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Column: Don't do it, Amy9 October 2009 Zie Nederlandse versieby Arnold Jansen op de Haar What do Amy Winehouse and Eline Vere have in common? Amy is 26 whilst Eline celebrated her 120th birthday this year. Amy sports the ultimate sixties look with her trademark beehive. This hairstyle is also known as a B-52, after the distinctive nose of a B-52 bomber.
The last time I set eyes on a beehive was during my youth when my Aunt ‘Pietje’ came to visit us. She had a genuine beehive. Unfortunately aunt ‘Pietje’ wasn’t a great singer, not even a bomber; Aunt ‘Pietje’ was just a tiny bit common.
Eline is honoured with a beautiful statue in the place of her birth The Hague. She can only be described as ‘dainty’. A lovely old fashioned word, it describes a creature that is charming and exquisite but also finicky and fussy.
Exactly my type, it inspires me to try out a new chat up line whenever I see an attractive young lady in a pub: ‘Do you know that you are just a little bit dainty?’
Eline Vere, the novel, started its life being serialized in a local newspaper. The closing instalment became the topic of conversation in The Hague: ‘Have you heard what happened to Eline?’
Many readers actually went to the Nassauplein, to see for themselves the house in which Eline had lived with her sister Betsy. They even went to the Bezuidenhout to locate in vain the boarding-house in which Eline had slowly faded away. She had been addicted to morphine.
Eline had touched a nerve. Who doesn’t want to break free from stifling conventions set by society?
Likewise Amy Winehouse fighting her addictions could be considered a living serial. The newspaper headlines say it all: ‘Amy Winehouse divorced by Blake Fielder-Civil on grounds of adultery’, ‘Amy Winehouse: I’m too short to have punched anyone’, ‘Amy Winehouse and Dionne Bromfield to sing on Strictly Come Dancing’. Yes that’s right, Amy persuaded her godchild Dionne to make her TV debut as part of a singing act on the popular dancing programme. I have always been told that your godparents are there to watch over your moral conduct.
Dionne is lucky to have an outrageous godparent who couldn’t care less about what she is up to. But then what happens? She takes it upon herself to take her godchild to something as conventional as a formal dancing programme in a style that is usually favoured by grandparents. I find this really worrying.
Even so, despite her latest actions, I would much rather have Amy as my godparent compared to good old Aunt Truus and Uncle Wim who were assigned to me.
Amy Winehouse and Eline Vere are both addicted to living dangerously. Normal everyday life is much too boring. On top of this, everyone has such high expectations of these two talented ladies. Trying to fulfil these ambitions creates even more pressure.
They seem to attract the wrong kind of people, who are also quick to offer their opinions. That creates friction and my heart goes out to these girls.
I am the world’s expert in ending up in societies that don’t agree with me. I am thinking of my time in the armed forces and of having to deal with a clique of local dignitaries, the type typically found in a small provincial town. There is nothing wrong with these societies; I just no longer fit in. This feeling of ‘simply not fitting in’ seems to happen to more people. In the last 18 months, 24 employees of France Télécom committed suicide. The last one, a married father of two, explicitly blamed the hostile working environment in his suicide note, found after he jumped off a motorway bridge in Alby-sur-Chéran.
And it gets worse, it recently emerged that even the dog of former French president Chirac suffered from depression. What is to become of France?
Amy Winehouse and Eline Vere suffer from having to live; this makes them so disarming. But I do fear that one day I will hear this question in busses and on the streets: ‘Have you heard what happened to Amy?’ Even though I am a man, living on his own and over forty, I am the ‘Amy Winehouse’ of my street. My flat is in a constant mess and I am addicted to books, Breakfast TV, my cigars and of course I drink too much.
But Amy, learn from Eline, don’t do it!
© Arnold Jansen op de Haar
© Translation Holland Park Press
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