Peddle Power

Anyone wishing to see a courageous display of cycling should spend a couple of days in Amsterdam. There are many ways in which one can take their lives into their own hands when visiting the hedonistic Dutch city, and crossing the road would be top of the list. I've seen greater road awareness in The Cannonball Run.

There are more bicycles than people in Amsterdam. A population of 780,000 use an estimated 881,000 bikes. Struggling for road space is a tram, bus and car system, but somehow only around six cyclists die on Amsterdam roads every year. More people die from being struck by lightning. No joke. Look it up.

And no one wears a helmet. In fact, ask a local about wearing one and they will look at you like you've just punctured their tyres. The stats are more staggering when you see their flagrantly cavalier approach to personal safety. Seemingly intelligent, studious Dutch folk ride side by side on busy main roads talking to each other as cars struggle to weave past, or cycle one handed whilst texting and listening to their iPods. I saw one girl cycling whilst playing a ukelele.

The system works because the locals believe passionately about the cyclist's right of way. But this can flummox a bashful tourist who will step out into the road at a zebra crossing, alerting all other vehicles to stop apart from the cyclists. In avoiding an approaching cyclist (who is probably combing their hair or reading an Encyclopedia Britannica), the tourist will jump backwards and fall into a canal, or into the path of an oncoming tram. It's chaos.

When not perusing the cannabis cafes, red light district and charming canals, tourists visit the Rijksmuseum, Anne Frank's house and the Vincent van Gogh exhibition. We've been saying van Gogh wrong, by the way. But to pronounce the 'gh' bit the correct Dutch way involves conjuring up a confusing, guttural, non-communicative sound much like passing a furball. The queue for Anne Frank's house was huge due to a visit from seemingly every single collegiate student in America, so we gave up and went on the Heineken tour.

Anne Frank's story is the most famous but there are many other examples of Dutch people protecting Jewish families during the war. The strangest sensation when visiting such a wonderfully laid back and idyllic European city like Amsterdam in the 21st century is trying to imagine hoards of uniformed goosestepping fascists pounding down the cobbled streets, rounding up the locals and sending them to death camps. A chilling thought, and not all that long ago, either.

Speaking of Heineken, the Dutch beer is everywhere and not just in Holland. It's a genuine local success story and now a global, commercial enterprise which made a net profit of 2949 million euros in 2012. The secret to their "great taste" is their secret "A yeast", according to the tour. This must be what they use to make the beer taste like shit. The Amsterdam site isn't even a real brewery. They haven't made beer there since the 1980s.

Most of these profits must go on their aggressive marketing campaigns. We went to a Polish music festival sponsored by Heineken and I have never experienced such an oppressive display of commercialism. Heineken had successfully diminished the competition to a two per cent tinned cider and a small number of tents serving Desperados, which Heineken also own. I wandered towards an enormous gazebo about the size of a football pitch emblazoned in Heineken brand colours believing it to be another stage, but the vast space offered nothing more than a glowing, angelic-like Heineken bar at the far end. The bar was positioned under a giant brainwashing slogan saying something like, "Open Your World". It felt more like a Nuremberg rally than a music festival.

Those who complain Glastonbury has sold out need their eyes checked. But if it wasn't for massive corporations sponsoring music festivals, how else would you get Blur, Arctic Monkeys, Nick Cave and Kings of Leon to play in a field in northern Poland? Swings and roundabouts, then.