Going Dutch

Or I suppose, as it’s already happened, it should be ‘Wenting Dutch’. Yes, Holland is the latest country to feel the full weight of the MacBride ramblings. Cold Granite -- or STEENKOUD as it’s known over there – is on the shelves of all good Dutch bookstores.

Unfortunately there wasn’t a big launch party thing for this edition, so no first-class jolly to Holland for me... *sigh* But I understand that the booksellers are already reordering, so that’s good. Maybe next year it’ll be all champagne and barbequed ocelots’ nipples?

There’s a sticker on the front of the book that says ‘NIET GOED GELD TERUG’. Now I’m assuming that this means - ‘if you don’t like it you can have your money back’. Only in not so many words. But when I tried Altavista’s Babel Fish it just came back with ‘Not well money’, which doesn’t sound quite so good as a marketing ploy. It’ll be that TERUG that’s confusing it.

Stoopid fish.

If you do a google on STEENKOUD and then put the result through Babel Fish you get wonderous quotes like this:

"The cicatrices on its fuselage are exactly modern art, but he has survived the twinge party. It is its first working day after a long absence and a worse beginning cannot wish himself inspector Logan McRae. In a squelchy drain kinderlijkje are found..."