Comments by "Lynott Parris" (@DenUitvreter) on "IWrocker"
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What the British miss here (as usual) is that the Netherlands is much more unlike Britain than they assume and has been for centuries. The Netherland is and has been much more equal and egalitarian, peasants have been discussing water management with nobles and merchant for ages. A lot of the British politeness is about not being inclusive, to identify people as lower class because they don't understand the complicated social rules and polite ways of conversation. The British middle and lower class have adapted to the upper class complex rules, the Dutch upper class was sidelined by the merchants, often from humble beginnings and the peasants.
Don't forget the Pilgrim Fathers didn't flee England directly, first they went to the Dutch Republic with it's religious tolerance but they fled the religious freedom there, they were worried about the influence of the Dutch sexual morale on their children (this was nothing wild, just that sexual joy was fine within marriage and public display of affection was allowed for courples and fiancees). The British and the Americans are the exception here, they are the prudes. Germany, France, Scandinavia, are much more like the Dutch than like the British and the Americans.
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Citroen's most high end car was the SM, with the Maserati V6. It was a real Gran Turismo, not particularly fast allthough by far the fastest FWD of it's day and many days later, but a full four seater to cross the continent fast and in comfort. It was in the Porsche 911 price range, which was still a small light sportscar back then and not supercar class, but very popular with the rich and famous, sheiks and shahs because it was very special, far better at what it did good than any competitor.
There was a rally special of the BX, but that had little to do with the regular BX. It made quick small hatchbacks too but Citroen excelled at handling in comfortable cars, and handling on very bad roads, not at handling for maximum speed, in that it was just one of many.
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Orange is a principality in Southern France. William of Orange, AKA William the Silent and not to be confused with William III or Orange who took the throne of Britain over a century later, was as a German noble steward (stadtholder) to the king of Spain for the Netherlands. Then he led the rebellion against that same king because the Dutch, protestant and catholic, wanted religious tolerance instead of the Spanish Inquisition. The colour derived from his name became the symbol of the revolt that would eventually be an 80-year war with Spain and Portugal before they also recognized the Dutch Republic's independence. The stadtholder, steward without a king now, became the leader together with the grand pensionary, not a noble and formerly the position of lawyer to the parliament of the Holland province.
Nation states were not a thing yet, Europe was divided in monarchies and even the Dutch didn't know how to go about independent government at first and took 7 years between the declaration of independenc and naming themselves the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands. All the symbolism and flags were royal too, so they had to come up with all that nationalist stuff themselves and the colour orange worked great. So that's also why the Dutch have the oldest tricolour and the oldest national anthem. Even the carrots got bred orange to boost national spirit. Later it became a symbol for the Orangists, the pro stadtholder and more national unity republicans, who were opposed by the "Statists" republicans, who didn't want a stadtholder and very autonomous provinces with power in the provincial parliaments (i.e. the parliament of Holland bossing). The Orangists won.
The position of stadtholder was only heriditary in the sense that almost only men from the noble Orange-Nassau family were appointed stadtholder by the provinces parliaments or there was no stadtholder appointed at all. The stadtholder would be the commander of the army and in charge of foreign policy. Most of them delivered for the Dutch, some spectacularly well.
They are related, but the current Dutch royal family is the product of the Napoleontic occupation and defeat, and the British wanting a buffer monarchy between itself and republican France. So it is a dynasty going back to the 1500's, but not a royal dynasty. They don't deliver for the Dutch anymore either.
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Citroen is a manufacturer to do everything different all at once, but the USA has had it's stubborn unconventional manufacturers too. Studebaker, Tucker, Cord, Auburn, Duesenberg, it's more that the conventional big manufacturers survived I guess.
The most unconventional manufacturers besides Citroen, which sticks out in any comparison, are Tatra, Saab, Lancia, NSU I guess and Panhard indeed. Pegaso is very exotic, and the 30-50's era has very interesting designs from coach builders like Figoni&Falschi, Saoutchik with DelaHayes, Talbot, Hispano-Suiza, Bucciali, the weird and wonderfully extravagant. Pegaso is also very unknown but spectacular Manufacturer.
A shame btw, because I wrote about the DS earlier YT pushed me a video of two Australian guys driving the DS and chatting about it, with the owner being very knowledgable about the car, some background video's and demonstrating what it's capable of. Would have been a great fit for this channel but I didn't recommend it in time. For who can't get enough of Aussies or the DS: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cB-W-NxdDPo
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Cadillac has made a V16 too, but got topped by the Duesenberg straight-8 4 valve per cilinder supercharger with it's 400HP as the ultimate car. The 20's roared in more than one way, especially at the top end with lots of insanely rich people before the war at both sides at the pond. V16's, superchargers, multivalve, mid engines, 250 mp/h, hybrids, front wheel drive, folding rooftop convertibles, ABS (crude), pop up headlights, it all happened already before WWII.
