Ramses

75 today!

Dinner and Floor Show

I went to a small restaurant on a canal close to my house. I'd seen it before, passing it on my way to the supermarket, but I'd never eaten there. It's a strange mix of Argentine and Italian food, which really means lots of steak, pizza and pasta. It all started pretty well, some guests already there, but not too many. We got the menu quickly enough, and our food. We wanted pizza, and it tasted very well.

We were seated close to the bar, the centre of operations. Three members of staff were there, a man and two girls. I think one of the girls was quite new as she still had to ask many questions on what to do and where to find things. As the evening wore on the restaurant got more quiet and it felt like the three didn't have that much to do anymore. One of them had her own dinner, the other two dealt with orders coming in over the phone. That was quite a challenge, with the supply of Fanta running out while that appeared to be the favourite for the evening. One of the delivery men came back in, looking for a parcel, but found it incomplete. The staff all claimed to have nothing to do with the order.

We got our coffees on time, but had to wait a while for the apple pie. We saw it coming past a few times, being taken from one end of the restaurant to the other, after the manager had explained they had forgotten about that. Intriguing. Well, it tasted pretty good in the end. And it really was quite funny...

I Went to a Marvellous Party

Sometimes things don't go quite as planned, but that needn't make them less fun. Take last night.

It was a good day yesterday, nice and sunny, a lovely day to be outside. And I was going to be outside in the evening, attending a birthday party at the open air theatre in the Amsterdamse Bos. So it all looked pretty good. I made a tzatziki, got some Turkish bread and I was all ready for it. I was due to leave my house at 18.30, but about half an hour before, it got a little grey outside. And then a little greyer. And a little greyer. When I left there was a slight drizzle, but nothing to worry about, and I got to my friend's house more or less dry. Then as we were packing everything for the picknick it started to rain. So we waited a few minutes, until it seemed to be getting dry again. We got our bikes and cycled down to the park. Somewhere along the way it started to rain again, and it was pretty wet when we got to the theatre. And so were we.

We had to wait for some other guests so we took shelter under the trees. That is where we ended up having our picknick, standing around, waiting for the rain to stop. We drank our prossecco, had Turkish bread with cheese, egg salad and tzatziki, and enjoyed the salads. It took a bit of juggling at times, but it all tasted great. The rain didn't stop, but people did turn up for the performance. And some people left again.


Then it was time for the play to start, and it was still raining. I was wearing my weather-proof gear, so I didn't mind all that much. At least it wasn't cold. We had our dessert in the rain, tiramusa and coffee from proper cups. The actors were on stage deciding whether or not to get on with the show. In the end they decided to go ahead, and they started in the rain. At one point they had to stop the show for about ten minutes because it was just too wet. After that it got much better though, and towards the end of the performance it was dry. It was a good production, and I'm glad we got to see all of it. We cycled home around midnight, still a little damp, but not too bothered. Marvellous party really.

Hydra

Seeing Leonard Cohen in concert took me back to a holiday some 12 years ago, when I first got close to the man. More or less. To a moment when I learned something more about him and the way he lived.

I went to Greece for a spring holiday, and it was a mixed trip in many ways. I started off in the north, and went skiing for a day near the Yugoslav border. Then down to Mount Olympus, home of the gods, only to get rained off again. At my next destination, Meteora, the weather was lovely, and I visited the monasteries in the sunshine. Further south I stood in the pouring rain in Delphi, watching Hillary Clintons motorcade drive past. And then it was time for some real sunshine, on a Greek island. Hydra seemed the obvious choice. Not too far from Athens, and Leonard Cohen used to live there.

Once on the island, after finding a place to stay and something to eat, it was time to try and find the Cohen house. I asked a few people but no luck. "Somewhere up there" was as far as I got. So I walked a little way up the mountain, until I met someone who did know and who could point me in the right direction. Close to the house the lady who walked up with us introduced us to the lady looking after the house. I looked at the walls, the trees above, the windows and the wires. It wasn't possible to go inside the house, but the lady said that if we came back the next day we could just have a look in the garden if we wanted to.


The next morning we walked back up to the house, where the old lady was already waiting for us. We went into the garden, which was a lovely, quiet corner with some lemon trees. We got to taste the lemons. The lady ended up changing her mind and she showed us something of the house as well. It was a strange experience to be in that small house. It was light, sparsely furnished and spacious. It still looked lived in, because of all the personal items, the photographs, the books, some children's toys, the old guitar. I saw the room where Marianne was photographed, the drawers of the desk that were full of fan letters. I wouldn't mind living in this house.

