Manfred and I took Willem to the 'puppendoktor' last saturday. She threatened to give him a dog's nose, and explained how she refused to sell koala-noses as they are not produced in Germany and she would not buy noses anywhere else, especially not from the Chinese. An to this she hastened to add that 'off course, she had nothing against foreigners'. The Netherlands can (and does to my frustration) pride themselves in a member of parliament who also 'has nothing against foreigners'. His election is celebrated by a large, intellectually not uneducated group of liberals, as the latest proof of Dutch tolerance. Look! We even tolerate a xenophobic, Mozart-lookalike populist whose lack of education has equipped him remarkably well in evading every debate. Aren't we the liberal ones!

Geert Wilders, in fact has no particular problem with foreigners, he only objects to about a third of the world population, that is, anyone who is Muslim or even has some (remote though it may be) sympathy for the Islam. His sole agenda is to insult, threaten and damage these people (and any other people if he considers it convenient, such as the inhabitants of the Dutch Antilles), as if this were his inalienable right, as laid out in the constitution under freedom of speech. For a brief moment last week I believed that this illusion was unveiled as the British government refused him entry to show his travesty of a film to the House of Lords. Replacing my skeptic inclination that they might just be unwilling to pay the expenses of his safety -they are substantial-, with a new optimism I was happy to note that not even the Dutch prime minister and minister of foreign affairs went out of their way to defend Wilders' right of entry. A few half-hearted protests at the address of the British ambassador were accompanied with a request to Wilders not to put more pressure on British-Dutch relations. Unfortunately, these idyllic thoughts were shortlived as on returning from a brief visit to Nottingham I was confronted with the effects of the British decision on Dutch politics: if elections were held today, Wilders' party would be the largest.

My short visit to Nottingham was not a test to check whether the Britisch authorities suddenly had problems with the Dutch, but it was high time I discussed the work I have so far achieved in Mainz with my supervisor. I have been writing my introduction, which is important not just because it explains the methodological framework of my research, but also because it provides the agenda for the work I still need to add to all my other existing chapters. It appears I am on schedule. My decision to employ Hayden White's narratological view on history to Pausanias found my supervisor's approval, which confirmed to me that instead of being a nut, I cracked one. Probably both are still true, as well as inevitable in the existence of a PhD-candidate. Nevertheless, I have reached a special state of nuttiness in Mainz that allows me to focus on the completion of my dissertation. A return to sanity will hopefully be achieved this summer after submission.

I also used the stay in England to throw my ideas on Spartacus at a bunch of classics graduate students. The ideas were liked well enough, but I was struggling horribly with my english pronunciation. For some reason, the word 'gladiatorial' had become impossible for me. My dear friend Cressida, whose guest I was, had earlier in the week laughed at me for forgetting half my english. Only by the end of the week did I start remembering, but then, on returning to Mainz I found myself unable to speak any German. If it weren't for Manfred I would probably forget my Dutch as well. He was here in Mainz for the weekend and apart from relaxing and bookshopping, we walked a nice 12K route to the other side of the Rhine, which will be my new route for running. I ran it yesterday and am proud to say that I can do it without resting in 1 hour and 10 minutes. There are some astonishingly beautiful views on the cityscape and that makes it so much easier to keep motivation up.

It has, however, made me rather tired, and it is time I join Willem, who by the way has refused the nose.