Culture

Amsterdam

Eschewing the hordes of Americans queuing to get into the van Gogh gallery, I ambled along to the Rijksmuseum earlier. Spent a reasonably pleasant couple of hours strolling around what little of it is open to the public, the main building is shut due to building work until 2006. Yes, 2006. What kind of building job takes more than two years? "Listen mate, if we start Monday, I reckon we'll be finished by about 2006. Tea and eight sugars please mate."

As for the paintings, I liked the Vermeer ones best of all, and Rembrandt's "The Night Watch" was very impressive too. There was a remarkably wide series of works by various different Dutch painters. Indeed, it seems the whole nation is never off the canvas, which perhaps explains why it's never produced a world heavyweight champion.