AMSTERDAM

He was Belgian's third most famous export after Poirot and TinTin. He's buried next to Gaugin in the South Pacific. To mark the 26th anniversary of his death, FR pays tribute with a look behind the scenes of one of his most famous songs.

Legendary chansonnier Jacques Brel celebrated 'the whores of Amsterdam who've given their bodies to a thousand men'. Gorgeous Rachael Booth - who hasn't - went there. And considers a change of career...


Narrow alleyways are crowded with gawping tourists and the stench of boys. Along the tightly-packed cobbled streets, there are back-to-back glass-fronted booths containing a streak of neon and a hooker. Each woman has her own private bordello, as white-tiled as a dental surgery - and not a chaise longue in sight.

It’s Saturday night and there’s a plethora of tight bodies, tanned and toned to Caprice-perfection. Some wear straightforward G-strings and nipple-tassels; another’s a strict mistress, perched atop her stool in glasses, reading.

Whether you’re into lycanthropy, autoerotism, vanilla or sneezing, there’s a lady to cater for it. All that’s needed is the guts to go in. And by the ummings and ahhings of the possible clientele, whilst mates heckle and urge and women grin through six layers of lip-gloss - most don’t have what it takes.

Most of the women from Holland don’t have pimps. They hire the booths for 150 euros a day (£100) and take on average ten clients at 50 euros each (£33). After accommodation costs they are clearing around 200 euros a day (£130). I’m tempted to don my gold rhinestone G- string, perspex five-inch platform heels and rent a houseboat on the Amstel.

Competition for the prime spots is brutal. Whether you’re selling biscuits or your body it’s essential you’re situated where the consumer can see you. And the women will do almost anything to get a booth in a hot spot.

Once her looks go, it’s hard for a woman to earn the euros. At slack times, when the ground rent is less, there are some messy sights. Some are skeletons covered in a thin translucent layer of filo pastry. Others are hard-veined and fucked-up, finding it difficult to focus whilst perched on their stools.

Most girls have CCTV for their own protection, and these tapes can be used for blackmail - or if the performance was worthy, sold into the porn industry. So ‘what happens on tour stays on tour’ may not necessarily be true. And nobody likes going to a wedding knowing the groom has fucked a whore.

Hygiene. All registered sex workers are subject to regular health checks. All clients are required to wear condoms. A few years ago it was ruled that all women must wash their underwear at 90°. How is this policed? Are there special sex-worker laundrettes with all machines set at 90°? When was the last time you washed your pants at this temperature? And could the gold rhinestone G-string and black silk crotchless knickers keep their allure without disintegrating into shreds after a couple of cycles?

Gaggles of teenage boys off their pubescent nuts on space cakes, wander through the alleyways of this adolescent boy wonderland. The Dutch have actually put down the soft paving found in children’s playgrounds to stop gangs fracturing their skulls. There’s the odd man in a dress, white-wine-fuelled hen nights in fairy wings, a girl tripping away and stroking the flowers. Cackles rise in the night, out come the L-plates, and that hands-in-pockets, hunched-shoulder-swagger of English man.

On second thoughts I think I’ll save my gold G-string and five-inch platforms for more private occasions.

END

(c) Rachael Booth 9 October 2004

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Jacques Brel (1929 - 9 Oct 1978)

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Fringe Report (c) Fringe Report 2004

Fringe Report (c) Fringe Report 2002-2012

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