And suddenly I saw a picture of an angler casting a fishing rod opposite the carcinogenic Tata Steel. No idea if the man caught anything. And I also don’t know if he has eaten the possibly scored fish. I hope not for him.
This week I understood that the Dutch fish, stoned from the antidepressants and the anti-anxiety drugs, wander through our waters. This is because we take so many uplifting drugs to keep our affluent lives somewhat meaningful that the waste of this junk is deep in the groundwater. Except in Brabant. There’s only drugs there.
Meanwhile, I wonder how the remains of the massively taken contraceptive pill are doing. Doesn’t that mess make for non-binary tadpoles and pansexual sticklebacks? VVD members call this drink table talk. Not me. Drunk people often come dangerously close to the truth.
But the fisherman at Tata Steel, while angling in very murky waters, is looking out for the regional carcinogen. Interesting.
In the national cancer atlas, that region is highlighted in colour. But is there no one who keeps an eye on that ironmonger? Yes, that is the North Sea Canal Area Environment Agency, but they don’t seem to be very good at it. And now a very experienced environmental inspector from that club has defected to Tata! This lady knows exactly what the plagued environment of the former Hoogovens is up to and she is also well aware of the measures that will be taken. It is precisely this lady who switches to the enemy and, of course, takes a laptop full of valuable information with her. Officially she is not allowed to say anything for a year and a half, but I fear she is paid too well to remain silent.
How does she get her lucrative scrap? Perhaps there is a Dutch Association of Polluters and a Shell bobo has tipped a Tata hotemetoot at the last New Year’s drink. There, the Shell director looked ahead in a witty speech to the $ 40 billion profit of his company, and he promised that he would still clean up the earthquake mess made by the NAM in the province of Groningen. Later it turned out to be a joke. Oil farmer humor.
But at that reception Tata was undoubtedly told: “Get that hat from the opponent and make sure she has all the legal information with her. Then you can stretch the case for a few more years. And don’t skimp on her salary. It can’t be expensive. A civil servant’s fist is quickly filled! The opposite of silent money is talking money! The polluter pays!” They all had a good laugh about this. Even bullied.
You have special transfers. Berghuis from Feyenoord to Ajax. But that’s just football and the great JC preceded him the other way around. In my younger years you had a certain Hans Pont, who switched from the employees to the employers. But that guy was called Pont, so he was allowed to make this crossing.
But this lady, who had to stand up for the interests of the residents threatened by cancer and other ailments, is simply not allowed to do that. This is a breach of trust that cannot be explained to anyone. Whether the residents should feel betrayed? Absolute. Tip for the defector: remove all mirrors from your house. That saves a lot of shame.
This lady really goes for the Cora van Nieuwenhuizen trophy. That’s that chronically dull cup, which, despite daily cleaning, never wants to shine. Sometimes I see our energetic Cora blatantly lying at a talk show table and wonder why she’s not being cracked down on. Just address it as ‘lobbying liar’.
She herself thought the transition from minister, who is in possession of all numbers of all mobile phones of all important figures in her industry, to the energy lobby completely legal. According to Cora, we shouldn’t complain about this. And that people lose their faith in politics? So be it.
And now? Now it’s the weekend and I’m not going fishing. Just take a nice ride in an Uber. Together with Mark and Neelie. Richard de Mos drives.
A version of this article also appeared in the February 4, 2023 newspaper