October 17, 2011

Occupy Amsterdam: some impressions

Filed under: General,Sustainability by Orangemaster @ 7:00 am

“Give us our money back, dude!”

Following in the footsteps of Occupy Wall Street and other recent big city protests in London, Rome and Brussels, Amsterdam started its ‘occupation’ on Saturday, 15 October with some 1500 people. On Sunday, 16 October, only some die hards in tents were left, with many people visiting and listening to speakers in circles sitting on the ground telling stories about capitalism. There was also food and people singing Bob Dylan songs.

Some Dutch tweeps (Twitter users) were wondering how long the people on the Beursplein (our Wall Street, if you will) would 1) stay camping 2) be allowed by the police to keep camping. By Dutch standards, it’s getting cold outside and today some people will have to go to work at some point.

And yes, it looks more like a student protest, but in all fairness, the slogans were good and very much to the point: banks are totally screwing us. The Dutch have had bank troubles with DSB (bankrupt in 2009), ABN Amro (acquired and broken up by the government in 2009) and ING, although the latter paid its debt back in full, if I am not mistaken. The Belgians had a nasty fight with Fortis (partially Dutch owned at the time) and are now in a crisis with Dexia, partially owned by the French.

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October 16, 2011

Netherlands wins first ever baseball world cup

Filed under: Dutch first,Sports by Branko Collin @ 6:04 pm

The Dutch baseball team won the world cup in Panama last night.

Radio Netherlands reports:

The Netherlands baseball team has made history winning the World Cup final in Panama after beating Cuba 2-1. It is the first time a European team has won the title since Britain did in 1938.

The Dutch players and team staff celebrated their victory in the Rod Carew stadium in Panama City with dozens of fans. The Dutch embassy and consulate had invited some 200 people to witness the historic duel, team manager Tjerk Smeets said. An hour after the end of the game, he said, all the champagne was long gone, but they were still on the pitch celebrating with all the fans.

Edith Schippers, minister of Health, Welfare and Sport said according to De Stentor: “The baseball team added a golden chapter to the history of Dutch sports. This was a unique performance, both physically and mentally. If you manage to beat baseball super power Cuba twice in two days, you really are the best of the best. Baseball is just a small sport in the Netherlands, which is why this performance is truly impressive.”

Queen Beatrix has sent a telegram to the Dutch team congratulating them.

Algemeen Dagblad wrote that play was delayed because of rain: “The Oranje had Rob Cordemans on the mound. The almost-37-year-old from Schiedam has been a member of the team since 1995, but the highlight of his career was last Saturday. The Dutchman sent Cuban after Cuban packing with three strikes. […] He experienced troubles for the first time in the fourth inning when Frederich Cepeda reached third base.”

Cepeda would score 0-1. Sidney de Jong drew the Dutch alongside after a strike from Bryan Engelhardt, and Johan Schoop let Curt Smith score. Smith (25) was declared the most valuable player of the tournament by the International Baseball Federation, IBAF.

(Photo by John Martinez Pavliga, some rights reserved)

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October 15, 2011

Uprising in the IKEA catalogue

Filed under: Film by Branko Collin @ 9:56 am

This fun little comedy called Page 23 won the Best Movie award of the 2011 Utrecht edition of the 48 Hour Film project.

It was created by advertising creatives Jeroen Houben, Tim Arts and Stefan van den Boogaard. Contestants had to use a specific character (“Ingmar or Ingrid Talis, volunteer”), a prop (a pair of glasses) and a line of text (“amazingly beautiful, but hopelessly impractical”), and had only 48 hours to create the movie.

Page 23 follows the lives and loves of the models in an IKEA catalogue. The Atlantic published an interview with the makers:

You created a very polished, IKEA-look for the piece with very little time. How did you make it happen in only 48 hours?

We found our location only hours before we started shooting. Since we had no time or money, we looked for something that didn’t need a lot of adjustment. We called around for furnished apartments and hotel rooms, but no luck there. Finally, it turned out one of our crew members had a clean-looking, design-furnished apartment. Sometimes it’s just that easy. We bought some extra decoration like candles and a vase with flowers, and most of the other stuff you see in the shot was already in the house. The funny thing is most of the furniture in the shots aren’t IKEA products.

