Spirou

09:21 mareku 0 Comments

A nice 1953 statue of Spirou of the Spirou et Fantasio comic range by Franquin. For sale at the comic auction of Artcurial in Paris this Weekend. Value: € 2000...

The Fitna Farce

05:12 mareku 0 Comments

Geert Wilders' film, Fitna, fails to interest or provide insight,
making one wonder why it aroused so much attention in the first place

I just watched Dutch right-winger Geert Wilders' film, Fitna, The Movie.
He had promised it would be too shocking, too frightening, too
disturbing - and much of the world was holding its breath in a morbid,
anxious wait for its release. The media feared rabid violence by those Muslims.

My initial reaction is a yawn. I blame production. The soundtrack is
Tchaikovsky's mellow classical piece called "Arab Dance". Anyone who has seen terrorist propaganda films is familiar with most
of the scenes and most of the disgusting conflations of the Quran with
acts of violence, murder, kidnapping and antisemitism. The scene of the hanging of the gay boys Mahmoud Asgari and Ayaz Marhoni in Iran still gives me shivers...

Such behaviour
has been condemned resoundingly among Muslims. The same could also be done with clippings of the Bible.

The film is a mixture of conflating the most painful and
heart-wrenching images from terror-strikes with extremist imams, in an
effort to turn the entirety of Islam into a demonic edifice. This is
neither new, nor interesting.

What the film really shows is that Wilders doesn't know the
difference between Islam and Islamism - and when it comes to the latter
he is completely lost. 

PS:  The transformation
of "Fitna" into "Fin" at the end was pretty cool ;-)


No 1 ladies detective agency

07:03 mareku 0 Comments

A nice sweet tv series on BBC1: The no 1 ladies detective agency. Based on the bestselling (9) books by the Rhodesian-born author Alexander McCall Smith. It really gives a different perpective of Africa (Botswana).
I absolutely love Anika Noni Rose in her role of Grace Makutsi (secretary 97%), very funny!

Kawasaki Versys

06:55 mareku 0 Comments


Sync jumping

07:18 mareku 0 Comments


Accident

12:59 mareku 0 Comments

Almost had an accident today with this new David Posters filling all the billboards in Amsterdam :-)

Eckart Wintzen

13:44 mareku 0 Comments

Eckart died suddenly last friday in his home in France. He was only 68 years old. He was a great inspiration for me about how to organise companies and to act responsible as an entrepeneur. Luckily he was able to write a great book about his ideas so his philosophy can live on.

A butcher in Paris

10:38 mareku 0 Comments


A Cultural Easter day

10:30 mareku 0 Comments

Easterday: the shops are closed, but the musea open, so we made the best of it and visited Orsay, Musee Decorative and the Louvre - where we met...Ruby & Niek!

A get together with Ruby & Niek

10:22 mareku 0 Comments

10 person staff in Ze Kitchen
Orange &Ginger cake
Asperagus
Lot
We visited the De Vlaminck exhibition in Jardin du Luxembourg which was small but nice (especially his panting of the Theems of 1909). Then briefly to the old Atelier of DelaCroix. Later that day it was time for shopping and...uh... shopping (mostly at Le Bon Marche).
For dinner I had made reservations at "Ze Kitichen" which was great fun and great taste.