Caliban - Opinion and Righteous Anger

This is out last night in the US, where we've been for two weeks now, visiting Sarah's folks.

The days have been punctuated by the excellent Intelligentsia coffee and sandwiches of The Edge, shopping for cheap(er) clothes, and the wearying omnipresence of the two big presidential candidates on the television.

Eloïse has been having a whale of a time with Oma and Opa; Lucas has simply been smiling at everyone, winning hearts and minds, as he is wont to do.

Last night was Halloween, an occasion that is taken quite seriously in this country. It's a deeply rooted element of American culture and so we took Eloïse on her first American trick-or-treating this evening.

Basically, this involves dressing up in fancy dress and knocking on doors, at which point Eloïse asks, "Trick or treat?", in a suitably ominous tone. I have a strong association of Halloween with a supernatural theme, but children dress up in all kinds of fancy dress here. Eloïse, for example, was in a mouse costume.

By the end of the evening, she'd collected a lot of sweets and was feeling very pleased with herself. We only let her eat a single piece of it when she got home, but she seemed happy with that.

This evening, I went out with Sarah's brother, John, and his new girlfriend, Katie, and we drove to Worcester in the neighbouring state of Massachusetts, where the Sisters of Mercy were playing at the Palladium.

This incarnation of the Sisters isn't my favourite, I have to say. The delicacies of songs like Marian are lost in the faster tempo, the lack of a twelve string and the use of chunky guitars instead of an ebow. The sound in general wasn't great, with some songs becoming recognisable only after half a minute or so, which is a bit strange for tracks I've been playing for a quarter of a century. The original sound isn't even approximated for most songs. I also lament the lack of a human bass player.

Anyway, tomorrow evening, we fly home to Amsterdam, arriving Monday morning.

The United States of America have a new president, a black man, and many people are calling this a historic event. "If this can be achieved, anything is possible", is an oft heard quote from Americans during the past 24 hours.

Well, if that's true, we can look forward to future elections being won by:

• a woman
• an unmarried person
• an atheist
• a Muslim
• a homosexual
• a pacifist

For the sake of your health, don't hold your breath.

I belong to a seemingly very small minority of world denizens who see little significance in the fact that Obama is a black man. I find the colour of his skin utterly irrelevant.

In fact, I find any detail you care to mention about the man himself irrelevant, except for his intelligence. One is, after all, electing an office more than the individual himself. If Obama dies whilst in office, another party member will take over the reins and enact the same policies, so it makes sense to look only at the party politics themselves. I find that many, if not most, Americans lose sight of this and are distracted by the individual politicians, their personality, charisma and manner.

Looking just at the politics, then, I see little reason for hope in Obama's foreign policy. I've said it before, but it bears repeating. Under Obama, the US will still not be subordinate to the UN. Unilateral force will continue to be applied overseas, if deemed appropriate by the US.

There's virtually no chance of the US joining the International Criminal Court, either, so there's no chance of holding the country's leaders internationally accountable for their crimes abroad.

Military aid to Israel will continue under Obama, which amounts to an implicit approval of Israel's continuing acts of aggression, occupation and oppression.

The war in Afghanistan will be stepped up, costing untold numbers of lives in that country. Obama sees Afghanistan as the prime front against terrorism, but fails to understand that much of that same terrorism has its origin in brutal US foreign policy over the last 50 years. When others, such as the very vocal Jeremiah Wright, point this out, they are decried and denounced for statements that are "offensive to every American". The truth hurts.

We can hope, at least, that Obama will do some good within his own country. Perhaps under Obama, the standard of education and health care for Americans will improve. Anything that can be done to raise the general level of awareness in America that the country is not alone in the world and cannot endlessly continue to use the rest of the world as its own private, vast resource pool without incurring the wrath of many, has to be a good thing.

The wake-up call of 9/11 was a painful opportunity for some much needed introspection, but that call was not heeded. Obama doesn't understand (or can't politically be seen to acknowledge) that most anti-American terrorism is born of a desire for retribution, not blind hatred. Better education and presumed consequent increased global awareness amongst the voting populace of America are perhaps the only hope for a more peaceful world, even if they take years to yield any observable fruit.

