Amsterdam

Amsterdam is a strange place. Part of my weekend was spent there, in a cloudy haze from which, two days later, I am yet to fully emerge. Dispatching forward planning and foresight with contemptful disdain, I was left a week before the trip with the option of remortgaging or taking a 9 hour train journey. Not having a mortgage, I went with the train. It shouldn’t have been that bad as in a masterstroke of adaptability that would have shamed the bastard love child of Ray Mears and Bear Grylls, I loaded up the laptop with films and programmes and prepared to nest myself in for the journey. Which would have been fine, had I not forgotten the goddamn train was European and the goddamn laptop has a goddamn Swiss power cable. What’s the point really? One additional little prong was standing between me and 9 hours being pleasantly tucked into my carriage, watching films and being brought tea. Now I faced 9 hours of looking out of the window and waiting until I needed to go to the loo again to break the monotony. I hated that prong. The prong was worse than any Nazi peadophile at that moment. In my mind I tried playing out all the political explanations which have kept the Swiss from joining the EU and thus adapting to the uniform plug socket convention, so that I could nurture and dwell on the hate, but realised I knew nothing of the subject so instead looked at my watch, which indicated it was midday, and resignedly headed for the train’s bar.

Once I arrived and joined up with an assorted group of reprobates and degenerates the rest of the weekend took a predictable turn. Perhaps the most interesting point to be made is the astounding difference between a weekend spent drinking and one spent smoking heroic quantities of cannabis and, as a direct result, treating alcohol with the well earned suspicion and caution that 3 years of university ensured I was aware it deserved at that point. I woke after the first night having slept like a corpse, as fresh as a heavily drugged daisy. The rest of the time was spent wandering from one coffee shop to the next, with a wait of at least a few minutes at each junction or cross road as we stood, utterly confounded by this sudden choice in directions, in a futile wait for someone in the group to make a decision on everyone’s behalf. The fact that much of Amsterdam looks the same, combined with the availability of high grade concentrated weed makes the place a perfect storm for getting lost and we ended up covering every inch of the city.

One of the highlights of the apartment we stayed in, other than the proximity to a store full of crisps, cakes and other munchies, was the guest book in which hundreds of the previous guests had left messages. These messages perfectly illustrated the vast spectrum of madness, brilliance and retardedness of people in general, but especially after a weekend in the Dutch capital. I have copied some highlights below:

The philosophers:




This made me sit down and ponder the question for half an hour, before being distracted for the subsequent 45 minutes by a small crack in the ceiling.

The jokers



In case you can't tell, that yellow area which the reader is being encouarged to lick is some form of powder stuck to the page. There is a good chance that this was a small quantity of MDMA or similar drug, but a better chance that at least one person had subsequently rubbed their penis over the area.

The group of 'lads'





I have never been more certain about anything. Whoever wrote this buys Zoo and / or Nuts magazines on a regular basis.

The artist



Smoking, bearded, semi-robot man. You have to love the Finnish.