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I did have a Countach poster but I never liked it, it was a present. I love the original prototype Countach, in yellow, with the louvres for air intakes. It lost it's clean, pure lines because of cooling issue and the wings and wheel arches kept making it worse. My taste developped rapidly in those days, especially under the influence of a book with concepts by Guigiaro, Pininfarina, Bertone and Ghia. So I would get a book about Ferrari as a birthday or St.Nick gift when already my interest had shifted to Maserati and Lamborghini.
My uncle got it right though, we didn't speak that often so he had to go by his own taste and brought me a poster, framed with glass, of a Mercedes 300SL roaster. The 80's is an interesting decade and the decade of my teens, but during that I grew very fond of the clean edgy 70's designs, starting in the late 60's, and the 50's with Vignale, Allemano, Frua, Ghia the last coachbuilders with their mad ideas. Even Pininfarina went totally bonkers with a Maserati back then, and Pegaso cars from Spain deserves a mention too.
I also love the Art deco era, in both the USA and Europe, Cord 812, Auburn, Hispano-Suiza, coach builders for Talbot and Delahaye like Figoni e Falaschi, Saoutchik, the Buccali V12 front wheel drive for example.
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A overview of the naming and the related history. It's not short, I'm afraid the Netherlands as a lot of history.
- The Netherlands (meaning low lands) was the name of the area including today's Belgium which was part of the Spanish Habsburg Empire.
- In 1581 7 of the 18 Netherlands declared independence from Spain under the leadership of William of Orange because they preferred religious freedom over the Spanish Inquisition and became the Republic of the 7 United Netherlands (the American DOI is actually very similar to that Dutch one the founding fathers studied). Because this was the first modern nation state, it had to come up with a national anthem, a national flag (rather than royal flags), non royal leaders and orange carrots. So they showed France the way.
- The Dutch Republic as it was know in English was quite a success. It did more than half of all European trade and mostly with ships from the Holland part, so that name spread the most. The British also made the name Dutch exclusive to the Netherdutch, the Middle Dutch and the High Dutch, the Germans upstream, still call themselves Deutschland though.
- In the late 1700's the Dutch Republic was fading on the world stage and under influence of what was brewing in France became the Batavian Republic in 1795.
- Napoleon, as a result of the French revolution occupies the Netherlands and makes the republic into a monarchy ironically. So in 1806 Royaume d'Hollande, the only time Holland was used in an official capacity since Napoleon was only interested in the money and Holland had a reputation for that despite the decline. His brother Louis was made king, but he was actually a very good king given the circumstances, he was enligthened and loved the Dutch, the Dutch loved him back and Napoleon sacked him.
- Napoleon was beaten, the Netherlands was bankrupt, Britain wanted a buffer monarchy in front of France and after 233 year of seperation the Northern Netherlands were reunited with what is now Belgium to become the Kingdom of the Netherlands. There was still a member of the Orange Nassau family haning out in Germany and he became king Willem I.
- The Northern Dutch and the 'Belgians' had grown apart in those 233 years of seperation and the Belgians revolted and split off in 1830, supported by the British. The Northern Netherlands kept the name Kingdom of the Netherlands, the Southerners took the latinized name for all of the Netherlands, "Belgica", and became the Kingdom of Belgium for which the British appointed a German noble as king. There was some stuff with Limburg and Luxemburg I don't really know enough about, but this is about the situation that remained until today.
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@gustaveliasson5395 I don't know, the 2CV is relatively safe in collision with another 2CV, traffic would probably be a lot safer if everybody drove a car like that. Of course it's not's clean enough for a modern car.
* If you want it up to modern standards you would have to go watercooled. Not only much heavier and requiring space for a radiator, you would also have to install a heater, as the engine doubles up as the heater. It's a 2 cylinder boxer so you would lose space by mounting it transversally.
* Airbags add weight.
* With it's arcs it's already very sturdy for it's weight, so not very sturdy. You know the roof is retractable to save weight? Crumple zones add weight too.
Let's say you'd all do that, it would add 150 kilo at least. That would require heavier construction of the chassis, suspension, springs, dampers brakes, bigger engine, axles, gears, more fuel consumption so bigger tank, bigger wheels, adding another 50 kilo at least. The steering will get heavier, is there space for a bigger steering wheel or do you want to add power steering too? That's what sports car makers have to deal with too, once you add weight you have to keep adding weight to deal with the added weight.
So the 500kg car becomes a 700kg car, with that high center of gravity. It will roll even moren. Will it fall over now? Will it still be comfortable? Does that unique suspension even work with that weight? Maybe, but certainly not as well. So I stand by my opinion that it's great within this window and won't work if you go outside.
You should check the Citroen Oli concept. It's a prototype of an electric car partly based on the same kind of thinking. Simplicity, weight saving and practicality. But it's a 1000kg car in this day and age because of how cars have improved in passive safety and clean engines.
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From the thumbnail I thought it was a Volvo 480 ES, but the sleak pointy front was the result of a few crashes. The 850 is quite a car and basically did what the 480 was supposed to do, get rid of Volvo's boring image, a market survey had shown that 95% of Volvo drivers wore white underpants. Because of it's powerful and nice sounding engines and handling it didn't just make Volvo's cool, it made the wagon, 'the dog house' cool for the first time in European automotive history. It also made the boxy shape of previous Volvo's cool retroactively. So it was quite an influential car.
