of choice of rockers in the late 1950s and 1960s? The shoes had long pointed toes and there was a joke, or what passed as a joke, which did the rounds at the time which went something like this; “Policeman: do your toes reach the end of your shoes, sonny? Youth: does your head reach the top of your helmet?” Collapse of stout parties.
Long pointed shoes have a long history, first making their appearance as far back as the 12th century, initially in Poland. They were known as crakows or poulaines, the latter term meaning shoes in the Polish fashion. Their principal feature was a long pointed tip, often half the length of the shoe. The richer members of society wore even longer tips to show off their wealth and in order to keep their shape they were stuffed with material such as moss. Further reinforcement was provided by pattens which were a sort of overshoe made from leather or cork.
Bonkers they may have been but they were wildly popular amongst the fashion conscious, even reaching the backwaters that were mediaeval England by the mid 14th century. The anonymous author of Eulogium Historiarum, dating from around 1360, complained of English men wearing “points on their shoes as long as your finger that are called crakowes; more suitable as claws… for demons than as ornaments for men.”
The height of fashion they may have been but practical they were not. The difficulties crakows presented the wearer in simply getting around were manna from heaven for those who took a dim view of the dedicated followers of fashion of the time. An anonymous monk from Evesham fumed in 1394 about “those accursed vices half a yard in length, thus it was necessary for them to be tied to the shin with chains of silver before they could walk with them.” An English poem dating to 1388 noted that the length of the toes on crakows made it difficult for men to kneel in prayer, and that just wouldn’t do.
Even more bizarrely, the best dressed knights also sported lengthy poulaines. They may have cut a dash on the parade ground and the jousting lists but in the heat of battle they proved a tad impractical. Swiss chroniclers report that during the Battle of Sempach in 1386, a decisive victory for the Swiss over the Austrian troops of Leopold III, the Austrian knights had to dismount and were forced to cut off the tips of their poulaines so that they could manoeuvre on foot. A huge pile of poulaines were found after the battle and they make a surprising background in an illustration of the battle in the Lucerne Chronicle of 1513.
Despite all the challenges they posed to the wearer, crakows reached the height of their popularity in the third quarter of the 15th century. They were worn outdoors as well as indoors, by women as well as men, but by then the length of the tip had settled down to around 50% of the shoe.
But their time in the sun was soon to be over. In 1463 Edward IV passed a law forbidding anyone, other than a gentleman, from wearing poulaines longer than two inches and two years later, banned them altogether, limiting the point to just two inches. Almost a century earlier, in 1368, Charles V of France had a go at halting the tide of fashion by banning their use and manufacture in Paris, but to no avail. Official strictures, ridicule and the fickleness of fashion eventually saw them falling out of favour in the 16th century.
Until the 1950s, that is.
September 3, 2018
There Ain’t ‘Alf Some Clever Bastards – Part Eighty Three
Martha Coston (1826 – 1904)
For a century or more the Coston flare system was the usual way by which ships could communicate with the shoreline and vice versa. Indeed, its use was a requirement of marine insurers. The signals were produced in the form of cartridges which were fired into the air from a signal-pistol. There were three colours, white, red, and blue, and by sequencing them a rudimentary form of messaging, akin to semaphore but one that could be used at night, was developed. The light emanating from the pistol was so bright that the signaller was advised not to look at it. The point, of course, was that it could be seen from a distance.
So whose brainwave was it?
Step forward, Martha Coston, the latest inductee into our illustrious Hall of Fame. Her tale is one of triumph over adversity. If being widowed at the age of 21 in 1848 with four children to look after was not enough, further misfortune befell her when two of her children and her mother died shortly afterwards. She needed to find a way of supporting herself.
Going through her deceased husband’s papers, Martha found that he had been working on a system for signalling at night. Benjamin’s papers consisted of plans and chemical formulae and whilst there was a kernel of an idea, a lot of work would be needed to bring it to reality. Indeed, it took ten years of hard work for Martha to create a workable system. As she wrote, “The men I employed and dismissed, the experiments I made myself, the frauds that were practiced upon me, almost disheartened me; but … I treasured up each little step that was made in the right direction, the hints of naval officers, and the opinions of the different boards that gave the signals a trial. I had finally succeeded in getting a pure white and a vivid red light.”
