Horrible, horrible knee injuries, as happened to striker Jonathan Reis of PSV this weekend as his ligaments were torn in a collission with the opposing side’s goalie. Injuries to the knee always make me wince and this was bad enough to make you physically ill seeing it happening…
Holland’s sad renewable energy record
The Open Knowledge Foundation kids held themselves an EUStat Hackday a few days ago, exploring European energy data. Of the various infographics they created, the above one is the most striking to me, seeing how renewable energy production in the Netherlands largely flatlined in the last decade (1998-2008). Only the UK, Norway and Poland were as bad or worse. In the context of the EU’s stated goal of having 20 percent of energy consumption being from renewable sources it means this decade has been wasted, no success booked in getting renewables off the ground. Not surprising, with the kind of governments we’ve had these past ten years, who if not quite actively hostile to the whole idea, never did much to encourage the growth of green energy. Subsidies have been laughable, direction lacking and every time decisions had to be made, the wrong ones were made. One example being the liberalisation of the Dutch energy market, in which energy suppliers and energy network companies were forced to separate, which immediately let to takeovers by foreign companies, leaving government that much less able to influence or direct energy policy.
Which explains why the three biggest new powerplants to be build are the coal fired plants E.on, Electrabel and RWE/Essent want to build in Rotterdam and Eemshaven — and yes, all three are foreign companies. These plants do not quite fit the EU’s plans for reducing carbon and sulphur emissions, now do they? The European Court of Justice (ECJ) advocate general seems to agree, in their advice to declare the permits given for these plants illegal. It all fits the hidebound, stupid policies of previous and current governments, who have been happy to let the industry take the lead and may now have to pay the price for such shortsightedness.
Dylan Horrocks: better to be pirated than to be forgotten
Somebody uploaded a torrent of Pickle #1-10 onto Demonoid and then Dylan Horrocks, its creator showed up to voice his approval:
A quick note of thanks to the uploader from me, Dylan Horrocks. These comics are long out of print now, and quite hard to find, and I’m thrilled to have them made more available to people – and appreciate all the trouble someone went to in scanning and packaging them.
And just to clarify: Hicksville was serialised in issues 2-10, although I made a few changes to the early chapters when it was later collected in book form. Also, the final chapter of Hicksville was going to be in issue 11, which was never published due to Black Eye shutting down (and for which I apologise!).
Issues 1-6 of Pickle also include other material that has never been collected.
If anyone wants to see what I’m up to these days, my website (where I’m serialising a new story, ‘The Magic Pen’) is here: http://hicksvillecomics.com
Thanks again – and don’t forget to seed! ;)
Leaving questions of morality aside, for the vast majority of cartoonists and writers, obscurity is a much greater danger than piracy. Dylan Horrocks obviously understands this. Having somebody who is prepared to go to the trouble to hunt down out of print comics, scan and upload them is a compliment more than it is an infringement. It means somebody cares about you work. (To be fair, I can also imagine getting pissed off if it happens to you…)
Dylan Horrocks’ Hicksville, originally serialised in Pickle was reprinted this year in a new edition. If you don’t have it yet, it’s well worth getting, a comic about comics and its history and why they are important.
Snowmageddon!!1!
We always make fun of it when it happens in England or America, that a bit of snowfall completely disrupts the country, but pride comes for the fall. Today we got our turn, as more snow fell down in a single day than has been seen in years (more or less). Road traffic ground through a halt all through the west of the country, the trains stopped running and here in Amsterdam all the buses had to be taken off as well because it was just too dangerous for them. At the office this morning all the talk was about how and if people would get home, the various weather and traffic were largely unavailable and in general a mild and somewhat pleasurable sort of panic reigned.
Of course, for those unlucku sods out in the provinces who had come into work normally in the morning, it was a problem getting home, as every other fscker in a car decided to leave early and “beat the rush”, the trains stopped leaving and the public transport in Amsterdam itself slowly wound down as well. But still, for me at least it wasn’t all bad. The trams I needed were all running and yes, there were some delays but I was warm and dry and with an unread book so all the eseentials were there. What’s more, the walk home from the ferry because the buses had been cancelled was quite peaceful, especially with this on the headphones. Yes, I was surprised too.
Common heroics
The above public service broadcast ad annoys me everytime I see it. Produced by Postbus 51, the government’s moralistic propaganda agency, the voiceover explains how the guy in the wheelchair would’ve been helped better if people had prevented the assault on him that put him in there in the first place. I always found it a bit harsh on the people actually in the video; they couldn’t help it, they weren’t there. But it is a symptom of our supposed selfish times that the government feels the need to put up videos warning us to do our civic duty, unless we want to see more train conductors in wheelchairs. But are so selfish, or is our discomfort with contemporary society and its mores based more on a moral panic caused by a few well publicised horrible incidents?
One clue is what happened on my way back on the hospital, when a woman went into epilectic shock a few seats behind me. Before I could do anything, or even think about what to do, it was no longer needed. One American woman, either somebody with a nursing background or just generally competent, was immediately helping her to not hurt herself, another, Dutch woman was calling the emergency number for an ambulance and getting advice on what to do, an Italian (?) tourist was helping to lower the victim to the floor in the position the emergency people recommended, others were offering coats and such for her, and so on. A tram full of people wrapped up in their own affairs in a matter of seconds rallied around to help somebody none of them had ever seen before. Nothing really heroic, nothing you could brag about on tv, but people still did it as a matter of course, because they were concerned and wanted to help.
Fair restores your faith in humanity.