To be honest the eternal flame impresses me as a giant magic marker, lipstick, or vibrator. I don’t like it. I enjoyed talking with the barman about the war (I didn’t tell him my thoughts on the torch). He was amused at my asking his thoughts about it, about something that happened before his parents were born. He said there is a ceremony where the torch is lit every year, on May 5. A lot of people go. He’s from here, but has never gone. He should go he said. He assured me later in the conversation that he would go to the ceremony in May. He should go, he told me.
This is where German forces in the Netherlands negotiated May 5 and signed the surrender May 6, 1945, partly because Montgomery had side-stepped the approaches to Antwerp and because of the disaster of Market Garden. Like my dad I am not a fan of Montgomery.
