Netherlands

Netherlands (Dutch: Nederland) is the main constituent country (Dutch: land) of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It is a small, densely populated country located in Western Europe with three island territories in the Caribbean. The European part of the Netherlands borders Germany to the east, Belgium to the south, and the North Sea to the northwest, sharing maritime borders with Belgium, the United Kingdom and Germany. The largest and most important cities in the Netherlands are Amsterdam, The Hague and Rotterdam. Amsterdam is the country's capital, while The Hague holds the Dutch seat of government and parliament. The port of Rotterdam is the largest port in Europe – as large as the next three largest combined – and was the world's largest port between 1962 and 2004. The name Holland is also frequently used to refer informally to the whole of the country of the Netherlands.

Links To Peel
Peel did reports for Dutch TV in the late 60's and also visited at least one festival in Amsterdam, then a centre of hippy culture in 1967. In the late 70's and early 80's Peel was an announcer of the Pink Pop festival at Landgraaf in the south east of the country. Between 1984 and 1986 he presented shows for Dutch radio station VPRO and in 1992 visited Groningen during a trip around Europe for Radio 1's 'Euro Action Special', where he visited the Vera venue and interviewed the manager. Peel started coming regularly back to Groningen from 2000 when he visited the Eurosonic / Noorderslag festivals, that was broadcast on BBC Radio One.

Peel admitted on radio that he had more friends living in the Netherlands and Germany combined than in London on his 15 November 1983 show, which had his favourite Dutch band Eton Crop doing a session that was broadcast on the programme. Many Dutch acts were played by Peel, including Solex and Seedling, who are the only artists from the Netherlands to make it into the Festive Fifty.

Peel admitted on his 10 October 1984 (VPRO) show that he would love to learn Dutch and admitted knowing some swear words of the language. Many times Peel would often mention that his name pronunciation in Dutch (Piel) means 'prick', claiming that on his 20 December 2001 show, festival organisers in the Netherlands would invite him there because of that.

See Others

 * Groningen
 * Dutch TV