It's actually not that roomy allthough the boot is very usable, it's not that heavy either. It's not only sturdy but also reliable and very, very durable. A friend of mine bought one around 97 second hand with over 100k as his first car, he sold it 2 years ago. Not because it failed but because expensive maintenance was coming, exceeding it's value. They are very cheap because they are thirsty and expensive in road tax, and are the go to car for people who partake in one of these cheap car rallys across Europe.
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@pistonburner6448 Yes, but the hydropneumatic system has a much smaller trade off between comfort and road holding than coil springs, because it's both progressive and self levelling, regardless of the priorities. But if you were to prioritize handling, the system is a bit less superior and probably won't give the same feel as coil springs anyway, so Citroen didn't. If you want the same comfort with coil springs, the road holding would be terrible, so terrible it would be uncomfortable.
I'd say it's pretty competent and enjoyable in general, and it takes very good specialized driver's cars like BMW's and Alfa's to be more competent, when the driver pushes it. Only some Mercedes. It's only 0.3 but the 1.9 really elevated the BX much higher, it came into it's own.
I just recognized his feeling, there you are in the mountains with your rather cheap 100hp saloon and you just don't see any cars being superior for that road. They might be, but it takes a skilled driver and race to show. You interpreted as that as it was better for mountain roads than a BMW, I don't think that was what he meant.
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Great about Amsterdam is that the city was planned with foresight back then. It was planned for the merchant as a family business, so for maximum canal access for the most houses with had both living and storage spaces. So limited width, also the gardens at the back were mandatory, they already new there had to be green, recreation and a bit of peace and quiet in cities. It also had to fit within the fortifications, so very compact.
If you want to live in Amsterdam you have to trade floor space with about anything, location, atmosphere, light, parks nearby, views, practicality, number of rooms (more than one even), ceiling height, windows you can sit in, if you want lots of square meters you are going to pay a heavy price. There is no point in living in Amsterdam and being at home a lot anyway.
I've rented a room in an older part of Amsterdam (Grimburgwal), it was also lovely in atmosphere and view. It was not even a top floor but there was only a section of the room I (6ft4) could stand upright with shoes on thanks to the building being crooked over time. That doesn't work, I had to find a new place.
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I don't mind 3 races in the US per se, F1 has always been a business posing as a sport and it's a big market to conquer, and there have been two or maybe even three races in much smaller countries before. But it has also always been the biggest show coming to town, or to a country, like a big circus in a small town. It has to be THE event, with head of states attending and stuff. I like the idea of Vegas, but nevermind the track itself, the parking lot in Miami with a view on the highway and a fake marina are simply not good enough to host F1. F1 is a whore far too classy and expensive for a back alley like that.
Hamitlon is good, but he's also very flattered by a unique situation of a supreme Mercedes that was protected against regulation changes and catch up. Other good drivers only got one or two years in a superior car, he got 8 years and lost 2 of them. F1 is dominated by the British and the English language though, and as you are relying on English too, you might get biased reporting on him.
Lella Lombardi actually didn't score a point. The race was stopped early, and only half points were given and her 6th position was good for one point. She was a good driver though, well respected, but you had to be really good to make it to a team capable of winning first and a lot of F1 drivers didn't manage to score any points at all before they were replaced or died on track.
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Main concern with raw milk cheese is the soft white cheeses containing lysteria, causing miscarriages in pregnant women. So it has to be clear on the product it is made with raw milk so people can decide for themselves. Lots of pregnant European women avoid raw milk cheese, except for the French pregnant women, they just take the gamble for taste.
The French tend to only pasteurize mass produced industrial cheeses, the Italians pasteurize a lot more, in Spain and Portugal they appear not to have learned about pasteurization yet. Raw milk does not magically turn a cheese great, but if you have great animals grazing on great soil and a great cheesemaker taking the milk, pasteurization will flatten the taste considerably.
In the Netherlands we have unpasteurized Gouda, both young and aged, they are not necessarily better, but the best Goudas are unpasteurized.
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If you want something authentic Dutch with centuries of tradition and culture, Heineken is your brand. Not a quality beer of course, the Dutch invented modern capitalism, branding and global export. It's moneymaker to be proud of and a beer to be a little bit embarassed about. Amstel is even worse.
Basically there is pilsner beer (lager), Weizen and Belgian beers/special beers, which are usually from Belgium. Pilsner is done best in Czechia, it's origin, Germany with all the village breweries making usually fine ones, even extending to the East and South of the Netherlands but no further. In the UK and Ireland they have ales and stouts. Ale doesn't need foam to protect it's taste against oxidation and is served lukewarm, stout I don't get either, if I want a full meal I order food, not a drink.
So there is the pilsner and (hefe) weizen, and there is Belgian beer basically. Pilsner from Belgium is nothing special though, that's like asking Italians to bake pancakes, they just don't care enough.