After visiting the house the lady invited us to her own house for a drink, and we met her husband and her mother. She was a very kind lady, who seemed to enjoy the interest in her Mr Leonard Cohen, and she was proud to be working for him. It was a special day, and a special meeting.

Little Things

Sometimes it's the little things that make all the difference. I really thought I was getting old. Cycling into work, home or anywhere else for that matter, took such an effort. After about ten minutes pedalling my muscles started to ache, I couldn't really go very fast, I could hardly get up into top gear. It felt weird, I think I am quite fit really, but my cycling was proving me wrong.

Then there was a plan to make a cycle tour of some 90 kilometres, and I didn't quite know what to do about that. I mean, if 20 minutes to work was a problem, how was I going to do that? I had noticed, however, that the seat of my bike was a little low, and so were the handlebars. When I was cycling I couldn't quite stretch my legs, but I could just about make my knees touch my nose. So I thought the least I could do was get the seat and the handlebars adjusted. And I did.

And now suddenly, I find myself going at full speed again, I can cycle in top gear, and I can reach my office without aching muscles. I even managed my long cycle tour without any major problems. It was the bike all along, nothing to do with me. And it took me about four months to come up with that idea.

23 July 1911

During the Terra Nova expedition to the Antarctic, Edward Wilson travelled with his two companions Apsley Cherry Garrard and Birdie Bowers to a distant Emperor Penguin Colony to collect eggs. It was winter in the Antarctic, it was dark throughout the day and night, and the weather was atrocious. The journey became known as "The Worst Journey in the World". On 23 July Wilson celebrated his 39th and last birthday, he died with Scott and Bowers at the end of March the following year on his way back from the South Pole.

From Wilson's diary:

"Sixth Sunday after Trinity and quite the funniest birthday I have ever spent. The wind was terrific. It blew almost continuously with storm force - there were slight lulls occasionally followed by squalls of very great violence, and at about noon the canvas roof of the hut carried away and we were left lying exposed in our sleeping bags without a tent or a roof. The storm continued all day with unabated vigour. There was no choice for us now - we had decided this before in the event of our roof being blown off - we had to remain lying there in our bags till the blizzard stopped. We had had two days of it, but here at Cape Crozier Royds in 1902 was laid up with his party for 5 days - and I with mine for 8 days out of 11. So we could only hope that this was not going to continue quite so long. If it did our best chance was to allow the snow drift to cover us up, which it was doing already, in order that we might at any rate keep warm. We could always eat biscuit and cold pemmican in our bags and we all had biscuits in our pockets.

When the roof went Birdie and I were both out of our bags, for we were trying to stop the flap and the chafe of the canvas which began when the snow blocks were blown off the roof. The weakest spot was where the door came, but we had anchored it with very large stones. These stones the wind acting on the canvas joggled about like so much gravel and they gradually shifted out of place. We did all we could to jam them tight, but to no purpose, for while we were still at it the canvas ripped out all along the lee end of the hut with a noise lika a battery of guns going off. In a second the canvas was ripped in about 10 places and it flapped to bits from end to end in a few minutes - leaving a ragged, flapping end attached to the weather wall which then went on bang, bang, banging for hours till the wind eventually dropped. The noise was most distressing, and we hardly noticed the rocks that fell in, or that the sledge was at once flapped off and fell in also across our three bags. We were at once in a perfect smother of drift when the canvas carried away, and Birdie and I bolted our bags taking an enormous amount of snow in with our clothes to thaw out at leisure. We were not really so much disturbed as we might have thought, and we had time to think out a plan for getting home again now without our tent - in case we couldn't find it - and without the canvas roof of the hut which had gone down wind in shreds the size of a pocket handkerchief. We still had the floor cloth of the tent, and this we were lying on so it couldn't blow away. We could build a snow hut each night on the way home and put this over the top; or we could always dig a burrow in the Barrier big enough for the 3 of us, and make a very good roof with canvas flush with the surface - if there was wind it couldn't then be blown away. We had no doubts about getting back so long as this blizzard didn't last till we were all stiffened with the cold in our bags. The storm continued all day and on until midnight unabated."

