A croquette (in Dutch ‘kroket’)(more info here) at the Dutch fast food chain FEBO is currently more expensive than a share of Benelux bank Fortis, according to the Amsterdam Stock Exchange of today. At 13:30 CET the Fortis share was a steal at EUR 0,98.
A croquette at FEBO costs EUR 1,20. A ‘vitaaltje’ (vegetarian croquette) is just one euro during all of October.
The Fortis bank recently had to be bailed out by the Dutch government because of the international credit crisis. Since then its share price has been taking a beating, to put it mildly.
I hesitated posting this when I first saw it, but since it’s somewhat shocking, it’s time to share. You’ll probably be left with more questions than answers after this video. The ones I had as a foreigner looking in were:
1. Why doesn’t this woman work? Don’t answer because she has children, I’ll scream.
2. Where’s the father and/or his alimony? Deadbeat dad? There’s an obvious cultural issue here.
3. A car? What about agoraphobia therapy?
4. Do the Dutch give money to the poor for nothing so they don’t have to look at it?
5. Is that really a good thing? Is it a Judeo-Christian guilt thing?
I’ve seen teenagers for years in Montreal, Canada sleeping on the street outside at -20 degrees in sleeping bags. The ones sleeping outside in +30 degrees in the summer are purely decorative.
The person at Radio Netherlands who did the interview mentioned on their site that they found it difficult to find someone willing to go on camera. Hmm, people are willing to have sex on camera for free these days, so I’m really not convinced. The film is very good though, no question.
Again, some people really think that this is being poor in the Netherlands. I am happy the children are well cared for, that’s true. Some are proud to show that the poor don’t look poor. Her lack of gratitude is the clincher, making this film very interesting. Others have said that junks on the street are dirt poor, a film about them would have shown real poverty.
My suggestion would be to go to the Salvation Army (Leger des Heils) in downtown Amsterdam, as that is where poor people congregate, believe me.
Out of 700 nominations, Kokke’s fence won a public space award for his one-kilometer-long fence around a big park/football field. It is the second time this year that the fence won a prize, as Kokke was also awarded the public award of the Design to Business Award 2008 together with the Oud-Zuid District earlier this year.
Filed under: Art,Literature by Branko Collin @ 8:36 am
I decided to make another Nederlandse Project Gutenberg Reader, containing the Dutch books that were released in the past month at the internet library. Once again you can find it at Brewster Kahle’s excellent Internet Archive.
Since the past month was a bit quiet with regards to new releases, I decided to add a couple golden oldies. The new releases were Jacob Cats’ Spaens Heydinnie and Shakespeare’s Twee edellieden van Verona. Cats was a moralistic writer from the Dutch Golden Age. Spaens Heydinnie (Spaans heidinnetje, Spanish gypsy) is a reworking of Cervantes’ La Gitanilla, in which an infant girl of noble birth is kidnapped and raised by gypsies. The third release last month was a lecture held in 1840 for the Frisian Association, which I find wholly uninteresting, but I am not going to be all judgmental about your kinks.
I added two extracts from older works. The first is a travel account of the Netherlands, Door Holland met pen en camera, by the French journalist and photographer Lud. Georges Hamön. Let me translate a bit for you:
One has to keep in mind though that Holland is a desperately flat and monotonous region, that it does not spark any fierce emotion, nor does it lead to excited enthusiasm or even quiet inner delight. Holland is the land of serenity, where one submerges in the calmest comfort.
The opposite of calm comfort is Herman Heijermans’ Diamantstad (Diamond City), a novel about and an indictment of the poor living conditions of the inhabitants of the Jewish quarter in Amsterdam around the turn of the century. Earlier I sort of translated the fragment I quote in the reader over here.
Three lesbian couples will be married next week on Tuesday, 21 October in the train. The idea of having lesbian couples marry in the train is part of a reading campaign of the NS (Dutch railways) called ‘Nederland Leest’ (‘The Netherlands reads’).
The campaign features Harry Mulisch’s book ‘Twee vrouwen’ (‘Two women’), a book with a homosexual theme, which explains the preference for lesbian couples. The witnesses (best man and best woman) will be known Dutch journalists Annejet van Zijl and Philip Freriks.
The marriages will be held in a special train that will run between the stations of Naarden-Bussum and Utrecht.
Filed under: Architecture by Orangemaster @ 9:50 am
“Set in the Dutch woodlands, the program of Villa 1 by Powerhouse Company is optimally oriented towards the views on the terrain and the sun. Half of the program is pushed below ground to meet local zoning regulations, creating a clear dichotomy in the spatial experience of the house: a glass box ground floor where the mass is concentrated in furniture elements and a ‘medieval’ basement, where the spaces are carved out of the mass.
The interior of Villa 1 has been nominated for the category ‘best private interior’ of the Dutch Design Award. The villa is said to “ruthlessly position itself within the tradition of modern (interior) architecture”. The award will be granted on 18 October 2008, during the Dutch Design Week, in Eindhoven.”
Do follow the link below for more dreamy pictures.
On Wednesday 15 October, students of the Eindhoven University of Technology set a new world record for simultaneous fire-breathing. The Eindhoven campus got 267 people breathing fire simultaneously. On 14 March 2007, a world record for fire-breathing was set in Tilburg, Brabant, with 115 people breathing fire simultaneously. All fire-breathers used Roman oil as fuel under the watchful eye of the local fire brigade. As well, every participant followed a fire-breathing course the week before.
Will Tilburg try again next year? Will Eindhoven hold on to their world record? Stay tuned.
The Dutch version of TimeOut Amsterdam won’t be the only new magazine to be launched in January 2009, as there’ll also be Glamsterdam. Glamsterdam will be a bi-monthly glossy magazine for “Amsterdam and its residents”. The content will be decided upon by locals together with an editorial staff. The goal is to portray the creativity of residents of Amsterdam (‘Amsterdammers’). Every edition will feature articles and reports of events and parties, music and film, and all that jazz.
Contrary to TimeOut, Glamsterdam will be free and have a print run of 40,000 copies. There sure won’t be a lack of anything to read in January 2009.
Last Saturday, a 31-year-old man from Zwolle, Overijssel beat up a lumpia (spring roll) seller because the man did not sell vegetarian spring rolls. When the 60-year-old spring roll seller told him this last Saturday, the client got angry and beat the older man repeatedly in the face and on the head. A security guard of the shopping centre where the spring roll stand is located intervened and held the angry man until the police came to draw up a complaint.
Last Sunday in Nijmegen, Gelderland, a 31-year-old taxi driver ran over a 29-year-old man because he refused to pay his taxi driver colleague. The 29-year-old client was driven around for hours in a taxi and when the meter had reached an amount of 250 euro, the man couldn’t pay. He got out of the car and walked away. Two taxi drivers came to the ‘rescue’, with one of them driving over the reluctant client. A witness saw the incident and called the police.
What’s with this street tile of a ladybug? Since 1999 it has been the Dutch symbol for “no mindless violence” and can be found in front of bars, clubs and other places where fights usually break out.
I decided to make another Nederlandse Project Gutenberg Reader, containing the Dutch books that were released in the past month at the internet library. Once again you can find it 