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Basically the better team will have more of the ball and be more on the opponents side of the pitch, but you can also chose posession as a tactic or counter football as a tactic. Because of the first it's the better teams that will tend to pick the posession tactic and have the initiative, while weaker teams often have to hope for the ball not getting their goal and a chance to break on the counter attack and score.
Attacking, posession football is more rewarded the past 2 decades, when kicking technical and gifted players and time wasting was more allowed, counter football was much more done among the best clubs. Italy was the strongest football country back then with it's cataneccio, lots of 0-0's and 1-0's in their league. In the Netherlands we stuck to the attacking 'total football' tradition invented in the early 70's through the 80's and 90's but that would mean getting caught out by counter attacking defensive team regularly. But big teams like Barcelona, Bayern Munich and Manchester city have all adopted that style now.
Most formations used to be 4-4-2 in the defensive football years, now it's more 4-3-3 or 3-4-3 because with 3 attackers in the front line you use the width of the pitch better. Defending teams want to make spaces small so the team with the ball has hardly any time, the attacking team wants all the space it can get. Space can give you time to shoot at goal, and time can give you space to shoot at goal.
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The Netherlands is very wet, full of canals and rivers and lakes. So we can skate everywhere, from everywhere to everywhere, but certainly not every winter. The country gets skating mad when it's freezing for over a week, it's a chance you have to grab. In very cold winters there's an extra treat, the Elfstedentocht, but most cold winters are not cold enough and there is just the weeks of speculation whether it will happen again. There have only been 15 official events, but the first time the route along the eleven cities was skated was in 1763 or even earlier.
A private association of volunteers organizes the event when it establishes there's enough ice. The 12.000 (?) members of the association, who have paid 5 euro contribution per year for their membership, can partake, just finishing it is the goal and they have to be in before midnight, after having started in the morning. It's a challenge for everybody and you really have to be a good skater in a good shape. The race is done by competitors in the (indoor) marathon skating circuit, which were semi pro's back then, the last three were farmers in their other job.
It's a huge event, with about 2 million people cheering them on along the route, with a party atmosphere and music bands etc, and it's live on national TV for the cold avoiding, also about 10 million, more than half of the entire population watched at least a part. I was in the crowd in 1997, it was so cold I downed half a bottle of the local herb liquor, 43% Weduwe Joustra, but/and it was fun. Great atmosphere. Allthoug a huge national event, it's also very Frysian, Frysland is the most different province of the Netherlands, they speak a very old language instead of a dialect for example, Dutch is the second language for many, very stubborn people and even more skating mad than the rest.
I know two people who have 'the cross', who finished the tour. They'll let you know if they did, they are really proud. The funny thing is the winner of 85 and 86, Evert van Benthem, moved to Canada to become a farmer there. Only his neighbours know him there, while at the other side of the Atlantic, there are at least 15 million people who still know his name.
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It's probably not taking in account naming conventions. Here in the Netherlands for example people have one up to five official first names, and than their first name which doesn't have to do anything with those, but usually does. The official name is often more biblical. So someone that is registered as Johannes wil go by the first name Johannes, Johan, Jan, Jo, Han, Hannes, Hans, John, Johnny, John pronounced as Sean, Sjon, and the female Johanna, has Jo, Joke, Hanna, Hannah, Hansje, Jans and Jantje. So the actual name for John should be Johannes rather than Jan, Jan is just most common first name version. Maybe the Fins got something similar and the registered first name is often that of the apostle.
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In my school it was strictly British English, the 'recieved pronunciation' or 'Queen's English', including typical British ways of saying things. This was not judgemental, but more to set one clear standard, and doing so teach the proper distinction from both American and British local accents, from the idea that American comes more naturally and if you master proper English, you will be fine in the USA too and there was already enough exposure to American English. Similar to German and French, we weren't taught Canadian French either, you have to have one defined language with right and wrong ways to spell and pronounce it to be able to teach it well.
One could have picked American English too for the same reason, but it's not the origin, Shakespeare and Irish writers like Joyce and Wilde didn't write in it. Foreign language teaching goes back to at least the early 1800's and there was little American English around back then, so generations of teachers would teach how they would have been taught. Picking American authors for the mandatory literature reading was not discouraged at all though.
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Some say everything after Bach is modern music, but I kind of agree that almost modern genres come from America, Jazz, soul, blues and therefore rock n roll, rock, hard rock, punk rock started with the Stooges too, disco. The English were important because they listened to the black music and got inspired to take it further while the white Americans didn't do that.
Jurisdiction also works different for military personel, they get court marshalled because it's a seperate jurisdiction, the reason was very wrong here, not the principle that the US army penelizes it's own soldiers when abroad.
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@pistonburner6448 It's true purpose? You mean a narrowed down window of operation to track and good quality roads with no heavy load? That's fine, roads have hugely improved the past decades outside Belgium, but it seems to me the true purpose of a suspension system is to keep the tyres following the surface in accordance with the driver's steering and pedal input. Within that there are specilizations, like cornering fast on a smooth surface, or the ability to both be comfortable and handle very rough surfaces, like the Range Rover. Please automakers, be true to your chosen purpose, your window you narrowed down to excell within, be the most BMW you can be, I appreciate that, not BMW building SUV's. I don't believe BMW should have switched to hydropneumatic suspension ever in history.
