London: The SEX capital of the world!


In his fascinating study, The Secret History of Georgian London, Dan Cruikshank, an authority on Georgian architecture, removes the bland facade to expose one of London's biggest and most lively industries - its trade in sex. Throughout the 18th century, London had more prostitutes openly plying their trade than anywhere else in - several thousand of them. The forces of law pursued them all with fierce penalties: convicted bawds were pilloried and sodomy and rape were capital crimes. But without any effective police force, the sex trade burgeoned untill the sex trade was chased underground by the Victorians and the British all became prudish like hell. :-)
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My biggest project yet... ripping my classical discotheque


Years after I ripped my entire popular and jazz music CD collection, I am finally ready to start working on my biggest challenge and project ever: putting my classical music collection to MP3.
This may sound easier then I actually is - tagging the tracks, finding the right recording information, the original art work and merging several CD's back to one piece takes some serious effort.
I set up a separate iTunes library on a separate Hard Disk and started today with Mahler.
I hope that I can finish this somewhere in 2010...
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Kees van Dongen - Jeune Arabe for sale

One of my most beloved Kees van Dongen's "Jeune Arabe" is at auction at Sothebys, New York November 4th. The estimate is $7 - $10 million - to bad I don't have that amount of cash available right now...
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1970 Dodge Challenger R/T SE

At the London Automobiles auction of RM I found this nice Dodge Challenger for a mere 70.000 pounds. The Dodge Challenger and its Plymouth Barracuda stablemate were the last entrants to the “pony car” club already occupied by the Chevrolet Camaro, AMC Javelin and Ford Mustang, but it has that unabashed muscle car character, especially in this Sublime Green color.
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The day when Zomoto became Motomedia


Almost two years after Marijn and I started the company we thought that the name Zomoto isn't really representing what we actually are doing - so starting from today we are calling the firm "Motomedia".
Motomedia is a online automotive network and consists of sites like (zomoto.nl, autoblog.nl, auto.nl, carwoman.nl, and hopefully many more in the near future). To celebrate this event we had dinner at Restaurant The Goudfazant - which was very tasty and nice :-) 
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Hmmm... nice..uh..hat!


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Uhm... Kindle Buyer's remorse?


While I am still waiting for my Kindle to arrive - I must say that maybe, just maybe the Nook would have been a better option. Wifi, Epub, color display, Micro SD slot, swanky design: it seems the Nook as got it all. You can even lend ebooks to en from friends...
My iLiad definiately is complety worthy for museum purposes only. They only thing that keeps me happy still with my Kindle is that outside of the USA you cannot order a Nook. So in the end, the Kindle is the best (read: only) option!
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Finally it is official - I am a writer and just published my first book.


Thanks to the nice people of blurb I received the first copy of my first book - an account of my blog  which I started way back in 2003. The first couple of years I didn't post everyday yet but only when I was traveling. So the first volume of my collected Blog posts book is covering 2003 - 2005. I am very very happy with the way it turned out and the easy with which burb "slurped" my blog post and compiled it into a book. Although every single post is still online and print is completely something form the past - I do like to have so many sweet memories in a book :-)
I am currently editing my blog 2006, part I - so when this is finished I"ll show you the end result.
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Chris Messina - the hero of Julie & Julia

Julie & Julia, the movie about Julia Child and Julie Powell has actually one hero: Julie's husband Eric, played by Chris Messina. It is absolutely awesome what this guy accepted of and did for Julie Powell. This woman is really a big mess, dropping things, being hyper and depressed at the same time. But everytime there he is, comforting her and suporting Julie: My buddy Eric...
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Who you gonna call?

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With the motor club in Zeeland

Roland and I joined our buddies of the motor cycle club for a weekend in Zeeland. Although the weather wasn't that great (rain and wind), it was fun to meet everybody and to make a tour around the islands in search of windmills - of which they have more then plenty!.
At some we stopped and had a little chat with the local miller. Usually strange, eccentric blokes, like these two.
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Gay Icons,  a new exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery opens in the week of the 40th anniversary of the Stonewall riots. A couple of famous (British) gays were asked who their icons were. Not a lot of surprises - but a couple of nice pictures. My favorite Sir Ian McKellen included heroes like Edward Carpenter and Walt Whitman.
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What happens when you become 6?

In our local post office today I noticed that you can celebrate every birthday you want, but when you turn 6 - you probably will not receive any congratulations...
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The Lost symbols of Dan Brown



This engraving by Durer plays an important role in Dan Brown's new novel - the lost symbols. The symbols here are a magic square in the right top corner of the drawing. If you click on the picture, you can see that the numbers 1 to 16 are organized in such a way that every row or column sums up to 34, even if you divide the square in 4 smaller squares - the sum of that square is 34 again - sweet! Unfortunately Dan's book isn't that great. Professor Landon is over and out I am afraid!
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Gay-Straight Alliance



Bjarne Koek and Neddo Siebum are two students who set up a Gay-Straight Alliance at their schools.  Their aim is to make homosexuality something that can be discussed at school among fellow pupils and to make clear that they live their life just as everyone else is doing. They really set an example - and look cute :-)
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Grace Coddington stars in The September Issue



Anna Wintour is not the hero of RJ Cutler's documentary "The September Issue,"about the September Issue of Vogue but Grace Coddigton, Vogue's Creative Director. After being a model herself she now works more then 40 years for Vogue and she is both likable (unlike Anna) and highly creative.
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Obama at the (gay) Human Rights Campaign Gala

President Obama told LGBT Americans that his commitment to ending discrimination in the military, in the workplace and for loving couples and their families is ‘unwavering. Do not doubt the direction we are going and the destinations we are going to reach. An other stunning speech- but no mention of gay marriage though...
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Anne Frank: The only existing film images


Anne Frank has her own Youtube channel - have a look!
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Jellyfish at the beach


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The Nobel peace prize 2009 - my line up


I am very happy that Barack won the Nobel peace prize- I am sure that this will encourage him and so many others to continue on the road he has been going. My line up for this year was:
  1. Morgan Tsvangirai - If one man symbolizes change through peaceful actions he is it. He really needs more recognition from the world to end the brutality in Zimbabwe.
  2. Václav Havel - as a salut for all the work he has done for peace in the Czech Republic, Central and Eastern Europe and the world.
  3. Barack Obama - I still don't know how but somehow this guy can listen, make people listen and act. 
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