The fact that one had to pay for the toilet in addition to the price of the actual ticket couldn't put a dent in it. The pink umbrella we purchased, which broke when opened for only the second time, couldn't put a dent in it. Even the fact there was no band as such, just a trio of girls singing along and dancing away to a karaoke set on a laptop somewhere, couldn't put a dampener on the proceedings.

This morning, we drove the 37 km to Leiden's Groenoordhallen, a glorified aircraft hangar, to see K3 perform in front of an audience of ecstatic toddlers, most of whom were girls.

Eloïse was as ecstatic as anyone, I have to say. She bopped her way through several numbers before succumbing to fatigue and spending most of the rest of the concert bouncing on my lap. Eloïse's dancing style is primitive and clearly exhausting. I call it the kinderpogo, because she basically just jumps up and down, occasionally swinging her arms. She definitely dances as if no-one is watching.

Karen, Kathleen and Kristel, the K3 girls, actually have pretty decent voices live. I was surprised.

In fact, I have to say I had a really good time, better than last week at the Sisters of Mercy in the States. It was utterly heartwarming to see how excited Eloïse was to see her favourite band and how she danced with abandon to her favourite songs.

And Lucas, he looked on in bemusement for a few minutes, before nodding off to sleep, in spite of the loud music.

We even made it back to Amsterdam in time for Eloïse to go to peuterspeelzaal, so today has been a really good day, especially when compared to the rest of the week, which I may blog about later.

It's been a long, tiring and stressful week. First of all, Obama won the US election for World CEO, which threw a distinct melancholy over my week. With the US in the throes of morbid, self-congratulatory ecstasy at having managed to elect a black man, the media have been something to shy away from this week.

When we returned from the US on Monday, we were one suitcase lighter (thanks, Northwest) and coming home to a house with no heating (it was just 11°C inside) and a very large, brown stain on our dining-room ceiling. It turns out that a leak in the attic was running alongside an air vent pipe down to the first floor ceiling, where the water then fell on our bathroom floor, before seeping through that, down to the ground floor. Once it all dries out, I'll get that sorted. It looks like there will be insurance paperwork in my future.

Later in the week, the bricklayers, who have just completed their fifth week working on the outside of the house, unblocked a virtually inaccessible drainpipe on the roof and caused a torrent of water to descend into it.

This drainpipe partially runs through the house, which I find ridiculous, but there you have it. At about ceiling height in the cellar, the pipe is held in a lesser diameter sleeve and therein lies the problem. The sleeve was partially blocked, so when a huge amount of water needed to be processed, the water level in the sleeve rose until it overflowed.

A partially flooded cellar ensued, but since we managed to intervene quite quickly, thanks to the water alarm installed down there, the damage is therefore much less than it would otherwise have been.

There has been a steady stream of bricklayers, carpenters, plumbers and boiler maintenance people traipsing through the house this week.

A new leak was found in the attic, this one caused by an air vent pipe to the roof, which turned out to have no cap on it. Since the whole pipe was deemed superfluous, it was removed and its location on the roof tiled over.

Since the day we moved in, we've suffered from another leak, somewhere in our heating system. I regularly have to refill the system, particularly when we've been away and the pipes have been cold. This was why we came back to a freezing cold house on Monday.

Well, that leak now seems to have been found and it turns out to be the same leak that caused the stain on our dining-room ceiling. It must have been rapidly worsening. A new valve has to be ordered, which will take six working days. A deep tray is catching the drops in the meantime.

The windows in our new media room (a pretentious name, I know, but it's inaccurate to just call it a TV room) were realigned this week, too. They had been allowing a draught through and, when the bricklayers had used a high-pressure water jet on the side of the house, water as well.

So, it hasn't all been doom and gloom this week; and we got to see K3 on Friday, of course, which was lots of fun.

I'll be a lot happier once the new valve has been fitted in the attic and the dining-room ceiling repainted, but we'll probably have to leave that a few weeks before doing that, to allow everything to thoroughly dry out.

I headed over to the Heineken Music Hall for an evening of fragile Icelandic beauty in the company of the now legendary Sigur Rós.