It's not the party trick that made the hydropneumatic system superior, that was just something that came with concept, which had both the progressive nature of the suspension and the self levelling nature. That simply made for less trade off between road holding and stability vs comfort. I think Mercedes was able to tune a suspension and innovate on geometry too, and you see the result when Germans test it against a far more comfortable Citroen in the video abover. Mercedes btw that copied the Citroen system for it's top model above and almost twice expensive as the regular top model, the 450 SEL 6.9, often called the best car in the world, a chauffeur's limo and a driver's car in one. Air suspension never matched hydropneumatic suspension, or came close, Mercedes did a good job on the 600 and 300 SEL 6.3, but switched to the superior system for their newest top car. Mercedes and Citroen engineers were very much alike, they are innovative, stubborn and know what's best.
What we see now is after decades of allmost all automotive engineers working to improve coil springs and almost non on the hydropneumatic, coil springs have massively improved. Dampers being electronically controlled, magnet powered, using gas properties like a hydropneumatic system, whatever, I'm not into the details I just know that there is a lot great engineering involved. What we have here is a competition between an excellent concept that worked great from the start because it was brilliant and simple, and we have lots of great engineers tinkering with a concept that started as an improvement on the leaf spring, according to most except Chevrolet. A break even point, a tipping point, was never unexpected in those circumstances and I believe it's behind us by now. But certainly not around 1990, the hydropneumatic suspension made the BX 1.9 perform in the mountains like cars much sportier or powerful and expensive.
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Gordon Keeble, Marcos, Squire, Clyno, Sheffield Simplex, Napier, Armstrong Siddely, Morris,NChitty Bang Bang, Crossley-Burnley, Frazier Nash, GN, Morgan, Guy, H.E., HRG, Riley, Invicta, Lea-Francis, Marendaz...
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@sinisatrlin840 Yes, but also keen drivers aren't always comfortable with showing that off to everybody all the time. They like to keep the capabilities of their car a bit more to themselves, not in you face. They are not all wolves, but almost all stationcars can pass as sheeps clothing. Not to the real car people, but that's not the relevant group because for those it's about the cars and not to have an opinion on the driver.
Lots of Europeans wear a 10k watch or a 1000 euro shoes too, but only the watch connaisseurs and the shoe enthousiasts will know, and the owner of course.
If you arrive in a Volvo or Mercedes stationcar you could be a car enthousiast or just a family guy indifferent about cars, it could have 400HP or 150HP, you could be a surgeon, an accountant, a barrister, a salesman or an artist, lots of people are simply not comfortable with suggesting more about themselves through what they drive.
A good friend is a high civil servant. He drives a Mercedes and that's really not done in the sense that it gets him comments, it's just not what those people do, nothing serious or with consequences but Mercedes is seen as what business people drive. But it's a stationcar, just another one on the parking lot, so that makes it much less of a talking point.
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Here in the Netherlands we have American car clubs and events. Mostly V8's but it's about American or not and an American saloon that is big with a big engine is called simply an "Amerikaan", everybody but American car guys know enough. It's a seperate subculture. We have filet Americain, which should Armoricain actually (Northern France beef breed)but got misinterpreted long ago. There is a famous "American Hotel" in Amsterdam, often called Americain because of the Grand Cafe with that name in it, it was probably about the architecture, or a certain style of service, or maybe it had an elevator early. 'Short American' was the name of a haircut, the crew cut.
American pizza is a thick frozen one that I never tried and I believe that's not just the marketing of just one brand. It's used a lot in other marketing and branding but usually without meaning something outside that specific brand. An American fridge used to be just an XL fridge I believe, and often those had a bit more extravagant styling compared to the boring European fridges. I owned an old one, it wasn't easy to clean because of all the styling. Before the internet people also had a lot of imagination about what was American.
And of course we have "Amerikaanse toestanden", " American situations", which is kind of derogatory term for something exaggerated, excessive, hectic, extreme, wild, but from Western culture, often to describe a negative development in society. It's not used to be negative about America, but related to America as the country of unlimited possibilities and a country of extremes.
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@ChristiaanHW Yes I understand but that's from a view point is doesn't really make that much difference and that's what I don't agree with. It was really a big thing, kings were supposed to be put in position by god through inheretance. There we no countries as such, no nation states, just monarchies varying in which area they ruled over with inheretance and marriage. William of Orange changed all that himself by declaring the legitimate king had left the throne of the Netherlands by becoming a tyrant.
Over 2 centuries later, as a consequence of his actions, there were proper countries, nation states, in Europe and one of those could just pick a monarch because Britain wanted a buffer monarchy against now also republican France and the bankrupt Netherlands didn't care saying no.
