Yesterday was Koningsdag, or King’s Day, here in the Netherlands. It’s a national holiday and celebrates King Willem-Alexander’s birthday with lots of music, dancing, flea markets, beer and everything orange.

King’s Day begins the day before, at around 5pm, when everyone starts drinking. On King’s Day itself, for one day only, you can sell stuff in the street. So the streets become a giant flea market of people selling random old tat, home-made cakes and booze outside their front doors. Enterprising Dutchies will set up games you can play for cash; round here we had “shoot a champagne cork out of a nerf gun and win a sandwich”, the world’s saddest mini-golf and some students with a job lot of crockery charging €2 to throw a plate at a wall. All of which seems like a good idea when you hit the beer at 11am.

Everyone’s dressed in orange. I picked up a fluffy orange onesie in the kids’ section of Hema, which gave me a disconcerting ‘Guantanamo, but cuddly’ vibe. The flag is flying everywhere and painted on people’s faces. And yet it doesn’t feel aggressively nationalist. It’s just a big orange street party with bands playing in the street and everyone dancing and having a jolly old time.

It’s nationalism done about as well as it can be.

Some things I did this week

I got back from my holiday on Wednesday, and it feels like a long time ago already.

• Working with a client on a multi-year approach to de-risk their existing intranet pronto and move to a more sustainable long-term product approach
• Putting together a deck for the talk I’m doing at HR Tech Europe on May 3rd
• Spoke to an investor who wanted to know more about the Digital Employee Experience market
• Lots of admin and tax stuff (which I hate)

What I’m reading

I finished the Short History of South Africa on the plane back from Victoria Falls to Johannesburg. It was good to understand more about the country, but I felt like it didn’t go into nearly enough depth on the recent history of the country. For example there was a single, short chapter on the 1970s and 80s

Started What Can I Do? Why Politics Has Gone So Wrong, and How You Can Help Fix It by Alastair Campbell. Only one chapter in – will report back next week.

Connections

None this week. Need to get back into it.

The hotel review no one asked for

I had a quick stop in London on my way back from South Africa, spending a night at the Citizen M in Victoria. The chain claim to have re-thought the hotel experience, and they mostly get it right. Comfy bed, curtains that properly close, a hairdryer that works.

I found myself getting annoyed at the quirky branding and endless mood lighting options, but I suspect it was because after two weeks away I just wanted to be home. Doesn’t matter how good their pillows are (and they are), there’s nothing like sleeping in your own bed.