The HMH is a mixed bag as a venue. The sound is good and the cloakroom is free, but I can definitely live without the bad fast food and poor saps walking around with beer barrels on their back, looking for punters in need of a top-up. The Amsterdam Arena's parking tariff is also outrageous.

The concert had been sold out for some time and the venue was packed to capacity. Somehow, I'd managed not to see Sigur Rós before now, so I'd built up quite some anticipation over the years.

Vast screens overhead to the left and right of me (mis)informed me that Sigur Rós had first come to the Netherlands to promote their debut album, Takk. Of course, Takk was actually their fourth album. Someone had their information badly wrong.

Before I could immerse myself in swathes of delicate piano and walls of reverb, I'd first have to stand through the support band, For A Minor Reflection. The overhead screens informed me that they were a four-piece of nineteen year olds from Reykjavík.

At around 20:00, four impossibly juvenile-looking Icelandic waifs took to the stage and proceeded to produce a sound whose proportions was at complete odds with their stage presence. Each song began delicately, but grew over the course of the following ten minutes into a reverberating crescendo of epic proportions.

I call them songs, but there was no singing. Each piece was purely instrumental, twisting and swerving in unexpected directions, refusing to be confined to a single theme. I hate to pigeonhole bands, but think of them as Pink Floyd meets Sigur Rós.

I was blown away, to be honest. It's been many years since I've been so impressed by a support band. After just the first number, I found myself already vowing to purchase their CD from the merchandise stand at the end of the gig.

Given the length of the songs, For A Minor Reflection played only four or five songs before their time was up. Like a good restaurant, they left me wanting more as they made their exit.

An hour after For A Minor Reflection had taken to the stage, it was the turn of Sigur Rós.

It was a gentle start, thanks to Svefn-G-Englar. One could immediately tell that it was going to be a good evening.

After that, time passed quickly. High points for me were Ágætis Byrjun, Glósóli, Hoppípolla, Sæglópur and Popplagið, with this last song being possibly their finest moment.

A large part of Með Suð Í Eyrum Við Spilum Endalaust was also played, of course, but this newest album has yet to really grow on me. It still feels devoid of any classic tracks, unlike previous albums.

Visually, they're not the most exciting band in the world to watch. If it weren't for Jón Þór "Jónsi" Birgisson's signature cello-bow thrashing of his guitar, one could have closed one's eyes and simply escaped the coils of the mundane world in the rising swell of sound crashing in off the stage.

All too soon, it was over, although my 41 year old legs were feeling the strain after three and a half hours of being glued to the same spot.

I beat a hasty retreat to the cloakroom and, from there, to the merchandise stand to pick up an autographed copy of For A Minor Reflection's debut CD, the snappily titled Reistu Þig Við, Sólin Er Komin Á Loft... It's been playing on the Sonos at regular intervals throughout the day.

I wish I were going to the London and Reykjavík concerts that will be rounding off the tour in the next few days. In particular, seeing the band play to a home crowd in the Icelandic capital would be an experience to remember.

For now, though, I'll have to make do with the memory, a downloaded torrent of the gig, and my deluxe copy of Með Suð Í Eyrum Við Spilum Endalaust that arrived in the post last week. I still haven't watched the DVD yet.

Cor blimey, it's been busy around these parts, to be sure. I scarcely know where to begin; it's been that long.

The bricklayers are gone now and the scaffolding has come down. With a bit of luck, that will mean the last of the brown water stains on the conservatory ceiling.

The chimney is in true again, as are the walls of the balconies. All around the house, the brickwork has been renewed and is looking much better. I hope we won't have to touch it again for quite a few years.

Because it's been so heavily trodden of late, the garden's looking a right mess now, though. It'll need some work in the new year to get the lawn looking nice again.

Our leaking boiler in the loft caused me no end of stress over the last few weeks. The required new valve, when it came, turned out to be just one of two parts that needed to be replaced. This wasn't discovered until the valve had been removed by the plumber. I was told that the second part, a motor, would have a three week delivery time. By this point, I was already having to go up into the loft once a day to empty the bucket that had been catching the water dripping from the leaking valve.