Stadtholder, no matter how semi-heriditary, was a completely different position than that from a king, it was more like an appointed civil servant. They would grow more similar over the centuries, also with kings becoming less absolutist, but not when William the Silent was stadtholder. Commander of the army was the main task, especially for his son Maurice of Nassau.
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The recently deceased Marcello Gandini is the designer of the Stratos Zero (working for the Bertone design house), he made fame with the Lamborghini Miura, later he did the Lambo Espada, he went angular and hexagonal with that Volvo Tundra, that was very much like the Citroen BX that went into production in 1982 and became a bestseller.
The bizarre looking big citroen from 11.50 became the Citroen C6 production, still pretty bizarre looking, great car but not a bestseller at all. The Oli is a driving concept and there are videos of test drives on YT. It's an extremely interesting concept, kind of the modern 2CV.
The Aston Marting Bulldog was done by William Towns, who also did AM's angular luxury saloon the Lagonda that went into production and is a firm opinion divider. The angular trend was actually set by Giorgetto Giugiaro with his Maserati Boomerang, the Lotus Esprit and later the DeLorean. Giugiaro also did the VW Golf I.
There were 3 main design houses in the 70's and 80's. Pininfarina, who did most Ferraris and lots of Peugeots, but also the Cadillac Allante. Bertone did most Lamborghinis, a few Maseratis like the Khamsin(Gandini again) and a few Citroens. And the 3rd is Guigiaro's Ital Design. Zagato was there too but he is the mad hatter who exclusively designs opinion dividers and was only allowed to do a few production cars. Alfa Romeo and Lancia mostly but also a few 60's Aston Martins.
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The election was organized by the Dutch car magazine Autovisie, and car journalists from all over Europe could vote, so no national bias. The title was to be awarded for the greatest step forward in any class if I remember correctly. So it could be sport cars, very innovative cars had an edge like Citroen, or all round good cars which high value for money like Fiats took a lot of titles too.
The Citroen BX would have won it in the early 80's too if they only had the 1.9 engine available yet, that made the car come into it's own and fit in it's class. My parents had a Citroen GS in the early 80's, driving 3000 miles for vacation with two kids and a lot of luggage in great comfort with a 1.1 litre engine. My dad always admired the CX, but that was too expensive, after retirement he bought a used XM. I personally always liked the (cheap beaten down) BX 1.9 the best, great for vacations with friends, very comfortable, great brakes, lot's of space for the size, very light and relatively quick. Lots of body roll but no drama, it just hung in their diagonally.
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Duvel means devil. It's a bit the least special beer of the special beers as we call Belgian beers here as opposed to the pilsner/lager, you can get it anywhere. But it's such a well balanced, zingy, fresh, hoppy beer that does every thing in hot wether an ordinary pilsner does, and more taste too. Ordering one does not impress as a beer connaisseur, I think people who are really into Belgium beer find the taste not interesting enough, but I love that bitter citrusy freshness. I also was at a Belgian festival tent once where the Duvels were on draft and were sold by the meter. A meter beer is normally a wooden plank that will hold 11 glasses of lager, but this was with I guess 9 bulbous Duvel glasses with a foot.
If you have a Belgium beer that you want to drink more often, you might want to get the right glass for it. The shape influences the nose and the taste and how much foam it gets and how the foam holds up. I don't know if it's the same for export to the USA but the Duvels here have yeast in the bottle so they have to stand up in the fridge. A very serious waiter would poor it for you and serve the last bit with the yeast in a small liquor glass next to it, so you can drink it seperately, poor some of it into your beer, or not drink it all, because the yeast works on the bowels and a bit too much for some. There was a time I would drink 7 or 8 on a friday night and I would indeed notice.
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Very telling about Belgian cuisine is that their star products are actually Dutch. The 'Zeeuwse mosselen' are from the Zealand province of the Netherlands and are the best in the world, but it's Belgians that appreciate them fully. I'm sure that if the French or the Thai had mussels like that, they wouldn't use cream or coconut cream sauces becaue it's weakens the tast, which is very much like the concentrated smell of the North Sea.
The Fries are made from Bintjes, a Dutch very tasty breed, but the Dutch simply don't care enough and use a potato that is easier to breed and peel, and don't bother with double frying and use vegetable oil. Many Flemish do the latter too lately, which is a shame. That's why I prefer Walloon fries, often 1 or 2 mm thicker also, over Flemish fries. Dutch mayo certainly doesn't qualify as the 'queen of sauces' like in Belgium. Which also knows lobsters with mayonaise, and lobster is and was an expensive and fancy food in this part of Europe.
The chocolate also originates in the Netherlands, which still has very good chocolate. But the Belgians take to another level by combining it with other tastes and make little pieces of art out of it.
They just take care, they love the simple things, don't use particularly fancy or expensive products but put in a lot of attention and effort. That's probably why Belgium excells in my view in relatively simple bistro food. Stews, steak frites, shrimp croquettes, things like that. Not that there aren't very good fancy restaurants in Belgium, especially Brussels with all that EU folk, but that's not Belgium's specialty.
