Navigation
Home | Links | .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) | Videos | Scarlett | Site notices
About This Site
About
A personal weblog with photographs and comments. Quiet ramblings, quite rambling...
Members
Most recent entries
- Another Sick Cycle Lane in Surrey - Oxted
- Mrs Hyacinth Bucket of Oxted
- Clouds in the sea
- Sea kayak
- A woman, several boats, the swan, the dog, and the ocean
- A Green Beach
- A panorama of Oxted
- Daring Driver of Limpsfield
- Fenton! Fenton! (Part 2)
- Fenton! Fenton! (Part 1)
- Boy and dog
- Windsor Castle
- Descending Chalkpit Lane
- Does Surrey County Council have a target culture?
- New personal speed record
Recent entries with comments
- A shrine on Limpsfield Road - (4)
- Zebra Crossing Part Two - (1)
- Courchevel - (2)
- Mersea Island - (2)
- Old school rice packaging - (1)
- Were you one of these car drivers in Oxted who nearly killed me yesterday? - (4)
- This Charming Man - (2)
- The Front of Hever Castle - (2)
- Barcelona sunset - a short time-lapse - (1)
- Ragwort - (1)
Feeds
Categories
Monthly Archives
- June 2013
- May 2013
- April 2013
- March 2013
- February 2013
- January 2013
- December 2012
- November 2012
- October 2012
- September 2012
- August 2012
- July 2012
- June 2012
- May 2012
- April 2012
- March 2012
- February 2012
- January 2012
- December 2011
- November 2011
- October 2011
- September 2011
- August 2011
- July 2011
- June 2011
- May 2011
- April 2011
- March 2011
- February 2011
- January 2011
- December 2010
- November 2010
- October 2010
- September 2010
- August 2010
- July 2010
- June 2010
- May 2010
- April 2010
- March 2010
- February 2010
- January 2010
- December 2009
- November 2009
- October 2009
- September 2009
- August 2009
- July 2009
- June 2009
- May 2009
- April 2009
- March 2009
- February 2009
- January 2009
- December 2008
- November 2008
- October 2008
- September 2008
- August 2008
- July 2008
- June 2008
- May 2008
- April 2008
- March 2008
- February 2008
- January 2008
- December 2007
- November 2007
- October 2007
- September 2007
- August 2007
- July 2007
- June 2007
- May 2007
- April 2007
- March 2007
- February 2007
- January 2007
- December 2006
- November 2006
- October 2006
- September 2006
- August 2006
- July 2006
- June 2006
- May 2006
- April 2006
- March 2006
- February 2006
- January 2006
- December 2005
- November 2005
- October 2005
- September 2005
- August 2005
- July 2005
- June 2005
- May 2005
- April 2005
- March 2005
- February 2005
- January 2005
- December 2004
- November 2004
- October 2004
- September 2004
- August 2004
- July 2004
- June 2004
- May 2004
- April 2004
- March 2004
- February 2004
- January 2004
- December 2003
- November 2003
- October 2003
Links
- Full linklist
- Bluemeanie.org
- Scarlett's weblog
- GeoURL
- Blogflux
- LS Blogs
- Blogwise
- Wikablog
- Technorati
- Blogarama
- Oxted Frappr
- Bloggernity.com
- The Blog Directory
- The Green Providers Directory
Lately listening to
Site Statistics
- This website has been viewed 2491145 times
- Page rendered in 0.6332 seconds
- 53 queries executed
Site Credits
- Based on a design by:
BlogMoxie 
The original content of this blog is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 License.
Netherlands
Netherlands
So the Windsor family aren’t the only royals of Europe selling tacky merchandise - the current/soon-to-be-ex queen of the Netherlands is Beatrix, while the pepermints feature her grandmother. Queen Wilhelmina abdicated in 1948 in favour of her daughter Juliana, who in turn abdicated in 1980 in favour of Beatrix.
Filed under: Europe • Netherlands • (0) Comments • Permalink • Bookmark or Share •
100% not horse.
Filed under: Europe • Netherlands • (0) Comments • Permalink • Bookmark or Share •
Somewhere on the outskirts of Amsterdam last week.