[…]

(Video: Vimeo / Jeroen Houben)

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October 14, 2011

Woman puts new twist on grave robbing

Filed under: General,Weird by Orangemaster @ 4:50 pm

A woman who has been in a psychiatric institution since 2009 has apparently been stealing gravestones. Her collection boasts 120 of them, found by the police at a house in Oirschot, near Eindhoven.

If she’s in a psychiatric institution, why did they find gravestones somewhere else? Is that her home? I don’t get it. The burial plot thickens.

You can also have a look here to see if you can find your loved ones’ missing gravestones.

(Link: dutchnews.nl)

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October 13, 2011

Boy George upset about Karma Chameleon in super market ad

Filed under: Music by Branko Collin @ 8:26 am

“Virgin Holland sold Karma Chameleon to a supermarket chain for 5000 euros, the dirty fucking shit-heads! And they have no fucking respect!” Thus tweeted British eighties’ pop star Boy George on October 2.

Not sure if he is upset about the money, about the clip, or about not having been consulted.

The clip shows a super market manager singing “Tweede komme-komme-kommer gratis”. In English: “Second cu-cu-cucumber for free. You get one for free. You get one for free-hee-hee-hee.”

Muziek-nieuws.nl mentions that in 1983 Culture Club song Karma Chameleon spent a week at one in the Dutch Top 40.

(Video: Youtube / Albert Heijn)

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October 11, 2011

Reporter nicks 30 kg worth of Khadaffi’s stuff, isn’t sorry

Filed under: General,History by Branko Collin @ 7:00 am

Business news site z24 reports that Harald Doornbos, a Dutch reporter who works for press agency GPD amongst others, has taken 30 kilos worth of goods from former Libyan president Khadaffi’s home.

The alleged loot contains a map, family photos, posters and the passport of the cat of the dictator. Legal experts told the news site that even though it is doubtful that Khadaffi would or could take any legal action, the provisional government could claim ownership of the ex-leader’s possessions.

Doornbos announced this on October 5 on Twitter.

When confronted with the legality of his actions, Doornbos tweeted cryptically: “That is why I haven’t lived in the Netherlands for 18 years.” Later: “If I had not taken these things, they would have been burned half an hour later anyway, good bye history.” Even later: “Discussion closed. You can see stuff in a museum/gallery in the Netherlands soon. Suggestions [for a venue, presumably] still welcome.”

(Photo of a karikature of Gadaffi in Benghazi by Maher27777, who released it into the public domain)

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October 10, 2011

The New Kids: Turbo goes Nitro

Filed under: Fashion,Film by Orangemaster @ 7:00 am

Dutch white trash is hotter than ever these days, embodied by the New Kids. They are violent, rude, gross, racist, sexist and very ‘facepalmy’. They’ll make you want to drink the cheapest beer you can find and go primitive in many bad ways. The New Kids film Nitro was just announced, and is ready to roll on 8 December.

In Nitro, the province of Friesland is invaded by a plague of zombies, far away from Maaskantje, the New Kids’ village in the province of Noord-Brabant. The New Kids are busy fighting a war with their counterparts in the nearby town of Schijndel, illegal street races and major fights abound. The zombies eventually get someone from Brabant and the New Kids then have a bigger, badder evil to screw with.

It’s on, ‘kut’!

No need for subtitles:

homo = fag
kut, swear word like ‘shit’, but meaning ‘cunt’ and used constantly as a noun, adjective, adverb, etc.

The fun party music at the end of the trailer goes ‘hoeren neuken, nooit meer werken’, which is the New Kids motto: ‘screwing whores and not working anymore’. Lovely.

Here’s the trailer of the first film Turbo that came out on 9 December 2010.

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October 9, 2011

Asparagus most popular vegetable among the Dutch, French beans second

Filed under: Food & Drink by Branko Collin @ 1:27 pm

Radio show Vroege Vogels (Early Birds) held a vegetable popularity contest during the Week of the Vegetarian restaurant which ran from October 3 through October 9.

