Midnight Rambler Explains Dutch Stuff

@Cats: It all sounds very tough Maybe you should talk to some people in the Insecurities thread.

Anyway, for those interested in a description of a specific part of the Netherlands, see my post in the "Describe the city/town where you come from" thread.

edited 28th Jan '13 3:01:45 AM by MidnightRambler

I don't really want to bother people in that thread anymore. The fact is that I am just very bad at meeting people and because I am bad at bikes and don't own one I can't make friends anyway.

At least the weather is clearing up.

Ugh, that's not a good thing! There's hardly a more depressing sight in the world than melting snow.

That's the thing, really. It didn't so much melt as disappear overnight. We got the winter wonderland without the nasty clean-up afterwards.

That's true, it didn't take very long for the stuff to disappear. Still a depressing idea that we only get two weeks of winter in this country.

Eh, it's a proper balance. Two weeks of winter, two weeks of summer.

Do a lot of people buy those tulip bulb things or are they a tourist thing?

And forty-eight weeks of grey skies and rain.

I think many more tulip bulbs are sold to tourists than to Dutchmen, but it's not like there's no domestic market for them; tulips are quite pretty flowers for in the living room.

Ahem...Yes.

I'm talking about the present, silly.

So, abdication, huh?

I just pass two shops that sell tulip bulbs to get to town, and there are some in our house, though nobody who lives here is Dutch. I was under the impression that you had to work to get them through customs, though :P

Also, apparently there's going to be a king, now?

edited 28th Jan '13 10:25:45 AM by ohsointocats

On a side note the Netherlands has one of the biggest flower auctions in the world located in Aalsmeer.

Yeah. Two centuries to the year after his great-great-great-great-grandfather landed on the beach at Scheveningen and was awarded sovereignty over this soggy patch of clay, sand and peat, William Alexander of Orange-Nassau will be sworn in as King of the Netherlands.

Is he going to have to do anything as king besides sit there and look nice? I mean he doesn't even get to be on money!

Go on state visits, read the Speech from the Throne every third tuesday in September, sign laws, and have a chat with the Prime Minister once a week.

Technically, he'll be the head of the Dutch government, and the Prime Minister merely his highest servant. (The Latin word minister means assistant or aide, after all).

IS this like the UK and Spanish systems where the monarch technically has massive power but in practise never exercises it and would be immediately throw out if they did?

Sort of. But they don't really have formal power, just status.

@ Midnight: I think now would be a suitable time for a post on the Dutch Monarchy?

Meaning? For example, in the UK the Queen is head of state (thus appoints the PM and can veto bills), head of the military and also has access to tons of classified information. It's technically her government and her military. Likewise I know the Spanish King so commander in chief of his armed forces.

The big difference I'm seeing is that you guys appears to have a history of abdication, while from what I understand our Queen is massively again abdication (due to how her uncle abdicating left her farther as king, the stress of which lead to his death).

First the food episode! It's almost finished.

As well as no tradition of Abdication, we have precedents for coping with Royalty who decide underpants are best worn as headgear - namely, the Prince of Wales becomes Prince Regent.

As far as I can work out, 'Regent' means something entirely different in Dutch?

Well, regent can also mean just that in Dutch: a person who temporarily assumes the throne because the rightful King or Queen is incapable of performing their royal duties. This has happened once: when William III died in 1890, his much younger widow Emma became Queen Regent, because his daughter Wilhelmina was only 10 at the time. Emma sat on the throne until 1898, when Wilhelmina turned 18 and was crowned Queen of the Netherlands.

However, there is another meaning to the word regent, and you'll hear this one far more often. In the Dutch Golden Age, the regenten (plural of regent) were a small group of the wealthiest and most influential citizens of a given city. They divided most of the important (and lucrative) public offices among themselves, and picked the deputies to the States-Provincial and States-General from their midst. Today, the word regent is sometimes used as an insult towards politicians or civil servants who are seen as too far removed from the 'common people'.

@Silasw: I don't know exactly which powers Queen Beatrix has, but she definitely isn't the commander of any military force.

How can you have a serious discussion about cancer when it's a bad word?