The middle daughter (8) was calculating out loud while we watched images of a missile strike in Qatar.
“This is already my third war!” she said.
We counted out loud.
Russia-Ukraine was one, Israel-Gaza two and this three and we weren’t even counting Venezuela.
The eldest daughter (10) was already furious about what was to come. “As long as you don’t start watching stupid programs all the time. If that is the case, we can use the iPad longer.”
We had been to Qatar once.
“Is that hotel broken now?”
I shouted that I wanted to hear it. That was difficult enough because they contacted NOS correspondent Daisy Mohr in Beirut and she strings sentences together without putting a period.
“She’s breathing wrong,” my mother would have shouted, because she always shouted at the television when someone spoke the wrong way. She was a certified speech therapist. Can someone send Daisy Mohr to speech lessons? Teach her to articulate!
It was again a lot of chasing after the facts, after a tour of the correspondents such an extra news will stop.
I’m already dreading Brigadier General Han Bouwmeester, who has never been involved in a battle, but can tell exactly who will win and why. If we ever get involved, he’ll direct our troops into limbo with a pointer and a map.
And then we also have Mart de Kruif, the spiritual off-duty general who became chairman of De Graafschap, who seems to have a permanent subscription to a seat at every talk show table because he switches so easily from the battlefield to any current event.
Rob Jetten said in front of the NBC Conference Center where D66 celebrated itself that his new government was awaiting developments. In that respect, nothing has changed yet: the world always only informs the Netherlands afterwards, and perhaps that is for the better because you should not think that we actually have a finger in the pie.
“Will this last for the rest of the holiday?” the youngest daughter (4) finally asked.
“Yes,” I answered firmly, after all, spring break only lasted until today.
“Not true!!,” was shouted back. “We also have a study day.”
“Fortunately the war is already over,” noted the middle daughter (8); After breakfast she had straddled herself in front of the television.
The NOS had interrupted the extra news for the NK Sprint.
With Erben Wennemars.
