May 24, 2009

First edition of Ascension Day festival was smashing

Filed under: Dutch first,Music by Orangemaster @ 1:34 pm

The kids just loved watching all that old junk get totally trashed! For the very first edition of the Hemeltjelief Ascension Day festival in Amsterdam North, hosted by Cafe Noorderlicht, all kinds of crazy stuff was going on. I was a DJ at the event during the day, so I watched all that smashing from the newly built wooden stage they set up outdoors.

On a sunny day, albeit it with too much wind to actually play vinyl without the needle skipping, all kinds of cool stuff was happening outdoors. They had freshly baked pizza, fresh oysters and bright coloured ice cream for the kids. There were several stages with bands, some strange artist making a human-sized spider web with huge amounts of transparent tape between some trees and a workshop where kids could make their own musical instruments. I missed the evening activities, but they included some seriously bassy reggae, bonfires, car bashing and alcohol.

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May 23, 2009

Giant LED screen on walls and ceiling of indoor market Rotterdam

Filed under: Architecture by Branko Collin @ 8:55 am

The Binnenrotte is an interesting area in Rotterdam, as it seems to have functioned as a slate for the city in recent times. It is where the river Rotte used to be, from which the city derives its name, until the river was filled in 1871 to make room for a railway. In 1940 Nazi bombers destroyed the entire area to force the country into submission at the start of (and as part of) the Blitzkrieg. Last year, it was city hall’s turn to wield the wiper again, destroying buildings along the Binnenrotte to let top archictects at MVRDV build this giant market hall due to be finished in 2014.

One interesting aspect of this design is that the inside will be lined with LED lights that can be programmed to display any image imaginable. The front and backside of the arch will be made of glass.

This is the area where I live. It is very colorful, a bit shabby, but a fantastic atmosphere around the Blaak market and the church. This atmosphere, made of different populations, cultures and social levels, is likely to disappear too. I wanted to keep memories of this…

… writes Alphast (“a Frenchie in (South) Holland”), who created a Flickr set showing what the area looked like until last year.

Via Archdaily (also source of the image), link tip Laurent Chambon.

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May 22, 2009

A new type of modular bike rack

Filed under: Bicycles,Design by Orangemaster @ 10:15 am

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Two Dutch companies, AAArchitecten and Uq Design, combined forces and designed this bike storage system that doubles as a place to sit. They call it the “Bikes & Chill”.

For those of you who have no clue how badly crowded the bike racks in and around train stations are in the Netherlands, in January there were talks of charging people to park their bikes in Amsterdam. Bike racks are usually full, and if you try and park your bike somewhere else, big men with clamps will bust your bike lock open and take away your bike on their big trucks full of them. Then you have to call this number and try and get your back bike proving it’s yours and usually paying 50 euro.

The colorful “Bikes & Chill” bike storage system is modular and won an innovation prize. One of the conditions of their entry was an innovative design made from plastic fibres.

(Link: bizz.nl, photos: idealize.nl)

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May 21, 2009

New cartoon blog by Bandirah and others

Filed under: Comics by Branko Collin @ 10:26 am

May 1 was the day Robert Schuit started a new cartoon blog at—guess where?—cartoon.blog.nl. Schuit, who draws cartoons himself under the name Bandirah, managed to convince a jolly band of artists to join him, among which ‘big’ names such as Argibald, Michiel van de Pol and Humor de Nar (illustration).

24 Oranges started more than 2 years ago with an entry about the new cartoon blog clogwork.net, which is still alive and populated by the slightly older cartoonist.

(Illustration: cartoon.blog.nl, by Humor de Nar. Caption: “To think there are people who spend their Friday nights all alone.” Link: Sargasso.)

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May 20, 2009

The worst hotel in Amsterdam publishes book

Filed under: General,Weird by Orangemaster @ 9:25 am
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Hotels in Amsterdam literally come in all shapes and sizes, from villas to houseboats. More often than not, they are already booked, overpriced (just compared them to Brussels and even Paris) and I’m sorry to say, do not have the friendliest service in Europe.

Instead of trying to fool people with fancy words like many hotels do, the Hans Brinker Hotel in Amsterdam just tells it like it is: they are the worst. They have even turned this fact into an English book, which you can buy from Amazon.co.uk. Apparently, it’s only in English and aimed at the British market, surely a substantial amount of their business. At 25 euro (!) a night, I’m not surprised.

So basically, if you’ve checked into the worst hotel in town, you can’t complain afterwards. And according to the NRC newspaper, if you plan to get very drunk, you can ask to have your arm stamped with a map showing the location of the hotel and the words: “Please return me to the Hans Brinker.”

If that’s not service, I don’t know what is!

(Link: nrc.nl, images: Hans Brinker hotel )

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May 19, 2009

White asparagus season is upon us

Filed under: Food & Drink by Orangemaster @ 8:58 am
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While the media is busy digging up stories about Eastern European workers who are being exploited to pick this cherished Dutch vegetable, I’d rather remain positive and present our new found audience with the delicious Willem Alexander Asparagus Cocktail (link to the step-by-step recipe).

This mouthwatering appetizer was created by chef Herman van Ham of restaurant De Hamert in Arcen, North of Venlo in the province of Limburg, where said Eastern European workers are working themselves into blisters for little money. The cocktail was named after the Dutch crown prince, William Alexander.

Here are some wine suggestions to make that cocktail count even more:

– Champagne or Cava.
– A decent Sauvignon blanc
– A decent Riesling or Gewürztraminer

Eet smakkelijk! (Bon appetit!)

