On Wednesday, a hapless gentleman who found himself accosted by a tv crew looking for – in their words ‘office scum’ – resorted to hitting the camera with his umbrella to get rid of them.

The gentleman in question later turned out to be deputy president of the Amsterdam court and is now on the receiving end of a court case to recover the €6,200 that replacing the camera will cost.
The judge has already admitted he over-reacted. But there must be a lot of people out there who would sometimes like to do the something similar.
The judge, understandably, did not want to answer the tv crew’s questions about the why we are currently experiencing an economic crisis. But he inadvertently provided the makers of shock-blog Geen Stijl with a far better story. And he is now all over the newspapers.
It is strange in a country which is so obsessed with privacy that we are supposed to accept having a camera thrust in our face by all and sundry.
After all, we have no right to know the names of doctors convicted of child abuse or investment brokers convicted of fraud.
And today’s convicted terrorists will be known in the Dutch-language press as A and F and S to preserve their privacy. But judge Jaap S struck a blow for all of us when the camera scum of Geen Stijl kept on filming, even after he told them to go away.