Re this, some results. The comments in Dutch are grossly libellous, so don’t even try to translate them. I finally managed to get the mitre on my head–Spanish bishops don’t have much between their ears–but the only way the beard would stay on was to jam it over my nose with half of it in my mouth, which I believe some children found disconcerting, like I care anyway. The general, progressive concept was that Black Pete would pretend to be smart and I would do stupid, but we ended up both doing stupid and me doing all the talking, which is good for me but which I believe some children etc etc.
I’ve done much worse dressing-up gigs than this. Probably the worst was just after I moved to Holland and was playing with a farmers’ band. We were booked to go and play in some mad Calvinist village’s shopping centre dressed as clowns. Unfortunately the agency omitted to tell us that, in the interim, some guy dressed as a clown had been trying to pick up kids in the area, so when we got out of the van and went over to the first group of children, people starting throwing stones and bottles at us and the police had to escort us out of the village. Van Gogh had it easy.
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I have always found the Dutch Sinterklaas tradition, very upsetting because of its racist nature. Zwarte Piet and the other black moors who accompany the bishop are portrayed as real Spaniards, black, short and evil. Kids are told that if they misbehave they will be brought to Spain in Zwarte Piet’s bag. I have to assume that’s the way Trevor made it to Barcelona.
It’s a revolting custom, basically invented post-war for purposes of national whatever. Zwarte Piet is, however, a Moor, not a Spaniard. And the bishop is a Turk. And fack knows where they got the steamboat from. I normally refuse to have anything to do with it, but I got free booze this time.
I came to Barcelona with Ryanair, which is cleaned-up, commoditised version of Black Pete’s bag.
hallo sinterklaas ik zit in engeland en nik miss yullie
Wat sneu voor jou baloa014! Ik zal over 11 maand zeker bij jou langskomen om jou in kleine stukken te snijden en op te eten.