Cohen Revisited

After the concert in Bruges last Thursday I wasn't too sure about the Amsterdam concert, I guess. I mean, Bruges was a lovely concert, would the second time be as good, or would it be a little disappointing? Well, it was different and the same, and I probably enjoyed this one even more.

The venue was the Westerpark. I never attended a concert there before, so I wasn't quite sure what to expect, how big the venue was, how big the stage. It was a little bigger than Bruges, and a little less intimate. The stage was bigger and higher, and there were no trees lining the area where the audience stood. It was altogether a little bigger and more open.

Getting in was different too, not quite as easy going as it was among the Belgians. No orderly queue, but a row of entrances, which meant a little pushing and shoving. I arrived at the venue early though, so I was in fairly quickly. And I managed to get a little closer to the stage than I was in Bruges. Combined with the stage being a little higher I got to see a little more. There are times I wish I was about 15 cm taller though...

The mood among the crowd was good from the start. Being so far to the front means being among the real fans. A lady close to me was virtually jumping up and down like a schoolgirl. And screaming like one. I mean, I know the man is extremely charming, but still...

No opening act this time, so Leonard started just after 19.30, when it was still completely light, and this meant it didn't get dark until virtually the end of the concert. It was a little cloudy at times, but the sun came out a few times to light up the audience. The only rain we got was when Leonard sang "So Long, Marianne", and it seemed to fit the lines: "And just when I climbed this whole mountainside,
to wash my eyelids in the rain!"

The set was the same as in Bruges, it sounded even more familiar now. The jokes sounded new, and sincere. Mr. Cohen is a wonderful performer and he made the audience feel special. He seemed a little more cheerful than he was in Belgium, smiling a little more. Being a little more aware of what to expect made me more attentive and gave me a chance to listen a little better than in Bruges. I was amazed at one point to find it was time for the interval when I thought the concert had just started. The voice, the songs and the person of Leonard Cohen just kept the attention and made time fly. He was as gracious as he was on Thursday, towards the audience and towards his band. And he was gracious enough to share the meaning of life with his Amsterdam audience too. And I think he really has found it.

The audience was different from the Belgian audience, even though it turned out after the concert I had been standing almost next to two Belgian women who came to Amsterdam because Bruges was sold out. It was quite an international audience, I was close to a woman from Austria and her daughter, to an Italian couple and some
Scandinavians. Plenty of Dutch there too, talking and singing along. The man next to me was a fan of many years, with a loud voice who obviously enjoyed singing along. He couldn't quite carry a tune though, and he didn't know all the lyrics. Another man kept the home front informed, holding his phone above his head during several songs. Again, lots of cameras and phones. This time people were actually talking on the phone during the concert. And so close to the stage.

Towards the end Cohen picked up a single red rose that had been thrown onto the stage, and then went on to pick up an indefinable blue soft toy, which obviously amused him as he kept looking at it. It was a lovely moment on a lovely evening.

The Man is Here

I was in Bruges to see Leonard Cohen in concert. I'm still trying to recover from the experience, I was more impressed than I had expected. The man played for about three hours, sang many favourites, and was in good voice. He is 73 now, but he didn't seem to get tired at all, he stayed on his feet the whole time.

A while ago I checked his website, something I don't do all that often, but it then turned out tickets for a concert tour would be going on sale shortly after. I couldn't believe my eyes, I hadn't expected him to start touring again. And when I read about the concert there was a little doubt too. I have been listening to the man's music for a while now, and it might be hard to live up to expectations. Reading the first reviews in June, hearing and seeing songs through the net I had a feeling I wouldn't be disappointed though.

So I travelled down to Bruges, where he was to play in the park at the Lake of Love, the Minnewaterpark. The kind of venue he seems to belong. I got there round about the time the gates were due to open, but we had to wait a little while to get in. We didn't get bored though, a few nice rain showers to keep us occupied. It did dry up though, and it was quite nice by the time we all got in. During Martha Wainwright's performance there was one more shower, but it all ended with a lovely rainbow, and that was the end of the rain for the evening.

It was a nicely mixed audience, a lot of long time fans and a lot of young people. For a while I was standing quite close to a drunk fan who decided to attract a little attention, by shouting lines from the songs. Cohen took it all in his stride, and when the fan ended Cohens spoken introduction to Anthem by adding the last line, "that's how the light gets in", Cohen responded with perfect timing "precisely".