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@OblivionGate This is not about glory. This is about the fact that the British can't do what all the others can, celebrate your national glory in an international sport. The British feel entitled to make it their sport and moan about their dead royal on the podium of an international even in Italy. The British can't just have a national favourite, it has to be everybody's favourite and everybody has got to adore him. They have to claime the entire sport as theirs just because they have been very good at it for the past decade or the not so British Mercedes has decided that it was better to have the F1 team away from the factory.
A WDC always is to some degree up to the car but not to the same degree. It's not that hard to roughly determine to what degree by looking at the cars and the drivers. When a mediocre driver like Bottas drives his car to 4 poles in 2021, that Mercedes must have been a very fast car. We also can simply establish that the Mercedes era was unique in F1 history in how the rules and the only little rule changes protected the supremacy of car for 8 seasons, while in the past the supremacy of a car maxed out within two seasons.
Schumacher only ended up in a superior car after making inferior cars into title challengers, and even winning 5 WDC's with them. It's not like his teammates were ever only outqualified 6 to 4 like Hamilton did, that was 9-1 or better, same for the races. His teammates didn't get 2nd in the WDC either until the last 2 WDC's when the car finally was indeed superior.
Vettel is far less impressive as a supreme driver, but the stole WDC's in good car from what was a small team before the claws of the big guns of McLaren and Ferrari with Hamilton and Alonso. Eventually he had a superior car for a season, but even then his teammate didn't manage to come 2nd in the WDC any time. Hamilton never managed to come 2nd in the WDC against Vettel in the Red Bull, his teammate Jenson Button did become 2nd in the same very good McLaren. The Vettel years were actually quite brilliant because we had 3 matching cars and 4 matching drivers, but the youngest driver in the low budget car ran away with them all, snatched the titles without being superior in 3 of 4 seasons. Shame you couldn't enjoy that because your national favourite didn't perform well.
That's different from a supreme car like the late 80's McLaren, the early 90's Williams, the 98 and 99 McLaren. Really dominant cars with the 2nd driver also driving to many poles and wins. Drivers used to start in some backmarker and show themselves, then get in a car that could maybe win but not challenge for the title, and then get a seat in one of the three teams that could possibly win a WDC, in which they enjoyed only one or two years of a dominant car. Hamilton is a good driver, but without this uniquely long supremacy of a car, he would have been a 2 time WDC winner probably. He underachieved at McLaren too after his excellent debut year. He has had the best cars of any driver in history, by far. Best prepared young driver for F1 in history too, privileged, protected and groomed since he was 13. It's almost like the entitled British made sure a Brit got in this unique position for his whole F1 career.
I can accept the first race was at Silverstone. I accept there's a wonderful legacy of the garagists. I accept the British are big in the sport in several ways. I don't accept this makes it a British sport just like the Elgin Marbles, capitalism and the sandwich aren't British but simply appropriated by a culture that has a sense of entitlement at it's core.
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@BertrandNelson-Paris It's true that the French cars were traditionally a bit lighter and more compact than their German equivalents, but the Germans came to define the classes forcing the French to upscale a little. Otoh, with the DS and it's superior suspension, especially regarding comfort, it still had a piece of the luxury market. The DS was not a cheap car abroad.
But Citroen in particular had difficulty taking it's place in the higher end of the middle class and the luxury market because of 3 failed engine projects and it's legacy. The DS was undermotorized because the boxer6 failed, the GS was undermotorized because the birotor failed, the CX was undermotorized because the triroter didn't even take off after that. So in wanting to get rid of the DS main weakness, they were left with an engine bay only fitting a 1.2 for the GS, which is modest for the top of the range, and only a 4 cylinder for the CX which maxes out around 2.4 litre. The turbo, not a Citroen idea, allowed the CX to be a good performing car in the autumn of it's life but that was kind of a gift. They couldn't fit or find a 3.0 V6, which would be very much becoming for the top of the range limousine.
I'm also convinced the BX would have been car of the year if it was introduced with the 1.9, but they already had to up displacement from it's predecessor, the GS and started losing on power and torque to the competition right away. By the time they fitted a V6 in the XM, it wasn't the most lively 6 on the market, same with the C6. After so much undermotorization for so long, the image was that of a buy for comfort, not "a driver's car", instead of superior comfort for the same handling and power it could have been.
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@clivewilliams3661 I don't agree, those cars were less roomy and had bigger engines, often a 1.8 or even a 2.0. But the GS was designed for the compact Biroter and couldn't fit a big 4. The Birotor was defenitely in a class above those, but failed. Those also weren't four door, which quite essential for a slighter higher class of car.
Just like Citroen failed to get a flat 6 in the DS, the CX was also designed with the much compacter Wankel engine in mind.
Because the BX was the successor to the GS it didn't make a huge jump in engine size because customer used to buy successors of what they had back then. I don't remember if the 1.9 in the BX was planned for the introduction, but I wouldn't be surprised.
It's hard to break free from a history of underpowerment through failed projects. While they also had to size up their class range a bit to better compete with the Germans. They only succeeded with the Xantia, that was proper Vectra, Sierra/Mondeo, Passat, Audi 90 class, the 2 liter 4 door. But they needed the ZX too to not loose market share of the BX successor.
