13 May 2000, Saturday evening, 21:00-24:00, with Linda Wagenmakers at the ESC, I must have been at home, watching the show.
Of course, lots of measures were taken. To name two: "Municipalities lose their powers to the provinces when issuing licenses for professional fireworks companies. This is evidenced by the fireworks decision by Minister Pronk (Environment), which the Cabinet agreed yesterday." (3 Feb 2001) and the storage of fireworks became somewhat limited. But to prove that the government has a weak spine, eleven years later … (Use Google Translate to learn more.)
Why was there a fireworks-factory in the centre of Enschede? Because the authorities granted them a licence in 1999 for three years to expand their business, storing fireworks, from 3 to 14 seacontainers. Good for the economy.

Still quite impressive damage and unfortunately one casualty. It seems that this was also near a residential area? I see that this was in Seest - maybe you can write a Wikipedia article on Seest? One letter e changed into o and you would have Soest.

Fireworks are a disaster for the environment. Enough said.
The psychology behind is summed up in this Dutch article: "Het begint bij vuur op zich", zegt Tim Zuidgeest van Studio ST&T, een bureau van consumentenpsychologen. "Evolutionair gezien is het logisch dat we vuur bewonderen. Dat we vuur kunnen controleren, is de reden geweest dat we konden overleven." - meaning: "It starts with fire in itself. Seen from an evolutionary point it is logical that we admire fire. That we can control fire, has been the reason that we could survive."

So do you pronounce the Danish 'y' always the same? To me it sounds like -uu- in Dutch and -ü- in German. In Dutch, the word "u" (meaning 'you') is pronounced the same as the digraph -uu- (digraph = a combination of two letters representing one sound).

We have "uurwerk", that's a clock or a watch (timepiece).
Yes: "tureluur" is an "onomatopee" (in Dutch), a sound-naming name, a name named after a sound, just like some other birds (again in Dutch): grutto, koekoek, tjiftjaf. We also have a word "tureluurs", it's the effect that it had on you after you had to listen to the tureluur for far too long - it's enough to drive anybody "tureluurs" (= mad)!
Even an imaginery bird exists: the "kroet" (pronounced as 'krut' in German, 'croot' in English), it yells "kroet", but you already guessed that.

Well, you're right, but you would also be right if you would have chosen "tureluren". Sometimes both plurals are perfect in order. You can say "muren" (plural of muur), but not "muurs", that's a genitive: 'des muurs' (you can mostly find this in old books here).

bühne / bühne
Thank you!

The Dutch word is "hier". The Dutch word "her" is often used in the alliterating expression "her en der", meaning 'here and there' (= scattered). The three e's in "her en der" are pronounced the same, as in "bed" (D: Bett).

Ah! That's the answer to my question! You must have a foresighted look, have you been a crystal-gazer?

Corrected version of the ^^^ above post.
Clearing head installment
- far too much swirling, swinging, turning, churning
adriverhoef, yesterday I spent some time sifting through this thread, because I had so many things swirling around in my head. It was killing me

My intention was to try to clear the road, so to speak, and my ambition was to go through all of it in one go make notes of things to be asked, filing links, separated into Dutch language links and other links (I think I have the music up to date), but I only got as far as the third post on the second page.
And my preference is put at just 10 posts per page ...

So, I'll not address your new post right now - no matter how tempting it is. Marshmallow, get out of my way, please. I'll not even start from the beginning of my short list of questions, but pretty much somewhere in the middle which is not on my list. Only in my head.

A few days ago there was smoke coming from the forest fires in Portugal and Spain, drifting across France, Belgium, the Netherlands, UK, Denmark, etc. It blocked the sun, giving the sky an eerie orange sight ...

We discussed the sun being rendered sombre in a somewhat upsetting way, and you said the forest fires in Spain and Portugal might have contributed along with Ophelia, the windstorm hitting especially Ireland, and even dust storms from Sahara.

That, of course, was one of the many, many, MANY items swirling like a carousel run amok
in my head so I 'spidsede ører' ('raised my ears' like dogs and horses do, but not ezels/ezelen) when there was a report from Portugal in a foreign affairs radio program, I try to listen to daily. Do you raise your ears figuratively spoken?

To say the least the authorities often do their job poorly - as in the case of the fireworks disaster in Enschede ... (and here I go again: Enschede is pronounced differently from what I use to do in the CNN News. The anchor man says what to me sounds like 'Enskede'. Has he got that right in you opinion? Or should we chalk it down to him being American?).

Back to Portugal. Being interviewed was a Danish writer who has lived in Portugal for dozens of years. She told that more than 100 people have died in those forest fires this year so far. She pointed to several factors contributing to the disaster: possible climate change - at any rate spring in Portugal had been unusually dry. The planting of numerous eucalyptus trees (native to Australia, not to Portugal that has no koalas on he loose as far as I know).

These trees are used in the paper industry. The vast majority of the forests are privately owned, some of them are very small, and nobody really knows whom the owners are, and many of the owners may even be dead. There are no stipulations, no maintenance, no firebreaks, no control whatsoever. The trees are planted smack up along the roadside, so when they topple, they barricade the evacuation routes. I saw those forests some 20 years ago. They were ugly. Like out-of-place sticks. They look like tinderwood and they burn like tinderwood. They form perfect chimneys for the fire. In many places there were signs in essence thanking the EU for - ahem! 'developing' the countryside - which means the EU has sunk money into those projects. I got pretty indignant and worked up. The majority of people perished are old people, probably because they live out there in the forests and lack means of transportation.
Rant over.

