January 30, 2008

18th edition of Puch moped tour

Filed under: General by Branko Collin @ 4:37 pm

Last Sunday the 18th edition was held of Kâhwe Klâhwe (The Hague dialect, lit. cold claws), the gasoline and pea soup fueled Puch tour through Scheveningen and The Hague. Haags Allerlei’s Gera Nieland was there to take photos. You can enjoy them all at Flickr.

Puch was a legendary moped brand and very popular in the Netherlands. This popularity could not prevent the closing down of the two-wheeler production line though. The company still produces four-wheelers.

(Via De Telegravin. Photo by Gera Nieland.)

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January 29, 2008

World premiere: working robot at filling station

Filed under: Automobiles,Design,Dutch first by Orangemaster @ 11:04 am
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Filling station owner Nico van Staveren will have a techno world premiere next week once a robot starts working at one of his filling stations in Emmeloord, Flevoland. Tankpitstop the Robot (typically Dutch with three words stuck together) will fill ‘er up without the driver having to get out of the car. Emmeloord companies Rotec Engineering and N. Van Staveren B.V. worked for three year under deep cover to come up with the tanking robot. It’s perfect for the handicapped or the less mobile and it won’t mean less jobs. On 4 February Minister Maria van der Hoeven of Economic Affairs will officially inaugurate the first Tankpitstop.

(Link: zibb.nl)

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January 28, 2008

Giant cat story not over yet

Filed under: Animals by Orangemaster @ 10:50 am

Poor big cat Shin-Chan has been caged up at Schiphol Airport (but not in this picture) for almost two weeks now, as customs is not sure it should be allowed into the Netherlands. Inspectors want to know if the giant cat, a cross between an Asian leopard cat and a African serval with some house cat mix, is kosher (figuratively speaking). The owners of the cat have decided to hire celeb lawyer Bram Moszkowicz who should get things moving. Having paid a whopping EUR 19,000 for their cat, they want to enjoy it.

And then there’s stuff on the net that points to a scam.

(Link: fok.nl)

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January 26, 2008

Dozens of hamsters freed from plastic balls

Filed under: Animals,Art by Branko Collin @ 3:12 pm

Last Thursday the Society for the Protection of Animals raided an Amsterdam art gallery in co-operation with the local police to free dozens of hamsters. The animals were part of an exhibition by artist Tinkebell (pseudonym of Katinka Simonse) called Empathy. In the exhibition hamsters were locked up in plastic, see-through play-balls, set in a recreated living room. With the exhibition Tinkebell wants to expose the “ambiguous morality of animal rights and environmental activists” by using the “often naïve ideas that people—activists—have about the concept of freedom in the animal world.” The balls she uses (so called “run-about balls”) are popular with pet owners, who use them to let their pets roam relatively free through the house “without the worry of escape or injury,” as one merchant calls it.

The artist is in the dark about the why of the raid. “Nobody told me anything,” she told Amsterdam TV channel AT5. According to AT5, Tinkebell and the galery owner will be questioned by the police next week.

Tinkebell caused an earlier uproar when she killed her three year old cat to turn it into a handbag. In the TV program De Wereld Draait Door she suggested that it was a mercy killing, claiming the cat was depressed.

Via Fok (Dutch). Source image: Empathy.

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January 25, 2008

New francophone event portal in the Netherlands

Filed under: Art,Design,Film,Food & Drink,General,Music by Orangemaster @ 10:28 am

Francomondo is a new, English-language and occasionally Dutch-language weblog about anything francophone happening in the Netherlands. Their world is made up of francophones from around the world living in the Netherlands and Dutch people interested in francophone culture and la francophonie. It is for anyone who wants to know more about French-language events.

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The folks at 24oranges worked on this site and so that’s why we’re proudly plugging it (not shamelessly!).

UPDATE: We pulled the plug a while back, it was just too much work.

(Link: Francomondo)

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January 24, 2008

Hypnotism made National IQ Test results worse

Filed under: Weird by Orangemaster @ 10:51 am
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As a follow up to the story Hypnotised to participate in National IQ Test, here are the results. Surprise! They scored worse than expected. Dark forces at work or sleeping?

First, the candidates took the test yesterday afternoon normally and scored an average of 126. Last night the group took the test again under hypnosis and scored an average of 118.