So the failure of 2 engines for 3 models at the top end, kept Citroen down in class for very long because that was passed down the generations. And when their top car finally got a V6, it wasn't really a top V6.
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@clivewilliams3661 You forget about the Opel Ascona/Vectra, Ford Taunus/Sierra, VW Passat class. The French came from a slightly smaller class, true, but that's where they went. That's where the model under the DS/CX/XM should have been.
This is an important family class but also a salesmen, lower executive class and if you have a client or collegue over 30 to give a ride you want them get in with some dignity, so the 4door saloon is quite essential to that class. It is also a typical 2 litre class, it doesn't go down to 1.2 litre, maybe 1.8. Because it was a little bit bigger, much roomer and far more comfortable, Citroen could have been in that class in it's own compact lightweight way.
I think we can agree you want a range of models without large gaps that competes against ranges of models across borders. Especially if you simply build the better cars in case of Citroen. Without the Birotor, Citroen had a huge gap towards the DS/CX and even a gap towards the direct French smaller competition on engine size of about 0.5 liter. That was even bigger to the German/British 4door class around 2.0 litre which it could have aspired to with a much, much bigger engine.
It took until the Xantia, that needed the ZX not to leave another gap beneath, to close that gap entirely.
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Citroen was so forward thinking it switched to front wheel drive in 1930's. They made all the rest instantly backward with the DS in 1955. Top Gear's James May did a nice 5 minute item on it's spectacular innovations.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_jtj6S8zZg
Also very special is the Citroen SM from 1971, it was a sleak coupe with a Maserati engine. It's marvellous and very forward thinking too, the issue is that the earlier DS left so little uncharted territory, so little room for further innovation. Same for the later CX. The C6 was the last proper Citroen with the hydropneumatic system, also a luxury car. The Xantia V6 Activa deserves a special mention because it had active suspension in the mid 90's and could go around the corners very fast with no roll at all.
Citroens nor the 2CV aren't normal or regular in Europe either, there were a lot of them but they were always different, excentric. Most were sold in France, the Netherlands has the most Citroen lovers relatively, in Germany and Britain they weren't very popular, admired maybe, but not bought very much.
The hydropneumatic system did the suspension, the brakes, the power steering and the semi automatic, but the suspension was so good that Rolls Royce payed royalties to use it on it's rear axles for comfort, and Mercedes used it for the entire suspension on it's 450 SEL 6.9 litre, it's super expensive top model that was twice as expensive as the top of the line up to then, the 450 SEL 4.5 litre, and about the same price as a Rolls Royce.
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I'm sorry but I hate these kinds of videos. Young nitwits just throwing in the word 'democracy' while they have no clue what it is, how important it is and how they just trade it off for ease and fun.
-Border checks were a pain but now citizens get checked more thorougly and have their privacy invaded more day in day out than at any border check in the 70's or 80's, and in the EEC of the 90's you could already forget your passport and still hitchhike throuhg all Western Europe. But thanks to free movement too, it's now too unsafe to hitchhike and the hugely increased unsafety is an excuse for governments checking you out everyday like you were at a border crossing.
- Well before the EU students could also study at a foreign university. They did, but for specific and better reasons than it just being cheaper. It also had to be the good students because they had to master a foreign language at academic level. They pay a few thousand, then have an education in English at the expense of foreign taxpayers and their education level, and then move out of that country again.
- This bland international monoculture of the climate destroying flying class is not only terribly boring, it's also becoming a plague in big cities all over Europe, destroying diversity.
- The free movement of labour has millions of lower educated European workers from the poor member states being exploited in rich countries with no job security and therefore shelter security, living in baracks, far away from family and friends, often being a nuisance and I don't blame them because drinking is what 'displaced' men in groups in their little free time do. It also leads to welfare exploitation and fraud, undermining the public support for it.
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I try to remember about where I parked my bike, but I am regularly impressed by my own capacity to scan a row of thousand bikes and spot my own in an instant by saddle and handlebars or rear fender.
Nudity and porn are not completely unrelated, but sexuality just is. It can be uncomfortable to some sometimes or make for difficult questions from children too young to understand, but there is no point in being in denial of the existence of sexuality. As a child you just get raised with the notion there is something that adults do you'll understand better when you grow up, not a big deal and it didn't turn me into a pervert. It all comes to fall in place with love, affection and relationships later on.
"Give us each day our daily bread", I though the Americans were more christian? Yes, bread stands for food in general too, but for a reason. As a Dutchman I eat bread twice most days, breakfast and lunch, and sometimes for dinner too.
We went to collect 'old paper' as primary school kids, just go door by door and put the boxes on a cart. Old paper was worth a few cents a kilo and a source of income for our football club. Glass went into a special container or was taken in for a few cents too already. That is 70's and 80's recycling.
Everybody wants to be in the club at the right hours, the cool hours because it's about who is there too, so causes everybody not to want to be there too early so it gets later and later. Very impractical, but still fun allthough you sacrifice your next day.
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