Needing a third colour, the breakthrough came when she was watching a fireworks display in New York City to celebrate the completion of the transatlantic telegraph cable in 1858. The blue fireworks were particularly luminous and visible – a blue flare would complete her system. On 5th April 1859 a patent, number 23,536, was granted for a night signalling system. Sadly for Martha, the inventor on the patent was named as Benjamin, her involvement being relegated to that of administratrix of her husband’s estate.
The US Navy were interested in the flare system and placed an order for $6,000 worth of flares from the Coston Manufacturing Company, which Martha had established. She then went on an extended tour of Europe, getting patents for her invention in England, France, Italy, Denmark and the Netherlands. Returning to the US in 1861 at the outbreak of the Civil War, Martha persuaded Congress to buy the US Patent to her invention but they were only prepared to pay $20,000 rather than the $40,000 she wanted.
The US Navy used the Coston flare system extensively during the conflict and they were particularly key in coordinating efforts in the battle of Fort Fisher in 1865 and spotting blockade runners. The Coston Manufacturing Company were knocking the flares at less than cost price and after the war, Martha calculated that the government owed her $120,000 in compensation. With some reluctance, they offered her a measly $15,000.
In 1871, Martha was awarded a US patent in her own right, number 115,935, for improvements to the night signalling system and by the mid 1870s all the US Life Saving Service stations were equipped with Coston flares. Martha also sold her signals to navies, shipping companies and yacht clubs around the world.
Business boomed until the adoption of ship radios. But Martha said she always had to be “ready to fight like a lioness” against chauvinism, prejudice and attempts to rip her off. She persevered and for this is a worthy inductee into our Hall of Fame. Indeed, her presence lights it up, you might say.
If you enjoyed this, why not try Fifty Clever Bastards by Martin Fone which is now available on Amazon in Kindle format and paperback. For details follow the link https://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=fifty+clever+bastards
For more enquiring minds, try Fifty Curious Questions by Martin Fone
September 2, 2018
Stunt Of The Week (4)
What do you do when you’ve got time on your hands and fifteen eggs?
Well, according to Dutch Magazine for Healthcare, an unnamed 29-year-old man from the Netherlands came up with a novel idea.
He took the eggs out of the container and placed them in a pan of water, bringing it slowly to the boil. After four or five minutes – I guess they had to be hard-boiled – he took them out of the pan and removed the shells.
And then he proceeded to insert them, one by one, up his rectum.
In case you are tempted to emulate him, you may be interested in what happened next.
He began to feel unwell and took himself to the local hospital where he was discovered to have a heart rate of 120 beats a minute, a perforated pelvic colon and enormous amounts of air and fluids in his abdominal cavity. The medics performed an emergency laparotomy, essentially cutting through the abdominal wall to access the cavity, the eggs were removed “as well as they could” and his cavity was rinsed thoroughly.
After a short stay in intensive care he was well enough to be discharged a few days later.
A good book and an omelette next time, methinks!
September 1, 2018
Toilet Of The Week (17)
I noted last week how here in Blighty our cash-strapped local authorities are closing public toilets like nobody’s business to the great inconvenience of all, no more so than in Cornwall.
Still there is an upside.
If you are looking for a single storey building, in a great position just a few paces or so away from Newlyn’s picturesque harbour, where you can enjoy fantastic views over the village and Mounts Bay on a clear day, then look no further.
The building, 7.5 metres long and 4 metres wide, is one of 155 lots being sold in auction on 13th September. Of course, it was Newlyn’s only public bog, the property specification revealing that it boasts “male and female facilities, each with a store room.” What’s more, according to the agents, it “offers potential for residential or commercial use incorporating perhaps upward extension or total replacement,” assuming you can get the necessary permissions.
