Back in October, when I defended my thesis, I had tea and coffee with a few guests in the university’s Faculty Club prior to the start of the ceremony. The waiter said they had my contact details, so rather than paying directly, they would send me the bill to be paid at a later date. Several months passed without anything arriving, and I sort of figured they’d simply forgotten.

But lo and behold, the bill arrived at my home address while I was in the US. The invoice was dated December 31st (a good two months after the defense) and payment was requested by Thursday January 14th. I left for the US on Sunday the 17th, but as I said, it was only while I was gone that the bill actually arrived.

Also in the two-and-a-half weeks’ worth stack of mail this morning was a stern reminder from the Faculty Club that I hadn’t paid yet. Well, how did they expect me to pay a bill by January 14th if I haven’t received it by that time? Indeed, the postal stamp on the bill reads January 13th, and that only shows when the Faculty Club passed it to the university’s post office. From there it must have taken another day or two to get it to the Dutch postal services, because when I left on the 17th, I hadn’t received anything yet.

If it takes the Faculty Club almost three weeks to get an invoice delivered to the relevant party, perhaps it is a tad unreasonable to expect payment within two weeks of the invoice date. The stern reminder is equally ludicrous. It took them over two months to actually prepare the invoice, and then they apparently sat on it for another two weeks before sending it out. Surely there’s no hurry in getting the money, is there? Right, so take a hike with your bloody reminder.

[Update: To the Faculty Club's credit, when I sent them an email complaining about the whole situation, they did respond promptly with a polite apology.]

Later this month, a new tunnel will be opened on the outer ring road around Paris, the Volkskrant reports. At a cost of 2.4 billion euros, it is France’s most expensive tunnel ever, and supposedly also its safest ever. The full tunnel will be 10 km long; initially, only the first stretch of 4.5 km will be put to use. In order to make the tunnel as safe as possible, it will be closed for motorcycles and trucks.

Okay, so how can you only open a tunnel for half of its length? I’m not gonna drive into a 10-km tunnel if I get stuck after 4.5 km. I’m sure the tunnel actually consists of separate segments, but the newspaper article was specifically talking about “a tunnel”, not “one of two tunnels”.

On a more serious note, what’s with denying entrance to motorcycles and trucks? You know what would make this tunnel even safer? Close it for all motorized traffic! I can see how it might be a good idea to make separate lanes for cars and trucks, and to keep out trucks with highly inflammable cargo, but it seems ridiculous to just close it for all trucks.

Hilarious remix of the shoe throwing incident in Iraq:

As a kick-off event for the Dutch Year of Traditions, the Dutch Center for Popular Culture held a large survey to construct a Top 100 of Dutch traditions. Here are a couple that jumped out for me:

100. Watching the eight o’clock news
95. Gay Parade
85. Limburgse vlaai
56. Reading e-mails
52. Elfstedentocht
34. Cycling
33. Orange decorations during soccer championships
23. Drop
7. Beschuit met muisjes
3. Queen’s Day

The full list (in Dutch) is available here.

The Netherlands are no longer the most densely populated European country, the BBC and the Telegraph reported yesterday. We have been overtaken by England, which has 395 people per square kilometre, two more than our 393. The United Kingdom as a whole is a lot emptier, at only 253 people per square kilometre.

I’m not entirely sure these numbers are correct, though. First of all, the Telegraph article compares the British population density for 2008 to the Dutch population density for 2005. At the latest population figure reported by the Centraal Bureau voor de Statistiek, our population density is 396 people/km². Also, this density uses an area for the Netherlands that includes the IJsselmeer. That might be the official way to do it (since it’s an inland lake), but it underestimates the actual population density on land by about 25%. England’s total area includes a much smaller fraction of water.

Another point of concern is the claim in the Telegraph article that our population density decreased from 395 people/km² in 2002 to 393 people/km² in 2005. That makes no sense: our population grew by some 140,000 people over those three years and our total area certainly didn’t increase.

England can be Europe’s most crowded country as far as I’m concerned. It would be nice, though, if the media spent a little more time checking their facts before claiming that it is.

Interesting factoid: Aruba, one of the Caribbean islands belonging to the Kingdom of the Netherlands, is more densely populated than the Netherlands itself.

I don’t like soccer.

