Frank Oostdam has announced his departure as leader of the ANVR. The grateful industry took to the pen en masse. ‘A great diplomat and spokesman and above all an intelligent and amiable man, without a shred of arrogance.’ The praise would not have been out of place at a North Korean party congress. “Frank is also the fastest man on earth and can read minds,” said Kim Ju-ae on Linkedin. As a columnist, it started to itch. No one is so loved. Where are the angry ex-employees and the Overmarsesque exits? I had to go deeper! Flames and jute A first clue is a portrait in the Financieele Dagblad of 23 April 2023 with the headline: ‘Brave Frank Oostdam flames in the twilight of his career.’ In it, his own brother tells us that Frank himself goes on a walking holiday with a tent, as a counterbalance to all the luxury on travel industry trips. That reminded me of the Indiana Jones movie, in which the protagonist had to choose the holy grail from many expensive golden cups. But he chooses the only wooden chalice, for Jesus was a modest carpenter. Do you get it? If even your own brother gives you almost Bible-based qualifications, then you have everything well under control. The first Machiavellian traits, I was in the right place. I read on. At the beginning of his career, Frank was hired by the association of jute bag traders… nowhere on the internet is there any mention of this ‘ANVJ’… strange! I do read that the consumption of used bags before the Second World War was 50 million pieces, but had completely disappeared in 1990. I’m not saying that Frank is solely responsible for the disappearance of the entire Dutch jute industry… But I don’t rule it out either. But by then, Frank was already gone, on his way to the top. Literal. For no less than four years he worked as a guide on the Euromast. Something like that must cause mental damage, watching Capelle aan de IJssel for four years. Ducati I don’t believe any of it. Frank Oostdam is not ‘good’ at all, but a mastermind with a double life. Like the namesake of his hometown, which also sounds like a distinguished English gay sauna. There he probably runs an XTC lab, the proceeds of which he brings every weekend on a Ducati Superleggera V4 at 260 km per hour to the Berlin techno club Verliebter Schlagbohrmaschine . Or something like that, it can’t be any other way. Because if you don’t go along with the current climate of arrogant media divas and hobby politicians stripped of all factual knowledge… Then you’re not good. If you make a solid and substantiated argument today, you are a rebel. Rebellious AF. Like Frank.