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May 18, 2009

Bodybuilders flee doping check

Filed under: Sports by Branko Collin @ 12:47 pm

All 20 contestants of the Belgian bodybuilding championship fled the venue in the Dutch city of Vlissingen, Zeeland, yesterday when three doping inspectors entered the room. The championship was cancelled, and the 300 or so spectators had to go home without seeing a single bodybuilder compete.

One of the inspectors, doctor Hans Cooman, told Nieuwsblad (Dutch): “I have never witnessed anything like it.” Nieuwsblad insinuates that the organisers of these contests often move their competitions off-shore in the hope of escaping doping tests even though these tests can be held anywhere. Says Cooman: “Sometimes sports federations take the initiative and invite us to come by, like the cycling union does. But we have never had an invitation like this from bodybuilders.”

(Photo by Jo Christian Oterhals, partially based on a photo by Lin Mei, both some rights reserved)

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May 17, 2009

Site convicted for Google’s automatic abstracts

Filed under: Automobiles,Online by Orangemaster @ 1:44 pm

If the case of car dealer Zwartepoort against website Miljoenhuizen.nl has been in the news before, it can only have been as the sort of easily mocked example of how some folks start lawsuits over really anything and everything, no matter how trivial and unwinnable their cases are. But now Zwartepoorte have gone and won theirs. When you searched Google for the company name, you would get amongst others a result from Miljoenhuizen.nl seemingly explaining the car dealer had gone bankrupt. You know the type:

Full name: Zwartepoorte. Specialty: BMW … This company has gone bankrupt.

These abstracts are machine generated. Google takes disparate phrases from a website and combines them into an abstract. Miljoenhuizen.nl obviously feels that the wrong people have been sued. Miljoenhuizen.nl told De Telegraaf (Dutch): “If the search result were to imply or insinuate that Zwartepoorte has gone bust, it would be Google’s responsibility, not ours.” I would take that a step further and say that nobody should have been sued in the first place.

It will be interesting to see what reasoning judge Sj. A. Rullman will come up with to explain her judgment. Meanwhile, I am waiting with trepidation to be sued by BMW car dealers, as I have my own story of the power of Google to tell. The last few weeks of December I got a constant stream of phone calls from people wishing to buy a nice shiny Beamer. My initials are B.M.W., and as it turns out I used to be the first link people would find when they googled for “BMW Amsterdam,” displayed prominently as part of Google Business with a map and a phone number. It got so bad that I stopped answering the phone, and started the message on my machine with the statement that “I am not a BMW dealer.” I must has cost some poor sod a lot of lost business that way.

Update: fixed type “Miljoenenhuizen.nl” to “Miljoenhuizen.nl.” Thanks, Nico.

Link: Iusmentis (Dutch). Photo by Gyver Chang, some rights reserved.

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May 16, 2009

French week with Yves Duteil and others

Filed under: Music by Orangemaster @ 11:17 am

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(Photo: Yves Duteil tuning and retuning, Leine’s second gig of the night)

The city of Amstelveen, next to Amsterdam, has been playing host to an entire week of French cultural events, the Festival Alliance Française. It was opened on Tuesday by the mayor of Amstelveen who lovelingly prepared a 15 minute speech in French. I listened because he mentioned my name as the MC for last Thursday’s evening of French music, starring French legend Yves Duteil.

My co-blogger said he’d woken up this morning withto the sound of a woman DJ from the radio talking about how nice the concert was. The week isn’t over and the 26th French song contest winners will be crowned tomorrow with Yves Duteil on the jury.

Last Thursday, three former winners of this French song contest performed and received serious applause: Sjors van der Panne, Sandra van Megen and Guido van de Meent.

The rest of the evening featured a mixed bag of local favourites Philippe Elan, Ben Cramer, Leine, Ralph Rousseau and David Vos, as well as Parisians Peppermoon. DJ Guuzbourg was in the DJ booth and wonder planner Frances Gramende who organised the event was enjoying the fruits of her labour.

One of the jokes I cracked backstage was that I felt like Kermit the frog at the Muppet Show. Leine laughed at that one because she finished the evening on stage with a French version of ‘It’s Not Easy Being Green’, a coincidence.

Yves Duteil also jammed it out on guitar with a Dutch alto sax player of house band Omnibuzz and they then did that on stage which was very nice. When Yves told the audience he’d been giving shows in Paris recently and that there were Dutch people every night in front, someone yelled out “I was there!”.

The improvised duet of the song “Allez viens on danse/De Clown” by Ben Cramer singing the Dutch version and Philippe Elan singing the original French version was a crowd pleaser. The writer of the original French song, Georges Châtelain, came all the way from Paris and was in the audience. It was a perfect evening all around.

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May 15, 2009

Meteorology site for outdoor cafes

Filed under: General by Branko Collin @ 10:16 am

Maastricht beer producer Wieckse, perhaps best known for its white beer, has started a website that will show you how sunny it is at many sidewalk cafes in the Netherlands. Called zonneradar.nl, the website also tells you where you will find the sunniest sidewalk cafe in the Netherlands of the moment. White beer is especially popular during sunny weather, according to Wikipedia, because it lacks the distinct hoppish flavour that is present in other beers.

Weather woman Helga van de Leur told Bright (Dutch): “The weather in the Netherlands isn’t as bad as people often think. Research shows that two-thirds of the population underestimate the amount of sun hours. You just have to know where it shines.” Not in Moscow, right now.

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