Cliffs and Rock Pools

Land's End
Photo: Amanda van Mulligen (c)

On our last family summer holiday we went to Cornwall, England. During the two week holiday my Dutch husband managed to astound me on a number of occasions. The Cornish coastline may as well have been Mars as far as he was concerned. Cliffs and rock pools really were alien landscapes to him.

As we stood atop the cliffs at Land's End he marvelled at the beauty of the seascape before him. The jagged rocks and the rough sea, waves forced upwards by the hurdles in their path spattering sea spray into the air, the sheer drop down to the sea off the edge of the land. It is beautiful, don't get me wrong, but I knew what I was going to see. My husband had no idea what awaited him at Land's End. He was awestruck by what he saw. He was mesmerised by nature's offerings at the end of England. It was like watching a child with candy for the first time. Bright eyes, open mouth, noises of pleasure.

Confused by his remarkable reaction to the coastal scene at Land's End, I asked him what his issue was he found so novel about the cliffs and rocks.

"We don't have cliffs and rocks like this in the Netherlands," he responded matter of factly "the country ends in flat sandy beaches."

And the penny dropped. Of course. I realised I hadn't seen a cliff or rock pool for quite a while myself. Childhood holidays along the Cornish and Devonshire coast had blinded me to the magic of an English coastline. I took them all for granted: the majestic cliffs, the small, beautiful sandy coves and bays that litter the south coast of England, the numerous caves to explore and the rock pools to scour with nets for signs of life.

Exploring rock pools on a Cornish beach
Photo: Amanda van Mulligen (c)

"This is so cool," said my husband on a beach a few days later "I've never seen a rock pool before!" My children echoed his excitement, armed with nets and buckets as they watched a little crab scurry from under a rock to find safety under seaweed. The kids jumped from one rock to the next, looking for little bodies of water hidden between them. Their joy took me back to my own childhood days on the Cornish beaches, combing rock pools with my brother. I understood then my husband's reaction to Land's End. How lucky he was to see the Cornish coastline for the first time as if through child's eyes.  

Study finds elders pick web over newspaper, too

In fresh evidence of the mounting demographic challenge facing publishers, a new study from Oxford University found that online sites beat newspapers as the preferred news source for every age group – including those over 55 years of age. 

While it has become increasingly clear for some time that younger individuals are more inclined than their elders to use digital sources to keep up with the

The smartest guys in media give up on print

For all the corporate-speak accompanying the dramatic restructurings of Twenty-First Century Fox, Time Warner and Tribune Co., the simple reason these diversified media giants are jettisoning their publishing assets is that their leaders fear for the future of print.

In a historic capitulation, three of the largest companies ever built by putting ink to paper are severing their publishing

Holland: The Original Cool

I was recently approached to give my opinion about living in the Netherlands, following the Dutch tourist board's claim that Holland is the "Original Cool". I have to admit that I really like this promotion for the Netherlands. "You call it green energy, we call it tradition" has a great ring to it!



You can read my thoughts on life in the Netherlands in the resulting article by Anja Habekost Oliveira on the Frank magazine website.

What do you think? Is the Netherlands a cool place to live?

Newspaper websites need a UX fix

As a young copy editor in the days when newspaper articles clattered off Linotypes, I sometimes went to the composing room to trim stories into the spaces allotted to them.



This involved “editing” 14 inches of hot type into a seven-inch hole by scanning a slug of slugs – reading upside down and backwards – to find a seemly place to end a story, usually by throwing away the balance of news

How TV could suffer the fate of newspapers

Second of two parts. The first part is here. 

In pivoting aggressively from print to local TV, Gannett Inc. and Tribune Co. are embracing a legacy media model that could be headed for the same audience fragmentation and economic dislocation as the newspaper businesses they are trying to escape. 


As detailed here yesterday, the two iconic publishing brands have announced parallel,

Gannett and Tribune pivot to TV: Is it wise?

First of two parts. The second part is here. 

Turning away from their roots in the newspaper business, Gannett Inc. and Tribune Co. are embarked on a pair of ambitious transactions that will transform them into two of the largest players in local TV broadcasting, but here’s the irony:

They are trading their prominence in one fading media vertical for dominance in another legacy business that

Tell Tale Signs of Britishness At Home

From recipes to CDs, it's surprising what
little things give you away as non-native
Photo:Vangelis Thomaidis

I wrote a guest post for Bringing Up Brits about how my three sons, who are predominantly Dutch, stand out from other Dutch boys because I am British. It got me thinking about how I stand out as British when Dutch people come to our house.

• Music: Many of the CDs I own wouldn't have made their way into the average Dutch home. I'm talking about the very British music that never really made a name over here. The artists I mention that make my husband screw his face up in confusion. 

• Food: My kitchen cupboards and fridge contain HP Brown sauce, Colman's Mustard, Paxo stuffing, Marmite, Branston pickle, Hayward's pickled onions, Ambrosia pudding rice and custard and Bisto. And the list probably goes on. These are not items you can get with ease in your local Dutch supermarket. They are expat shop specials, or brought lovingly over by visitors from England.

• Recipe books: I have weaning books and recipe books written by Gina Ford and Annabel Karmel on my kitchen shelf. Most Dutch people will look blankly at me if I mention those baby and child (food and nutrition) specialists. And my Jamie Oliver books are in English instead of in Dutch like the majority of Jamie Oliver recipe book owners here. In fact I have a fair few British recipe books for delights such as apple crumble, Yorkshire puddings and roast dinners.

• Books: The books I own are mainly in English. Me and Amazon.co.uk are best friends when it comes to getting English language books. That also includes books for my three boys to make sure their English keeps improving, and get to know very British nursery rhymes songs and classic stories.

• DVDs: When we moved in together my husband and I amalgamated our DVD collection and there were quite a few duplicates but Dutch DVDs have Dutch subtitles available and British DVDs don't. 

• Board Games: The British version of word games is always different to the Dutch version by way of the compilation of letters. For example the Dutch scrabble version contains 2 'J' tiles, whereas the British version contains 1. Playing Scrabble in Dutch with my British version and vice versa adds an extra challenge to the game which isn't wholly necessary. And of course British classics like 'Snakes n Ladders' is unknown in the Netherlands.

• Bags: Giving a guest a carrier bag from Tesco, Marks & Spencers or John Lewis to take items home in suddenly seems exotic just because it's not from Albert Heijn or C1000.

What have I missed out? Look around you in your home - what gives you away as an expat?