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BRITS BANNED? OUR VIEW
THE news that Amsterdam is trying to deter British stag groups from its famously tempting streets can only be good for other European destinations. After all, the campaign is hardly likely to stop stag groups travelling abroad, but it may just change where they go.
But is singling out particular groups ever really the answer to anything?
If what Amsterdam is hoping to achieve is fewer British men roaming the streets looking for cheap drink, legal drugs, and an availability of women for sale, perhaps they should begin by looking at what caused men to flock there in the first place; Holland’s own laws.
A famously open minded culture though, it would probably go against the Dutch grain to delegalise some of the things the country is best known for. Therefore, why not take the same liberal approach to the types of people who want to visit Amsterdam?
If what their government values highly is a live and let live society therefore perhaps it is unfair after all to single out one type of traveller.
Norajohnson Breakingviews
LIKE an essential riposte to the continuing waves of appalling global events, crime novels have seen a sales boom, a trend unforeseen even by hard bitten crime fiction detectives. Anxious about volatility in the real world, readers now seek reassurance in stories where baddies get their just deserts.
People face many challenges in life and crime fiction lets readers forget their own struggles. They like a ‘formula’. There’s a death. A detective investigates. The perpetrator is unmasked in a plot involving cunning clues, red herrings and final justice. No mystery at all!
One challenge one family recently faced was the tragic disappearance and death of Nicola Bulley. Coincidentally, my justpublished thriller ‘The Couple across the Street’ begins with the disappearance in a river of a woman, Michelle. But that’s where the similarities spoiler alert end!
This novel was started a year ago before any hint of Nicola Bulley’s fate (my books take a year from research, first draft through to final version and publication). And the situation it depicts doesn’t