Perhaps surprisingly the top four comprises, in the following order, the asparagus, the French bean, chicory and Brussels sprouts (asperge, sperzieboon, witlof and spruitje in Dutch).

In total more than 30,000 votes were cast for 62 vegetables, the show’s website reports. Asparagus and the French bean finished 42 votes apart, the former receiving 1873 votes. Traditionally asparagus is eaten white in the Netherlands. Since the plant starts turning green the moment it breaks through the surface, it is grown in long mounds and dug out as soon as it cracks the top of its bed.

See the Dutch vegetable top 40 of 2011.

(Photo by Wikipedia user Janericloebe who released it into the public domain)

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October 8, 2011

Erwin Olaf’s painting-like photos of the liberation of Leiden (1574)

Filed under: History,Photography by Branko Collin @ 12:22 pm

Look at these great photos Erwin Olaf made in celebration of the liberation of Leiden from an 11 month siege by Spanish forces in 2011.

The city still celebrates the liberation each year. Olaf made nine photos on request of Leiden University (the oldest in the Netherlands) and Museum De Lakenhal, some of them portraits, other still lifes. The largest, a historical ‘painting’, is on permanent display in De Lakenhal, the other eight are exhibited until January 8 in the university library. The photos are inspired by paintings of the time.

You can also view the photos at a digital exhibit of the University of Leiden:

The historical piece was shot on July 6, 7 and 8 in Peter’s Church in Leiden. The equipment had been installed on the fifth. On that same day Olaf took a test photo using stand-in models. He had picked the camera angle during an earlier visit to the church. […] The photo was shot in three parts, spread out over the three shooting days. First the right hand side, then the middle, and finally the left hand side.

NRC has a short ‘making of’ picture gallery.

Erwin Olaf is a former journalism student who quickly turned to art and commercial photography. He gained fame and notoriety with his portraits of fat people and midgets in bondage outfits. On October 13 he will receive the Johannes Vermeerprijs, a state award founded in 2008 to “honour and further stimulate remarkable talent”. The award consists of 100,000 euro.

Leiden was liberated in 1574 by the terrorists of Willem van Oranje, the so-called geuzen or gueux. The French word means beggars, a name given to the Dutch nobles that wanted to separate from Charles V’s European empire. The geuzen breached dikes around the city, after which the Spanish army fled. A young orphan called Cornelis Joppenszoon left the city on October 3 and went to a Spanish army camp, which he found deserted. There he also found a kettle containing hutspot (mashed potatoes, carrots and onions). He then alerted the citizens. In the early morning the geuzen entered the city bringing herring and white bread.

Using water as a defense was seen as a viable way to maintain Amsterdam as a national redoubt until the invention of the tank. The floodable area was called Fortress Holland.

Not unrelated: Modern still lifes by Richard Kuiper.

(Photos: Erwin Olaf, 2011, Leidens beleg en ontzet (1574). Link: Historiek.net. Link tip: the Digital Diva.)

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October 7, 2011

Dutch trains to hand out bags to pee in

Filed under: General,Health by Orangemaster @ 6:41 pm

The new current Sprinters, trains for short distances, don’t have any toilets, and that’s a problem for many people. Knowing that these trains jam up in the winter (half of them froze up last year during a storm), going to the bathroom is a real issue.

So what have the Dutch railways come up with? Weeing bags, or ‘plaszakken’ (‘pee bags’), which is a trending topic in the Dutch Twittersphere, if not, it’s just plain trendy. The pee bags are the kind you would buy at an outdoors equipment shop. Oh, and you have to ask the train conductor for one, so you have to find him or her first.

The idea is to take a pee bag and wee in the empty train conductor’s office. They could put a bathroom in there, but no.

Train passenger organisation Rover calls the pee bag “better than nothing” and “an emergency solution.” I say it’s crisis time, and I hope nobody ever needs to do a Number 2 in the train.

UPDATE: When any new Sprinters will be in use, they will have to have toilets. Stay tuned.

(Link: nos.nl)

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