It’s a boring game. After watching twenty-two men chasing a ball for ninety minutes, you’d be lucky if they scored thrice. In 306 games in the Dutch Eredivisie this year, the average was 3.12 goals per game. That’s roughly one goal every half hour, or less if you include the half-time break. Major League Baseball teams managed 9.60 runs per game in the 2007 regular season. Granted, baseball games take longer, but not more than three times as long.

Normally, it’s quite possible to avoid soccer, but every other summer there’s a European Championship or a World Championship. During those three or four weeks, it’s as if there’s nothing but soccer. It’s on every tv channel, in every newspaper, on every website. Homes and bars and stores turn orange. Even people turn orange, and Planet Earth might as well be a giant soccer ball.

Most annoyingly, nobody seems to be allowed not to like soccer for the duration of the tournament. The soccer craze is forced upon you, whether you like it or not. You have to watch the games and talk about them the next day. That’s society’s fault, though, not the game’s.

Indeed, it’s no different this time. The European Championship started last week and it’s everywhere. Just two more weeks, and I’ll be free again until June 11th, 2010.

Still…

I watched the Netherlands’ first game on Monday, against reigning World Champs Italy, and I have to confess I enjoyed it. The score was certainly pleasing enough: 3-0 in our favour. Beforehand, a draw was considered an optimistic prediction. Our squad played their best game in years, Italy their worst. And yes, I watched it in its entirety, and I wasn’t bored. (Well, perhaps a little bit at some point during the second half. I continued to watch with one eye, while reading a magazine with the other.)

Of course, I didn’t have much else to do that night. I was visiting my thesis advisor in Garching this week. That’s a nice little German town. Nice, and very quiet. I thought I might as well watch the game for a while.

Yesterday, during supper, Croatia were beating Germany. That was fun as well, if for a different reason. The German commentator was so terribly desperate that I almost felt sorry for him. It’s only a game!

The Netherlands’ second game is on right now, against France. It’s two thirds through the first half and, much to my surprise, we’ve got a 1-0 lead. Perhaps I should turn on my television. I might enjoy it
again…

[Update: We beat France 4-1 to secure first place in Group C, the "Group of Death" with World Champions Italy and WC runners-up France, and we haven't even played the third and final game yet. Group of Death indeed! It'll be the death of Italy or France, or both if we let Romania win on Tuesday.]

In today’s physics experiment, we have learned that a glass bowl filled with red cabbage does not survive a fall from 1.5 metres (5 feet). The bowl shatters on impact and shard of glass are launched into every corner of the room. Most of the cabbage remains near the site of impact, but some pieces may end up a couple of metres away.

Next time, I’ll have to hold on better to whatever I’m trying to put into my microwave. Having the bowl of cabbage explode on the floor was definitely fun, but it creates an awful mess.

• One prejudice about the US seems be true, at least in Granville: everyone has a car. During my 90-minute walk yesterday morning, I encountered a grand total of two other pedestrians. Both were elderly people.
• Cars here are less noisy than in Europe. Could it be the automatic transmission?
• I underpaid at the supermarket Thursday night! Not on purpose, obviously, and I only noticed it when I was back at the B&B. I had to pay $15.50, so I gave the lady a $10 bill, a $5 bill and what I believed to be a 50-cent coin. However, I later realized the coin was a quarter.
• Winter weather comes everywhere I go. In November, early snow showers hit Heidelberg during my visit. The temperature never got above freezing while I was in Garching in December. It’s the same in Granville so far: sub-zero (or sub-32 on that other scale) since I got here. It’s -7 °C (20 °F) at the moment and the temperature for tonight is expected to drop down to as low as -18 ° C (0 °F).

Happy New Year!

That is, if you follow one of the many calendars that turned the page yesterday. According to Wikipedia, Buddhists are now in 2552, the Thai in 2551, and the Koreans in 4341. Meanwhile, Jews are about a third of the way through 5768, Muslims are in the final month of 1429, and the Chinese in the penultimate month of 4704.

2008 has been designated by the United Nations as the International Year of the Potato. It is also the International Year of Planet Earth, the International Year of Sanitation, and the European Year of Intercultural Dialogue. For all of you out there, my readers, I hope it will be a year of good health and lots of happiness.

An age-old question finally answered:

From Wulffmorgenthaler.com