17 June 2008

Wear Orange! ~ The Crazier the Better!

The Times gets it (mostly) right with an article by Damian Whitworth entitled A Brit turns oranje for Euro 2008: What's a guy gotta do to support Holland? Act ‘craazee' while wearing an orange wig, apparently! Quoth he:
...a spokesman for the Dutch embassy said that I would be welcome to join the Oranje order. “Dutch people are really proud and happy with English fans saying they support our guys.” His advice: “Wear orange. The crazier the better.”

...how to be more Dutch? “We're a little bit crazy. We work very hard, then we go nuts for a while. Then go back to work.” He looks me up and down. “You need to be orange!” I go to a fan stall and buy a Holland T-shirt and baseball cap. Vrijs then donates his own orange wig to the cause, pulling it down over my cap. “Ja! Fantastic!”

I cannot understate how seriously the Dutch take their orange outfits: orange Elvises, tangerine suits, men in women's traditional Dutch dress complete with pigtails and false breasts, orange popes (singing Always Look on the Bright Side of Life) apparent escapees from Guantanamo Bay in orange jump suits. And the hats. Cowboy hats, Mexican hats, Viking helmets, traditional bonnets, crowns. Hats with soft toys, hats with cheeses, hats with hammers, hats with antennae, with hands, feet, penises. Then there are the glasses. A man could write a thesis about the glasses, which range from the Dame Edna to the downright ludicrous.
The true goal, of course, is to encourage the jonges to keep scoring like this shot by van Persie which made it 2-0 NL vs Romania...

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