There is no chain (natch) and it could be all yours, if you are feeling flush, for around 15 grand. What’s not to like?
While we are on the subject, I learned this week that the some of the uritrottoirs installed in Paris have been targetted by feminist protesters, claiming that they are discriminatory. It is encouraging men to unzip in public, they say, in a city where it is still frowned upon to breastfeed in public.
I think this will run and run, which is more than the two uritrottoirs on the Île Saint-Louis and the one near Gare de Lyon station will do. The protesters, after daubing them with stained sanitary towels, blocked them with concrete.
August 31, 2018
What Is The Origin Of (195)?…
A dark horse
We use this phrase figuratively to describe someone who has won unexpectedly or has displayed previously unknown or well-hidden talents.
I enjoy occasionally going to horse races. There is something thrilling and deeply fascinating about seeing magnificent beasts in prime condition battling it out for a prize. I’m not much of a student of equestrian form, more of a pin sticker or one who is attracted to a name. My last excursion to the bookies, for the 2018 Grand National, saw me walk away with a handsome profit – a case of luck triumphing over judgment.
A regular sight in pubs until fairly recently were sad old men hunched over their pint, frantically poring over the pages of the Sporting Life. This was enough to convince me that the sport of kings and rigorous analysis were uneasy bed fellows. After all, there are too many imponderables – equine or human error, the ground conditions and, dare I say it, the suspicion that forces unknown can have an influence on the outcome.
And then there is always the dark horse – the horse that was little fancied but which ran the race of its life to upset the punters’ and bookmakers’ calculations. Almost certainly our phrase originates from the world of horse racing. It first appeared in print in a sporting context in Benjamin Disraeli’s The Young Duke, published in 1831 to finance his grand tour around the Mediterranean; “a dark horse, which had never been thought of, and which the careless St. James had never even observed in the list, rushed past the grand stand in sweeping triumph.”
Following up closely, perhaps a furlong behind, is this reference in Pierce Egan’s Book of Sports, published in 1832; “Moonraker is called a dark horse; that is neither his sire nor dam is known.” The inability to ascertain the horse’s pedigree meant that it was difficult to assess how it was going to perform and to determine what odds it should attract.
Stories abound of unscrupulous racehorse owners visiting towns on race day and entering their heavily disguised thoroughbred in a race in the hope of obtaining more favourable odds and thus scooping a bigger pot. This may well have happened and may even be the source, at least in everyday parlance, of the phrase. We cannot tell but Disraeli’s and Egan’s usage clearly root it in the world of horse racing. I don’t think we need to take dark as necessarily referring to colouration. Dark as in secret or hidden is just as apposite.
By the 1840s the phrase was being used in American politics, specifically to describe James Polk who broke the stalemate between Van Buren and Lewis Cass to win the nomination of the Democratic Party for the Presidency in 1844 on the ninth ballot. In 1893 the Wall Street Journal, commenting on the Democratic national convention, observed “Cool-headed leaders say the convention may last over Sunday barring a stampede for a dark horse.”
The phrase was also used to describe academic preferment; “A Headship … often given by the College conclaves to a man who has judiciously kept himself dark” noted the Saturday Review in 1860. In 1865 Sketches from Cambridge reported, “Every now and then a dark horse is heard of, who is supposed to have done wonders at some obscure small college.”
These days the phrase has a much broader application but the sense is still the same.
August 30, 2018
Gin o’Clock – Part Forty Six
Although my taste is firmly rooted in the more traditional style London dry gin, I have not given up on the more contemporary styles and am more than willing to give those that catch my eye a go. One that I regularly see on the gin lists of pubs that are trying to catch the ginaissance wave by going beyond Beefeater and Gordon’s is Brockmans Intensely Smooth Premium Gin which is distilled on behalf of its owners in a copper still in Warrington by our old friends, G & J Greenall’s Distillery.