The stage was positioned near the edge of the park, quite close to a few houses. People living there enjoyed the concert from the comfort of their own home. Must be a nice way. Then again, you don't get to chose what music is played in your backyard. The windows remained open though, and people were there, so they must have enjoyed this one. And the wonderful thing about an outdoor concert in the summer is that you can see the Swifts circling high above the stage and the audience, and here you could see bats flying past the side of the stage.

I stood for three hours watching this man and his band, but it didn't seem half as long. Cohen sang many of his well-known songs, with his deep, moving voice, was very graceful in every respect. He is a professional, he knows how to give the audience what they want. There is some light humour, great gentleness and presence, commitment, and a great deal of charm. His eyes are hidden under his hat for much of the concert, but he does take the hat off so his eyes catch the light.

The concert was an important one, because Cohen discovered the meaning of life, and he graciously shared this knowledge with us. And I guess, maybe, in the end, life really is very simple....

The best news of all, I am about to get my things together to go and see him again tonight, right here in my home town!

Deception

Sometimes your eyes really do deceive you. I was in a meeting at work, and there were some small bottles of soft drinks on the table. From the corner of my eye I could see one of my colleagues pick up a bottle of coke. He started to shake it and then opened it. I was waiting for the coke to come streaming out, without really thinking, but there was nothing. He had picked up a bottle of orange juice that had been standing just behind the other bottle. So you can't really trust your own eyes after all.

Marlies

I like the designs of Marlies Dekkers. Her designs are simple, no frills, no bows or little flowers, they are strong and stylish. They also seem to have the right fit and they are nice to wear. It feels like they were made with great care and that shows somehow.

She has been in the business for 15 years now, and so she was given an exhibition at the Kunsthal in Rotterdam. It wasn't just about her designs, but also about the art that provided and provide her with the inspiration for her designs. Pieces by Mondriaan, Egon Schiele, Yves Klein and John de Andrea. The exhibition is nicely balanced. Lots of colour in some places, a lot of black in others. And it has a touch of the bizarre. Like Marlies' work. It gave a good impression of all her work.

I'm still not sure this work really belongs in a place like the Art Hall, but then again, you see all kinds of things in there. The Rijksmuseum bought the dress she became famous with, and this is very much design of our time. So I guess it's worth seeing as well as wearing....

Famous Last Words

Well, no more orange in the streets, it's all over.... I blame that supermarket that ran out of little orange lion cubs to give away just before this last game.

The Orange Epidemic

Just before a major international football tournament there is a certain atmosphere in the country. A small part of the population has absolute faith in "our boys" and starts to decorate house and street until all is completely orange. Weeks in advance the decorating starts and plans are made. Big screens out in the street, barrels of beer, the party is planned. Then you get the cynics, the ones who are sure that we'll be out first round, not a hope of winning anything. And they will not get carried away, they make an effort of ignoring the orange around them, they are way above such madness. And then there is the small group who is genuinely not interested, who really don't know when the games are, have no idea which other teams take part.

Then there is the commercial side, all the orange goodies that are given away for free by supermarkets, certain brands of beer, and other shops and companies. One supermarket gives out a kind of subbuteo dolls of all the players, yes, you can collect the whole side. The national lottery hands out cards of all the players. Another supermarket hands out plastic lion cubs with orange manes. It means that I had to avoid spending over 15 Euros there, for fear of ending up with one. I hear they've run out now. Another shop sells great roaring lion shirts, orange, of course. And this is a great time for ships selling big screen televisions. It is quite amazing to think about, really. Grown men and women must start thinking all this up way in advance. They need to decide what to do, get designers in to do the drawing, order everything from China. Lots of men in suits discussing little plastic toys to give away.



If you believe what you see on the news and television commercials the whole country is dressed in orange now and we have all decorated our houses. If you go out on the streets, at least here in Amsterdam, it isn't quite like that yet.

As the tournament progresses, if things go well, however, the party faction gains support and momentum. The cynics slowly get into the party mood, they start watching the games. Suddenly they also talk about "our boys". And the sea of orange gradually spreads across the country. Where last week you saw just a few orange flags outside the cafes, you already see a little more now. And as the tournament progresses that will increase. If the team keeps winning, of course.



