Here I was about to Nexit – leave Norway, albeit by ferry not act of mass suicide. Sitting in a growing queue at Oslo docks, I noted that mine is the only British car. There are dozens of Dutch, troops of Germans, a few Danes and the odd Swede; just the one Brit. Indeed, I haven’t … More Nexit
I have all but been struck dumb by the monstrous stupidity of my fellow countrymen, much though I expected it. That the overpaid ninnies of England football have also obeyed the popular dictate to leave Europe forthwith merely reminds me of how often we have faced abject failure in the past. To be so severely … More Dumb Struck
Democracy was never supposed to be about mob rule, anymore than you would want a mob of football hooligans to referee the match. What next? Referenda on capital punishment, and enforced repatriation? This is where Germany was 90 years ago, so they have sort of got their way – turning the clock back with the … More aRses Win
I am glad I have been out of the country for the last week of this game of Russian roulette. Europe has, sensibly, been more exercised by the European Cup, a much more appropriate expression of international cooperation and competition, nationalism without nastiness. It has produced some great moments of theatre, much better than recent … More R Day -1
Yesterday I passed over the eponymous Bridge from Copenhagen to Malmo. No corpses or autistic cops spotted, but it still gave me a frisson as it’s not just an icon of Scandinavian cooperation, but of a new European culture. The one some would walk away from. That said, it was lucky my geographical sense remains in working … More R Day -2
This extraordinary edifice in the Antwerp docks stands for the uncomfortable accommodation of old and new you often find in Europe. Looking like a giant inter-galactic space bug trying to mate with a 19th century asylum, it seems to come from the same impulse which drives schoolboys to put a moustache on the Mona Lisa. … More R Day-4
A year ago I travelled through Europe to remind myself what being part of that continent has given us as a people and as a culture. This year I am driving through Belgium, Holland and Germany to visit Denmark and Sweden for the first time, en route to visit my family in Norway. I shall thus, … More R-Day minus 6
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