A4 teksten

Brief Encounters

Speed dating is the solution for people where the traditional methods don’t work.
Single men and women meet each other for exactly three minutes at tables in bars and clubs and when the bell sounds they have to move to the next table. The daters can mark their card if they find someone interesting, and if the attraction is mutual the pair can swap e-mails later. Three thousand single people went to Vinopolis wine museum for speed dating and TIME sent correspondents for speed dating as well. The male’s side: He meets “Brownie”, “Sugar-muffin” and “Wild cat” and four more girls.Soon he starts to lie in a good way, like every self-respecting male would, in three minutes. After that he went Salsa dancing with no success. Only a grey-haired fifty year old called Katrina wanted to dance. He ended with no cards, two e-mail addresses and no flirting. The female’s side: She meets seven singles as well but there are only two men she would like to get to know better. It would be three, but she scared off by asking the cop how many dead bodies he had seen. On the dance floor there is no one familiar, all different ages and sizes. Men want to clutch her very close so they can check out other girls on the dance floor. She ended with eight cards and it was all too easy for her but she did not find the one, that would take more time.

- Speed dating-three minutes chats with a stream of potential partners-is the latest matchmaking craze
rage
- Daters mark their card if they find someone interesting, and if the attraction is mutual the pair can swap e-mails later.
uitwisselen
- My first date-let’s call her “Brownie”- spends our entire 180-second relationship reminiscing about her failed camp fire girl youth.
herinnering
- The 26-year-old speaks plaintively about the stiff breeze long ago that …
klaagend
Kartina’s friskiness doesn’t make up for the fact that I have not received a single calling card.
pretje
- “Some men relentlessly assault themselves with negative feelings”, she tells me.
Meedogenloos, onverbiddelijk; aanval
- So speed dating appeals because it promises variety and abundance.
overvloed
- One guy speaks only to my cleavage.
inkijk
- I can count his stubble while he eyeballs the woman in the short skirt behind me.
stoppel

The luxury of getting to know yourself should be living on your own. On the contrary, it’s completely different. I refused to speak to myself and I am very unreasonable.
More and more people are living alone because they prefer the independent life over the traditional values and this is no good for the family Policy Studies Centre, a government-backed research group. That’s because they run out of families to study. The question is: Is living on your own such a good thing? You have your freedom and you can do whatever you want to do but you never hear anybody saying how dreary it is to live on your own. As someone who’s living alone you have no one to talk to no one to share those annoying household duties with. Perhaps women are better at living on their own. Their homes are perfectly clean and look great. Because of the fax, telephone, modem and television, I can’t leave home.

- Listening to them talk no multi-occupation household had ever left its dirty dishes in the sink overnight.
multi-bezette huishouding
- You rarely hear anybody, do you, say how dreary it is living on their own?
Somber
- Instead, I made enquiries, discovered that the same had happened to my neighbour (years ago) and prepared myself to do battle with a ruthless gang of garden furniture thieves.
Meedogenloos groep dieven die tuinmeubelen stelen
- The female author of the piece in Vogue also championed living on her own because…
verdedigen, voorstaan
- Until very recently I was gregarious, amusing, and intelligent company.
In groepen levend, gezellig
- I even have the sworn affidavits to prove it.
Beëdigde verklaring
- It is salutary to watch the eyes of girlfriends glaze over when I remind them of that hilarious…
begroeting, glans
- Frankly, if pelargoniums were self watering, I would have walked out long ago.
geranium, zelfvoedend

Forget the euro, just give us a single socket

Jeremy Clarkson (known from the British television show Top Gear) doesn’t understand why the Europeans launch the euro instead of a standard socket. He needs to charge up his computers, mobile phones and electronic organisers with adaptors in different countries where they all have a different way of getting electricity out of the wall. It’s very difficult with road signs as well. There isn’t a blue sign for the motorway in Switzerland and why can’t there be a standard letter that denotes the reception level? It’s not that he hates the Europeans but if we must have European integration, we need to take the best bits that each country has to offer. It might be usseful too if we had a universal whipping boy who easily translates our jokes. Still the Americans will not be able to understand our jokes but in the USA all the plug sockets are the same.

Five examples of things he dislikes:
- Why MEPs have plug sockets.
- Why check-in girls ask if your bags contain any electrical appliances.
- Why launch the euro, if you could better launch a standard socket.
- Why there isn’t a blue sign in Switserland for the motorway.
- Why there isn’t a standard letter that denotes the reception level
- The Welsh.

What I found funny:

- “I have even developed a routine whereby one pair of underpants can be made to last for four days. You wear them back to front on day two, inside out on day three and then inside out and back to front on day four. I know a cameraman who claims to have developed combination that allows a five-day switch-over routine, but frankly I don’t believe him”.
- “The blue sign takes you on the sort of road that made the cabling in my suitcase look straight”.
- “We explained the jokes for the Germans”.