October 31, 2009
United Nude, the design agency run by shoe designer Galahad JD Clark and architect Rem Koolhaas has expanded its on-line shoe store with an off-line version on the Spuistraat in Amsterdam. No, that is not the Rem Koolhaas, it is Rem D. Koolhaas, his cousin.
Koolhaas told De Pers it took six years to open a bricks and mortar store because only now is the collection big enough. Also, the crisis made the rent right.
(Via: Bright. Photo: United Nude.)
Tags: Amsterdam, fame, names, shoes, United Nude
October 30, 2009
I used to associate Old Dutch with a cleanser and now I discover that my Canadian childhood brand of chips (not crisps, eh) went from Humpty Dumpty to Old Dutch. Sure, the real Dutch people have chips (and don’t call them crisps, either), but Halloween chips is a North American invention this time. The bags are small and given to children dressed in costumes when they go trick or treating, which means going door to door asking for candy (and not sweets). We were the people that gave kids small boxes of raisins or pencils and erasers instead of junk food. When your big bag is full, you go home, throw out the stuff you won’t eat and sort your candies. My younger brother used to hide them and eat them all year round.
Right now, on every street corner and market, people are selling pumpkins to make jack-o’- lanterns, which are pumpkins gutted and carved to put candles in that give Halloween its look. We make pumpkin pie and dry the seeds and eat them. Pumpkins seeds are extremely healthy apparently.
Why am I explaining all of this? Because the Dutch do not celebrate Halloween, and although they do throw a few great parties for adults (and people, you really need to work on your costumes), it’s not the big deal it is in Canada and the United States. Dutch friends have told me that children of North American parents have a celebration for their kids, which is something they cannot skip. And in Canada once it’s over, all the Halloween stuff will disppear instantly in the stores and make way for Christmas stuff.
The market picture of these oranges in Montréal where I have been hiding for the last 10 days is totally unrelated and should be plural.
October 29, 2009
The Queen is looking for a lackey, and according to jobtrack.nl her job ad drew 8 times the regular amount of responses for comparable positions, says NOS.
So what is expected of a lackey in her majesty’s service? He or she must
The maximum salary offered is 2,338 euro per month.
(Via AD.nl. Photo by Arden de Raaij, some rights reserved.)
October 28, 2009
Jan H. thought he was playing the Silent Hill video game when he shut down the electricity at the Sophia hospital in Zwolle last Queen’s Day.
Last Tuesday a court found him not guilty, simply because he had no idea of the true consequences of his deeds. H. has volunteered to undergo treatment.
Telegraaf reports that the 35-year-old was suffering a psychosis when he stepped into the hospital’s basement. By pulling levers and switches, he thought he could win a tooth brush. The power was down for 45 minutes during which patients in the intensive care unit had to be respirated manually and lifts got stuck. No patients suffered any lasting consequences, according to RTV Oost.
Silent Hill is a survival horror game, a sub-genre of the action adventure.
Update 30-10: added a link to the verdict.
(Photo of the old building of the Sophia hospital (1884) by Wikimedia user Arminiuzz, some rights reserved)
Tags: hospitals, lifts, psychosis, Queen's Day
October 27, 2009
The Dutch Union of Criminals — I kid you not — has complained to the national ombudsman that the police of Drenthe have violated a young burglar’s privacy by posting a video of the criminal at work.
A spokesperson for the Civil Committee against Injustice cried: “This is a joke, right?!”
Internet lawyer Arnoud Engelfriet doesn’t give the union a snowball’s chance in hell: “The police have put the film online to track down the suspect, which is legal according to Article 22 of the Dutch copyright code, the part that deals with portrait rights.”
Family of the 88-year-old real victim had installed cameras in the home after she had been robbed a number of times.
A famous former member of the Union of Criminals is former justice minister Rita Verdonk. The union aims to protect prisoners, former prisoners and suspects against unfair practices of the state.
(Photo: a still from the video.)
Tags: associations, burglars, committees, Drenthe, police, unions
October 26, 2009
This merry-go-round coat rack by Wieki Somers won the overall prize for the best Dutch design project at the Dutch Design Week 2009. It is already in use at the Museum Boijmans – Van Beuningen in Rotterdam.
Other winners were the rain barrel by Bas van der Veer that we wrote about last week, which won the René Smeets award, the prize for the best project of this year’s Design Academy Eindhoven graduates.
Heleen Klop won a Doen Materials Prize of 5,000 euro for coming up with a method to repair holes in wool clothing using felt.
Other interesting designs were those of Digna Kosse, who experimented with how much material you can leave out of a dress and still call it a dress (may be NSFW), and Austrian Eindhoven Design Academy graduate Sonja Bäumel, who experimented with clothes that grow themselves in the areas of the body that most need the warmth by letting bacteria do the heavy lifting.
Dezeen has a lot of write-ups about this years Design Week.
(Source photo: Wieki Somers.)
Tags: Eindhoven
October 25, 2009
Radio DJs Coen Swijnenberg (‘swine mountain’) and Sander Lantinga (wholly unremarkable name) have elected their ‘shame name’ for 2009: Fokje Modder.
Fokje had to fight other strong contestants like Constant Lam (‘continuously drunk’), Wil Krikke (‘wants to have sex’), and Englishman Ben Brack (‘have a hangover’) in an involuntary election of the oddest name of the country.
According to NOS Headlines, Fokje (pronounced fok ye) has never been troubled by her name, but she has never been abroad either.
Considering the amount of Fokjes whose last names end in -(e)ma, I would guess the name stems from Groningen.
Last year’s winner was Stanley Messie (‘small Stanley knife’).
Lantinga and Swijnenberg occupy the 4 – 7 pm slot on popular music channel 3FM.
(Photo by Flickr user Thelearnr, some rights reserved.)
Tags: Coen en Sander, Groningen, names, radio
October 24, 2009
In 2007 the Dutch mint started with a pilot project that made it the first in Europe to print money using cotton for which the producers have not been exploited. So far, the 20 and 50 euro bills produced by De Nederlandsche Bank have contained 10 to 14% fair trade cotton.
Paper factories prefer blends of cotton, and according to the mint (PDF, Dutch) “currently there is not enough good fair trade cotton to make up 100% of a bill. But the fair trade cotton market is growing spectacularly.”
The use of fair trade cotton in Euro notes is the result of a bet that the youth chapter of Christian union CNV made in 2005 with the Minister of Finance at that time, Gerrit Zalm.
(Via the print version of De Zaak.)
Tags: banknotes, cotton, fair trade, money, unions, youth organisations
October 23, 2009
Wessel van Offeren seems to think shopping is war. His shopping cart with caterpillar tracks was spotted at the Dutch Design Week in Eindhoven by Trendbeheer.
(Photo: Trendbeheer / E.Rosie, some rights reserved)
Tags: Dutch Design Week
October 22, 2009
Supporters of populist politicians use the phrase “You’ve got my vote” far more often than anyone else.
The phrases “You’ve got my vote, Rita” (Verdonk) and “You’ve got my vote, Geert” (Wilders) are linked to 20,200 and 5,620 times by Google, according to Krapuul.nl, a site critical of extremist politician Geert Wilders. Most given names of other national politicians did not even get into double digits.
The absolute hero of the populist crowd seems to be a guy named Pim though, with 47,400 link-sized portions of Google love going his way.
Link: Geen Commentaar.