Unfortunately, the act of removing and refitting the bad valve significantly worsened the leak and I quickly found myself entering the loft multiple times per day to empty the bucket. At the worst of it, I went to bed at 03:45 after emptying the bucket and was woken by Sarah at 07:30 after she had found water streaming out of the bathroom ceiling from an air vent and a light fitting. One floor up, water was also coming through the ceiling of the toilet.

Sarah constructed a set of plastic run-off gutters to carry the water to a much larger bucket (that was too big to place directly under the leaking valve), which bought us the freedom to make just a single trip to the loft each day to empty the contents. I was very grateful for this small mercy, because, by this time, I felt like a complete slave to the water that had come to rule my life.

A huge quantity of water was now pouring from this leak, although the exact rate of loss depended on the ambient temperature and how much work the boiler was having to do to heat the house. In any case, the boiler was completely emptying itself within three to four days, causing us to lose all of our heating and hot water. With sub-zero night-time temperatures, this was no laughing matter.

As I said, the situation caused me no end of stress. Not least amongst my concerns was the fear that the spare part that had been ordered would be out of stock and not delivered in time for Christmas. I couldn't imagine how we could possibly go away with the danger of severe water damage so real.

Luckily, the replacement motor arrived within mere days, not weeks, and the boiler company were prompt about fitting both it and the new valve. I refilled the boiler with water and now, nearly a week later, the heating is still working, so I can tentatively say, with fingers crossed, that the problem has finally been fixed. God, I sincerely hope so.

The issue of the leaking valve had actually been with us since we bought the house, but we didn't know where the leak was. The boiler company, too, had been unable to trace it. A year ago, it was taking a few months to empty. By last week, it was taking just a few days.

So, it wasn't until things took a drastic turn for the worse that the location of the leak revealed itself to us. There was no way for that quantity of water to disappear so quickly without trace.

It's amazing how many things within one's home one takes for granted. The last few weeks have been a humbling experience.

We've got quite a bit of technology on order at the moment. I'll be writing more about this in the comings days and weeks.

First off, we've mounted a new 26" Sharp LC-26D44E LCD TV on an Ionics Luna 102 wall brace in the kitchen.

This HD Ready TV is only for incidental viewing, so the input is standard analogue cable via coax. The wall mount is extremely versatile and allows the set to rotate 360°, tilt 15° and pivot 180°. This means that it can be watched from any location around the kitchen counter and island, as well as from the dining-room table (but not all at the same time, obviously).

Since it's not connected to a MythTV front-end, we can only watch live TV, which isn't all that useful. Still, I'll enjoy watching the morning news bulletin as I sip my coffee, which is enough for me. And Sarah can watch something light whilst cooking, which is probably good enough for her.

In fact, thanks to live TV, I've just seen my first ads in over two years, which, I have to say, was quite a novelty. I'm sure they'll become tedious again very quickly, though.

There were already cables protruding from the wall in that location, so it made sense to put a television there, just because it was so easy to do. It would be nice if we could pipe the TV's sound through the Sonos to the overhead speakers, but due to the fact the TV and the nearest zone controller aren't close to each other, that's a difficult goal to realise.

I also need to find some rubber strips to stick to the corners of the TV to prevent it from damaging the wall if the hinge is moved carelessly. At the moment, it would be quite easy to gouge chunks out of the wall.

After having spent a two week sojourn in Providence in October, we're opting for a shorter than usual Christmas break in the US this year.

This decision will enable us to finally see in the new year in Reykjavík, a long-standing ambition of mine.

In fact, this will be the fifth trip to Iceland for Sarah and me, the third for Eloïse, and the very first for Lukie. With each holiday Euro now conferring more than 180 Kronur on the Icelandic tourist, as opposed to the 80 or so we were getting on our last trip in November 2007, it will be a cheaper than usual trip to those northern shores.

I think it will be a singularly interesting time to be there, too, as it's unique in my lifetime that a western industrialised country goes virtually bankrupt.

I just hope the fact that virtually every Icelandic adult has lost his savings doesn't mean that nobody will be purchasing any fireworks this year. If anything, a little bit of escapism is needed more this year than at any point in recent history.