In this selection of columns written for NRC in the early nineties, journalist and novelist van Zomeren goes in search of the kind of things that make the Netherlands "nothing special, but in a very special way", and in particular the way the country has changed during his own lifetime. He has a very enjoyable approach to his work: very often he doesn't find what he's hoping to, but he reports what he has found, and makes something interesting out of it.

We get to read — amongst all sorts of other things — about ferrymen, radical students, people with dementia, people who live at the top of a tower-block, a farmer who still works with horses, another who breeds Blaarkop cattle, the gibbons in a zoo, a court hearing, a firm that makes water-slides and another that makes liquorice "drop", the Begijnhof in Amsterdam, the new village of Zeewolde, and all the houses the author lived in during his childhood in and around Arnhem. Each piece is illustrated with a photograph, usually subtly ironic, by Freddy Rikken. ( )