Looking for the Gold Light District
It’s sometime in 2016, perhaps August or September, and I have just landed at Schiphol Airport near Amsterdam. Everything in The Netherlands is near and close. The little country is as flat as pannekoeken, 164 kilometres wide, 252 kilometres long, and with 17 million mostly very nice people crammed into it. There to meet me is hotshot businessman and publisher Jacobus Hussem or, easier said, just Koos. For a northern European, he has a bright and sparkling sense of humour.
The first thing I ask him is why it's so bleak and grey outside. He drives his Porsche Cayman GT4 with a smirky smile on his face, at a high speed towards the city. Firstly, he asks me whether my previous president is in jail, and then if South Africa’s unemployment is still at 27.5 per cent. Both of my answers are sucked out of the window by the wind.
When we first met in a bar in Amsterdam four years ago, I told him about my exploits in the city as a young man. After a time he started to quiver, downed three jenever schnapps, then closed his eyes in momentary prayer (the man had converted from Anglicanism to Catholicism, to marry his Catholic sweetheart) and said, “Oh blessed and holy Mother Mary,