Filed under: Europe • Netherlands • (0) Comments • Permalink • Bookmark or Share •
I managed to get a birds eye view of Rotterdam on the way home this week.
Filed under: Europe • Netherlands • (0) Comments • Permalink • Bookmark or Share •
I took this time-lapse video from my hotel room in Rotterdam this week. It’s a bit disappointing that the lens is reflected in the window ... oh well, this was my first attempt to do this with the iPad.
Filed under: Europe • Netherlands • (0) Comments • Permalink • Bookmark or Share •
And so snow strikes chaos in the UK, in a way that a terrorist attack could never. I was reading some accounts of passengers experiences and a few things struck me. A common refrain seems to be:
It’s not the weather that’s the problem, it’s the way they’ve handled the people…..
and
We’ve been left to fend for ourselves.
I too have had similar experiences at UK airports. The ones that stick in my mind are the storm in 2000 when my flight was delayed 24 hours and I was stranded at Gatwick airport, and the time when my late-night flight into the UK was delayed en route for 2 hours and by the time we disembarked the baggage handlers’ shift had finished and they had gone home. (Our baggage was delivered the following day). A common thread in my experiences has been airline and airport staff who don’t know how to handle emergencies and unhappy customers. They appeared reluctant to give us full information about the nature of the problem, they did not want to discuss the situation, they did not want to hear customer complaints, and they were generally unhelpful.
A year ago today (almost) I was stuck at railway stations and airports in the Netherlands due to a severe snowstorm. I spent two days trekking across the (little) country and although I was inconvenienced my way was always smoothed by the staff who knew how to deal with complaints and angry passengers. I was frustrated and (am sorry to say now) that I took out my frustrations at the people who were trying to make the passengers’ lives less miserable. I also noticed other people “ranting” at the airport/railway staff but the staff handled us at all times with aplomb. They showed empathy for their customers. Various people have put forward definitions for empathy, such as:
The capacity to know emotionally what another is experiencing from within the frame of reference of that other person, the capacity to sample the feelings of another or to put one’s self in another’s shoes.
[D. M. Berger]A sense of similarity in feelings experienced by the self and the other, without confusion between the two individuals.
[Jean Decety]An affective response that stems from the apprehension or comprehension of another’s emotional state or condition, and that is similar to what the other person is feeling or would be expected to feel.
[Nancy Eisenberg]To empathize means to share, to experience the feelings of another person.
[R. R. Greenson]The ability to put oneself into the mental shoes of another person to understand her emotions and feelings.
[Alvin Goldman]An affective response more appropriate to another’s situation than one’s own.
[Martin Hoffman]
These definitions also make me think of Emotional Inteligence. Is it not time that businesses in the UK started to teach their employees to empathise with their customers? Apparently this should start with the managers learning to empathise with their staff.
Filed under: Europe • Netherlands • (1) Comments • Permalink • Bookmark or Share •
When I walked through Erasmus University recently, I noticed a semi-enclosed smoking zone outside (and across the road) from one of the main buildings. Erasmus University is named after Desiderius Erasmus
of Rotterdam (who) was a Dutch Renaissance humanist and a Catholic priest and theologian. His scholarly name Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus comprises the following three elements: the Latin noun desiderium (“longing” or “desire”; the name being a genuine Late Latin name); the Greek adjective ἐράσμιος (erásmios) meaning “desired”, and, in the form Erasmus, also the name of a St. Erasmus of Formiae; and the Latinized adjectival form for the city of Rotterdam (Roterodamus = “of Rotterdam”).
I was also interested to read the following on Wikipedia:
Erasmus lived through the Reformation period and he consistently criticized some contemporary popular Christian beliefs. In relation to clerical abuses in the Church, Erasmus remained committed to reforming the Church from within.
La plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.
I had a look at the University website and found that they have a number of smoking zones some of which are inside the campus buildings.
Filed under: Europe • Netherlands • (0) Comments • Permalink • Bookmark or Share •
A series of time-lapse photographs taken en route from Rotterdam to London City exactly one week ago today.
Filed under: Europe • Netherlands • United Kingdom • England • (0) Comments • Permalink • Bookmark or Share •