In one of our very early posts I wrote about De Poort at Lauwersoog

[color= darkblue]]It has been a scrupolo
- SekeRob**** will tell us it's Latin/Italian for a little stone in your shoe which has drilled itself into English (and Danish) as "scruples/skrupler" which in addition to hurting your feet also affects your conscience in these locations. I don't know about Italy. Is it just the feet and no conscience?
in my shoe ever since ....

and I would like to know if you also have this word derived from Latin in the Dutch language, and if so, can it also describe a bad conscience.

Later on you showed a tourist brochure dealing with Westerwolde. In it there was this picture of a canopy bed, which in Danish is 'himmelseng' (sort of 'heaven bed'). What do you call it?

You told and linked:

From the highest mountain (Vaalserberg, 322 m) in the south to the Frisian Islands (Waddeneilanden) in the North Sea (Noordzee), the Delta Works (Deltawerken), the Sand engine and Hondsbossche seawall (Hondsbossche Zeewering), to the polders (mostly land lying under the level of the sea), the IJsselmeer and the Afsluitdijk, the river Rhine, there is so much land and water here ... water and land, Waterland. smile

It is clear to me you love your country. So do I. Both my own and what I got to see of yours. Do you prefer to vacation in the Netherlands or do you go abroad?

That's all so far. It was nice to get that out of my head.
Let me finish this with one of the big hits, the melancholic:
Jeg ville eje millioner hvis tårer var guld (I Would Own Millions if Tears Were Made of Gold) by Sussanne Lana - originally written by Agneta Fältskog from ABBA
More homework:
Fuglene flyver, blomster springer ud
Alt er som før, som da jeg var din brud.
Du gik din vej, jeg mindes dig endnu
Jeg går og tænker: Hvor er du mon nu?
Jeg skulle eje millioner hvis tårer var guld
Jeg kan aldrig glemme dig
Et skænderi blev vor afsked, det var vist min skyld
Forelsket bli'r jeg aldrig mer'.
Jeg skulle eje millioner hvis tårer var guld
Nu er jeg bare en ven.
Findes der nogen mening med alt som var
Spørgsmål jeg stiller, får aldrig svar.
Hvor kan en saga så dejlig som vor
Pludselig bli'e slut efter så mange år?
Jeg skulle eje millioner hvis tårer var guld
Jeg kan aldrig glemme dig
Et skænderi blev vor afsked, det var vist min skyld
Forelsket bli'r jeg aldrig mer'.
Jeg skulle eje millioner hvis tårer var guld
Nu er jeg bare en ven.
- I advise you to keep a handkerchief ready
EDIT: Removed text not pertinent to this version

- continued from the ^^^ post:
Well, I came across this dealing with your
first name
- and now all the characters spoil again
It says it is a unisex name - I wouldn't think so in the Netherlands, but who knows; until now I have firmly believed you are male, but all of a sudden!
You revealed very early on when I let myself bump into you, dass (daß heißt es aber gar nicht länger) ich diese Tendenz habe mir auf andere Menschen aufzustürzen. Da war die Msnelson (I should have known better) in the Team Liberty back in the old UD days. Und gerade hier hätte ich mich fast auf bjdbest (now my friend Beverly - I could not have known better) aufgestürtz, und am spätestens fast an KliK - aber er ist ein Hamster sagt er auf sein Bild. Sagst mir, bitte, bist du Maskulinum oder Femininum? Es wäre schön zu wissen ob ich diese Tendenz weiterführe und etwas blödes macht ...
- so much for me being a soothsayer!
- but then again: I seem to learn from my mistakes

- and you seem to firmly believe you used
À à
- which is used in Denmark in exactly the same way, by the way - one item which will make for initial instant mutual understanding.
And I firmly trust that you know what you did.
However, in my end it comes out as an
Ã
Putting on my V. I. Warshawski hat:
You send an À - I receive an Ã.
Considering what else I'm experiencing with the WCG Forums these days, I wonder whether some cyberghost is pulling my leg.

Moving far beyond your book into the mother of Danish pop music trying to introduce a couple of the songs that gave this line of music a bad name with the snobbish and the beatnikish:
Den gamle gartners sang (The Old Gardener's Song)
Fiskerpigens sang (The Fishergirl's Song)
and the somewhat newer
Ved landsbyens gadekær (At the Village Pond)
I shall try to explain the culture clash between "good taste" and "poor taste" in some future post.

I'm afraid so.
How come the songteksts/(en) are regarded as banal when they are actually able to hit you where it hurts the most, provided you keep your mind open to this kind of influence?
Or do you need to be an ever romantic/sentimental/emotional person to be hit by the lyrics?
And who - but an idjit like me - is affected this way?
Are you able to see the songteksts as an entirely cool business matter and shutting everything else Out of It, adriverhoef?
I was one of the snobbish beatniks as I mentioned in an earlier post but did not specify, but have opened my mind to any banality in this advanced stage of my life.
And could it be I kept a distance to music in general and this kind of music in particular as a means of self defence/protection?