The Dutch team won the European championship in 1988, and the whole country went mad. The team's reception in Amsterdam, and their tour around the canals meant a lot of damaged houseboats, some even sank. The best commercial I've seen about the championship so far is one where you see a couple sitting on their couch watching Holland win the final. You can see the fear in their eyes, as the camera slowly moves back and shows them through the window of their houseboat.

The Age of Satire Isn't Dead

In 1729 century the Irish writer Jonathan Swift published "A Modest Proposal". It was his simple and straightforward solution to the poverty and hunger in his country and the great surplus of children.

Supposedly written by a cattle breeder, the piece advocates the rearing of young children until the age of one, when they can be sold for food to the rich of the country. The writer can see only advantages to the scheme, good food for the rich, income for the poor, and no growing up in misery for the children. Reading it it almost makes sense. If you just stop thinking for a minute it all sounds logical. The piece is so well-written, it talks about the wrongs and injustices, but makes those an excuse for this modest proposal. The poor are miserable enough anyway, no hope of improvement, so why not? That is the reasoning behind the proposal.

The theme is picked up again, brilliantly, by the Yes Men. They are a small group whose mission it is to debunk some of the attitudes alive in the world today in the same way Swift did. They simply take these ideas and attitudes to their logical conclusion, describe them in different words, making good use of today's veiled business language, and, for example, advocate a modern variation on slavery.

The Yes Men don't disguise themselves as cattle breeders, but they put on a nice suit and become businessmen, representing major organisations and companies. They seem to have very little trouble getting themselves invited to a conference as representatives of the World Trade Organisation. They then come up with a presentation that takes global business views to the extreme. They know the form and the language, and they seem to get away with it.

I watched a documentary on their work the other night, and was both surprised and not surprised. Their so obviously ridiculous suggestions were taken seriously, and no other participant questioned their words or motives. When one of the Yes Man came up with the idea of enforced labour in third world countries, as in people working long hours for very little money under atrocious circumstances with the rich countries not taking any responsibility for what is happening. And if you leave them in their own countries you can put the children to work too. It is better and cheaper than importing slave labour.

The only audience that did come up with questions and that did point out the immorality of it all was an audience of students. Then again, the story told to this audience, the recycling of hamburgers to feed the third world really was too gross.

Sometimes there is a very thin line with what we have come to regard as normal, and what is so obviously wrong and unethical. We are slow learners.

Chairman Humph

I'm a great fan of English radio comedy, I think I've mentioned this before. One of the shows that can really make me laugh is "I'm Sorry I haven't a Clue". It is a weird mixture of the absurd, the obscene, and the silly. It is a panel game, but the rules are impossible, if there are any at all, and seem to change all the time. It can make me cringe and it can make me laugh out loud when I'm on my own. There also is a warmth about the programme, because at heart it has the feel of a group of friends getting together to have fun. More or less the same team created the programme for over 35 years, and managed to keep it funny and fresh.

Chairman Humph died a little while ago and I've been listening to the tributes people paid him. He played the part of the grumpy chairman, reading out his lines in a serious voice, pretending he wished he was somewhere else. He was in his eighties, but he sounded wonderful, full of humour, and very gentle. Listening to the tribute programmes means I now know a little more about him, and that has only made me like him more. I can't quite imagine the programme without him. Who else could possible explain the rules to "One song to the tune of another", quite so clearly and succinctly. Or be able to make the contestants stick to the rules of Mornington
Crescent so rigourously. And you have to admire a man, a very good professional musician, who can sit through Jeremy Hardy's singing week after week....

(Un)Easy Neighbours

I've been listening to the brother Cadfael stories on BBC 7 and to the stories of Father Baldi. All related to the monastic life. And then suddenly last weekend I found myself at an abbey, run by Norbertines. Walking through the grounds I almost recognized it all, and the place reminded me very much of Cadfael. I can imagine what it would be like to be here on a quiet day, and I can imagine what the place must have been like once.



At the same time this was a strange place, though. I was there on a Sunday, and found the Abbey shop open for business. You could buy bread there, cheese and medicinal herbs. The abbey is located in a very nice area in Belgium close to the Dutch border so on Sunday a lot of people from Belgium and the Netherlands drive down there for a walk. And where people go for a walk you need to provide refreshments and food. So just across the road from the abbey there is a small collection of the more traditional fast food stands, Belgian "frietkotten" (chip shops). A strange mixture.