The name has a lot to live up and the marketing strap chosen by owners , Neil Everitt and Bob Fowkes and their two unnamed friends, “Like No Other” seems a bit too much like a hostage to fortune in waiting for my liking. The bottle is certainly striking, being dark, shaped like a decanter or a port bottle, and has a screw cap. The label is classy with Brockmans in white, Intensely Smooth in silver lettering and Premium Gin and a sprig of botanicals in red. It may be my eye sight but the red seemed to have got a bit lost. There is an indented B in the bottle just below the neck.
The gin was launched in 2008 and has become one of the fastest growing gin brands in the world and available now in over 30 countries. It must have something going for it.
The base of the gin is a 100% neutral grain spirit to which is added eleven botanicals – juniper, blueberries, almonds, blackberries, liquorice, lemon peel, coriander, angelica, orange peel, orris root and cassia bark. As you can readily detect from the list of ingredients, what makes this drink stand out from the crowd are the blackberries and the blueberries. And therein lies the rub.
It would be no understatement to say that Brockmans has split the gin drinking community down the middle, leading some to question whether it really is gin. The problem, if you consider it to be so, is that the traditional flavours that we unquestionably associate with a gin, the heady hit of juniper with its piney taste and the traditional spice and peppery notes are usurped by the smell and taste of the berries. As soon as you unscrew the top, your nostrils are assaulted by the smell of the fruits, making it seem more like a cordial than a gin.
It is a very, nay intensely, smooth spirit, easy to drink and the berries make it refreshing but, for my taste, they are overpowering. The juniper and traditional gin notes do put up a valiant fight to make their presence known as you roll the liquid in the mouth but eventually give up the ghost, leaving the berries to linger in the prolonged aftertaste. It is far from unpleasant and on a warm summer’s day when you want something on the fruity side to pep up your taste buds rather than the more spicy, acerbic hit of the more traditional juniper heavy gin, then this may well be one to go for.
But for the dyed in the wool traditional gin lover, this is just a step too far. It would seem to me to be a gin for those who don’t like gin. It is certainly like no other.
Until the next time, cheers!
August 29, 2018
Book Corner – August 2018 (3)
The Spoils of Poynton – Henry James
Published in 1896, by James’ standards this is a short book, running to about 250 pages. The unkind critic might argue that it could all be boiled down to a short story of around twenty to thirty pages but Henry James wouldn’t be Henry James if he didn’t use 5,000 words where a hundred would do and sentences that positively creak under the weight of subordinate clauses.
The Spoils of Poynton, according to Jamesians, is the transition point between his early and later styles and there is certainly something of the theatrical in its construction. There are relatively few characters, five of whom only four really play prominent parts in the drama. The action, such as it is, is episodic, staged in set pieces. James was unsuccessful as a playwright and used some of the techniques of crafting a stage drama in constructing the novel.
As often is the way with novels of the later Victorian era, the Spoils of Poynton is much ado about relatively little. In essence, Mrs Gereth has filled her house, Poynton, with furnishings, tapestries, paintings, objects d’art, of which she is inordinately proud. The death of her husband means that the ownership of these artefacts falls to her son, Owen, to do with as he pleases. Owen is engaged to be married to Mona Brigstock who doesn’t share her appreciation of the finer things in life. What tension there is in the book revolves around the battle of wills between Mesdames Gereth and Brigstock, the artefacts being the spoils of the battle.
The character with one of the most ludicrous names in English literature, Fleda Vetch, is initially Mrs Gereth’s willing conspirator and develops what are termed as feelings for Owen. But she will not steal the poor sap, a pawn in the game of three powerful females, from his betrothed. Much of the book is concerned with Fleda wrestling with her moral dilemma – does she do Mrs Gereth’s bidding and wrestle Owen away from Mona, thus rescuing the spoils from a woman of questionable taste, or does she go with her moral sensibilities and leave well alone? Frankly, the scenes between Owen and Fleda are the most strained and unconvincing parts of the story. Ultimately, Fleda loses everything, including the spoils which are consumed in flames as Poynton burns down.
