At this point though, the Netherlands is going way too far in destroying the network for the sake of "profitability". It is no longer seen by provincial governments as a public service but as a burden, and that problematic view has left thousands of people on the curbs of the streets. People can nag about the Belgian network but at least it will bring you home in more occasions than in the Netherlands. In Belgium I could at least expect a bus near my apartment building in the city on Saturdays.

The operations on the network are going down the drain because lines are scrapped sometimes in a very rough manner. And the labor contracts have deteriorated too, leading to strikes that, in severity, are not unfamiliar to the French.

Even though it's about the UK, I can sadly also attest that exactly the same thoughts go around in the Dutch government, under the lead of Shell's bed partner Mark Rutte.

We got it to almost 9am in the Netherlands. Indeed, it is hell. People say they want daylight after work, but the thing is, having lived on the eastern side of a timezone in the tropics, evening light is of no importance. It's the late sunrise that keeps people cling in bed for long, that creates melatonin when having to start the workday, that actually makes people depressed. Part of the dread is how up to the middle of February, the sun only rises after 8 because of the same reason why midday is rather late too in February. Once March has arrived you just see how people look more rested, even on days with horrible weather like last Friday.

You depend on us for your lithography machines and thus on the existence of your phone or laptop that you're using right now.

If you mess with the Netherlands, you mess with yourself.

Does it also have a correlation with sunshine duration? Here on the other side of the North Sea (Netherlands) it has been an exceptionally sunny year with quite the extremes, we're now at 2200h, similar to Florence.