Tolkien in Maastricht
This month, visitors to the Sint Janskerk on the Vrijthof are likely to bump into the wizard Gandalf or Smaug the dragon. The figures from the famous books The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit are part of an exhibition on the British author J.R.R. Tolkien. This is in honour of the fiftieth anniversary of his death, put together by Dutch, Belgian and German Tolkien societies, which can be seen in the church tower until International Hobbit Day (23 September).
Why there? Maybe Tolkien based Middle Earth, the fictitious world from his books, on Maastricht, reckons Arjan van der Star, steward of the church. He reveals his theory in a book that is available at the exhibition. Texts on centuries-old murals in the church are suspiciously similar to the elves’ language that Tolkien made up and there are symbols that remind one of the eagles and flying monsters from the books. The map of Middle Earth also fits the map of the Euregion. Moria’s mines could possibly be the underground system of corridors under the Sint-Pietersberg or the Parkstad region; the hobbit land The Shire is then the Belgian Haspengouw area. And Mordor, the land of the dark ruler Sauron? That is located in the Eifel.
“Of course, I can’t prove anything,” says Van der Star in de Limburger. But, he adds, three years before the publication of The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien spent a number of days in and around Liège. Maybe, he also visited Maastricht?
Motor scooter mystery
A huge mystery in Randwyck: who is the owner of the blue motor scooter that is chained to the railings of the UNS50 building? Due to work being done to - among others - the glass roof, access to the lockable bicycle shed is limited. To make sure that employees and students can still park their bicycles, an area between UNS50 and UNS60 is being rearranged. The chained scooter, however, is throwing a spanner in the works. The vehicle has not moved from its place yet this year. The search for the owner, which included appeals on the intranet at the beginning of September, has yielded no results yet: at the beginning of this week, the scooter was still in its familiar spot.
Will measures be taken? That is unclear. At the moment, there is still hope that the owner will report to the building manager, an employee informed when asked. So, who has lost a nice blue scooter?
Gown activism
Last Saturday, action group Extinction Rebellion started its daily blockade of the A12 motorway near The Hague. The group of demonstrators also included participants in white lab coats and gowns: more than a hundred members of Scientist Rebellion, a group of activistic researchers joined in the protest, clad in their academic robes. Their message: put an end to the billions of Dutch government subsidies for fossil fuel.
Wim Uijttewaal, professor of hydraulic engineering at TU Delft, agrees. He told sister newspaper Delta beforehand that he would also be protesting in a gown. Despite the fact that this is prohibited for this item of clothing, according to official protocol. Why is he doing it anyway? “I am not standing there as Wim with a gown, but I am there to emphasise the scientific foundation.”