In many senses, Fleda is a foil to Mrs Gereth. Gereth’s aesthetics are positively Olympian and purely black and white. Something either accords with her refined definition of what is art and what is beautiful or else it doesn’t. When she visits Ricks, the already furnished alternative accommodation that Owen has found for her to live in following her eviction from Poynton, all she sees is ugliness. Fleda has more mortal set of aesthetic sensibilities. She appreciates that a person’s view of an object’s worth can be tinged by such feelings as sentiment and association. Tellingly, she says “by certain natures, hideous objects can be loved.”
As the book progresses one starts to wonder whether Mrs Gereth’s aesthetics are all they are cracked up to be and whether she is as guilty of bad taste as her mortal enemy, Mona Brigstock. A point perhaps reinforced by Mona’s and Fleda’s attachment to Owen whom Mrs Gereth sees as a boorish dolt.
There are some striking similarities, at least in terms of plot, with Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park. Both books are about women whose moral standards put them under considerable emotional stress. Both Fleda and Fanny Price are in love with the sons of the women they are staying with and both the chaps are blithely unaware of this romantic interest. The denouement is different – in Austen’s work Fanny gets her man.
There is enough in the book to recommend it but it is not one of James’ best.
August 28, 2018
An Eye For An Eye Will Only Make The Whole World Blind – Part Nine
Baarle-Hertog
If you want to look at the wackiest border configuration of all time, then you need not go any further than the Belgian town of Baarle-Hertog in the province of Brabant, just north-west of Antwerp. Or is it the Dutch town of Baarle-Nassau? It’s all a bit of a mess.
The Belgian town consists of twenty-four non-contiguous parcels of land, 21 of which are completely surrounded by territory belonging to the Netherlands and three on what marks the border between the two countries. Just to add to the complexity, there are then seven Dutch areas within the Belgian enclaves within the Netherlands, six of which are situated in the largest Belgian enclave. Technically, these are known as counter-exclaves. I told you it was complicated but on a map it looks rather like a pleasing jigsaw puzzle.
Brits would not be surprised that this bizarre arrangement was ratified by a Treaty of Maastricht, this one concluded in 1843 and designed to settle the borders between the two relatively newly created countries once and for all. The determining principles as to where the border ran were geographic – the course of the river Meuse – and the religious affiliations of the communities, the Belgians being principally Catholic and the Dutch Protestant.
But the origins of the complexities presented to the diplomats by Baarle-Hertog dated back to the 12th century. The Lords of Breda and the Dukes of Brabant over time engaged in a series of mind-bogglingly complex treaties, agreements, sales, and land-swaps produced the patchwork of territories which the poor diplomats could see no other way round than to accept them as a fait-accompli. And so they remain to this day. In essence, if you were trying to find a scintilla of logic behind the disposition, the agricultural and urban areas tended to gravitate to Brabant (Belgium) whilst the rest were held by Breda (the Dutch).
Inevitably, such a bizarre arrangement caused a range of anomalies to develop, principally because Belgian laws were different in some respect from the Dutch equivalent. Take restaurant closing times, for example. There was a time when Dutch law required restaurants to close earlier than Belgian ones. So restauranteurs would, at the appointed hour, would shepherd their guests to tables on the Belgian side of the border, helpfully marked in coloured tiling which run along the streets, so that the carousers could continue to make merry undisturbed. These days closing times have been harmonised.
But firework regulations are still tighter in Holland than in Belgium. So in preparation for high days and holidays, those living in the Dutch exclaves would simply go to the Belgian area to get their hands on some pyrotechnics. Voting is compulsory in Belgium whereas the Dutch take a more laissez-faire approach to matters psephological. And should the occasion arise, if you are in Belgian territory you can build a house within 300 metres of a pig farm, something which is verboten in Holland.
There was a complex legal case involving a bank which had its front door in Dutch territory but its vault in Belgian. It was suspected of being used for money laundering and the Dutch couldn’t access the vault nor could the Belgians get into the bank. The matter was only resolved when authorities from the two countries had the brain wave of co-operating.
Bonkers as the arrangements seem, it all appears to work.