Alpha

I am a proper Alpha person, as in into languages and the arts, not so much into science. I know about Shakespeare and Dickens, about Millais and Rossetti, but not much about the Palaeozoic. I'm trying to put that right, so now I'm reading about rocks, fossils and other ancients. I find it can be pretty hard going at times. Yes, I like history, but I've always read about the bits with people in, not about rocks, little animals and tiny plants. Or big plates sliding across the surface of the earth, moving all of us about at the speed of a fingernail growing. It is fascinating though, and as I read more about it, I understand it just a little better and I enjoy finding out more. It can be hard going though, because this requires a different way of thinking, really. You need to understand, and know how it all works. I had to read up on plate tectonics in various sources to get the idea, and I have the same with the formation of rocks. So many details and so much to remember. I'll get there, though, in the end. And we are definitely talking different time scales here....

A Change of Perspective

Somebody somewhere has decided that my backyard needs work, so it has been made almost inaccessible from the street where I live. I'm sure there is a reason for making a big city park difficult to enter for a whole summer, I just don't like it very much. I wanted to go on a picknick in the park with some friends last night, but considering the logistical difficulties we decided to go and have dinner up on the roof instead.



The roof on my house is lovely and flat, well-suited to a picknick really. Nice and quiet. From up there you get a different view of the city. You see the top of the trees in the park, the Zuidas in the distance, the city centre to the other side. If you walk on a little you get a different perspective of your own house and your own street.




I like being up on my roof...

A Grand Day Out

It was a lovely day today, maybe a little grey, but lovely and warm, perfect for cycling. So I cycled out of the city, to the south, to have a look round the polders there. More people had the idea to go cycling, and I ended up in some big flocks of cyclists at various stretches. There was a special tour around the villages in the area.

I ended up at the Waverhoek, a small new nature reserve. You can walk round it in about half an hour, I took a lot longer, as usual, just wandering round checking out all the birds. Some of my favourites there, the Avocets, the Lapwings and the Godwits. Avocets are some of the most graceful birds I know, very stylish in black and white. long legs, and the upturned bill. I also got to see some birds I hadn't seen for quite a while, Black Terns. Their nesting sites are near this area, and they were foraging. Terns are such graceful birds always, fast flyers, very beautiful.

Days like these always remind me of the fact that I need to get out more.

More Moore

I went to see the great man again when he played in Amsterdam. He was back in the Carré theatre, the same venue he played last year. This time I had a seat quite close to the stage, right in the middle of row 6. So a good view of the man and of Declan. He was in good voice, and sang some of his most beautiful songs again. "Bright Blue Rose" got to me this time, and Declan singing "I Will". Christy sang "Joxer", one of those funny story songs you can hear over and over again. I guess to a Dutch audience not all the reference will be all that familiar, but I love the images, and they do work.

There were some technical problems, men walking to and fro carrying guitars on and off the stage, which didn't really help. I think it made Christy a little uncomfortable, and you could feel that throughout the concert, he never seemed to feel completely at ease. He promised a jukebox early on in the concert, but he never quite got round to that. He did pick up the Bodhran at some point, to play "Well Below the Valley", something he doesn't always do either.

I was a little distracted by the audience at times. To my right were a couple of real fans, singing along to every song, swaying on their seats. And right in front of me a lady spent a lot of time taking pictures, both with her camera and with her mobile phone, sending the pictures to friends straightaway. The little lights and beeps were a little distracting. I wonder if she really enjoyed the concert....

Development

For a while I worked on a project developing a new residential area to the east of the city. When I started on the project it was all still water apart from a small experimental island. The island at the time was home to a colony of Gulls and Terns, my kind of island really. Then slowly, other things started to appear. More land, bigger islands, bridges, roads, houses, a popular city beach, schools, restaurants, shops. I was back there the other day, cycling around, and I was surprised. The area has become a real city, a place where I could find a bottle of rose to bring along to the friend I was about to have dinner with. The big square I just knew from all the drawings and designs was suddenly there, children playing in the playground. And it looked really nice.

Then I went on to the park next to the development, now a good place to go cycling or walking. And I cycled across the new bridge, built especially for cyclists. It is a beautiful bridge, it looks lovely and light, and it is easy to cycle across. But it still is strange to think that some ten years ago this was all still water...