What I like

Bridge

I’ve played bridge since my student years. I’m particularly interested in bridge theory, especially bidding theory. After my retirement at the end of 2024 I joined the editorial staff of IMP, a Dutch periodical about bridge. I’m copy editor and also write articles, in particular on theoretical subjects. For example, I did a small empirical study on a number of bidding agreements in 2014, and recently published about it in IMP: “Effectivity of bidding agreements” (in Dutch).

History, culture & art

Although I’ve worked my whole life in science, my personal interests lie more in the humanities. I’ve always loved history, and through friends I have learned to love art and architecture as well. Working professionally on digital access to cultural-heritage collections was therefore a treat.

In 2024 I trained to become a museum guide in Castle De Haar, close to Utrecht. De Haar was “refurbished” from 1892 onwards in a gothic-revival style by architect Pierre Cuypers, famous for the Rijksmuseum and the Amsterdam Central Station. I actually grew up across the street from his home and workplace in Roermond (now the Cuypershuis). De Haar has a rich medieval and recent history: many 20th-century celebrities spent time there as guests of the family, including my favourite opera singer Maria Callas. It also houses an impressive art collection of a diverse nature.

Books

View my favourite books at Goodreads.

Machandel by Regina Scheer
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The best book I read so far about life in the former DDR. The description from the perspective of different people and different periods really works. Sometimes, German prose can be a bit dense, but Scheer’s style is the opposite; a real treat to read. It rekindled my love for the German language.

Indonesia

My paternal grandmother was of mixed Indonesian-Dutch descent. My father was born in Bandung, West Java. He was interned by the Japanese in a civilian war camp and left shortly after the war to study medicine in The Netherlands, never to return. His brother Guus, who was two years his senior and after whom I have been named, was conscripted as a KNIL soldier and ended up in military war camp on Sulawesi, where he died in April 1945. My aunt Martha wrote in her memoirs about the time in Indonesia: “Indische Cocktail” (in Dutch).

Ellie and I made a memorable trip to Java in 2024, visiting areas where my father had lived and the high school he attended in Jakarta, and travelling to the grave of my uncle in Semarang. The Indonesians we met treated us with a open and gracious attitude that made us even more ashamed of the social trends in Dutch society towards outsiders.

Family photo

In 2010 NRC (a national newspaper in The Netherlands) published a photo of my family in the sixties; in the accompanying text my sister (who submitted the photo) tells about the environment we grew up in.