Amusingly enough, they have nothing to be ashamed of as they had the best score. Dutch celebs had an average score of 114, followed by a group of women football players with a score of 113. The gifted kids group had the worse score, with 104.

I can explain why the kids did worse than expected. So many parents think their children are gifted when they’re not. Ordinary parents are surprised when their kids know more than they do, which happens quite often. It’s all very objective.

(Link:

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January 23, 2008

Dutch-British duo burst onto Korean pop scene

Filed under: Music by Orangemaster @ 5:00 pm

Although the first article seems to only talk about Rebecca Strachan, the British girl, we are here to hold up the Dutch end, Sharon Schilperoord. As I post this, their video has had some 222,000 hits.

Rebecca’s love of Asian music began in 2003 after searching for the soundtrack to her favourite computer game Final Fantasy. She began studying Japanese at college and taught herself Korean.

Rebecca Strachan’s success story began when she and Dutch friend Sharon Schilperoord posted a video of themselves singing a popular Korean song.

Within five days of being uploaded, the video received more than 65,000 hits and hundreds of people were leaving comments about how well the western pair had performed tricky pronunciation.

Read an interview with both Rebecca and Sharon in English on Boajjang.

(Link: ananova.com)

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Tony’s Chocolonely punished after all

Filed under: Food & Drink,Sustainability by Branko Collin @ 12:29 pm

Last year journalist Teun van de Keuken failed to get convicted for complicity in slavery, as we reported back then. But now Van de Keuken’s campaign has led to at least one indictment, although probably not of the kind he was looking for: the Dutch Media Authority (Commissariaat voor de Media) has fined his broadcaster for illegal product placement.

Van de Keuken set out to raise awareness for the fact that the people harvesting cocoa, the raw material of which chocolate is made, are basically slaves. He did this by turning himself in after eating a bar of chocolate, making him complicit of slavery. The case was dismissed because the court held he was not an aggrieved party. Van de Keuken also produced his own brand of slave-free chocolate, Tony’s Chocolonely, which he talked about on his show.

Product placement is illegal on Dutch television, and the Dutch Media Authority is the watchdog that tries to ferret out any instances of it. It does not matter whether the placed products are for a good cause, but the fact that petty issues trump major ones must be bitter for those who want to see new forms of slavery banned. The DMA had some pity though, and in recognition of “this unique and experimental program” reduced the fine to EUR 20,000, the lowest in its ‘range’.

(Via print magazine De Journalist. See also Molblog (Dutch))

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January 22, 2008

Using husband’s name costly affair

Filed under: General by Branko Collin @ 12:13 pm

Researchers at the University of Tilburg (Dutch) have discovered that married women who use their husband’s family name are generally seen as more dependent, less ambitious and less intelligent. Subjects were told that they were introduced to Peter and Helga Bosboom at a party (Helga using her husband’s name), and when asked rated Helga as caring, dependent, less intelligent and emotional. Using a hyphenated last name has the same effect.

The researchers estimated that using the “wrong” last name could even cost a woman EUR 361,708 during her life time. In an experiment in which subjects were asked to take the place of a human resources manager, women that used their husband’s name were generally rated for jobs that paid EUR 861.21 less than those for women that retained their maiden names.

According to Dutch law, both men and women keep their own family name when marrying, but both the wedded and divorced are allowed to use their own name and that of their (ex)partner in any combination in public.

(Via Jong Nieuws.)

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January 21, 2008

Escaped Highlander shot dead for causing danger

Filed under: Animals by Branko Collin @ 4:08 pm
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Photo: Highland cow in Hilversum, by Gerard M., distributed under the GNU Free Documentation License, version 1.2.

Last Saturday, a Highland cow was shot (Dutch) near Den Velde in the province of Overijssel for causing dangerous situations on the road. The cow had escaped three weeks before from near Reeze and had reportedly caused a lot of trouble in the neighbourhood already. Highland cows are often used in the Netherlands for grazing nature reserves. They are hardy beasts that require little supervision, and eat more than just grass. The Highlander was caught when it tried to make a run for Germany.

This is not the first time that the police treat nature like a problem. Last Wednesday, our modern day knights who say “ni” shot a cow (Dutch) that had escape with its calf. The orphaned calf is still on the run. And in the summer of 2007, a fox “had to be” shot for accepting food from photographers.

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